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3G Network Coming to America
Not2Bryt64 writes: "Reuters has a story about Cingular building a nationwide 3G network. According to Cingular it 'will deliver mobile users data at rates of up to 470,000 bits a second -- fast enough to watch video clips over phones.'" I just hope it doesn't mean that we have to see more annoying Cingular commercials. But I want my video cell phone!
video on your cellphone be damned...
The one thing that 3G is going to do for me is FINALLY provide a decent wireless service for my PDA that i can pay for along with my cell phone.
Now, just add Mandrake Gaming edition, Quake3, a little water and mix well.
So how's the latency on this type of connection...?
my true love bought for me:
five video cell-phones
four sega dreamcasts
three thinkgeek shirts
two copys of The Hobbit*
and 2.4.15 on a CD
*One copy to read, another to keep under the mousepad for luck.
lysergically yours
... till the USA catches up with the rest of the world for mobile telecoms?
Is there any truth to this rumour? thanks ok bye
As long as wireless providers insist on keeping the idea of a "mobile phone" then this is useless.
Watching movies on my phone is dumb -- I'd rather watch them on my home theater or in a real movie theater.
Reading/writing email on my phone is dumb -- I'd rather do that on something with a _real_ keyboard, thanks.
If we can make wireless devices that actually have a _use_ (think wireless Newton), then maybe we're getting somewhere.
If I can read my email comfortably and actually _write_ a response (pressing 4433555555666 just to write "hello" is unacceptable!!) then I might have a use for it.
Of course, none of this matters since 3G doesn't work anyway.
Most of these wireless solutions bandy about large bandwidth numbers, but never give break downs of actual usage scenarios. I imagine that this is the bandwidth in a cell or for optimal loading scenarios. If so, then I can see only getting old modem speeds in the average cell in a metropolitian area.
Shared bandwidth maybe effecient for the carrier, but it can really bite for the user.
3G is cool and all, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it will enable wireless video on demand.
That is something that I'm still waiting for in the wired world.
There should be a moderation category "Dumbest Comment EVER"
Instead of just talking on their cell phones while driving, they can watch video on their cell phones while driving. Oh joy. Oh rapture. Oh ecstasy.
Best Slashdot Co
Voice Stream already has a 3G network in the US. It's called iStream. VoiceStream website for more info.
There is some good information about 3g networks here.
--
FearLinux.com
...of the primary 3G usage example being "watching video over your phone."
NO ONE is going to watch video over a phone for long periods of time, even if the battery could handle it.
However, how would you telecommuters like to be able to work from ANYWHERE in the world without sacrificing your high-speed, always-on connection to the internet?
IT is a cool invention, but 3G really could change the world.
"And like that
It's unfortunate that we do not yet have a good ipv6 routing model (it's roughly the same as ipv4, which has serious multihoming scaling problems), since these guys are now going to deploy this stuff in h/w. It gives companies like Cingular the excuse to keep their networks private.
;-)
As for video on my cell phone, the cell phone has a form factor designed for a human hand. So far as I know there is no plan for a human hand upgrade
Ericsson's share was likely to be over $2 billion, Nokia's "well over" $1 billion and Siemens' worth $600 million, indicated the upgrade that Cingular initially said was worth $3 billion was closer to $4 billion.
I wonder where they're getting the funding for this outlay? For four billion dollars, someone sure believes in 3G.
The Gardener
--
This is just a publicity stunt to try to get a stock pop before year end. If it was easy to do it would have been done already and there is no way a consumer market will pay for such a build out. They will also only build on in very limited high density markets.
blah blah blah, we'll never see it
As a fellow techie/punk-rocker I can't help but feel inclined to find the irony amusing in the combination of a "hardcore" .sig-line and a comment complaining about unreliable and low-bandwidth wireless support for PDAs(Personal Damnation Accessory).
No Offence meant, really. Just one of those cheap observational humour things.
lysergically yours
Who thinks this is good: Telemarketers.
Who thinks this is bad: Me.
Who thinks this is ugly: Phone companies.
This is not how we do it!
OTOH, this could suffer a catastorphic death to high cost and a perception that it's a fad. Witness the trouble going on with @Home. If high speed internet for a traditional internet market is floundering... who's going to jump on the band wagon for high speed Cell Phones?
If I can't see it in Lynx I'm not interested.
while it's nice that people now have the option of watching movies on the 1" LCD of their cell phone anytime they want, i lay the odds 10000:1 that this technology will genuinely enrich anyone's life.
don't get me wrong -- it's great when things get faster and smaller and cheaper. i just think that the "transforming power of technology" often brings not a step forward, but just a hard step to the side.
... as the rest of the world, and use them across the whole country.
Then we'll no longer have phones that work in only 199 countries of the world, we'll be able to get ones that work in the USA as well, and no longer be in a communications black hole when travelling to the States!
(For making voice calls, that is. Of course nobody wants video clips or other advertising on their phone.)
I just hope it doesn't mean that we have to see more annoying Cingular commercials.
Could be worse, it could be Verizon setting up this network. Then you'd have James Earl Jones playing bass with a fake goatee, trying to show you the quality of streaming Pr0n through the Verizon network.
Growing number of advertisements on your device
Greater ability for telcos to track your every move
Grief when your higher airtime bill arrives.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
I dunno about the states, but here in the UK 3g mobile networks have basically hurt the phone companies really bad financially. The government put up the 3g licenses for auction and the top 4 mobile companies paid something like a combined 60billion ukp for them. And that doesnt include actually building the network.
Plus, some pundits have already slated it as doomed as the current networks are already vastly popular with relatively cheap phones. It would have to take a big incentive for most people to get rid of their cheap gsm phones and move to 3g ones. Because chances are, they are gonna be expensive so the phone companies can actually try to break even. Its gonna take em a long time though...
