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3G Is A Dog, And Other Truths

Posted by timothy on from the still-being-digital dept.

naylorjs writes: "This is an interesting article from the BBC about the technological future, in particular broadband and wireless. What makes it more interesting is the comments about nation states and such like. A certain amount of lateral thinking in use here, something that we don't see enough of in the technology field. IMHO."

11 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Online Dolls by sasha328 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A: First of all, put that in context that the largest amount of semi-conductor material to flow into the home will undoubtedly be through toys. It's not TV sets; it's not refrigerators; it's not PCs; it's not handsets - it's going to be toys. The reason I use that Barbie doll example is that the Barbie doll has to be connected in order to get stories, in order to get your content.

    Somehow, I think the online contents for a Barbie doll will be quite minimal.

    On a serious note, I think he's got a point there. Imagine one of these toys always getting an updated interface (audio) to interact with the children. Interesting.

    1. Re:Online Dolls by dragons_flight · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Until I read that part of the article, I thought the guy might have some sense. After the ramble of bits and atoms coming together, I was forced to conclude that this guy fits in the same category as telephone psychics. He provides vaguely interesting impractical information about what he thinks you want to hear or are afraid to hear. Some of the things he says get just plain weird after he strays from 3G and broadband, and what he has to say in those arenas is hardly original to begin with.

      For my part, I have a problem with much of the tech that gets put into toys, because it tends to decrease the value of the thing as a toy. For instance stuffed animals with flashing lights and speech capabilities aren't the ones kids take to bed because no one likes feeling the hard boxes inside, nor the distractions of mechanisms that won't turn off. Some electronic toys are so complicated and inflexible that they aren't worth the trouble of playing with or learning to use. Toys which are so inflexible as to only do one trick (and insist on doing regardless of what the child wants) will end up at the bottom of the closet shortly after having demonstrated their one trick.

  2. Have you tried it? by Scottaroo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Have you ever really tried to do any of this stuff with a phone? Browse the web? Get your email? It's useless on a phone. The screen is too small and entering information into the phone is an exercise in frustration. Or you end up with a phone like the Kyocera which is a great palm, but sucks as a phone. Ever try actually holding it to your face and talking on it?

    I'm all for cool technology and doing things that are cool just for the sake of doing it, but John Q. Public is never going to accept this stuff if it's a pain to use. It solves a problem that doesn't exist.

    Scottaroo

    --
    ----------
    If your answer is Microsoft, you obviously didn't understand the question.
  3. Re:Well, duh. by szcx · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It won't fly here in the U.S.
    It wont be given the chance to fly here. The military has effectively stopped the auction of the 3G spectrum to commercial interests in the US by using it for military communications.

    According to the Pentagon, it would be detrimental to national security for them to re-tool equipment to use different frequncies. In the current political climate, nobody is going to force the issue.

  4. The government doesn't like 3G by CmdrTroll · · Score: 5, Interesting
    There are many factors that have contributed to the delays surrounding 3G availability. Indeed, one needs to look no farther than the FCC spectrum allocation mess and the technological issues to see why the rollout hasn't happened yet. However there are some very real reasons under the surface that help explain why the Federal government doesn't want 3G to exist at all. For instance:

    • 3G will start a new wave of competition amongst the major phone companies. If Sprint offers 3G services and SBC doesn't, Sprint's market share will increase, so SBC and the other competitors need to keep up. Now take a look at the money flowing to powerful people in Washington and see who the top contributors are - BellSouth and SBC are pretty high up there. It is not in their best interest to see 3G happen and they are paying off Congressmen left and right to make sure it doesn't happen (in this lifetime at least).
    • Law enforcement regards 3G as a nightmare. Think about it - cell phones that have enough bandwidth to transmit encrypted datastreams between phones. And not the cheesy 40-bit breakable encryption that they use on current PCS systems, either. They're worried about people loading 128 bit Blowfish or IDEA encoders onto their phones and using them to communicate securely. Roving wiretaps are useless if all you can gather from them is white noise. No wiretaps == no control, and law enforcement exists to control.
    • If 3G service is commoditized (think "Tracfone") and potentially anonymous, what's to keep criminals, ACLU members and privacy nuts, and WTO protestors from using disposable phones to communicate securely? By the time they traced one phone, the subject will have moved onto another one. Anonymous voice services are "bad enough" for The Man, but anonymous data services will wrestle even more control away from authority.
    • 3G service is difficult to disrupt when making a covert search of somebody's apartment or office. If FBI agents can't knock all of your computers off the network, you can see everything they do if you have a few $30 webcams planted around the joint. The FBI wants you to have a broadband service that they can monitor, but disconnect at will as well (preferably by cutting a cable). It is a known fact that on most covert searches (such as the Scarfo search) the FBI cuts off communication lines prior to the search. 3G or Ricochet is difficult to work with on their end, and their excuse for opposing it is that it will give the Scarfos of the world a leg up on law enforcement.

