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Verizon High Speed Wireless
TheSync writes: "Wired News has an article about Verizon's surprise announcement of "Express Network," a wireless data service with a speed of 144 kbps. Handsets to support the service could be sold as early as next week, and Emblaze Systems is already testing wireless video on Verizon's Philadelphia network." I'm sure it will work just as well as Verizon's cell service does now.
Yes! And its uptime will be even better than its DSL, all the way up to 60%! And it'll have more features, like maybe even static IP built in!
Everything is mainstream now.
I stay away from Verizon no matter what?
Truly a company that doesn't care about customer service.
So it won't work? Damn Verizon and their vaporware! At least they figured out how to screw people out of real money with it.
Is security so important to you? What are you going to send at 144kbps that you care about? Without security, you won't search google and the like?
maybe, they should stop calling themselves Wired.
Oh come on, with their excellent reputation for high quality, and showing that they care about the customer - who wouldn't be first in line to get their services? Oh wait, M$ fits this description better than verizon. Nevermind.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
"I'm sure it will work just as well as Verizon's cell service does now."
Why is it that companies insist on rolling out new "services" when they never got their old services working correctly. Cox.net is doing this now by telling us all that we are going to go really fast real soon, ignorring the fact that most people can barely get online and hold times for customer service are almost 2 hours.
The reason is pure greed. To make their existing products work they would have to spend money on infrastructure and upgrades. A new service is mostly marketting and great launch parties. New serices make a CEO look good to the stock holder while hiding the fact that their network is held together by Duct tape and sneaker nets. I say boycott this crap, I have told a cox rep at my work to his face that I did not feel good about installing a T3 from them because my home service was so bogged down, telling me their network sucks.
It's time we let corporations know that we want the old stuff to work correctly before we will buy their new crap. Send a message that poor service and flawed products are not the way to win us over.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
My flatmate owns a laptop with some 802.11 (?) technology in it with which he can connect wirelessly on the University of Twente Campus (CS building)... he can get 500KB per second and the idea is that this kind of access will become available throughout the whole campus...
I then wonder, why is it so amazing that someone invents a 144 kbps connection when we already have the technology to go 500KB per second... the card my flatmate uses is a typical small network connection card and I can't imagine that it is too big to fit into a mobile phone???
"We live in our minds, and existance is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality" Ayn Rand
"I'm sure it will work just as well as Verizon's cell service does now."
I don't know where you live, but here in NYC Verizon is the best cell carrier out of the bunch. Only time I've ever had a busy signal was on Sept 11th, and I get a signal almost everywhere I go. Unlike ATT, Sprint and Nextel around here.
Verizon's introduction definitely will prop up the economy, I feel and with 3G Wireless in the roads for a long time, itis time we introduce some products and become guinea pigs of the new gadgets and use them and improve them. Its highly unrealistic to have high expectations of a very new technology when things will take tens of years to mature. Take the case of the old telephone. We have telephones for past 125 years and we still introduce new features to them. So the case of the point is there will be bugs and yes there will be flames, but we have to adopt and try out new stuffs fast. I think it will be well received ...
-Go FreeBSD!
144 kbps isn't that fast, and the service prices would probably be through the roof. If you want wireless in your home you can just buy a wireless router and hook it up to your dsl line. The speed doesn't make it a replacement for dsl, and unless you could somehow replace your cellphone with your computer and some phone software this looks to be pretty expensive each month? On a side note, verizon's dsl for the Philly area was _DOWN_ last weekend! But other than that i would have to call the reliability excellent. We have prob .5 days /month with problems.
1X is the term that Verizon Wireless has been calling this service for the last few months (hmmm no g's????) February 1st is when it will be rolled out to the Washington Metro Area, with first sales being PCMCIA cards. This service is being promoted locally as having a 70kbps average connection. It should definitely help all the truely mobile users getting CDMA speeds of 14.4 to 19.2 kbps!!!
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. RUSH
Right, the most important thing we can bring to a portable wireless device is video. That way, you won't just have to be distracted by talking on your phone while driving, you can be watching it instead of the road.