However, considering that the states isnt all gsm already, i hope your 3g network gets sorted properly.
When is verison moving to a 3G network? No one there knows about 3G or 2.5G or anything, not even tech assistance. And there comercials are much more annoying
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
For me, the most interesting point is that the US will be adopting 3G (to some extent). This means 3G will be present in US, Europe and Japan. With mobile devices becoming increasingly important, this can only be a good thing.
(arguably a bad comparison:-)
Would the internet be where it is today if the US used IPv6, Europe used IPv4 and Japan used IPv7 ?
Let's just hope they handle their money a little better than @Home.
@Home today, Gone Tommorrow.
There's no place like @Home...or is that there's no place for @Home.Oh well.
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
Can I hook one of these up to my laptop and get broadband wireless internet? That's the Killer App (tm) for this technology IMHO at least in the short term.
Ben
Any hope the quality of a voice call will go back to where it was in 1980 (in North America, anyway)? I am constantaly amazed at (a) just how bad the voice quality of digital cellular is [yes, dropouts count as "poor quality"] (b) how willing people are to pay for such bad quality.
sPh
You get the high bandwidth quoted only when stationary next to a base station. If you're driving the bit rate drops to well below anything you'd want to use to watch video.
As long as their Digital Wireless network around here still has static for phone calls, I won't be impressed with them. 3G has potential, but I don't think american companies will be able to make much out of it. They don't understand their real market.
Nextel's got a partial clue, but they still have some major lessons to learn.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Sounds like a fantastic start, but I want to know more. In my opinion, speed is only one of the major variables in the wireless networking equation. It balances against cost, coverage, and openness. A high speed, reasonable cost, general purpose network with nationwide coverage would be a dream come true. A high speed, high cost, proprietary network that only works in major cities doesn't interest me much.
As an aside, though, am I the only one who wonders about the weird fixation cellular network planners seem to have with video clips? Honestly, if you asked me the top 25 things I'd want to do with a high-bandwidth portable personal communications device it wouldn't even occur to me to put "watch video clips" on my list. Am I the one who's out of touch here, or are they?
Aren't as bad as Sprint PCS commercials. Come on...Captain and Tenille? Flouring kids? It wasn't even funny the first time. And that Matrix-looking dude in the trenchcoat HAS to go!
It is only GSM V.3, being based on TDMA.
It is done via channel bundeling and new protocoll for airinterface.
3G is WCDMA (here in Europe) or some other stuff (ask Qualcomm).
cees
my not@home network.
Karma is a small price to pay.
tcd004
I just hope it doesn't mean that we have to see more annoying Cingular commercials.
I thought I was the only one who hated that commercial! If a commercial falls in the forest, and it's universally hated, do any of the writers care?
Now, think about a small video camera in your phone. 3G is the bandwidth to speak to eachother Face to Face (well sort of) over a cell phone. Add a little cradle for the thing (so you can sit and look at it) and you can put a face on the other end of the line. IMHO, that would be a worth while use of video on a phone.
But if that wasn't good enough, imagine calling 911, getting patched to an Paramedic with a video phone, and being able to pass video data to mdical techs on their way to the scene (they may even be able to help provide instructions for emergency care). Useful stuff if you ask me.
If I can't see it in Lynx I'm not interested.
launches their 3G services in February/March '02. Everyone knows the PCS is so much cooler than everyone else anyway.
Java vending machines are neat.
Watching movies on my phone is dumb -- I'd rather watch them on my home theater or in a real movie theater.
/ in dex.html
Reading/writing email on my phone is dumb -- I'd rather do that on something with a _real_ keyboard, thanks.
Relax, their will be PC/PCI cards that use 3G technology to provide you with internet access just like your ethernet and WiFi cards today.
If we can make wireless devices that actually have a _use_ (think wireless Newton), then maybe we're getting somewhere.
The SprintPCS Visor phone springboard module actually has built in support for 3G, so that when sprint turns on their 3G support (now in testing), the visor phone will be ready for it. (Although it only supports the lower ISDN-like speeds of 3G, which is what Sprint PCS will roll out first.)
In fact, I daresay Sprint PCS is closer to rolling out 3G than Cingular, since they already have an all digital CDMA network laid out across the nation, and have been testing 3G for quite some time.
http://www.sprintpcs.com/aboutsprintpcs/Cdma_3g
"And like that
i agree. my apologies. I officially refuse any responsibility if people foolishy mod this up for funny.
lysergically yours
Heh.. In the two minutes it took me to read the article and post, about thirty other people responded first with comments bashing the idea of video clips being a sane application for this technology. I guess I'm not the only one!
Even if it does interfere with 3G devices, Intel doesn't have the kind of power to block introduction of 3G.
Slashdot, the site where everything's made up and the points don't matter
It's a little bit of a leap for some geeks to move from the productivity-centered focus of desktop computing and its derivations to the idea of communications-oriented socializing technologies, but for most people the latter is usually more exciting.
From what I've read so far, Cingular is one of the cellular service providers who will be offering the Handspring Treo. An integrated pda, cell phone, messaging system, and all around wireless device plus more bandwidth can't possibly be a bad thing. Hope it works out.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Instead of 3G video, how about:
Improving call quality, dedicate more bandwidth and more CRC checks, etc.
I want my bloody phone to make phone calls and do that well. That is all.
... watch video clips while riding your Segway scooter?-)
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
I'd be happy if Cingular would provide adequate digital converage in Northeastern Connecticut. Coverage in Connecticut in general is spotty East of Hartford.
The perported speeds are wonderful yes, but that's only the manner of transmission to the phone. What about the land line infrastructure used to connect all the cell stations, perform routing, etc.? That's an awful lot of bandwidth to try and through around live enough to have a conversation, any number of 2 way video streams concurrently.
Any spoon would be too big.