    -CT

  5. Credibility? Bitch, please! by szcx · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Nicholas Negroponte is the same guy who predicted that there would be $1 trillion in e-commerce by 2000, and that micropayments will "change consumer behavior enormously". According to Nostraponte, site visitors have no problem whatsoever in paying a few cents for every article they read.

    The guy is a pundit dressed in academic clothing, nothing more.

  6. 3G won't succeed because... by UserChrisCanter4 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No one honestly cares! Now, before you dismiss this as "troll", let's take an honest look at the situation:

    I have a Motorola StarTAC using Sprint's service. Now, outside of the occasional dropped calls, I don't have a complaint about the quality of the service. Guess what I use my phone for? That's right, sending and receiving phone calls, which is exactly what 90% of America uses their phone for.

    My phone is "wireless web capable". I have never used it... it doesn't appeal to me. Everytime I've seen someone using "wireless web" it looks like a novelty. 4 lines with maybe 25 characters each... nothing particularly special.

    I don't have a burning desire to check my e-mail from my mobile phone... the last thing I need is some damned electronic leash. If I'm not in front of my computer, it's because I'm not doing work; if I'm not doing work, the last thing I want is to be interrupted by e-mail.

    My mobile phone has a PCMCIA interface to allow "dial-up" through the cell service. The attachment runs about $200, and the speed is 19.2Kbps. I would think that if you really needed to have a wireless internet connection, 19.2Kbps would be fine. Let's face it, if having an internet connection anywhere is THAT important to you, you're probably using it for business purposes. That means e-mail, possibly messaging co-workers. No, you can't VPN into the intranet at 19.2Kbps, but I wouldn't want to try it at the numbers 3G LIKELY produces ("see, you'll get 1Mbps, but only if you're standing still between these blocks during the vernal equinox...").

    Most every mobile provider offers quick messaging, and several of them DO offer e-mail to the phone.

    Instead of concentrating on videophones or MP3 trading or full-color sega produced videogames, how about improving the phones? My StarTAC is fairly small, but it's not as sturdy as I would have liked. Give me a a solid 2G phone with an aluminum or titanium skin that can take a beating, and a battery that gives me 8-10 hours talk time. I'll jump on that phone for $500 long before I'd buy a 3G videophone/e-mail device/Game Boy wannabe/MP3 player for $200.

  7. 3G is not just more bits and bytes.... by kzharv · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The article misses some of the points of what 3G is about. 3G was developed to be a converging path of current technologies to integrate them in a more practical way.
    Currently there is almost a different standard for each region / country on the planet.... where is the sense in this?
    3G allows technologies based on TDMA/ GSM and those based on CDMA / IS-95b to meet somewhere.
    IS-136 derived technologies will merge to WCDMA/UWC-136 and IS-95b derived technologies will merge to cdma2000/3xrtt.
    Handsets that are 3G capable should be able to work with any 3G network through mediation carried out at the base station.
    The added bandwidth, whilst integral to the standard, is only one part of it. This defiantly was not addressed 3G was called a dog.

    bleh whatever....

    I would rather a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy

  8. I think it will by boky · · Score: 3, Interesting

    All the arguments you have given are (kind of) true. But just check out Japan. Their phones have at least 160x160px (and less than 90 grams weight), most are in color. And that's more than enough to use "wireless web access". 4x25 was what killed WAP, it's not what will kill 3G.

    Japanese people are tottaly into mobile phones. They use them for iMode, phone-calls, mail, surfing, sending eachother pictures and some-kind-of MIDI files etc. etc. etc.

    The catch is that with 3G you will not have a phone anymore but a multimedia all-purpose communication device.

    --
    boky
  9. Re:What companys don't realize by ClockworkPlanet · · Score: 1, Interesting

    In the UK text messaging (SMS) is huge. Almost everyone over the age of 12 now has a phone, and teens are famous here for communicating mostly by SMS.

    My partner (29) and her best friend, (30something) hardly ever their phones to make voice calls. I see people using text phones like Motorola V100 and Nokia 5510 all the time now.
    The instant messaging analogy is correct - people don't want to talk to other people all the time - why do you think that Post-It Notes became so popular?

    --
    Now wash your hands.
  10. This is typical of many technologies. by k98sven · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It seems the fate of many new technologys goes something like this:
    1) Hyped
    2) Introduced
    3) Debunked
    4) Used
    5) Taken for granted

    (Of course, the process is not entirely linear.)

    At the moment, a lot of people are debunking 3G,
    a natural response to the hype. As there are no
    phones on the market as of yet, it's too early to
    say what will happen.

    It's likely the people will, in fact, use 3G but
    maybe not in the way intended.
    (Much as the european phone companies had no idea
    that SMS messaging would be a major future source
    of revenue when the GSM standard was introduced)