Well it’s happened. The courier has come, and my loan 8GB Apple iPhone 3G has sailed off into the sunset – or at least into the grimy streets of Soho on the back of a courier’s bike. Needless to say I wasn’t too happy about it and as such I should be hating O2 right now. After all, now it’s got me iPhone hooked and it’s going to cost me the proverbial arm and leg to get one I can call my own.

The thing is I can’t hate O2 entirely. You see O2 own my ISP, Be, and that gives them some serious brownie points.

You see, I have deep respect for my ISP.

Firstly I like Be as it’s good value. I’m on the Be Pro package which gives me ‘up to’ 24meg download and 2.5meg upload, and a static IP. Ok, so I only actually get around 13meg, but it’s not its fault - my copper is rubbish, but it’s still the fastest speeds I’ve ever had, and the performance is consistent and reliable, which is a lot more than I can say for the Sky Broadband nonsense I was on before.

I also love the fast uploads – I’m so impatient when uploading to Flickr- and the static IP will be very useful for all the services that I want to run from home – as soon as I actually get round to them.

I also am in awe of its support line. Its fine folks were actually able to talk my tech-phobic wife through setting up the router and entering all the Static IP settings when the line was originally activated during the day while I was at work. Without needed to call me.

None of these though are the reasons why I have this deep respect for Be. It’s because it’s become a champion of the brave and told the BPI where to go.

Some brief back story in case you’ve missed it. Last week that esteemed organ the BPI, announced that it had agreed a deal with six major ISPs, that would get them to monitor and warn customers who were potentially breaking copyright through illegal filesharing. The ISP’s ready to doff their caps to the BPI are BSkyB, BT Retail, Carphone Warehouse, Orange, Tiscali and Virgin Media.

A such, hundreds of individuals are likely to be getting lovely letters from their ISPs warning of investigations, and no doubt the BPI will be pushing the ISPs to accept its ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy, where after three warnings the users in question would be cut off.

In stark contrast however, Be has gone out of its way to distance itself from this collusion, by stating clearly that while it would be willing to cooperate with specific court orders, it will not be joining the BPI’s little cabal, it won’t be going out of its way to do the dirty on its customers, and instead would inform its customers of any investigation into their downloading activities.

Now I’m not here to defend illegal file sharing but it’s good to know that in our increasingly nanny state, there are companies out there that are ‘sticking it to the man’. And I like that.

Be: think different.

Last week I was lucky enough to garner a iPhone 3G without having to have preordered via a chronically crippled website or by getting up at 4am to get to the front of a queue.

Instead I was invited by O2 to a one-on-one briefing with one of its device managers, - (a chap called Dominic), at the end of which I was handed an 8GB iPhone 3G to play with. Before you get too cheesed off at my jaminess, I was told it wasn’t to keep, but only a two week loan. Bother. However, when I get the call asking for it back, I am tempted to employ the old tried and tested, “aaaahh sooreee, I no speaka da Engliiss”, before putting the phone down.

To get to the chase though, I like it - a lot. But after a few days use, I have serious concerns regarding the battery life. In our first look review, we didn’t really have time to give it a serious battery test. However, as it stands, the facts are that I’m not even getting though working day before I have to recharge.

This morning I was careful to leave it charging overnight until I left for the office – but by 4:30 this afternoon I already had the ’20% battery remaining’ warning. This is not good.

Interestingly I have seen reports on the interwebnet that compared to other smartphones the battery life is actually the best of the bunch! However, clearly this is just for basic talk time – Apple says five hours over 3G, and I believe it.

However, the iPhone clearly isn’t going to just be used as a phone. Certainly not by me. I for one have been using it as, shock, horror, - an iPod, both listening to music and watching video. I’ve been browsing the web, which I’m pretty sure has been pushed as one of its selling points. I’ve also have it set up to check my Gmail account once an hour.

Now Apple clearly recognises that saving iPhone battery lifespan is an issue and has a page here that offers various tips on how to extend it. I’ll just paste the main headings here.

·  Turn off 3G
·  Minimize use of location services
·  Fetch new data less frequently
·  Turn off push mail
·  Auto-check fewer email accounts
·  Minimize use of third-party applications
·  Turn off Wi-Fi
·  Turn off Bluetooth
·  Use Airplane Mode in low- or no-coverage areas
·  Adjust brightness
·  Turn off EQ

Obviously, some of these will be common sense to many people, but taken collectively, well, one could almost sum this up as – “Got an iPhone? Want more battery life? Well, don’t use it!”

Or as TV programme of my childhood would have had it, “Why Don’t You Turn Off Your iPhone And Go And Do Something Less Boring Instead.”

