Slashdot Mirror
Voicestream Quietly Releases GPRS In The U.S.
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."
All I can say is "Thank Standards" its about time that you can use the same phone in the rest of the world and still have it work in the States without having to buy a bulky tri-band number. Now if the billing issues could be sorted out then it would be great.
Why is the US always at least 2 years behind the rest of the planet for Wireless ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
On the surface, Voicestream's plan doesn't sound bad. In Japan, you pay 0.1 yen per 128 byte packet, or about $75 per 10mb. $40 for 10mb is only half that, at about 0.05 cents per packet. Cost-wise, it's fine - but you have to buy your packets ahead of time, and you have to buy your voice minutes separately! In Japan, you buy your (subsidized to be cheap) phone, pay a flat $3/mo fee for the activation and use, and then just pay as you go by packets you send or request, be it for voice or data. As a result, text messaging in Japan (and europe) has become hugely popular and people use their phones for practically everything.
When are the American companies going to learn that what is holding the cellular market back is not so much the technology as the bass-ackwards system of purchasing a calling plan for a whole year with a certain number a minutes a month and a preposterous number of restrictions while still having to pay for incoming calls. It's overly complex, intimidating, and autocratic. These idiotic games are precisely the reason I do not yet own a mobile phone. I don't mind paying more for the phone, but I won't pay for more minutes/data than I use, and I hate playing guessing games.
It irritates me to see US technology so far behind Europe and Japan for such a stupid, greedy reason. As far as I'm concerned, a mobile phone should work anywhere in the world that a network exists, and have consistent, per-use billing regardless of where you are. Until we have something approaching that in America, I'm not buying. Here's hoping Sprint or ATT figure it out.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?