3GSM Diary: Stelios' crewneck and WiMax beyond Brighton

I'll admit it. Today has been a big one for this diary writer because it involved a flight back home - though not before 24 hours of intense goings-on.

For one thing, Stelios was in town. Or to be more precise, the man who has brought us easy[complete as appropriate] was up on stage telling everyone how he went about setting up easyMobile, due to debut in the UK as early as next month.

Stelios, like some of his products, is good value. For one thing, he came across as brutally honest. No one expects him to be able to explain HSDPA or know every bit of mobile politicking and he fessed up straight away.

"I know little about your industry," he told those in attendance, individuals who generally know a lot about their industry. "But I've found myself in that position quite often… so I've trained myself" - and he want on to give one of the presentations of the week.

He spoke about 'brand extension', something we're familiar with as he tries to bring easyJet's successful approach and marketing to areas such as car rental, hotels, cinemas and - reportedly, god help us - pizza, all with varying degrees of success.

Addressing those assembled as if he were a good friend down the pub (though what is it with those trademark crewneck jumpers under the suit?), he opened up.

"It all started 10 years ago. Without easyJet I wouldn't be standing in front of you," he said. "I was in the right place, at the right time, with the right father to finance my dreams."

I wish him luck - pretty much everyone in the industry recognises it's time to let the right people look after budget users. They don't do the big operators many favours with their limited usage of services and the big operators don't do them many favours, with services that could be argued to be too complicated and too expensive.

One area where the likes of easyMobile will hope to benefit is in handsets. Or, more precisely, not providing them. The idea is that most people are already mobile users and can simply insert a new SIM card.

But there is another side to the plentiful, subsidised handset model. Many experts have realised that phones are being exported by the thousand. Some estimates put it that as many as 10 per cent of UK phones and 20 per cent of those bought in Sweden end up overseas, in places where subsidies aren't offered.

Look out for out-of-place operator brands printed on a mobile near you next time you go on holiday.

Keeping up the theme of moving around (see what I did there?), there has been a lot of talk this week about a certain train to a certain fun south coast town. No, I'm not talking about the TGV to Cannes but the closer-to-home (my home, anyway) London to Brighton line run by Southern Trains. T-Mobile will be offering Wi-Fi access in carriages very soon.

Now, I hear you say, nothing innovative there - the likes of Broadreach and Icomera have been doing the same for some time, just ask passengers on GNER, Virgin Trains or other rail lines. (Eurostar was trialing a service last I heard.) But the innovation is in using the standard lovingly called WiMax to connect from track side, allowing quite a few simultaneous users given its promised 32Mbps speeds and even connections that don't get dropped in tunnels.

One of the biggest proponents of WiMax is Intel. Fresh from their success alongside the spread of Wi-Fi 12 months earlier, they had already started making a big noise about the technology. But things have stalled somewhat in recent months.

Would 3G and its successor, 3.5G based on HSDPA, mean WiMax's time might never come? No, said the ever-interesting Sean Maloney, these days head of the chip giant's Mobility Group, we are indeed "going to get a useful, low-cost high-speed technology over the next two years".

Don't get him wrong, he sees 3G and WiMax being used side by side, as the early signs show in Korea.

Does this mean Intel has bigger 3G plans than we thought? Given the huge success of Centrino - the processor with integrated Wi-Fi radio - the company is said to be looking at a similar all-in-one offering so laptops can come '3G-ready'.

I asked him whether Intel is "feeling its way" on that subject or has "concrete plans it just doesn't want to tell us".

Maloney: "Somewhere inbetween the two."

As there are various types of 3G and it is evolving fast, such an offering might prove tough. But I sense Intel would love it to happen.

So no silly photos - taken on a camera phone, naturally - to end today's diary entry. Only the realisation that Cannes seemed busy and buzzy this week, more so than for several years at 3GSM Congress time, and it looks like progress is being made in an industry that can lose sight of the simple things users want.

That excited me - almost as much as making it home in one piece.