"EasyBlaze"-ing the trail

As I have mentioned before on this blog, Etisalat Nigeria is my preferred GSM Network. It is well suited for my needs and a steady stream of freebies keeps me hooked. The only caveat I've had with Etisalat is the fact that their network lacked a 3G aspect to it. Good things, they say, come to those who wait... and wait I did.

The Good

Fast forward to September and Etisalat announced its 3.75G HSPA Mobile Broadband Service to several major cities in the country, Portharcourt, where I reside, being one of them. I still didn't hold much hope for it because all other GSM Network Service providers offer 3G services and for some reason, they unanimously decided to provide shoddy to virtually unusable services in my part of town, thereby not justifying the investment. Fast forward again by a couple of weeks and after I returned from a trip to Lagos, I noticed that the 3G sign I saw on my phone in Lagos did not disappear, in fact, it stayed with me, all the way from the Airport to the house. I waited till the following day, and decided to give the easyblaze network a try. Etisalat has been consistent so far in providing exceptional quality of service in my part of town which seems to be a pariah to other service providers especially when it came to data. If anybody could break that jinx, it would be them... and oh how they broke it!

I activated the cheapest plan they had, just to test out the speed and was impressed with what I saw. Finally, here is a network that seems to prefer quality over coverage. Its not enough to say you have the widest coverage in the country when your services in lots of those areas are shoddy at best, or outright frustrating.

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Fast forward yet another few weeks and I am now in possession of an Etisalat MiFi device (Huawei e5830 MiFi). I activated the 6GB/30 days plan for ₦8000 yesterday and to sayI was impressed would be a huge understatement. The speeds I experienced are the highest I have ever seen while using a mobile broadband modem. The only other place I have experienced such speed was at University.

Issues

Yes!. There are issues. They have more to do with me though, and the way I use the internet than Etisalat themselves.

Firstly, and more importantly, The 6GB limit, which might seem like much for some, is a little restricted for someone like me. I'm confident in my ability to "manage" it but I still wish I had more ;).

Secondly, and less importantly, the MiFi device being sold by etisalat doesn't have a very long battery life (just about 4hours) and so, might disappoint, especially if being used with a smart phone over an extended period of time away from a power source.

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Overall

Overall, despite the fact that I am not being payed for this, I recommend Etisalat 3G services to all my readers (if any) . You might want to find out if the service is available in your area first though.