UK to get 100kbps+ over cellular phones in June

evilandi writes "Cellnet, British Telecom's cellular division, has officially announced that GPRS will go live on 30th June 2000 with 99% UK population coverage (including most rural areas). GPRS, General Packet Radio Service, provides always-on packet-switched ISDN-like bandwidth over a mobile telephone. This will be a boon to mobile office workers and rednecks like me who live out in the sticks (as my wife points out), out of range of ISDN, DSL and cable. The price, has yet to be announced. " Wow. I want. And I was even thinking about moving to the UK for a while anyway.

Comments

The price is certain to be extortionate

[Yarn]

This is BT we're talking about. I'd guess the price will be of the order of 5pence a minute+connection.

(FYI: 100 pence / pound, one pound ~ 1.6 US$)

Re:The price is certain to be extortionate

[Bronco]

I don't think you pay per minute: it is there is no connection when you are not sending/receiving data. You will probably pay per Mb or something.

And cellphones were a problem before..

[Inoshiro]

Now you'll be able to get ultra fast data transfers over them. How many accidents will be caused because the driver was surfing while driving to work?

"I'm sorry, Officer, but this porn site just popped up, and my eyes left the road.."

I mean, people already read (while driving) to work..
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It's available in Perth (I think)

[TRS-80]

From what I've heard, an ISP in Perth offers a similar service, and although it's apparently rather expensive compared to modem access, if you need the speed it's worth it. For more info try iinet.general or their homepage. NB This is Perth, Australia, not Perthm Scotland.

Re:Yes!

[Nodatadj]

> Now if America could get on with this "best
> thing for the consumer" thing instead of wasting > their time on trying to suck every penny out of > 56K dial-up

Sorry, this is the same America where people can actually use cable modems, and even when they can't their phone calls aren't metered?

Compared to the UK with it's metered phone calls (makes for expensive internet) and DSL in "test mode" with roll out constantly being put back.

When it comes to internet access, America can hardly complain about not getting a good deal.

not so speedy.....

[Ludoo]

quoting BT announcement:

Initially GPRS handsets and data cards will be capable of operating at speeds five to ten times faster than on current GSM networks.

current GSM data rate is 9.6KBs, so 9.6 x 10 = a (maximum) rate of 96KBs, comparable to 1.5 ISDN B channels.
I also wonder about lags, since the user is "virtually" on, but the actual packets transmissions tackes place only when data is coming to (or going from) the user.

Already avaible (sort of) to me

[bluGill]

I can get 14.4k right now through my cell phone. Still pay airtime though, so I don't consider it a big win. I'm still waiting for reasonably priced high speed access, but belive me, I've considered this more then once.

While other posters are correct that Eurpoe is ahead of the US in wireless, that is partially because our land lines phones aren't as expensive. When you have to pay 10 cents a minute to call you may as well have the convience of a cell phone. When it doesn't cost you anything (extra) to use the land phone vs 10 cents a minute for the cell, you try to use the land line phone wherever possibal. (Note that 10 cents is a estimate, and not intended to reflect accual prices which vary)

All in all this is good though. It brings my dream of the floating office closer to reality. I can't wait until the time when I work from the lake.

GPRS is COOL

[Nicolas MONNET]

In its concept, it's perfect. It makes elegant use of the available bandwidth: it uses the bandwidth of several GSM channels if possible. They will probably charge by the amount of data transmitted, and even though it's expensive, I personally don't mind: you're not going to download the latest kernel with it, nor browse HTML pages with megabytes of images anyway. No, you will be connected virtually all the time, and that's what's great about it.

Cost for providers is probably the biggest issue

[Space Cow]

This is not a technology breakthrough, but rather a profit decision. Wireless connections are already technically feasible from 100kbps all the way up to really fast. The main problem is that there is a huge investment in 14kbps hardware on the telcos part and they don't want to take losses on that (they still need to recoup their investment). I think we can expect to see a gradual shift (with high cost/scattered service areas) to higher bandwidth, but it will be following a cost/profit graph at the telcos and not be so dependent on tech improvements.

GPRS not quite that fast...

[edwazere]

The 100kbit per sec figure quoted is the rate if all (8?) channels are used by one device, in practice that wouldn't happen and you would get much less bandwidth than that.

Bouygues Telecom ??