There is no doubt that 2.5 and 3G systems will supersede the never-quite-there WAP, but as I see it the real break will come when people can download Java (or whatever) programs to their phone.
- Good voice clarity - equivalent to wired when in better-than-marginal conditions.
- Good enough battery life to talk for at least 3 or so hours on a charge. LiIon batteries for no memory and good power density.
- Antennas that are either recessed or integrated to the body. Nokias do this well in current models. No protruding breakable dongles like the StarTAC.
- A phone that fits in my pocket.
- The ability to download phone numbers from my PC. But that's all the PIM functionality I want.
And from the phone company, I want the following:
- Coverage almost anywhere. Digital, too. No more AMPS service anywhere.
- No roaming. At all. And no long distance if the carrier has a national footprint.
- Either free incoming or "caller pays" incoming, the way real telcos do it.
- Finally, and most importantly - I want a service that just gives me minutes, at a comparable cost to wired minutes. I should pay less than $0.10 per minute for any kind of outbound call, regardless of location or destination. One of the things that sucks the most about US mobile phone companies (I can't speak to what they do elsewhere) is the way they differentiate between peak and off-peak, and the high cost of minutes once you use the monthly allotment. I don't pay extra on my wired phone - I shouldn't have to on a mobile.
Slightly better data support would be nice (up to, say, 56k support), but not essential. If I need wireless data badly enough, I can buy it separately. And if I want broadband, I probably will do better having it wired (to my home) than in my pocket on the road.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
According to Cingular it 'will deliver mobile users data at rates of up to 470,000 bits a second -- fast enough to watch video clips over phones.
Well, given how small most cellphone displays are, it's not too hard to imagine a 150x150x2 movie taking up that much bandwidth...
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
The orange Cingular splat I keep seeing reminds me of this one Pink Panther cartoon which featured an annoying asterisk that kept turning green. When the panther tried to teach the asterisk a lesson, he was greeted by its brother, a big, MEAN green asterisk who kicked the shit out of him!
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
yeah, now i can finally see video while shop online with my digital wireless web aol 7.0 . i need more advertisements in my life, the best is that you cant lie to people over the phone anymore. yeah mom i am not at the strip club i swear
Sprint PCS is expected to have 3G in June.
on a side note. For those of you compaining about the video on phone. It seemed to me that they weren't pushing video on phone, but that they were trying to give people an idea of how fast the throughput is. Not everyone understands what a KB is.
Misfit
This sounds to me like a simple case of media overload! I mean, how much information do we really need at once? And where's the application for this?
"sarcastic voice"
oooo, ooooo look streaming video
"/sarcastic voice"
Really, so what? What can the average person do with this except maybe the I'm-late-for-a-bored-meeting (board purposely spelt incorrect). or a new twist to phone sex and 1-900 numbers.... After that, what would the average person want with this..... Sorry CMDTACO... You are not the average person so you're allowed to want this....
I have no need for this, nor would I wish to pay for such a device
Any ideas how much extra this would cost?
Heck, I can't even reason with paying for wireless internet access anymore. It was a great novelty at first, and maybe checking my stocks or e-mail at the beach...
But really, do we all need to be THAT connected?
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
I already have more work time than I can handle. I spend most of the day staring at this monitor, and although I like what I do, that does not mean I want my employer strapping me with a wireless unit that will allow me to work while on vacation, etc. Off time is off time, and I am not going to spend it squinting at my cell phone to see a movie that is going to cost me 10 times more than it would if I rent it, or go see it at the theatre.
Enough of the hype. Cell phones are good for emergencies, but chances are, if I am not around a phone, it is because I do not want to be.....!
thank you god, thank you god, thank you.....
That's exactly the reason I don't have a cell phone. And another thing to add to the "poor quality" is the fact that digital signals seem to get the shit compressed out of them...if they could quadruple the bit rate....
Unfortunately I think it makes better business sense to put 4 times as many ppl on.
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
All circuits are busy please try your call again when so many of our customers aren't palying mobile Quake 3! Thank you...Goodbye!
I wonder where they're getting the funding for this outlay
Errrm :-P
From the users!
Seriously though. In Europe the mobile phone companies paid billions for their licences (The governments auctioned them off to the highest bidder) The direct result of this is more expensive mobile calls and companies that now have 3g licences but no monney to build a decent 3g network!
Added to which, *puts on flame-proof y-fronts*
WAP never took off. What makes people think 3g will interest Joe user? (although maybe mobile p0rn will.... I'll take some of that back)
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
I live in Los Angeles, and my house is about 3-4 miles away from the freeway, in any direction, since there are 3 nearby freeways.
And even with this range, I can't get any acceptable transmission in my house. I'd have to go outside, and sit in my car on the sidewalk, in order to use my Cingular phone service.
Cingular only works good if you live right next to a freeway, other than that, you're screwed. Plus, the service is useless if you're stuck in a heavily fortified building with thick concrete walls. This is also true for other PCS phone systems, since the wavelengths of the radio waves that it transmits are too short to penetrate concrete walls and vast distances.
My service is up in February, I'm gonna switch over to AT&T cellular. At least with them, I'll always get service practically anywhere I am.
And yes, I'm aware that nothing I said relates to 3G technology. Maybe I'll be happy when AT&T rolls out 3G technology, but I doubt I'd ever care to use a video phone. Although I might utilize it's vast data transmission capabilities to gather information.
Like many other wireless solutions out there, watch it be priced per k so watching a movie that you ripped from a DVD you purchased and stored on your home media server will cost more than it did to make the movie in the first place.
If Ricochet couldn't survive providing faster access in areas of dense population, what makes you think that G3 will do any better.
4 billion bucks wasted on a worthless concept. Maybe Enron has something to do with this?
The infrastructure required for the 3G is massive, complex and expensive. In my opinion, it may well be doomed.