Do you ever get the feeling that many companies aren't really thinking about whether something is a good idea before they release it? Something tells me that marketing was behind this bold corporate strategy.
Some men spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves for having been born. --Ross MacDonald
Aaack.... Cell phone service sucks enough as it is, I don't want any more bandwidth taken from my cell phone. I went thru like 3 different carriers and they all suck. Verizon sucks the worst, because they lost my payment, then I brought a receipt, and they took it for "Research"... Then they claimed I never gave them a receipt. It took a call to BBB and State Attorney General to get them to "find" my payment. Granted, they were Air Touch at the time, but I've stayed away from them ever since... One time with a friend, their so called "reliable" service wouldn't connect my 911 call during when my friend needed help. I tried about ten times, but none of them would go through. And I was in the middle of suburbia, where I normally have excellent coverage. I had to go pounding on doors to dial 911. One guy's wife was on the phone, so we used his cell phone, and it crapped out too... It took me like 5+ minutes just to get a 911 call to go through, which was eventually by a land-line...
I say no-thanks to Verizon Wireless Internet...
Sprint PCS dies as soon as I loose site of downtown, Alltel can't find their own butt with both hands let alone bill me correctly , and I have no experience with Nextel.
Verizon on the other hand, works fine all over the metro and keeps on ticking in weird places like Quick, Iowa (population 4).
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
What VeriZontal Wireless is introducing is the so-called "1XRTT" form of CDMA2000, which is one of the flavors of "third generation" (3G) cellular telephony. While there has been a lot of noise about 3G around the world, and European carriers have shelled out tens of billions of licenses (dotcom-style investment) for new 3G spectrum (putting them deeply into debt), VeriZontal Wireless and Sprint PCS are instead taking the "just do it" approach.
There are two distinct technical flavors (air interfaces) to 3G, both based on CDMA. The GSM (most of world) and IS-136-TDMA (Cingular, ATT-W) carriers, with existing TDMA networks, are migrating to WCDMA. The CDMA carriers (Sprint, VZW, Korea) are migrating to CDMA2000. (Qualcomm favors CDMA2000, but makes patent royalties off of both. They really did invent it.) The CDMA2000 spec in turn has multiple variants. The "1XRTT" flavor is simply a software change to the way existing CDMAone carriers are allocated among calls. The peak speed is only 144 kbps (ten times what CDMA one gives you) but there's no forklift upgrade, and no new spectrum needed. Of course it needs new handsets to make use of the new features, but the base stations are backwards compatible. Very graceful, 3G on the cheap.
So VZW and Sprint are both rolling out 1XRTT this year. VZW announced faster, but they're both gated, in practice, by the availability of handsets and similar remote devices from the (mostly Korean) makers. The CDMA and GSM carriers are instead phasing in a "2 1/2G" technology, EDGE, as a sort of bridge to WCDMA. They'll need separate networks, or a forklift upgrade, to do 3G. Since WCDMA doesn't share spectrum with TDMA, they can't do the easy phase-in that CDMA gives you.
But don't think of 3G as a substitute for fast wireline. A 144 kbps call basically eats ten voice calls' worth of network bandwidth. So it will be expensive! Packetized data, by the byte, will be cheaper, but really aimed more at low-bandwidth things like email than high-bandwidth things like music or ordinary web browsing. (Look up EDGE pricing on the GSM networks to get an idea; it's in dollars/MB). This is a premium service for users who need it.
I live in Chicago and I used to live at the far end of the Verizon Digital network just south of Chicago. Verizon is by far one of the best carriers around. Last year in the city the coverage was kinda week but I had an old phoone. I now managed to loose the old phone and get a new that seems to work perfectly. I get the best reception of anyojne I know.
I think this program would be great. Currently this is no real way of providing "regular" interent access such as web browsing. This service would seem to provide decent dl rates for those who don't find 14.4 kbs acceptable.
I would also think that this would work rather well with the Kyocera/Palm phones Verizon offers here. I am not aware if these phones have interent access presently, I would assume not being they are b&w. I would think Phone/palm combinations in color would be a huge hit with there ability to be a palm phone and web browser. I would also think that anything over 100kb/s would also suit most people needs. That seems to be a decent web browsing speed as long as you don't feel the need to try and run a direct connect hub from your palm.
