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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!
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.
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.
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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.
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
Well, I think you probably know the whole reason that wireless providers in America are doing this: $$$
In Asia, wireless devices are utterly *booming*. They're functional, stylish, and most importantly, useful. Companies over here see how much our youth and tech-savvy individuals respect and revere the wowing technology and products they have over there, and figure that they can give us some knock-off crap and we won't know the difference. The problem comes from the fact that Asians have long had exposure developing and using handheld devices like what are sold overseas. Here, with the solid exceptions of the Psion/Palm/Newton devices, nobody likes handhelds. Take a look at how many people like those little Casio organizers - They're cheap $30 plastic devices that break in no time. They reek of feature creep, and their PC connectivity it pathetic - Output to a CSV file? You're kidding, right? Marketers just don't have a clue about the American audience of personal/home technology buyers compared with the eastern markets.
Unfortunately for them, we're a lot smarter than they think we are, so we won't fall for it. Unfortunately for us, though, the odds are reasonably good that it'll get crammed down our throats whether we like it or not (Anyone try to get service for a Motorola Lifestyle analog cellphone these days?). At the end of our contracts, they'll transition us all to the stupid new phones they'll make, and they'll declare 3G a success because millions of people use it, regardless of the fact that they were forced into it.
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Surely you don't think that video over a mobile phone is being pushed merely to watch movies.
Please!!
The reason for video over a phone is simply to improve communication (oh and of course to show you advertisements so the companies can make more money
I work for a broadband provider and one of the big products being developed is video conferencing over an IP/VPN. People want to see the people they are talking to. It's the next logical step after standard voice communications.
Check out this article at USAToday. See the small picture. There is a small video camera in the hinge of the phone. This is what video phones will/should be used for. Not movies.
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
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.