Consider this - local wireless is becoming increasingly popular and powerful. How long will it be before your handheld, Palm, or whatever, instantly connects to your office network via wireless so that you can have a broadband connetion to the Internet via that? Project a bit further - how long is it going to be before your handheld instantly becomes a guest on other companies' networks when you are visiting them, so you get a broadband internet connection through that? How long will it be before hotels also have this facility? Universities? Schools?
The technolgy to do this is very nearly here, today. It will be relatively cheap to implement. So, the telcos are going to be loosing out on all that lovely revenue from connections to the internet made in or near company offices, hotels, schools, universities, etc. What proporition of their mobile phone revenue has that got to be? Sixty per cent? More?
Remember Iridium? Once upon a time it sounded like it couldn't loose, didn't it?
The telcos are years behind with 3G. My advice - don't invest in it.
UMTS was opened in Oslo, Norway on Saturday. It's just too bad there aren't any gadgets on the market yet, so we're not going to see a lot of it yet.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
"Cingular". Corporate identity bullshit can't get any worse than this. Oh wait... "Verizon".
This press release is just a way of hyping Cingular and Nokia.
The FCC has not authorized ANY frequency band for 3G yet. Plans to re-allocate military spectra fell through.
3G deployment is years in the future in the US because no standard can be set till the Government gives up some useable range of frequencies.
So this is just GSM with the added benefit of a hyped up press release. GSM can be upgraded to EDGE (3G) in the future (though it will require more towers and different equipment on them), but it ain't happening now (we're talking about now, aren't we?)
A beginners' guide to Portland, OR?
Does anyone know what kind of sillicon they're planning on throwing into their phones? I read a while (6 months or so) back about some ericson engineers who complained that they could get the throughput (the bandwidth) happening, but they kept melting the phone chassis because the processor was too hot.
You'd need some fairly muscular processing to do video replay, etc... and small phones don't really ventilate well, especially inside my pocket.
On the other hand they could bill it as a combination tool. "It's a cell phone, a portable video-on-demand device, and a hand warmer
Howard Dean for president
It's damn risky when all the money is made on voice and the quality of voice, and none of the money is made (yet) on anything else.
Although Intel does not have the power to directly block 3G introduction in the USA, they have quite a bit of lobbying power. Intel uses their lobbying power to get speedy FCC approval for new technologies. The FCC isn't as moved by lobbying as say, congress, however.
I had the chance to use the other US 3G provider, VoiceStream, a few weeks ago for a few days. While the connection was a decent speed (fluctuated from 3kBps up to ~12), what killed my hope for it was the latency. Doing anything directly interactive, namely telnet/rlogin/ssh, was highly painful. I can't in good concience solely blame 3G because voicesteams' equipment could just be shite, but I don't think it would be bad enough to give me ~2 second latencies.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Hey, I actually saw those characters. Err, why did I see those characters? I haven't installed any foreign fonts, and wasn't aware that my OS (Win98) came with them. If Windows comes with Korean fonts by default, then how come it doesn't come with Arabic or Persian fonts? Sheesh, talk about inconsistency.
Happier now? You can see DivX movies or whatever on your laptop, wherever you are. You can videoconference from your seaside cabin in the summertime.
Stop the brainwash
I hate people like you. Yasser Araphat (how ever you spell his name) has been considered a terrorist since the 80's. I hope Israel shoves a bomb up his @ss.
I cannot believe how far the US is behind in mobile technology. So incredible.
ymmv, but i dont get service in any of my class buildings in DC, so i hate cingular.
|---------------|
practically an AC
Wow as if we didn't have enough accidents from careless cell users now. Just think when all these guys start calling video Dial-A-Babe from :)
their cars
The overhead for operating a mobile network here is much higher because you need a lot more towers to reach the same number of people. That extra cost prohibits attractive pricing of most of the handheld mobile devices.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Just blank little boxes for me.....
I find myself contemplating how, exactly, I came to this time and place. A happy thing? Not exactly. Oh, it started out well enough. We were starting a new company. And things would be different this time. We would do things the way they should be done right from the start! We would get it right this time.
Bullshit. I knew it deep down right at the time. But I was so desperate to believe in something I jumped at the chance. Sure enough, within a couple of months we were cutting corners to "save time" when we would actually save months, possibly years, if we just went ahead and did it right. The boss, an obvious moron, and someone that truly doesn't understand the inner workings of any layer of the company, once again began his stranglehold style of management. And soon enough I was being asked to cobble bits and pieces onto a computer system that was once an elegant and practical solution to the ever burning question, "how can we solve this problem?" Now, the system sits there, band-aided and patched in ways that make my organizational thoughts shudder with fear and trepidation. My one hope is that I get out before they ask me to undo all the damage they wanted done in the first place. It happened before. And that's why the previous company failed and floundered like a beached wail. Everyone wants what they want and they want it now. There will be no exceptions made.
So, I sit here, day after day, staring at the computer screen. I surf the net. I allow my mind to wander. I do not work. What would be the point. Everything that I do would just be one more thing to undo somewhere down the line. I'm not happy here. And I know that more and more the people around me are not happy that I'm here either. It is far past time to move on. But of course, I pick the worst possible time to realize that I need to go job hunting again. Oh god, what a mess.
All of this should have been a K5 diary. But, seeing as how they are down, I figured I should post it here. After all, what's the point of writing a diary if you don't get a whole bunch of people screaming at you and telling you what a worthless, selfish, arrogant bastard ass piece of shit you are. That's half the fucking point.
God, I hope K5 comes back soon. I don't know how much more of this I can take.
Bite my yammer.
Project a bit further - how long is it going to be before your handheld instantly becomes a guest on other companies' networks when you are visiting them, so you get a broadband internet connection through that?