The thing is the iPhone is peerless at so many things that I want to use all of them – its browser, its music playing, its email checking. It even seems like a decent phone. However, even if other phones such as say, the Nokia E71, can do all these things, it won’t do them with the same style and panache as an iPhone.

No if I sound like a fanboi, I have firmly resisted getting an iPhone until now – and as I haven’t paid for this one, I still haven’t.

But if I’m going to be forking out for a contact that will cost me, £789 over 18 months (gotta have the 16GB), I’m going to have to think about whether I can live with charging every day. Will the iPhone battery even stand up to that level of charging?

Perhaps as the novelty wears off, I will be spending less time playing with the iPhone for the sake of it but when the fact it that I have to plug in before I leave the office, just to be sure that I have enough juice to get me home, it’s not an ideal situation.

So should I accept this and take the plunge anyway? I have a week and a half to decide.

Why is O2’s web site such a mess? If it doesn’t involve the iPhone, it’s amazingly difficult to find what you’re looking for.

I’m currently researching data tariffs for the mobile dongle broadband group test I’m doing and as such headed over to the O2 business shop. One there I spotted Mobile Broadband under the data tariffs listed on the left.

However, from here the only options are for a strange combination of handset and Mobile Broadband together, where the cheapest option is £45 a month. But all I was interested in was the mobile dongle on its own.

I phoned the business ship directly to clarify and he straight away told me that the tariff was £17 a month excluding VAT. When I pointed out the lack of this from the business site I was told I was clearly mistaken, but after I suggested he check online he was forced to eat some major humble pie, dished out IT PRO stylie. Yeah.

At this point he admitted that the site was rather confusing and that he’d go off and point out the problem and get it fixed.

In fact, the standalone mobile broadband offer is there, it’s just not in the business store – it’s just in the main online shop.  I guess the thinking behind this is that Mobile Broadband is now so mainstream it’s not really a business option, but that’s no help if you’re a business customer.

Last Friday a story appeared on Reuters that according to the 3G Apple iPhone would finally rear its long awaited, high-speed head, in May or June this year.

I say story, when really it’s just another in a long line of speculation regarding the next iPhone, this time courtesy of a research report from a Bank of America analyst. These 3G iPhone rumour mill stories do appear with predictable regularity and everybody loves running them as they are dead certs for traffic. IT PRO didn’t run the story as we felt like giving the bandwagon a rest on this one, but I couldn’t help talking about it here.

The timing for the release does make sense as when the iPhone was first released Steve Jobs said that Apple would only release the 3G version when lower power chipsets were available so that the faster speeds wouldn’t come at the expense of staying power.

I can attest to this issue myself – I’ve been using an O2 Stellar for a couple of months and while it’s a very impressively featured device, it’s about as much use as the brick it resembles when the battery has run dead because you’ve forgotten to plug it in of an evening.

According to this Mac site, Broadcom has just such a chip, (BCM21551), which as it’s built on a 65 nanometer micron process consumes less power than rival 3G chipsets, which have been built using the larger 90 nanometer process.

Gartner has also suggested that the new iPhone will use an OLED screen, not only making it thinner but also saving more power.

In fact it’s a HSPA chip, supporting the HSDPA flavour used in Europe, which mean we should see the iPhone capable of supporting 7.2Mbps downloads and possibly upstream speeds of 5.8Mbps.

That sounds wonderfully fast, but I have to say I find it deeply ironic that O2 is the network that’s going to be getting the 3G/HSDPA iPhone. Of all the networks it seems, at least from my personal experience to have the worst 3G coverage out there.

I’ve used 3G phones from all networks and used to run a V800 on Vodafone, in the early days of 3G. I was one of the few people in the country to actually make use of video calling now and then – a great way to see the kids when staying late at the office, without them having to be crowded round a PC. But while it was fine on Vodafone, I’ve rarely been able to get acceptable video calling on O2, and I’ve given up even trying.

I’m not the only one who thinks so either, as only a few months ago, Ofcom rapped O2’s knuckles for not being up to scratch with its 3G coverage, though only by having its 25 year licence reduced by four months - pathetic.

Since the introduction of USB dongles, mobile broadband has really taken off – you can’t move for the ads on the tube and in the papers. But guess who doesn’t have a USB offering? Yup – O2.

It even had to scramble to get its EDGE coverage up to snuff which the iPhone needs to make it’s web browsing speeds more respectable.

So, with rumours hotting up that the 3G iPhone is possibly only a month or two away, I’m now quite worried about how it will perform on O2’s network.

Of course I hope I’m wrong and it will fly, but I can’t help think that if not, the iPhone unlocking market will get a real boost once the new boy racer hits town.