[348]

Nortel Networks announced a couple of weeks ago the successful completion of a set of end-to-end Wireless Internet calls over a complete GPRS system provided in 1999 for test purposes to French GSM operator Bouygues Telecom. I wonder if the BT folks are going to partner with Bouygues to cover both countries seamlessly.

Never knock on Death's door:

Cellnet = British Telecom

[sufi]

British Telecom come out with new and whacky marketing ideas about as regularly as intel do. This sounds remarkably like the DSL/ADSL promises that BT made about 2 years ago, and many other promises besides.

ADSL via BT was promised at 2MB down 512Kb up, they trialed, it went down to 1MB down 128Kb up, they trialed again, it went to 2MB down, 128Kb up, but shared between you and the rest of the city.

Now they are about ready to launch, but only if you live in sidcup and you have a bit of string long enough to stretch to the exchange, it doesn't go over a puddle and it doesn't endanger the lifes of any pigeons that may live in your area.

BT wouldn't know broadband if it jumped up behind them and pumped a rocket into their ass. They are incompetent mi-managed and generally wasteful!

I won't hold my breath, and I certainly wouldn't move country for it!

:o)

It's also coming to the US..

[kslater]

GPRS over GSM is coming to the US as well. I happen to work with a couple of guys that we liberated from AT&T. They, being architects of the CDPD data network currently in place, are in a position to know about these things. Also, the first whack at GPRS over GSM will be 128k. Next it will ramp up to 256k and so on.. It will take a while for us to catch up with the europeans due to the proponderence of different carrier formats for cellular traffic here in the states..

Re:Ding, dong the WAP is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, WAP runs over GPRS, it's sort of like TCP over IP.

The other thing I want to point out is that GPRS is just the beginning, wait for EDGE (300Kbps) and UMTS(>2Mbps) in the next 5 years. Really, the future is wireless. Why do you think Transmeta chose to spend 5 years developing a killer-chip for wireless devices, rather just a high performance desktop chip?

Where is the "100kbps+" bit coming from?

[AugstWest]

The /. newsbit has "100kbps+" in the title, but I can't find anything about data transfer rates in the article...

Re:Where is the "100kbps+" bit coming from?

[evilandi]

AugstWest asks: Where is the "100kbps+" bit coming from?

Second paragraph in: http://www.gsmdata.com/paprysavy.htm

This is just the first phase. GPRS is scalable so you can add more bandwidth. Question is, at what price?

Then there's IMT which will do 2mbs, alledgedly, but requires significant hardware upgrade at the transmitter sites (unlike GPRS which is just "GSM Plus", slot a new board into the existing basestation box'o'tricks, plug in the fibre and yer done, mate).

--

Ricochet wireless

[Spyder]

Here in the US you can get Ricochet from Metricom if you live in DC, San Francisco or Seattle. Their press says that they're going to 128kbs, and it's unlimited connection time. Works on a frequency hopping spread spectrum radio system. The coverage sucks outside those three cities, just major airports and a few universities. Linux isn't offically supported but you guys with linux laptops are used to that.

BT Monopoly and Competition

[mattjp]

BT's doing something cutting edge and interesting? I have my doubts but will check it out later. (looked at Cellnet's website today but didn't notice anything). IF this is true, then it is happening because there is real and murderous competition in the UK cellular market. Prices are really competetive and investment levels really high. 4 companies compete in that market and BT's Cellnet is by no means the largest (2nd and worst rep.) This is in stark contrast to the wired market where BT's monopoly in the local loop means that we can forget about ADSL for the near future (if ever!!) and ISDN is exhorbitantly expensive. Well, either way, I hope it is true though given the state of Cellnet's present network (bloody awful) I have doubts. Bye

Higher Wireless Speeds in the USA

[BrookHarty]

Basestations use a ds0 56K frame relay connection. AT&T will have to upgrade all the cell sites with new hardware and more bandwith. At 250K cost per site, usage is a big priority factor. (*Note - Bandwith Bandwith Bandwith)

When AT&T upgrades the basestations at the end of this year to GSM we will start to see 3G products. Speeds will start at 128K then upto 768K.

WAP/Hdml will stick around for phones, but people want to view websites with html,java, vscript, shockwave, etc... 1 Bit bitmaps and text doesnt cut it.

Also if you cant wait for wireless data, check out the new CDPD phone from Mitsubishi. Its the same size a nokia, has Indeglo screen, 10 Lines of display, and a jack to hookup your laptop, 128bit encyrption.
http://www.mobileaccessphone.com/products/index.ht m

You can use this phone with AT&T Pocketnet CDPD Service. Its the one I use. (Oh yeah, ask about the Unlimited access)
Personal @ http://www.attws.com/personal/pocketnet/index.html
Business @ http://www.attws.com/business/pocketnet/index.html

Hey, if Slashdot ever has an HDML page, Alot of us mobile junkies would love it. (If I just had time to get the darn html-hdml convertor working..)

100 KBPS uses a lot of radio bandwidth, expensive!

[Bruce Perens]

I think that to use 100 KBPS on GPRS takes the equivalent of 8 voice channels. This service is meant for bursty use, with a lot of people sharing the same data channel per cell, where you download a web page to your little palmtop screen and then you don't touch the net for a while. Sustained use would be very expensive and you'd still have to share the data channel with everybody else in your cell. Don't expect to use this as your regular Internet provider.

Thanks

Bruce

GPRS out loud

[NightParrot]

Please tell me that's pronounced "jeepers".

The speed is overestimated

[Camelot]

The problem with trying to achieve the maximum theoretical speed is essentially the same as with cable modems; the capacity is shared between different users. Because the radio frequencies are limited, for the end user - in the best case - the maximum theoretical speed is around 100 kbs.

It would possible (in theory, that is) for the telecom company to guarantee that bandwidth, but it would be extremely expensive and nowhere near profitable. It is feasible to get a speed around 30-40 kbs, which is still considerably more than what current GSM data gives.

So, whenever you hear 100 kbs, repeat the word marketing to yourself.

Re:Since when does the UK have rednecks?

[evilandi]

AC: Do you have a working TV perched on a non-working TV?

Sort of. I have an old 1980's Sony RGB computer monitor plugged into my VCR instead of a TV, and I have a barely functional old black and white TV sitting under my dusty Atari ST monitor.

Does the bed of your truck bed four?

I'm British. We have smaller cars. I own a Daihatsu Terios 4x4. It beds two- me and my wife, both 190cm.

Are you humming a song at this moment about someone doin' someone else wrong?

Does Nine Inch Nails "Starfuckers" count?

Are there also Oakies, hillbillies and rubes in the sticks? Are there even sticks?

I used the word "redneck" 'cos I was writing to an American audience. I would normally have said "yokels" as in "local yokels".

But oh yes, there are sticks.

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Re:Ding, dong the WAP is dead

[anticypher]

Bandless wireless? I can type that fast sometimes :-)

I've installed and am testing GPRS for a project. I even got to choose some of the cell sites to upgrade, so naturally the best one just happens to serve my house :-) and the other my office, and since there is no billing on my circuit I can keep a 14kbps channel open from home to work all the time. It just supplements my other wireless project, and an ISDN circuit.

We're still using WAP over GPRS, because the business model means that every little bit of use is going to be charged for. All WDP packets are routed into a local WAP gateway machine, and only WAP traffic is allowed to pass from internet to handsets. There is also a pure data pipe application for companies, which BT/cellnet are already testing in the City.

I'm also trying to implement free (as in open source) versions of WAP/WDP, so that I can plug a linux box into my nokia and have a permanent IP connection. That would be useful for having email delivered instead of dialing up with fetchmail, xntpd could get stable, the works. I'm also hammering on the suits to make a very low cost or flat rate permanent GPRS so many people in remote locations can have a semblance of a permanent net presence. Then they could charge for the bursty traffic that a user would need occasionally. But suits have no vision, even if the figures are good and solid.

If you are looking to make a lot of money, get into the billing application business. BT, Boygues, and all the other GSM operators are trying to figure out how to charge for every packet crossing the ether, with extremely expensive packages for bandwidth hogs.

This cellnet offer will first be in the City, all the pico cell sites are in place and wired. But expect the suits to dither around for quite a while trying to figure out how to make the maximum $$$ (should be pound signs) out of early adopters. They are also going to use this offer as a big stick to extract many favors from OfTel before allowing the public to have it. BT is trying hard to make everyone hate them.

the AC