As soon as they install an internet-connected 802.11b and you install something like Air Snort on your handheld.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
sorry to hear about your ear, fuckrag. By the way, I came across your agenda for the day...it goes something like this:
1. troll on slashdot
2. submit rim-job capabilities for inclusion under GPL
3. Profit!!
according to this 3gio transfers 2.5gb/sec using 8bit encoding (they also mention 10bit encoding in the doc). (I think), they don't give an exact MHz rating, but it works out to about 312mhz. (or 250mhz with 10bit) According to the FCC, 3g uses 2.5 to 2.69ghz and 1.75-1.85ghz. So, 3gio might cause some problems if it was sending one bit at a time, but I don't think it is.
And even if 3gio did work at 2.5ghz (which I really doubt, the fastest clock in any PC these days is no where near that, other then in ultra-high-end CPU cores) PC put out that much interference, then you'd still have the 1.75-85ghz band.
So in other words, I think it's just a misunderstanding of terms.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Take a moment to think about what you could do with 3G technolgy, instead of just watching movies. I'm an employee at Cingular Wireless HeadQuarters, and here are some ideas to think about:
:)
1) Video/Audio Teleconferencing for businesses
2) You'd be able to view your Wolfenstein 3D webstats from your mobile phone
3) Imagine running a *nix or *BSD system on your mobile phone, and writing bash schell scripts from Emacs, that would allow you to stream, download, and sort music off of AudioGalaxy. Or even transfer your playlist to your friends, via mobile wireless connectivity
4) 3G + BlueTooth = (you just wait and see
Let's just imagine sitting in a classroom, while you configure your network for a LAN party back at home, with video highlights to keep you awake in class, all from your cellphone.
"Journies Lead to Knowledge and Passion Lights the Way"
~=NeuroMorphus=~
python >>>
reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')))
Wireless Ethernet is a better idea. For data services, which is what 3G is all about, you don't really need roaming support -- being able to seamlessly switch to a new carrier -- when you have TCP/IP.
I believe the latest wireless Ethernet spec gives you about 20mbps of shared bandwidth. It's ridiculously cheap. You have these local clouds that can potentially interact with other clouds by overlapping and gatewaying. Each cloud can be fit to serve a number of users. You get real IP. You can scale locally without having to upgrade the entire world or invent a new spec every month (4G anyone?). You can boost your bandwidth by setting up your own box. And so on.
Some serious thinking about a public infrastructure is needed, obviously. I don't know how 802.11 deals with multiple overlapping networks.
But if you're talking about serious broadband, which no phone today is technically proficient enough to justify [1] (unless they start making GameBoy Advance phones -- now there's a thought), that's what you want.
[1] My Siemens S45's SMS message editor isn't able to keep up with my typing. (The Nokia T9-capable phones also work increasingly slower as you type a message.) I believe SL45i, which runs the J2ME Java virtual machine, has a faster processor, but according to reports, apparently not by much.
Current distributed database mobile technologies (total offline application) have failed utterly due to the complexity involved in synchronizing the data.
However, there are a couple of questions to be asked:
I have a friend here in Germany who said that downloading a webpage (to get a single football game score) using GPRS cost him like 30DM (~$15)!!! and this is the "formatted for WAP" page!
I know they don't service certain states...
All in all, this would be incredibly cool for the business sector... Imagine this with a bluetooth enabled cell mapping to a laptop or PDA. Awesome!
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Don't really care whether its wireless or not, but being able to see what my family was doing on the computer when they call up asking for help would make MY life a helluva lot easier!
Privacy issues will be the major thing that kills video-cell phones -- unless some sort of ettiquette gets developed. This is the sort of thing that would drive the youth market, among others, away in droves if they realized the implications. (Parents call up the phone: "So, I see your dorm room is as messy as over." "What are you doing at the mall? I thought you were going to the library! I don't see any books behind you." "Show me who you are talking to." "I want to see what you are doing.")
Undoubtedly there are positive uses that people will want to use such things for as well, but the ability to easily "let others see through walls" by bringing a video-cell phone into places where cameras aren't normally allowed (restrooms, movie theatres, nude bars, etc.) is going to cause problems. These are not technology problems per se, but social/cultural ones. Given time, people might adapt, maybe.
No doubt there will be many interesting potential legal cases coming out of such technology...
Does anyone know why these companies choose to use different standards?
Of course, if, as you say UMTS and IS2000 are electrically similar, you might be able to make a phone that would work on either system, and thus a phone that could work anywhere. (Although if history is any indicator even if that's the case it still won't allow you to actually use anywhere)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Yeah....@Home's downfall was partenring with that life-sucking portal Excite
:P
The downside: purchased for $3.5 billion, sold for $10 mllion
The upside: purchased for @home stock, sold for cash
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Text messaging on phones. E-mail on phones. And now "video clips" on phones?
Do drivers really need another distraction on the road? I've lost count of how many idiots I've seen on our local freeways, phone seemingly surgically attached to their ear or hand, yakking away or trying to read an E-mail, utterly oblivious to the fact that they just cut off a busload of people moving near the speed limit.
I know that this stuff's going to happen no matter how I feel. The only thing I will say is pay attention to your LIFE and OTHERS on the road FIRST! Pull off if you need to fool with your phone, or get a good handsfree kit.
I feel sorry, though, for those who seem to fear the "Off" switch to the degree that they feel they can't live without getting everything on their portable phone...
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
This is GPRS/EDGE-network, delivered by Nokia, and only 3G in an american sense. Cingular is moving from old TDMA system to GSM-based technology simply because they want to enable GPRS/EDGE (packet data) services. In theory, this could be done with TDMA as well, but there is no hardware available from any vendors.
