Voicestream Quietly Releases GPRS In The U.S.

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Voicestream Quietly Releases GPRS In The U.S.

Posted by timothy on Monday October 1, 2001 @10:48PM from the some-bits-cost-more-than-others dept.

hidden72 writes: "Voicestream quietly rolled out their iStream GPRS wireless data service in the United States last week. More information is available from Voicestream's website. General information about GPRS can be found here. Theoretically, GPRS data rates can reach close to 170k. Voicestream's per-packet charges are quite expensive, ($40 for 10MB) but it's an always-on 28k-56k data connection available in most metropolitan areas."

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Costs by forgoil · 2001-10-01 23:10 · Score: 3, Informative

The reason mobile phones are doing so well in europe is the price and the flexibility. Sweden are for instance way ahead of the states, way better standard (GSM all the way), better deals and SIM cards instead of locking the consumers in.

So what does this got to do with GPRS? Well, charging per packets will be expensive, even more so as you will pay for everything in and out (I guess). WAP push will not be fun for example. And it could very very easily become extremly expensive for the cosumer, and hard to check up on how expensive it has become before it is too late. Charge me a monthly sum according to the QoS I get and I would think about it, like it is now I can not recommend anyone to use it, unless they are very rich.
1. Re:Costs by Rogerborg · 2001-10-02 00:06 · Score: 4, Informative
  charging per packets will be expensive
  
  It does at least ensure that they will get light users, so their usage figures will make them more inclined to go to flat rate.
  
  Contrast with a couple of broadband fixed line ISPs in Australia and the UK, that are howling in outrage that people are actually using their bandwidth, and have introduced daily and monthy usage caps. Want to bet that your ISP won't follow suit if too many people actually start using their cables and DSL to leech serious amounts of data?
  
  Unmetered suffers from chicken and egg. Until you have low prices, you won't get high takeup and therefore a sustainable base of "average" users. Until you have "average" users, you take a real beating on the service.
  
  At least paying by the packet should ensure that (once the network snafu's are worked out) the prices will drop quickly to get numbers up, and they will go unmetered eventually, at which point you and I can jump onboard and realise the dream of being connected 24/7. Aaaaah, nice.
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  If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
In Finland... by 10Ghz · 2001-10-01 23:24 · Score: 3, Informative

99Fims (about 15$) a month for unlimited GPRS data-access :)

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Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Re:US joins the rest of the world... by Troed · 2001-10-01 23:27 · Score: 3, Informative

Ericsson T39 - triband - not bulky - and GPRS.

(and bluetooth, and irda, and SyncML, and background pictures, and sound&pictures in SMS [EMS], and ...)

--
it's in my head
Re:Unreasonable for Normal Internet Usage by oolon · 2001-10-01 23:45 · Score: 3, Informative

I infact found my Motorola Timeport GPRS easier to setup under linux than ce or windows! The motorola software (for windows) does not work on com2 Active Sync does not like com2 either, and when it is working on com1 it does not seem to configure the modem correctly 50% of the time. Ce was just a pain requiring it to be configured on 2 different place, dial and modem, each screen you have to go though 3 pages of "advanced settings"

My chap script for linux however took me about 30 seconds to get working.

'' 'ATZ'
'' 'AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","ADF.BTCELLNET.NET"'
'OK' 'ATDT*99#'
'TIMEOUT' '30'
'~--' ''

James
GPRS vs HSCSD by jlemmerer · 2001-10-02 00:28 · Score: 3, Informative

Hi everybody!
I just have to say one thing:
Here in Europe GPRS is already in use in cellular networks so I have some experience with it (the experience comes also from my job, I work at the largest cellular network provider here in Austria). Unlike HSCSD, GPRS does not provide stable data tranfer rates. 170 k sounds cool, but as experience has shown, these rates only apply if you stand directly next to a receiver. HSCSD uses multiple channels, reaches about 43 k and if you loose a channel (e.g. when the network gets crowded) you pay for one channel less. GPRS uses slots in one channel, and if a slot is unavailable - well, bad luck. Here in Austria most people prefer HSCSD for it is cheaper and more reliable, the maximum transmission speed reached with GRPS in real use is only slightly higher than HSCSD and generally speaking -> HSCSD is most times faster. GRPS is not a solution for high speed date. It is only a small step towards UMTS.

bye
johannes

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