3G - A Dongle Too Far

OK, so everyone knows in these enlightened modern times, press photographers/photojournalists need to file on the go; the world has an unquenchable thirst for media, sucking in thousands of images to spit out in the next day’s papers; so they can land on Mr Smith’s breakfast table and allow him to um and ah over the latest developments.

Being very green at the ‘filing’ game and noticing that all networks use 3 coverage, I thought it would be a rather smart idea if I pipped for a 3G dongle provided by… 3 mobile (it’s their network after all!).

Unfortunately this would prove to be a rather frustrating (and costly folley). My first attempt at ‘dongle use’ was at the Stop the War Coalition Gaza demonstration in London on the 16th of May and as per my post, it proved to be a pain in the backside!

So, today I was given my first assignment by the agency, first time off on my lonesome after being asked to shoot an event taking place in the middle of nowhere about 30 miles from Pantsville. Not taking any chances, I visited the local 3 Mobile shop, chatted with the very nice adviser therein and was shown a lovely coverage map of the shoot area and informed, “you should get 2G there”. Thinking that my previous dongle was defective, I then purchased a new stick and threw on some credit.
Not really my best decision…


Upon arriving at the location that shall remain anonymous, my first port of call after liaising with a media rep was to pull out my laptop and check my promised astounding coverage. All happy thoughts evaporated as I looked at the signal bar displayed on my screen to find that I had not three bars as I had in London, but a lonesome, single, solitary bar, it hadn’t even had the common decency to bring a friend. It just sat on my screen as if saying (in the voice of Droopy the Dog), “I’m sooo lonely”. Right then I could sympathise with it, I was suffering from the same feeling! With the event starting I cast aside thoughts of lynching the entire staff of 3G from the cleaners to the CEO, I busied myself with taking pictures and doing what I was there to do.

With a media scrum ensuing and knowing that I could not just pop off travelling the byroads and high roads looking for a good signal (stuck with pubic transport see!), I quite the event early to file. The rest is history, but involved: a 2 mile run, editing images by the side of a busy A road as I waited for a taxi ride that cost £13 (very helpful driver though).
Eventually I managed to file in a bar in a town that shall now take the generic name of Nowheresville (reader, I know there’s only one of you, please note all backwater towns outside Pantsville will be called this from now on), and had the extremely positive and pleasurable moment when I was informed by a friend that the majority of the images I’d filed had made it onto the wire service.

The upshot of this long, and quite certainly boring, post is that I know I need to find a network for mobile wifi, but it sure as hell won’t be with 3 and would urge all and sundry that are looking toward that company for their photographic needs to look elsewhere. To bastardise a slogan - The future’s bright, the future’s not 3 Mobile (no I’m not going for Orange either).

On a brighter note, the agency used 99% of the images I filed, no sales as far as I know, but still extremely happy overall!