As for the bit rates, 470kbps is reachable...in a test lab. In GPRS, depending on the encoding (CS-1 to CS-4) you get 10 to 20kbps per timeslot. Note, that this is the rate on PHYSICAL layer. You lose a slice for all the overhead caused by the protocol stack, of course.
One TRX (tranmitter/receiver) means 8 timeslots on a 200 kHz band. The newest GPRS phones are "4+1"-devices, using 4 timeslots for downlink, 1 for uplink, with CS-2 encoding, yielding about 40 kbps bitrate - in optimal conditions. This means that there are no other users and you get those timeslots completely for your own use.
EDGE brings in a new modulation (8-PSK instead of GMSK), in which the bitrate is tripled (symbol rate/baud rate stays the same).
So, in optimal conditions, with CS-4 encoding and EDGE, you get about 80 kbps. This means that for 470kbps you need 6 timeslots. Right. That means almost one whole TRX for a single user.
Either Cingular invests a LOT of money (well, since they are switching their entire infrastructure to a new system, they are doing that already), and brings in one TRX/user, those rates are unreachable in any real world environment.
Of course, EDGE is not ready yet, and in GPRS only CS-1 and CS-2 encodings are implemented anywhere (CS-3 and CS-4 coming in on H1 of 2002), so the maximum bitrate at the moment is about 40kbps.
It would certainly be sweet though; with modern audio compression on a monaural audio track you could probably get near CD quality with just 32-48kbps. (well, at least as close as would matter with the kind of microphones and speakers you'd be using with a cell phone... probably 22khz with 16bit sampling would be good enough)
Unfortunately, most people are happy (and used to) shitty sound quality over the phone. They'll probably just compress the hell out of regular voice to save overall bandwidth (ie, why have everyone using the full pipe when you could have them using 12kbps, with packet-switched systems it really would make a difference)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Everyone knows the PCS is so much cooler than everyone else anyway.
Um, actually "PCS" is just a catch-all for digital celliphony (did I just make up a word?)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Just think of it...
Movies
Music
Games
News
Video Conferncing
It will be a added benefit to the United States (and Canada too since we're usually one day behind the United States, or sometimes even two weeks ahead, depending on what the situation is).
The only foreseeable problem here is that if those came into play, what about people who drive? It is bad enough people talk on the phone while driving, do we exactly need streaming video coming into our phones while we're driving?
Video on a cell phone obviously has great implications for the phone sex and porn industry in general.
I know this is not all that pc but this is a big industry it alone has the potential to turn around the economy! (j/k of course)
On the other hand it could ruin it... If it is true that all of those phone sex workers are really big fat women or hideous cross gender people.
Either way I am sure that this can be used for advertising in a positive way. Call your local movie theatre and see 'now showing' trailers, call a restaurant and see the seats you reserve, the specials... many other possibilities.
I would be happier if Cingular would work on getting their existing service to work reliably. I live 2 miles off of the interstate and I can't use my cell phone at home. Even the drive from home to work the phone is almost useless due to dropouts.
Long story short, I'm going to be switching carriers as soon as my contract has expired.
reminds me of that. Does this mean we will have to get cardboard mock-ups of ourselves to get our answering machine to be believable/fool somebody that you are sick/etc etc?
The operator is upgrading their GSM 1900 network with EDGE and GPRS technology. These will allow "3G services" on the network.
The quoted maximum bandwidth is the theorectical maximum (8 TDMA timeslots). In practise mobile terminals will probably support only about half of that (about 235 kbit/s) in ideal conditions. Most terminals will not even support that.
For example, none of the current GPRS phone supports maximum data transfer rates.
My nokia 8260 actually gets pretty hot after conversing for a while, hot enough that talking got a little uncomfortable :P
But when it was just sitting in my pocket, things were fine. I'd guess it won't be a problem while you're not actually *using* the services, and chips do get faster after a while so it'll probably only be a real problem for first-gen machines, if even that.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'd use this to stream random playlists of music from my home machine, and when I got sick of the selections I was listening to, I'd dial home and change it via the modem. My own personal radio station playing my songs on my request. Too bad it would probably cost a hell of a lot to pull off air time wise... but it sure would kick some ass!
Cingular is not rolling out 3G. It is GSM/EDGE, which is technically 2.5G. It is an interim GSM technology that offers two of the biggest advantages of 3G: always-on data connections, and higher speed data connections. However, unlike true 3G, it is not CDMA based and it won't be as fast as 3G is supposed to get.
;-)
Being GSM based is actually a good thing. It means it is compatible with all the GSM phones already available. It also means that Cingular will finally have single technology standard uniting their disparate nationwide network. It means that they can start rolling it out now, as 3G really doesn't work very well yet. It means that changing providers in the US may not always require buying a new phone. It also means that we will finally stop hearing about how the US wireless industry is far behind Europe.
Additionally, now that AT&T and Cingular are both rolling out GSM/EDGE networks in 2002, and Voicestream is set to expand their GSM coverage based on recent spectrum purchases, perhaps the US press will stop claiming that CDMA is the dominant wireless technology.
Reuters has a story about Cingular building a nationwide 3G network.
Is this Nationwide or Nationwide*? You see, Nextel and Sprint have both advertised nationwide all-digital networks for the last few years. Now, I live in State College, Pennsylvania. We're about 100,000 people in the middle of nowhere. Nextel just turned up their network about a month or two ago, and Sprint did so about four months ago. So, to me, these networks are not nationwide.
I hate these companies that come out and say they have nationwide converage but really only service certain major cities or a few metro areas. Let's just be honest and say that services will be deployed in these cities and the rest of the country can stick with AMPS or something slightly newer.
so that's where my $400 check that they never sent me is going towards
for those of you who don't know, cingular service isn't bad, cingular's billing department is the most incompetent on earth, i trust the IRS a hundred times more
If it were any company but Cingulair....
