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Voicestream Quietly Releases GPRS In The U.S.

Posted by timothy on 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."

3 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. US GPRS expensive? by alecbrown · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You quote $40 for 10MB, in the UK the prices are about £7($5) for 1MB if included in the price plan, or 2p/KB ($15/MB) if not, so it seems to be in line.

    The problem with GPRS is that the suppliers are likely to kill the market by charging too much and restricting the accessable sevices to a few WAP sites which the supplier has a relationship with (I'm told at least one telco in the UK does this, but I havn't checked it out).

    SMS used to be a service that was hardly ever used due to expensive prices and a restriction to the suppliers network, alot of people didn't even know their phones could do it. As soon as the prices dropped and the telcos opened gateways to each other, the volumes exploded, now SMS' are a large part of the telcos' income.

    GPRS is something that will be kept in the WAP bracket of niche user base until telcos finally realise that people will use it if they can afford it. Ironically GPRS will solve the main problem with WAP, speed.

  2. Killer Apps? by jarty · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm intrigued to know what 'killer apps' are going to emerge for wireless devices. I know that the role out of WAP here in the UK has been something of a failure as no one could really see the 'benefit' of wireless web surfing which is slower as not as usable as doing it from your home PC.
    The truly useful applications will use the GPS location of your phone to give you location dependent services. What's the traffic like 1 mile up the road? Where's the nearest pub that serves Wadworth's 6X? Where's the nearest record store?

    Perhaps the Yellow Pages is the killer app.

    --
    ------------ jay*arr*tee
  3. cellular technology by mrm677 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Enough of these ignorant comments.

    GSM is, and still isn't right for the United States for 2 reasons.

    1) The European GSM standard uses 900MHz and 1800MHz. Those frequencies are used by the United States government, and have been long before GSM came around. So that's why GSM in the U.S. uses different frequencies. So any GSM phone that is, say 2 years old, won't work in Europe and vice versa.

    2) Optimal cell size is a function of population density. Digital technologies, especially GSM, require smaller cell sizes. Simply put, places like Wyoming are not going to be getting digital anytime soon. But they do have analog because you can make those cells huge. GSM does not interoperate well with AMPS. CDMA IS-95 does. You can run a CDMA network and an AMPS network at 800MHz.

    I also believe that CDMA is the future (not IS-95). Sure, UMTS is based on time-division, but the Docomo 3G call stack is CDMA-based.

    So go buy your VoiceStream phone if you live in a big city. I live in Chicago. VoiceStream is there, but no way will I get a VoiceStream phone because if I ever go to Wisconsin, my phone will not get service. My Verizon CDMA phone gets service anywhere in the country.