Qualcomm Demonstrates 153 kbit/s cellular

Matt_Bennett writes "EEtimes reports that Qualcomm has demonstrated its new faster CDMA chip set for third generation cellular (3G). They have demonstrated bit rates of up to 153 kbit/s. Sample shipments have already begun. From the article: "Commercial 3G 1x service is expected to be deployed in Korea by the end of this year, and similar service is expected in the United States and Japan sometime in 2001.""

Comments

Re:Not the land lines, it's the flat fee

[morzel]

The highest penetration degrees in Europe are in Scandinavia, with Finland on top. I can remember something about being more cellular phones sold over there than there are Finns to use them :-)

The quality of the landlines down here is pretty good: most of them are connected to digital switches, and ISDN is widely available. The time to obtain a new line is in most countries no longer than a couple of days.

The big difference is that in the US local calls are flat-fee, which doesn't make it interesting for the telcos. They earn their money with long-distance and subscription. Over here, there is no such thing as a flat fee for local calls, which makes the pricing structure of GSM subscriptions very much like an ordinary phone connection.
In the States, people rather stick to their flat-fee landline than having to use a cellular, on which local calls aren't included in the subscription fee.

Over here in Europe, telephone is simply much more expensive than in the US of A, which is a bad thing (less beer), and a good thing (better beers ;-).

Please do not accept that wireless is exploding due to 'necessity' when you're talking about most of Europe, and countries as Japan. Here in Belgium we have the reputation of being the most densely cabled country of the world, and yet cellular phone adoption rate is over 50%.

Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.