Bellsouth Cell service was actually good - good coverage, competitive pricing, 24/7 customer support. Then they became Cingulair - same coverage, much higher prices, very limited customer support.
Cingulair (at least in my area) seems to be the worst company right now - customer service is nearly non-existant, they're higher than the other providers but don't provide the same features/coverage and did I mention their Customer Service is really bad?
i've made about 20 posts in the last two hours... slow day at work... this is a short off-topic rant about the moderation scheme.
moderation total:
offtopic 1
funny 3
overrated 1
underrated 1
total score (3, offtopic)
i just don't get it, how is off-topic the relevant feature here?
not that i'm really complaining, I would have modded this post (-1, stupid/not funny). I'm just confused
lysergically yours
I was trapped in a yearly contract with both Sprint PCS and Cingular desperately contimplating paying the $150-200 "get-out-early" fees just to drop them ASAP. Both gave me very poor coverage (in the San Francisco, Bay Area) and would drop calls _all the time_ even when I wasn't moving! Cingular was the worst, though, because I couldn't even dream about making an outgoing phone call around 8-9pm every night because I would instead get "System Busy" instead of a completed call.
So these are the 2 wireless carries who are going to roll out 3G? No thank you. I have serious doubts that the rollout of 3G will be any better than the crap they are forcing people to deal with today.
BTW, I have AT&T now and am much happier. Much better coverage and I can make outgoing phone calls at night. Amazing.
it wouldn't even occur to me to put "watch video clips" on my list
"Video clips" is a marketdroid euphemism for "commericals". Cell phone providers love the fact that they will be able to send you targeted advertising, preferrably tied in with a GPS for on-the-spot targeting. Big Business doesn't create technology for the benefit of consumers, they create it as a way to deliver more advertising.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Um, no, I think you're math/logic is a bit off.
the 56K *IS* kilo-BITS-per sec. Which is only 7KBytes/sec
470kbps is a third of a T1 [1.44mbit] Or slightly faster than a standard ADSL line [most seem to be 384kbps]
Ender
Nothing to see here
Is that nationwide, as in everywhere in the country? Or is that nationwide, as in only in and around big cities/interstate highways?
The real question is, when are the japanese going to make a cell phone, with pig tail antenae in a hiked up plaid school girl mini skirt carrying case, that can give me a blow job?
Are you kidding or just confused?
In the cellphone context, "3G" refers to the next generation of wireless services. These will have faster data capabilities (>100 kbps). 3G licenses have been auctioned off in some European countries for ridiculous amounts of money, with nothing to show for it for a while and little hope of payback.
"3GIO" in the PCISIG sense refers to an interconnection technology on printed circuit boards. No radio, except maybe some unwanted emissions....
What the two have in common is an excessive use of the "3G" label, as in too many episodes of Star Trek.
Sprint PCS in every SPCS market I've ever had the misfortune of using a SPCS phone in can't even get 2G right.
-Nathan
Care about freedom?
Become a card carrying member of the GOA.
Just because another country is also using GSM does NOT mean you can make a phone call on your GSM phone from that country! Are there any GSM providers that serve every country?
The only advantage of every country using the same wireless protocol is economies of scale in manufacturing. And this is a trivial advantage at best. Has the exportation of cars from Japan to the U.S. been diminished at all by the fact that all Japanese cars are designed with the steering wheel on the right-hand side of the car? No, they just manufacture a slightly different version for the U.S.
Depends on which part of Cingular you're talking about. The Pac Bell part of Cingular has been GSM for a few years now. Some of the other parts of Cingular are TDMA, but they're migrating to GSM as well. Other than Cingular, Voicestream is GSM for most of the midwest and east coast, and AT&T is going to move fully to GSM within the next two years. I think that by 2010, the US will have moved mostly to GSM for new phones, and everyone will have a Tri-Mode phone such that they can roam anywhere in the world. Of course, that means the the other providers will have to move to GSM as well, but with Cingular and AT&T going that way, I think the entire market will head that way soon.
This is a good example of big corporations betting
;-) it's still not clear whether
on creating a new technology that will create a
demand for itself. When 2G was coming out, the
stench of money was not nearly as strong. And now
for 3G it's almost overwhelming. Everybody jumps
into the bandwagon thinking that if they didn't,
they'd be dead in the water.
At this point it's a good idea to reflect on the
lesson we should learn from the European 3G
spectrum auction 1-2 years ago. The first market
to be opened was sold for a ridiculous price,
and the later markets had to cancel the auctions
because hardly anybody was bidding anymore! It's
also interesting to note that people don't talk
about 3G anymore in conferences and symposiums,
they talk about 4G now. Maybe after all it's a
good idea to learn the lessons from 3G and move on
to the next thing.
Several readers have brought up a good point of
the uncertainty of market demand for 3G services.
While there are attractive applications (think
wireless porn
people would be willing to pay the price for the
services.
The last point to mention is the difference in
the "gadget model" between the Asian consumers
and American consumers. The Asian consumers warm
up more to small, specialized gadgets, which can
then be enriched with additional features. OTOH,
the American consumers tend to start from the most
powerful laptop they can lug on their SUVs and
try to add mobility to the features that they
already have. Perhaps after all 3G is the merging
point of the two approaches?
L'etat n'a pas besoin des savants.
- Robespierre, refusing clemency for Lavoisier
I would think that the /., Linux crowd would just love the fact that a major US provider is FINALLY GETTING WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD and adopting GSM. Cell service in this country is so screwed...with all the "standards" competing with one another and nothing getting done, all the while Europe and the rest of the world are cruising by us yanks in terms of digital celluar capabilies. I could care less about video over the phone, just let me be able to go digital anywhere and I'll be happy !