Whose idea was it to put Windows servers on the net in the first place, anyway?
I understand that 1xRTT rollouts will be
followed shortly by IS-856 rollouts, which
is a pure packet-data variant of 1xRTT.
Apparantly, this provides a 2.4Mbps shared
pipe downstream, 153Kbps/subscriber upstream
(peak). This makes it simply the fastest cellular
data system available, and rollouts are expected
early next year. This is also technology invented
by Qualcomm.
Hari.
I have to (ulp) defend Verizon just a bit. I'm in Boston, MA USA and I have to say that Verizon's network is far and away the best of the players in the area for cell coverage, esp. digital. While it's true their phones are usually 1-2 generations back, and they'e not as cheap as other providers, I kept their service for my work phone after comparing it to (as in using for a month) Voicestream (GSM), Sprint PCS, AT&T (miserable), Cingular and Nextel. I've never had a problem with their cell customer support, either. And no, I don't work for them.
A hero is someone who knows when to run away. I am a hero. -Trent the Uncatchable
I'm guessing michael's line was a dig at Verizon Wireless's service quality. Verizon Wireless is the best provider in the NY Metro area. Nobody else even comes close. Maybe it sucks where michael lives, but in New York and Long Island, it is excellent.
I'm sure it will work just as well as Verizon's cell service does now.
Yeah, and when you combine that with the high reliability of their DSL offerings, how can the customer lose?
--saint
I'd happily pay $20/month for this service, if it worked reliably and had no usage restrictions. Maybe even $30-40, if it worked really reliably (enough that I could throw out my cell phone and just use voice over IP to my home telephone).
Somehow I'm guessing there will be usage charges or $80+/month fees. I can already get unlimited 14.4 for $60/month through nextel's unlimited incoming call plan.
You're right about alltel but I've had good luck with Sprint. I live and work in Papillion and have never had a problem. Before we bought our house we had looked at some homes in very small towns like Murdoch NE (pop 7), and I was able to get a signal there.
What I don't get is why this article keeps harping on phones. Who needs 144kbps to your phone? Streaming video? Who is going to watch video on their phone? You can't browser. E-mail is possible, but not all that interesting.
Show me a PCMCIA adapter for my laptop, and then I get interested. Even a pocket PC might semi-interesting (although browsing would still suck, I'd imagine).
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
How well could you know their service if you only use 100 minutes a year?
Is the oxymoron "Verizon + Highspeed" or "Highspeed + Wireless" ?
I have Verizon (formerly AirTouch) wireless and its generally really good coverage, and digital messaging generally works wherever I am so long as there is digital coverage.
Does Verizon have a rep for bad coverage? I know they're running these really obnoxious TV spots with the geek in the wilderness.
I'm was an Airtouch customer, and Airtouch was spun off from US West and was the original 800 Mhz wireline carrier where I live, which may account for the quality of signal (loads of towers, existing infrastructure).
Are they bad in areas where they have expanded into and didn't have a good existing tower base or relied on roaming agreements?
Verizon is a evil no good monopoly, but so is every other telco. You have to spend two hours on the phone with these people for them to help you. It took 4 months for them to get my DSL to acctually work right! Verizon is expensive, but so is every american telco. 49.99 a month for a DSL line, that is down almost every weekend is just ridiculous (i rarely get more then 250 kbps down) Why are they releasing this wireless service when they haven't gotten DSL right yet? After 9/11 it took well over 2 week for their wireless or even basic service to get back up completely (I still work 5 blocks from the trade centers) I hate Verizon, any moron could run a business better, but since they are a monopoly they really dont have to try!
Their cell service in the Seattle area is excellent. Except of course my house which, although 1.2 km from a cell tower, happens to be about 10 m on the lee side of a hill from it. If 1/2 calls out of my house lasts more than a minute, it's a rare thing.
But, 100 metres down the road, the service is superb. Clear as a bell.
And their customer service has been good. They actually appear interested in the rapid drop in coverage near my house. Hopefully they'll send that twit from their commercial out here to fix it. Or at least add another tower on my side of the hill.
How about two?
Merlin C201
AirCard 550/555
Talk about it here
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
I work for Lucent and have been deploying this technology for companies such as Verizon and Sprint for the last few months. The technology Verizon is announcing is known as 3G-1XRTT. There is another 3G technology, 3G-1XEV-DO, which will be available soon. 3G-1XRTT supports speeds up to 144kbps. 3G-1XEV increases this to 2.4gig. The way that 1XRTT actually works is that each user gets one 9.6kbps channel when they connect. Then, when the user is transfering data, the cell site or the handset can request to "burst." The speed at which you burst depends on how much data you're transferring and how many resources are available on the cell. This burst speed can be any multiple of 9.6 up to 144kbps. Bursts only last for a few seconds (typically 5 or less). After that the cell/handset have to negotiate another burst. This is because as you might imagine, this can use a lot of resources on the cell/switch. For this reason, if you are not transfering any data for a few seconds, your call will go into a dormancy state. This means that all of the resources on the cell are released and your airlink is dropped. However, the call is still registered on the switch. So, when you go to transfer more data, the call comes back up and you don't have to be authenticated again or reregistered on the switch. It's a very cool system that can use a lot of resources but only when it really needs them.
I'm sure you're all wondering what kind of throughput you can really expect to see from this. In my tests I typically see rates of about 11-12KBps. You may not see speeds quite that good in an area where a lot of people are using wireless services but I'd expect most people to see speeds about that fast. It's not as fast as cable or DSL but it's at least twice the speed of a 56K dailup - pretty darn fast for a wireless phone.
I speak for myself and not for Lucent.
Right now the typical voice cell user is paying $30 / month for a 200 minutes of prime time usage. At around 10,000 bits / second, thats 120 mb of data capacity in the form of voice bits. In another words, 4 megabytes of data on a good plan costs $1! This yields marginal profits on the oligopolies' multi-billion networks and spectrum. That's good pricing--many plans are far more expensive. Other ways to say this is that an MP3 is about a $1 of bandwidth and a 56k bps download (let say actually at 50kbps in actuality) uses $10 worth of bandwith per minute. Therefore, you don't need faster, you need a cheaper network. At least, you want your cell phone to use 802.11b when in range!
Actually I don't think most GSM carriers are implementing EDGE but instead GPRS and will upgrade to EDGE later. GPRS maxes out at about 171kbps ( compared to 307 kbps with 1xrtt) with all 8 channels of a base station devoted to a single call. To upgrade to EDGE and thus to 384 kbps they will have to go through further backbone modifications and still not be at 3G.
They will then have to do more major backbone modifcations to get 2mbps speeds when they move to CDMA-DS. I am baffled why certain TDMA carriers are investing millions in changing over to GSM only to have to eventually change over to CDMA in the future. Unless they are betting on further enhancement to the GSM standard to make such changes pointless.
This should be good. 'course, what I'm wondering is, how people would rather have that 144kb/s wireless to their house (through FWLL or something), rather than to their phones. AT&T Wireless killed a project to do just that. And, not to parrot the rest of the crowds, but Verizon and Verizon Wireless are two separate companies with two separate tech. support crowds, customer service, P&L, etc. So before you start the 'Verizon is the devil' speech, VW's service kicks ass.
I carry a nextel, an AT&T and a verizon phone (two work, one personal). The Verizon phone *always* works, even in some backwoods locations. AT&T is really sketchy even in heavily populated areas. Nextel is marginally better, but has a fair number of dead spots.
For the record, I live just outside of Morristown NJ. Good luck trying to use anything other than a Verizon phone inside a building in Madison, NJ!
Microcell launched their GPRS service last year in Canada...first with a GPRS PCcard and then late last year with two Motorola GPRS handsets. So Verizon's achievement isn't all that stella...
Secondly, this isn't true 3G! It's 2.5G by the very nature that it's merely access to multiple channels for data transfer -- no other 3G call features or technology.