This morning, Bob and I met at Waterloo Eurostar station in London on our way to tonight’s Paris Mobile Monday get together. Over coffee, we looked at the building, which is now two days from being shut down for good, since the Eurostar will be leaving from St-Pancras International from this Wednesday.

I’ve lived in the UK for over 5 years now, but only vaguely remembered the Channel Tunnel being opened at some point in the 90’s. Jokingly, I suggested to Bob that we should check on Taptu what year the tunnel actually opened. He picked up his mobile and typed taptu.mobi in. Full 3G signal, but latency meant the site wasn’t even loading. I grabbed my N95 - on the same T-Mobile network as Bob’s phone - and tried to access the site. Ok, fair enough, busy mobile cell on a Monday morning doesn’t get such great 3G connection.

Being cheeky, I pulled my brand new shiny iPhone out of my handbag. Sure it’s on O2 (No, I’m not hacking it, thanks). Sure it’s on EDGE. But it gave us an answer instantly. And I didn’t even cheat and use The Cloud’s WiFi either. Turns out the Channel Tunnel was open on 6th May 1994.

So please accept this as a pied de nez* to those who say that a phone without 3G is hopeless. It all depends on the conditions, the network load and the phase of the moon, clearly!

Tomorrow, I’ll be returning to Waterloo International from Paris and bidding farewell to the big clunky metal and glass structure. Next trip will begin from St-Pancras in a - hopefully - shiny new station.

As an aside, if you’ve attended Mobile Monday Paris this evening, thank you for being such a welcoming audience! More on this tomorrow, but Bob and I can’t say thanks enough for inviting us to join the event.

[* To make a pied de nez, put hand upwards, fingers apart, with thumb resting against nose. Point towards the person you are mocking and wiggle fingers. Preferably avoid making this gesture to your evening hostess when she’s about to offer you a glass of champagne or you may remain without a drink a whole lot longer.]

[tags]Taptu, Mobile Monday, Paris, MoMoParis, iPhone, Apple, Nokia, N95, phone, mobile, technology, gadgets, mobile search, Channel Tunnel, La Manche, Waterloo, Eurostar, Ha ha 3G lost to the measly 2G[/tags]

This entry was posted on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 11:14 pm and is filed under Company News, Mobile devices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.