I heard that these speeds would only be seen within 1/2 to 1/4 mile from a tower and it would fall-off quickly beyond that. 3G sounds cool and promising BUT, can/when/will if ever happen?
no math involved though.
what I'm wondering is the amount of latency of packets travelling the wireless network.
things like re-transmission due to interference, extra error correction used to avoid problems across the wireless network, and of course encryption to make my little q3 packets all secure.
don't tell me you think I'm going to get a 22 ping from a 3G wireless device in Boston to a server sitting 1 hop off a T-3 in Syracuse...
WHY do you want a video cell phone? Not driving badly enough already? Would your life really be enriched by watching your buddy at the grocery store while you talk to him?
Carpe Deez
Are you kidding or just confused?
There's this little button next to 'reply' that reads 'parent'. If you click it, you'll see the post I was replying to. Well, if you're threshold is low enough.
For you're convenience, I've pasted that message here:
3G vs. 3GIO (Score:1)
by Fucky Badger on Monday December 03, @11:11AM (#2647983) (User #535691 Info)
I heard that the EM radiation from Intel's new 3GIO bus interferes with 3G wireless devices. Intel has therefore been blocking the introduction of 3G wireless in the US. Is there any truth to this rumour? thanks ok bye
Oh, and it is possible for a device to cause interference at the frequency it's running at, if the signals are strong enough, and the shielding isn't on. A PC without it's case on can actually be illegal for home use in the US, because it moves from a Class B computer to a Class A. But the whole point of my post was that it probably wouldn't cause any problems at all.
So a better question would be are you kidding or just confused?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I have 'us celular' And while my phone has the software to send emails, I can't do it because my provider dosn't suppor it. People can send mail to my phone though, or use a web based interface to send me text messages.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This still doesn't answer my question. I won a 1xRTT (Phase 1) phone (the Ericsson t60c). The TDMA alternative (the t60d) has been released, but the t60c isn't even on the "Coming Soon" page. I've read that 1xRTT may be delayed into mid next year.
1xRTT isn't even really 3G. It's closer 2.5G (I've seen people classify it as both), at rates of only 153kbps. Now hopefully someone will get off their lazy ass and finish the standard!
Santa, say it ain't so!
But beyond the name 3G and 3GIO both share the 2.5ghz number, so it's possible that someone, somewhere might have thought they interfered with each other.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
don't tell me you think I'm going to get a 22 ping from a 3G wireless device in Boston to a server sitting 1 hop off a T-3 in Syracuse...
:)
No, but wouldn't that be sweeet!
So are there any of our Japanese brethren out there that might already have 3G service? Maybe they can tell us about latency.
Ender
Nothing to see here
(pardon the pun)
...) on their existing CDMA networks. Hell, all the old phones should still work long into the future. And supposedly CDMA2000 is more efficient for both data and voice. Who cares if Qualcomm makes a few pennies every time a phone is sold. Not I. Which begs the question: if many North American carriers are upgrading their ENTIRE network anyway, why wouldn't they pick CDMA2000 in the first place?
1 .h tm
k. i worked on GPRS. in 1999. that's 2.5G people. OFFICIALLY.
i saw where things were going with EDGE. 2.75G. unofficially?
and we even held non-technical discussions regarding the REAL 3G solution, UMTS. At the time the RF layer wasn't decided... but it is now: WCDMA.
welcome to 2001. pretty much 2002 at that. 3G WCDMA was released months ago in Japan. The question is, why even bother with less than 3G stuff at all in North America? When I posed this question to my colleagues back in 1999, they described how things would gradually evolve: GSM-GPRS-EDGE-UMTS. Ok, that's fine for the rest of the world where GSM is de facto. But why-o-why on earth would any provider in North America (save Fido in Canada) invest less than 3G?? SGSN and GGSN's (search google) are at least going to need s/w upgrades when the switch to 3G is eventually made (a pain!), and the entire GSM RF basestations will have to be replaced with WCDMA. I don't think Japan is technically above the 1mbit 3G barrier (outside of the labs), but at least they have the routing and RF subsystem that's intended to be evolved to.
Sounds to me like these carriers like AT&T and Cingulair going to GSM based networks are going to get burned hardcore in the long run. Rogers AT&T Canada is promising to support both their TDMA and GSM networks in the foreseeable future. How about when they go to WCDMA?
Also sounds to me like CDMA-2000 (sigh yes, the competing 3G standard) is far better positioned with much simpler and cheaper upgrades like 1xRTT (2x, 3x
this article may clear things up for those in doubt:
http://www.outlook4mobility.com/asabc/Oct_2_200
please.... rip my post to shreds.... knowledge..... i crave knowledge....
Technologically speaking, all three of the competing cellular "standards" (CDMA, TDMA and GSM) will converge on CDMA as they move to 3G -- but they'll do it in different and incompatible ways. This is mainly because the different standards favor different companies (GSM favors the European companies -- Ericsson and Nokia -- while CDMA favors U.S.-based Qualcomm and Lucent), each of whom has a greater interest in extending its dominance of a technology than in converging to a single standard.
CDMA-based networks will also (probably) get some first-to-market advantages with high-speed data... but since no one's figured out what cellular high-speed data is good for yet, there may not be much of an advantage here. Interactive video is an idea whose time never came -- the technology has been available since the 1970s, but consumer demand has been steady at zero. Portable web surfing doesn't look like a killer app either, and the telcos haven't found a pricing model for wireless data that matches what consumers are willing to pay for it.
Defund the FCC as the restrictive luddites they are, and let people enforce traditional right-of-ways the way it's been done for milenia.
"We've been using 88.5GHrz for 3 years, and they stepped on it."
Jury: Yep, case to the defendent.
"Their transmitter has been out of adjustment as much as 3% this year, trashing the other transmitters in the area."
Jury: Yep, case to the plaintiff.
Get the idea? The FCC is a socialist New Deal dinosaur that should be put out of our misery.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics