Verizon Launches 3G Network (Silently)

Cesaro writes: "According to this CNN article here it looks like Verizon has beaten all others to the punch on launching the first 3g wireless network in the US. I was at a loss to find any good information on this at Verizon's website. One would think they would want to publicize these items."

Comments

3g stuff

[freddej]

In sweden there are plenty of probz with the 3g syst, licenses been debated all the time. But when its up, give me a new ph0ne

Great!

[IIOIOOIOO]

Now I can ciew postage-stamp sized video clips while I browse the postage-stamp sized web!

Re:Great!

[nice]

More like full-sized videos on a postage-stamp size screen. I mean, it is high-speed right? :)

Re:Great!

[jsprat]

Yeah, and the guy driving down the highway in the lane next to yours can be talking to his girlfriend _AND_ looking at pr0n!

Think he'll have a hand left to drive??

Technology isn't always a good thing...

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy. Just combine both actions; Have him look at pr0n of his girlfriend!!! It has to apply to some people out there. Think about it...

Re:Great!

[Tassach]

Technology isn't always a good thing...

Don't blame technology -- the problem is good old-fashioned human stupidity. Inanimate objects do nothing by themselves, but in the hands of an idiot they can be dangerous. High-tech gadgets just give idiots more ways to inflict their stupidity on others.

Not for Phones Yet

[MrEnigma]

Unfortunately it's just for a headset that attaches to your computer, or a card for your laptop. Which both are good, but for an extra 30 bucks, too bad you can't get a phone that you can use and a link to whatever. Now if you could use both devices at one time, that would rock, and be a cheap wireless internet provider.

Re:Not for Phones Yet

[TheGeneration]

Speaking of Cheap providers... does anybody know of any that don't use a phone land line? I've thought about using my cell phone but I don't get the best reception in my home office area.

Pacbell has REALLY been pissing me off lately. I no longer wish to deal with their "we're a monopoly so we can treat you as badly as your dollar will pay for," attitude problem.

Please hurry. I really want to watch the Kylie Provacatuer Lingerie ad again!! hehe.

I know this is wireless but....

[WndrBr3d]

Lets hope it doesn't go the way of Sprint Ion.

Launching a First Generation Technology in a radically new market is hard for any company. Lets see if it actually catches on.

Re:I know this is wireless but....

[BenTheDewpendent]

its 3rd generation for one. and been done in other countrys. it wont go the way of sprint ion because verison is already steadfast in the wireless market and this is just more for the wireless market. whereas sprint took a gamble at fixed wireless internet something very diffrent than mobile highspeed internet and cool phones.

Silent is better?

[TommyBear]

Maybe publicity is the last thing they want. 3G has been labeled vaporware many times over, this could hurt them is they don't get it right.

Poll Results:

[ekrout]

Poll Results:

How ready are you to utilize a "3G" service like Verizon's new Express Network?

The majority (32% of those who voted) said "Maybe never -- I don't plan to need that much wireless speed."

I find this quite interesting.

Re:Poll Results:

[rjamestaylor]

The majority (32% of those who voted) said "Maybe never -- I don't plan to need that much wireless speed."

This number is mirrored by those saying "gimme now", which is interesting by itself and in view of the number you cited.

I bet those who say "never" had never used Ricochet.

My client is desparate for 3g. He (she? they? it?) saw Ricochet right before it cratered and is constantly asking "When can we go 3g?" or "When will Ricochet be back up?"

Re:Poll Results:

[Bob Abooey]

Right.

Those are the same people who thought they would never fill their 340 meg hard drive. It's just a bit ahead of the curve right now.

Re:Poll Results:

[Anonymous Coward]

That happened a long time ago, buddy (aka 4 years ago when I was 17). Not all of us are pathetic losers like yourself.

Re:Poll Results:

[Anonymous Coward]

They are also people like me who find the idea of yet another beeping, flashing, spam-spewing gizmo that allows assholes to interupt us repulsive.

I have a big ass bag phone in the car for emergencies only. I don't accept calls on it.

I'll carry a cell phone or any other "wearable" computing device when it is forcibly implanted in my cold, dead corpse.

A computer is a willing slave that lives on my desktop, does EXACTLY what I tell it to and never nags.

Re:Poll Results:

[Bob Abooey]

Right.

I have a big screen analog cell phone that I leave in the car too. But that's not the point. 3G doesn't affect the "phone" portion (ie., voice functions) as much as it does the "data" portion. We haven't seen the power of data on a wireless device (be it a cell phone or a PDA or a combination of the two) because the technology still sucks. When the technology stops sucking things will change. I think it would be great to have a little wireless phone/pda that I can suck data on demand into from a nice fat pipe. It will open up a lot of new innovations much like when the Internet took off and started to become used by average everyday Joes.

People think they won't want this stuff because they see the horrible WAP crap or the "wireless Internet" as it is today. The problem is that it really really sucks today, but it won't always be that way in the future.

Re:Poll Results:

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get me wrong, a big fat pipe is a good thing.

I just object to annoying gadgets I have to lug around. I won't even wear a watch, much less a beeper, a cell phone, PDA or some Frankensteinian combination of all three.

I like technology with an "off" button.

Re:Poll Results:

[Winglessbalrog]

"Ford flipped on the switch which he saw was marked "Mode Execute Ready" instead of the now old-fashioned "Access Standby" that had so long ago replaced the appallingly stone-aged "Off"." (So Long and Thanks for all the Fish)

Re:Poll Results:

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be ignorant, thats what people said about wired broadband. If they time it right and make it availabe to the right people then it will work.

Useless...

[L-Wave]

This might be a rant or something, but is this technology really needed? I can understand if one had a web tablet or something like that, but do you _really_ need streaming video on your cell phone? I can't imagine myself being on the run and having to watch the latest jenna jameson video or some such nonsense.

Re:Useless...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't imagine myself being on the run and having to watch the latest jenna jameson video...

You're watching it right now, aren't you?!



... where can I find it? :)

Re:Useless...

[jguevin]

I couldn't think of any use I'd have for 3G until you wrote that. Thanks!

Re:Useless...

[spellcheckur]

More important than connecting that much bandwidth to your phone is sharing it among many devices.

The problem most people haven't realized yet (and the press coverage doesn't seem to understand) is that the existing wireless bandwith is getting eaten up, not because individuals are using more and more of it, but because more and more individuals are using it.

Have you noticed an increase in "all circuits are busy" or "unable to connect" messages, even when you're getting perfectly good signal? I know I have. As more people get phones/PDAs/computers connected to the wireless networks, it's only getting worse.

Yes, 3G provides a fat pipe to your phone, but a more important aspect is that it's just plain capable of sharing a fatter pipe among all the phones.

Puff, puff, give. We're pushing the limits of what the existing networks can handle; 3G *should* give us enough capability so that we dont f*** up the rotation.

Re:Useless...

[nomadic]

Wait until we have portable videophones, where the person shows up in the monitor real-time.

Yeah, I know that this is slashdot, and I'm supposed to be all cynical about technology that doesn't have any real use, but that's going to be so freaking cool.

Re:Useless...

[hebertpa]

I can't imagine myself being on the run and having to watch the latest jenna jameson video or some such nonsense

obviosly you don't have much of an Imagination. this will be the scurge of all buisness men first they gave you a beeper a way to tie you down then the cell phone now they can talk to you when ever now you can work where ever you are....
... "I know that your at the mall shoping for chrismass but can you look at my file"

Re:Useless...

[Rusty Foster]

Once the cost of sending and receiving video is reasonable, it will be useful, any time the question of "well, what does it LOOK like?" arises, i.e.:

"Honey, did you want _this_ one?"

"How do I get there from here? I'm in a strange part of town, and I don't know where I am."

"When your system locked up, did you get a screen like (picture) this, or (picture) this?"

Re:Useless...

[bergeron76]

I want it for my car. I have a computer in it with a 6.4" LCD. This would be perfect to give me that "hood-mounted webcam" that I've always wanted. If you haven't seen it, it's at dashpc.com.

Re:Useless...

[L-Wave]

The slashdot community is cynical about "useless" technology? I don't think so ;) I have not found so many people as slashdot that want head mounted displays/wearable-computers/computer implants/beowolf clusters of dreamcasts and or ps2's hehe =)

Re:Useless...

[Fishstick]

I thought the basic benefit was going to a IP transmission method for voice? The video is a 'gee-whiz' consumer gadget aspect, but evolving the network from analog (1st gen) to digital (2g cdma/tdma/gsm) to now a 3rd generation IP network was the real appeal.

Granted, the underlying transport is/should be transparent to the user. Moving the wireless networks further away from circuit-switched technologies should be the real attraction, not postage-stamp-sized videos of HBO previews, right?

Re:Useless...

[TheGeneration]

Oh bro... Screw Jenna Jameson! It's all about watching Kylie Mingogue on your cell phone! Kylie is hotter than Jameson ANYDAY. And she's thin enough that pixalization won't occur.

Re:Useless...

[nomadic]

Sure, if you have to put it together yourself or buy it from some shady distributor on the Pacific Rim, or it's easily hackable. But retail-market consumer electronics that aren't meant to be taken apart often get blasted here...

Re:Useless...

[Anonymous Coward]

There should be a ban on "Who needs this?" type posts to technology posts. Seriously, I am really tired of blathering nonsense "Who needs that much RAM!?" "Who needs that fast of a processor!?" "Who needs that fast of a connection!?" type posts. They're retarded. Really. Anyone can pooh pooh something so save yourself the breath wankers.

Re:Useless...

[Anonymous Coward]

lcd in the car, huh? where do you live, so i can plan to never drive on the same streets as you.

Re:Useless...

[thumper]

IBM never expected that anyone besides large businesses would need computers.

Have you ever paid $1.00/minute to connect to the Internet from a hotel room, only to achieve 19000 bps? Have you ever ever been at a client and needed fast access without an open analog connection? Have you ever been in an airport an needed to get a file to a colleague urgently? Or wanted to ditch your laptop for a weekend and still have easy access to email?

Easy reasons to believe these services will become wildly popular.

Re:Useless...

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously doubt she's a porn star.

Cell phones are replacing normal phones so..

[Frank of Earth]

You know the trend on how people are starting to use their cell phones as their only phone. I wonder if one day, we will be using our cell phone as a replacement for our broadband at home...

repeat

[brucehappy]

here

Re:repeat

[Anonymous Coward]

So...

/. repeating a story is bad, but pointing it out and posting a link to the previous story is +3, informative!!??

I'm actually more willing to forgive slash for repeating stories (which I missed earlier, I guess) than to put up with losers karma-whoring 'slash repeated this!' posts. Yeesh.

Re:repeat

[brucehappy]

perhaps there are some very incisive and informational posts in the previous story that you would like to read....you know, ones not like yours?

:)

ps. i'm just taunting for the fun of it.

Re:repeat

[Anonymous Coward]

to me it has nothing to do with karma whoring.

to me it points out how sad it is when a group of what.. 6 people can CONSTANTLY post the same stories to their OWN website and do NOTHING to prevent it from happening. it makes me think a few things.

1. the people who run the site dont even read it

2. they dont care enough about the site to add a basic feature which would help to prevent duplicates

3. they're not putting much of their time into the site anymore

think think think

[tomzyk]

Perhaps they don't thing that thair advertizors can spell well enuff so they R still lookin for new wonz.

This is NOT a 3G network.

[carlhirsch]

Calling this network "3G" is pure marketroid hype.

Verizon is claiming they'll offer up to 144kbps throughput, which will work out to provide real-world speeds of 20-30k.

Here's a <A href=http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2002/01/28/rtr 494921.html>Reuters</A> article breaking it down.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is awfully presumptuous to brand it as such, when you haven't even seen the technology in use.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are actually incorrect. Although speeds will usually be around 70kbps (not sure where you pulled 20-30 from), by definition 3G requires 144kbps theoretical TOP SPEED, *not* sustained speed.

So technically, this is a legitimate 3G network if Verizon can show 144kbps burst speed.

-Dogpoop in the dishwasher.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[dogpoop]

*FORGOT TO LOGIN SORRY* the post with the text below is me, dog poop. Forgot to login and dont want the 0 when I can have the 1 :) You are actually incorrect. Although speeds will usually be around 70kbps (not sure where you pulled 20-30 from), by definition 3G requires 144kbps theoretical TOP SPEED, *not* sustained speed. So technically, this is a legitimate 3G network if Verizon can show 144kbps burst speed. -Dogpoop in the dishwasher.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[rbrome]

It is not pure hype. It is technically a 3G standard, but just barely. Verizon readily admits that 144k is a peak "burst" speed, and they are quick to point out that users should expect 40-60k average (not 20-30k - that's more like GPRS). Sprint claims their tests with the same technology average 60-70k.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[Zigurd]

It sounds like it is 1xRTT, which roughly corresponds to GPRS on a GSM network. Neither are generally accepted as being "3G." Many people call this kind of service "2.5G."

The main improvement over current cellular data services is that everyone in a cell shares a slice of bandwidth used for data. Since most data is bursty, this is much more efficient. It should feel, most of the time, like sharing an ISDN line. Of course, you don't control who you share with, so it will be intersting to see how good it is in the real world.

There are lots of ways to screw it up by not having enough bandwidth, to using too little bandwidth for data, to not controlling the number of users that can use data in a cell, etc. But if it is done right, the user expereince should be pretty good.

Real 3G uses two systems: An evolution of the CDMA system VZ and Sprint use called CDMA2000 (I bet they wish they didn't commit to that 2000!) and WCDMA/UMTS which vies with G.SHDSL for Worst. Acronym. Ever. These systems will do about the same thing: share data bandwidth among users in a cell. But they will enable up to a couple megabits shared capacity per cell.

The main advantage of data on cellular is that digital cellular is data ready now. You just have to get the phones to share access to the channels used for data, and built a moderate sized data network behind your radio network, and you have pervasive mobile data coverage. This is a huge advantage over systems like Ricochet, which had to build out networks just for data. By borrowing cellular bandwidth and piggybacking on the same digital radios in the cell sites and handsets, the amount of new stuff that has to be bought before we get really widespread coverage is vastly reduced.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your annon post got modded up .. Now your real post will get modded down as redundant. That's funny.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[GreyPoopon]

Verizon is claiming they'll offer up to 144kbps throughput, which will work out to provide real-world speeds of 20-30k

That should make it pretty useable on a PDA. Maybe not for streaming video, but at least browsing would be pretty decent. I'm comparing this, of course, to the results I've seen with CDPD (rated at 19.2Kbps, in practice only about 8 Kbps).

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[toby360]

The FCC has this posted on their site describing the 3G bandwidth Standards. Wireless 3G when implemented according to these fcc standards should allow for the following bitrates:

Capability to support circuit and packet data at high bit rates:
144 kilobits/second or higher in high mobility (vehicular) traffic
384 kilobits/second for pedestrian traffic
2 Megabits/second or higher for indoor traffic

I'm not too sure how you pulled out a real world speed of 20-30k. According to the FCC standards this "IS" considered a 3G network for High mobility Vehicular traffic, but is not the full 3G deal, as it does not support the other bitrates or the full functionality of a complete 3G Network. The system when fully implemented will allow for much higher than 20-30k and will vary depending on the location you're in. 3G isn't all marketing hype, it's a very large step ahead of our current network (when fully implemented of course). Unfortunatly we won't see the full benefits of the system for a while, until the products using 3G become more available, and companies such as Verizon implement more aspects of the 3G standard.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[Anonymous Coward]

You shouldnt classify generations of mobile communications by their speed. You should classify them by the significance of the technology step behind them. As 1st (analogue) moved to 2nd (digital) to 3rd (Wideband packet based). 3G networks are required to accomodate a greater number of users, not just to offer higher speeds.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[gus2000]

You are exactly right, but I agree with the parent post that to come out and call this service "3G" is misleading since it only implements part of the standard. Really it is much closer to what the rest of the world is calling 2.5G. Journalists and marketing departments should refer to it as such, otherwise there will be serious confusion when a real 3G solution is offered.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[Evil MarNuke]

With 120k at the house and 20k in my pocket, it's going to be one sweet world.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[weave]

The main improvement over current cellular data services is that everyone in a cell shares a slice of bandwidth used for data. Since most data is bursty, this is much more efficient.

So you share a "cell" but each person sharing still pays for minutes at the voice rate. And that is in addition to a $30/month fee just to play. Wonderful.

This will fail, then they will be crying the blues that there is no money to be made in wireless data service....

Methinks the bean counters never took a simple economics class and learned about price/demand curves, elasticity, etc.. Free clue: People don't generally NEED this.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

So you share a "cell" but each person sharing still pays for minutes at the voice rate. And that is in addition to a $30/month fee just to play. Wonderful.

Not necessarily. One of the selling points of GSM/GPRS (GPRS: General Packet Radio System, the same packet data system is specified for use with both GSM and UMTS) is that the operator can charge for either time or volume, or a combination of both, or or course neither, aka flat fee.

Now, I don't know what Verizon has decided to do or even if it's true GPRS they're going to implement, the article didn't say. But if it's GSM/GPRS they sure do have the option of charging by volume.

Almost all of the packet data system, i.e. what we're interested in here, is the same going from 2.5G i.e. GSM/GPRS to 3G i.e. UMTS/GPRS. Most notably roaming between the two systems is specified, and since GSM typically has lower bit rates but longer range from the base stations, most operators envison a mixed 2.5G/3G system whereby most of the area is covered by GSM, with hot spots such as cities, major roads etc are covered by UMTS. (And then hotter spots still could be covered by WLAN, but that sort of roaming is not specified within the GSM/UMTS framework).

P.S. And to sort out some of the 3G acronym confusion, WCDMA and CDMA2000 are two ways of implementing UMTS, the Universal Mobile Telephony System. Currently WCDMA is the "world" standard, with the exception of the US who has decided to go with WCDMA 2000. This may well change, one has only to look at GSM, but probably not in the short term.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[carlhirsch]

Verizon launches what it calls a 3G network
Daniel Terdiman - www.the451.com

Verizon Wireless says it has begun rolling out its third-generation wireless
network and that about 20% of its US subscribers will be covered. But the
company expects that most subscribers who upgrade to the network will use it
to get a 40-60Kbps connection for their laptops or PDAs, a scenario that
falls far short of the wireless industry's hype about what 3G is supposed to
deliver.

For months, a public relations battle has been raging among several of the
major US wireless carriers over who would be the first to upgrade to 3G.
Verizon, Sprint PCS, Cingular and AT&T Wireless have all said publicly that
they would be - or are - the first, and that their competitors are lagging
far behind.

But as the carriers argue over who is first, and whether cdma2000 is
superior to WCDMA or GPRS, they have begun to shy away from promising
super-fast networks capable of running the complex, multimedia applications
that will bring them billions of dollars in revenues. It used to be that
handset manufacturers blamed the carriers for not having the networks to
match the technological progression of the new handsets. Now, instead of
promising transmission speeds in excess of 2Mb, the carriers are trying to
get customers excited with talk of speeds of 144Kbps. Even more troubling,
they are beginning to point the finger at the handset makers when explaining
why the 3G multimedia killer app is still so far from reality.

Verizon's version of 3G - the Verizon Express Network - is a cdma2000 1XRTT
network. The upgrade will, at least initially, cover about 20% of the US,
with concentrations in the Northeast US, as well as in and around Silicon
Valley and Salt Lake City, Utah (site of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games). The
company says it should be able to cover about 50% of subscribers by the end
of 2002. Verizon is saying its network will top off at 144Kbps.

In the early stages, Verizon expects very few of its subscribers to upgrade.
The advantage of a 1XRTT network, explains company spokesperson Jeffrey
Nelson, is that it is forward- and backward-compatible and will allow
existing Verizon subscribers to continue using their current handsets. But
without upgrading to a 3G phone - and Verizon is pushing a Kyocera model as
its phone of choice - users would not be able to take advantage of the
higher speeds.

Further, most of the subscribers who upgrade will do so in order to use
their handsets as modems for their laptops or PDAs. As such, Verizon is also
pitching a Sierra Wireless card to offer this functionality. Users paying at
least $35 for a monthly Verizon wireless plan would have to pay $300 for the
card, $80 for the Kyocera phone and then $30 a month extra in service
charges just to able to use the 3G network. And even then, Verizon promises
transmission speeds of only 40-60Kbps, equivalent to what former Ricochet
wireless modem customers had before Ricochet's parent, Metricom, died last
year. Says Nelson of customers' expectations for complex 3G multimedia
applications: "This is a reality check right from the get-go..All that ooh
ahh stuff belongs in convention halls. We're after customers now with
realistic expectations from the service."

Certainly, in the US there is much disagreement about what 3G really is and
who is providing it. Last year, Sprint PCS said it would be the first to
unveil 3G in the US. Then AT&T Wireless said its GPRS networks had been
first. Earlier this month, Sprint PCS once again announced that it will be
the first when it rolls out its network this summer. Now, Verizon claims it
is first. Cingular Wireless, of course, says Verizon is exaggerating, and
claims its own 2.5G service is akin to Verizon's 3G: "Today's announcement
by Verizon essentially provides the same service that Cingular has been
providing customers in a number of markets since August of last year," says
Cingular spokesperson Monica Mears. "Cingular currently offers this 2.5G
service to consumers in [six states]."

It's all still hype. When the wireless industry began to talk in colorful
terms about the incredible applications that would soon be available on 3G
handsets, it was attempting to justify the billions and billions of dollars
its member carriers had invested in network upgrades. Clearly, no US carrier
has gotten anywhere near what has been promised. Although a 50Kbps wireless
connection for a laptop is a nice offering for a former Ricochet customer,
it is hard to see how anyone else is going to be impressed.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[Tschepsit]

Technically, 144kbps (the max speed for CDMA2000 - named by the year the standard was finalized, not by the year of deployment) is the cutoff for 3G - anything slower isn't 3G, anything faster is. Both Sprint and Verizon have the networks out there and in operation, but neither one has the kinks worked out yet, that's why there's no publicity.

Re:This is NOT a 3G network.

[Zigurd]

Verizon and Sprint will go CDMA2000. Voicestream, AT&T, and Cingular will go GSM/GPRS and follow that evolution to WCDMA/UMTS. One thing (among many, the sum of which would make your hair hurt) that complicates the picture is that AT&T and Cingular are starting with IS-136 networks.

Isn't this a repeat?

[scaramush]

...from Sunday (minus Michael's snarky comment)?

3G, How about make PCS/GSM work

[w_arthurton]

Honestly I don't really care about 3G. I would much prefer to be able to drive from work to my house (13 miles) without losing a call 3 or 4 times.

Phone companies should spend less time with data services and make voice work. Consumer reports has an article on Cellular this month. They say that 2% of all calls on a cell phone drop in the first 2 minutes.

That is unacceptable.

Re:3G, How about make PCS/GSM work

[Xapp]

It seems I read somewhere that the big companies are planning on using voice over data more and more. Once this is mainstream it should allow for buffering of some sort that will reduce the effect these blind spots have.

Re:3G, How about make PCS/GSM work

[tswinzig]

Phone companies should spend less time with data services and make voice work. Consumer reports has an article on Cellular this month. They say that 2% of all calls on a cell phone drop in the first 2 minutes.

That is unacceptable.

Please realize that not every area in the country has such shitty coverage as you. In my area, I will welcome 3G when SprintPCS rolls it out nationwide this summer. And no, I won't use it to watch video, as the stupid-ass media reports, but rather as a data modem. (DUH!)

Re:3G, How about make PCS/GSM work

[Xrkun]

Since I work For Verizon Wireless, I guess I should inform you that my company is spending an aweful lot of money on improving coverage this year. The plan is for 2000 additional cell sites which will cost Verizon Wireless about 4 billion dollars. In my region (Upstate NY) the engineering budget is roughly $160,000,000. The IT budget is about $700,000. I'd have to say they are working very hard on fixing your complaints.

Silent why? To keep you from being scared!

[SirStanley]

Verizion PR is trying to figure out a way of making you want to spend an ADDITIONAL 30$ USD on the product. How's this. "Hell my bill is already 200+ a month. Why not 30 more." As an Additional service, they are trying to get ready your Chapter 11 forms to be distributed with the service. So when you do go broke. Verizon is already there helping you.

Perhaps they're trying a silent rollout first.

[Restil]

If they overadvertise and the network becomes clogged and people decide that due to insufficient bandwidth and excessive bottlenecks they don't NEED the services that badly, it could make getting it started more difficult. Rather they slowly introduce it, ramp it up slowly. Build the network as they go.

DSL had similar problems. The demand was greater than the infrastructure could handle, and service (technical and customer) suffered as a result, and in some cases, it still does. They might be trying to avoid a similar problem.

Of course, I haven't known Verizon and GTE before that of going out of their way to avoid problems. The best screwup I remember, is when they cut off the phone service for my entire city (Plano, TX ~ 200,000 people) for 8 hours. Cellular service and payphones were also out of commission. The police had an officer stationed at every major street corner in case of emergencies since 911 wasn't functional. I had to drive 5 miles just to find a working payphone to call someone from. This happened about 2 years ago, fyi.

That was a fun day. :)

-Restil

Re:Perhaps they're trying a silent rollout first.

[limber]

There is definitely an argument to be made in favor of trying to do a quiet rollout.

This allows them to work out the kinks, and figure out where they're going to have problems as they scale up.

They only need to look at the Japanese experience with 3G. NTT DoCoMo's FOMA system, which claims to be the first "true" 3G network (though technically the South Koreans have 1XRTT, over which it's debatable whether it's 3G or 2.5G) has been plagued by technical problems.

Much better to work the major issues out discreetly, rather than jumping the gun and having to endure months of newspaper headlines shouting "Verizon's 3G network suffers problems".

Re:Perhaps they're trying a silent rollout first.

[jandrese]

Amen to that. I remember salesdroids harping the values of DSL when we got our phone line (and we live too far from the CO to even get it!), only to learn later that there was a 2 month waiting list to get DSL and the service was a nightmare.

Re:Perhaps they're trying a silent rollout first.

[benwb]

I ordered DSL from Verizon November 18, 2000. My service was ready and working last week.

Re:Perhaps they're trying a silent rollout first.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you give them too much credit - foresight and planning. I don't. They are merely being rather low-key because it isn't really ready for primetime because the content isn't there but they do get bragging rights for being first. I doubt it is because they fear overloading the infrastructure.

Re:Perhaps they're trying a silent rollout first.

[Anonymous Coward]

i agree with your post.

i'm from richardson, the ghetto suburb to the south. plano is full of rich kids with more money that sense and parents who blame the police for their kids dying of drug overdoses.

Re:Perhaps they're trying a silent rollout first.

[Anonymous Coward]

so is this going to be a part of verizon communications or verizon wireless? i know verizon communications has been trying to better C.Service.

Re:Perhaps they're trying a silent rollout first.

[Inthewire]

I lived in Plano for years. I knew some of those rich kids with more money than sense. Jeff (no last names, look it up if you care) lived two doors down. He ODed and died in 1996. Ahead of the curve, yeah? He wasn't rich. He did have more money than sense, but he didn't have much money. Wes lived two, three blocks away. He didn't have much more sense than Jeff, and he had about the same amount of money.
It wasn't the cash that killed them, it was the boredom, the myths, the recklesness, and the uncertain cuts. You live in Richardson, so you know...there's shit all to do around there that isn't organized or expensive. No places to just hang out unless you're spending money. So people do damn stupid things, like drag race down Spring Creek or Central and get killed, or drink everything they can find, or smoke shitloads of weed, or fuck around with shitty Mexican heroin.
I thought it was interesting how the deaths occured in a wave...a few, a lot, a few - almost like there was a bunch of people who didn't respect the drug getting into it without taking the time to learn the lore.
I haven't lived there for a year or so, and I've been out of the high school (PESH) / quad C / what do I do with my life stage for a few more, but I was there and I remember.
Those weren't just dumb rich kids dying. Those were kids I used to ride the bus with, kids I'd played Frisbee with, kids I knew from the neighborhood. Shit. I don't know where all this came from, but now that I've typed it up I suppose I'll click "submit"

Re:Perhaps they're trying a silent rollout first.

[Inthewire]

Yep. Summer 2000. I remember - I did fast food delivery at the time. All the sudden the phones went cold.
I ran across the street (15th at Custer) to see if the payphones were out - they were.
Funniest part I remember was watching a guy try his cellphone, not understanding how cell towers work (I did the highschool work thing at Nortel in Wireless), that they tie to landlines.
Oh, I remember it well. It was a glorious day. I got paid to stand around, because I had to be ready "in case the phones start working again"
Thanks for the memory

Link to verizon info

[Gaijin42]

Here is a link from verizon showing coverage and pricing

Re:Link to verizon info

[displaytest]

here's the news announcement, conveniently linked one page away from the front page of Verizon Wireless. Way to go on that investigative reporting on a repeat of a story from yesterday, Timmy!

Re:Link to verizon info

[displaytest]

i swear that looked right in the preview...

grammar silliness, and relevance...

[Mr_Matt]

Quoth timothy:

One would thing they would want to publicize these items. "

Sorry you've got a cold, man. :)

How long do you guys think it'll take for the service to make it out of the original three launch areas? (arrgh, they picked SLC instead of Denver, those tools! Stupid Olympics...) Seems to me like new wireless services come and go all the time...is this just another flash-in-the-pan?

No

[TommyBear]

3G can be used for internet access. You plug a 3G client card into your desktop and anywhere you go, where you have 3G coverage, you have a fast wireless network connection.

Who doesn't want that!

Re:No

[RedX]

You plug a 3G client card into your desktop and anywhere you go, where you have 3G coverage, you have a fast wireless network connection.

Cool, so this 3G also supplies power to the desktop and monitor as well? ;-)

Re:No

[LinuxHam]

You plug a 3G client card into your desktop and anywhere you go

(tongue->cheek)I prefer to carry my laptop around instead(/tongue->cheek)

As a CDMA Verizon customer who regularly goes over his minutes using the Internet access, I can finally say "yee haw". Last June, when I finally got around to buying a data cable for my StarTAC, I called Verizon to confirm the setup, and the tech actually did say to me that they were going to 144k in January. 3 years late on DSL, but hey, he nailed that one perfectly! I've always joked with my friends that with the Linux firewall, I could NAT my network over my cellphone. But now? hmmm... ISDN-speed failover link.. (Rubs chin and raises eyebrow like The Rock).

But seriously, I can see some MP3-Car freaks using this to extend their network reach so they could, say, scp down some new MP3's while they drive to the store instead of sitting in the car running in the garage. :) As for me, I'd rather listen to text-to-speech of IRC or something amusing like that during the morning or evening commute. Or how about scrolling /. stories on a heads-up display in the windshield??? ;)

already available in Japan

[jsprat]

My boss's (is that spelled right?) boss is here from Japan. There, they have phones/digital cameras.

No need for media, just point, click, then email to yourself! With the 3G service, it's lightning fast.

Just imagine yourself on vacation with an almost unlimited supply of snapshots, anytime you want it.

Re:already available in Japan

[geekoid]

Man this is so obviouse, and cool! I'm sitting here thinking why would I need this?
Now if they can only support all the users and maintain a high speed link.

Some additional information

[goldspider]

As (implicitly) requested, here are a few links to more information about this:

http://www.techtv.com/news/computing/story/0,24195 ,3369727,00.html

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-824392.html

Re:Some additional information

[Anonymous Coward]

Overrated? What the hell do you people want? If he were to post the text of the article, he'd be modded down for something.

Re:Some additional information

[Manpage]

Here's a link to the information on Verizon's website.

Express Network

Let's get specific here:

[shrikel]

Just how fast are we talking about when we say "high connection speeds"

tim & mike, you've done it again

[jeffy124]

duplicate articles within 48 hours of each other

REPEAT!

[isdnip]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/27/144241 &mode=thread

Geez, the thread isn't even cold yet!

Re:REPEAT!

[swb]

Its like leftovers, they taste better after they've been in the fridge for a couple of days. The trolls get an opportunity to fine-tune their topic-specific trolls, just like garlic tends to simmer in the food leftovers.

3G? Meh. iden is the way to go...

[affegott]

... it is a packet switched and supports Mobile IP and that fun stuff.

You can get a pretty good deal from Nextel on a phone and service. The data service is unlimmited and you can receive calls when using it.

Not to mention, the i90c is a sweet phone.

One would think...

[ackthpt]

But if they're just trying it out with limited markets and such then why jump the gun? Better they sneak up on it quiet like, work out the kinks then roll it out.

Too damn much of this American -- Gottahavitrightnowgimmegimmegimmeawshititdoesn- tworkanditsfullabugsmanyouguysallsucki- mgonnapostnastyaboutyouwiththegoatsecxguyonslashdo t!

But that's FAST, man!

[shrikel]

144kbps?!? That's great!

... At least, it was 15 years ago. ;)

Re:But that's FAST, man!

[MindStalker]

HU? no 1.44kbs was fast 15 years ago. 144kbs is decent.

Damn straight!

[The Mutant]

I used to live in North West London (Camden Town), and had a few dead spots round the 'hood.

I've just moved to East London (Stepney), and now I've got multiple dead spots in my flat.

I have maybe six locations in the flat where I must sit to talk. No more wandering around, doing stuff while talking on my mobile.

And yet almost every month I get a solicitation from BT Cellnet, imploring me to upgrade to new services - usually things that would double my monthly bill.

All of these carriers have a lot of work to do to finish the job they started out on with voice.

Pity it had to be Verizon...

[fleeb_fantastique]

I have yet to enjoy a Verizon Experience that didn't suck in some way.

They don't do a great job of handling my local phone service. They provided extreme discomfort when trying to acquire DSL (through a different carrier, mind you; I've already seen what they do to their own customers), and have not exactly heard wonderful things about their wireless phone service.

Now they have extended this wonderful track record to a 3rd generation wireless internet access?

Likely, they will embitter so many people with their poor service that the technology itself will be labelled 'bad'.

Re:Pity it had to be Verizon...

[Syriloth]

I have yet to enjoy a Verizon Experience that didn't suck in some way. So, does that mean that you've enjoyed some of the sucky ones?

Re:Pity it had to be Verizon...

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you expect from a phone company whose name sounds like a herpes medication?

Re:Pity it had to be Verizon...

[King_TJ]

Ehh... as a Verizon customer myself (for a cellphone only, mind you), I have to say they seem to be the lesser of the evils that are cellphone providers.

Oh sure, I've had a lot of customer service screw-ups with them. (Most recently, I tried to request a copy of my packing slip or receipt for a new phone they shipped me, so I could send it in for a mail-in rebate. It took 3 cust. service reps before someone had a clue - and even then, she took 3 days to figure out how to get that sent out to me before calling me back.)

These days, this kind of thing will happen with any large company though. When it comes down to it, Verizon provides better coverage and reception than most of the competition. Their pricing plan fit my needs more closely than most of the others, too. I've been using them for close to 4 years straight - and still think they're the best choice for my purposes.

3g

[lnxslak]

FINALLY

still screwed in canada. ;)

Re:3g

[Andrewkov]

As far as cell phone coverage and hi-speed internet is concerned, Canada is way ahead of the U.S. Both in price and availability.

Re:3g

[Anonymous Coward]

dont be fucking stupid

Re:3g

[jproudfo]

Actually, Canada is way ahead of the U.S., in terms of 2.5G wireless rollout. All of the major carriers have announced, or are currently offering, high speed products.

- Bell and Telus have annouced 1xRTT
- Rogers and Fido/Microcell are both other GPRS on their GSM networks.

In fact, I believe that Rogers has the largest GPRS network in North America. That's not saying much, but they do manage to cover 83% of the Canadian Population with their GSM/GPRS network (it's now the same size as their TDMA network). By mid year this network should be larger than their existing analog network.

Regards,

Jared Proudfoot

VZW

[Scoria]

One would thing they would want to publicize these items.

Considering that the service has only been in a fraction of Verizon's coverage area, they may be attempting to maintain the option to retract their company from the 3G market in case significant service problems arise.

Yes, they've most likely executed extensive tests on the technology, but it is logical to wait and ensure that the implemented technology is stable before asking $30-50 a month per individual for the privilege of using it.

Re:VZW

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Verizon Wireless the ones with that stupid commercial of the guy going around everywhere saying "Can you hear me now?... Good". Maybe the guy is just tired and needed a vacation before they roll out anymore testing of the 3G network. I can only imagine how hard it is to walk thousands of miles a month testing their vast wireless network to see if it supports 3G properly. Perhaps they should invest in some trucks or something.

as cool as it is,

[minus_273]

i must also ask, why we need it, i can understand in the case of preofessionals in certain industries and markets who need access to as much info as possible as quick as possible, hassle free.. in which case this is very good, however, for an ordinary user, what is the use? i dont see joe publuc using a 3G network right now. What can you do that you can't currently do? Verizon may be targetting this towards certain markets that it would be profitable in rather than the general public, thus the lack of publicity

VZ does not equal VZW

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon and Verizon Wireless are two different companies. Let's not blast VZW for problems we may have had with DSL or other landline accounts.

Eehhhhh no.

[Morgahastu]

There are plenty of uses the 3G network. Its not only for cell phones. It can be used for PDAs (imagine the Treo with 3G). Or my laptop could have a 3G card so I can get some fast internet access anywhere. Cars could also use it to deliver information based on your whereabouts (or a computer in the backseat).

This technology is terrific and I think it will be a big boost for PDAs.

Re:Eehhhhh no.

[notsoanonymouscoward]

imagine the Treo with 3G

why when I can have this

I'm at a loss...

[Anonymous Coward]

...to find anything on Verizon's website. AT&T's the same way. Seriously, why do all of the communications companies have websites that suck?

Re:I'm at a loss...

[grimarr]

Seriously, why do all of the communications companies have websites that suck?

Because the only communication they want with you is "send bill" and "receive payment". Anything more than that is just overhead they'd rather do without.

Are you kidding?

[dancingmad]

Silently? I saw this on CNN's ticker not 2 hours ago.

Great

[SunkingvstheChicken]

Now I can get in an accident with a SUV while the driver is surfing the net as well as talking on the phone.

Re:Great

[pmz]

Now I can get in an accident with a SUV while the driver is surfing the net as well as talking on the phone.

This was modded as "Funny", but this is really a sad reality. Many accidents are caused by irresponsible drivers who don't think about how talking on a cell phone impairs their driving ability. This problem is big enough that some cities have passed or are debating rules about cell phone use in cars.

I observe daily that some people just don't care whether they put other lives at risk while driving. These people just aren't qualified to drive, yet they all do.

My ultimate phone wishlist

[DG]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand the concept of streaming video to a phone.

For me, the ultimate cellphone would have the following:

1) A decent phone, with decent battery life, reception, and audio clarity (how many convergence devices overlook the fact that the primary purpose of the damn thing is a telephone?)

2) Palm Pilot-like functionality, with emphasis on providing space/ability for uploading apps of my own as well as the canned apps.

3) A GPS, with detailed street maps and wayfinding ability built in.

4) Integrate this stuff as tightly as possible, and keep as much of the data local as possible.

I can see, for example, having the complete North American phone directory on the phone, so I can look up numbers without hitting the network. Tie this into the GPS, and now I can do stuff like "get me the phone number for the house I'm standing in front of right now" or "Let me search the yellow pages for [whatever] and now that I've made a selection, give me driving directions to get there"

Or allow phones to transport GPS data on voice connections, and now I can get a map of where whoever it is I'm talking to is - geographic caller ID.

Network access is all well and good, but phones are phones first and foremost. Build in apps that support the "phone" part (things like searchable directories) and the "mobile" part (with the GPS) and now you're talking!

The Kyocera Smartphone (which is a Palm) seems close, and will probably be my next phone, but I'm still looking forward to a well-done phone+GPS combo.

DG

Re:My ultimate phone wishlist

[Daeslin]

An ssh client would be the real killer app for me. Let me ssh to my house and/or work and that's all I really need. I wouldn't complain about a secure imap mail reader in addtion though.

Re:My ultimate phone wishlist

[smnolde]

I just want my boss to leave me alone. I don't necessarily want to hear him, but I sure as hell don't want to see him.

Silently? Try *clicking* on the links

[bribecka]

http://www.verizonwireless.com/express_network/ind ex.html

There is the link from verizon. It seems that right now service is limited only to those that have wireless service with verizon already. Although unlimited at $30/month is not bad.

Troll Alert: This is NOT a 3G network.

[panaceaa]

CDMA2000 1X promises twice the voice capacity of current networks and data speeds of up to 144 kilobits per second initially. Realistically, Verizon said users should see speeds of 40 to 60 kilobits per second on average. Verizon said it will initially roll out 1X on 20 percent of its networks with nationwide availability by the end of the year. Source

Verison isn't calling it 3G -- the whole point of this article is that they haven't announced it at all. Where are you getting your 20-30k numbers? The Forbes link you gave says it IS 3G, and will provide 40-60kbps in the real world.

More information from Verizon

[DustMagnet]

They seem to be calling it "1x", so I searched for that. I found a coverage map and some PR prediction.
It's in PDF, search for "1x" or flip to page 17 for the map.

do you really need

[Richthofen80]

any more than 640 k?

come on, can't *anyone* think of good ideas for this? mobile videoconferencing with a pocket sized phone? on demand broadband almost anywhere? while talking on your cellphone, and giving / getting directions, you could also quickly pull up mapquest on your phone, and have images of landmarks sent over... Honestly, I'm a bad brainstormer... but someone else should be able to come up with something better.

the service is lacking.

[joshsisk]

I called earlier this morning, as I've been looking for a wireless provider. Verizon makes you sign up for a calling plan (though you dont actually have to have a phone, interestingly enough), the Express Network service uses the plan's minutes and costs an additional $30 a month. The person I spoke with said speeds were around 56k.

They already offer a CDPD service that is 28.8, but it is unlimited usage for $40 a month. In addition, the CDPD service goes ANYWHERE Verizon does, the person I spoke with said the Internet Express service is currently more limited (though I expect that to change).

Both have contracts, though there is only a $100 fee for early cancellation. I think I'm gonna get the CDPD service, as it's cheaper and the the constant connection is important to me. If they change the new service to constant connection, I'll just pay the fee and upgrade. Also, both offer a two week grace period where you can cancel with no fee. I'm gonna test my connection out in places i usually go, to make sure I can get a good signal. If not, I'm cancelling.

Re:the service is lacking.

[TheSync]

They already offer a CDPD service that is 28.8, but it is unlimited usage for $40 a month. In addition, the CDPD service goes ANYWHERE Verizon does

I'm a big user of Verizon CDPD. 28.8kbps throughput is a significant overstatement. 14kbps is good for CDPD, 9.6kbps is what you get in general. That said, my wife uses it for her webcam, and it generally gets the job done. I've used CDPD on the Amtrak from DC to NYC. Both Verizon and AT&T (carrier for Palm-based Omnisky) have good coverage along the tracks with a few holes.

Of course, 144kbps sounds much better, but I can't imagine it being priced reasonably.

Re:the service is lacking.

[joshsisk]

They told me it (the 3G service) was more like 40-56kbps when I asked about the speed.

Thanks for the info, now I'm not so sure if I want to invest the money for a 9600 baud connection - I think I may skip on it for now. You saved me some $, and some teeth gnashing - I appreciate it!

Not quite silently.

[Jartan]

If you ever watch TechTV Live of the Screensavers regularly they had a whole lot of stuff about this the day they launched it. Supposedly theres no real services for it yet and the cost is going to be based on how much data you download. The only real reason to get it at this point would be a replacement for ricochet to use with your laptop. Also its not the same 3g they're using in Japan it's supposed to be limited to 144kbps whereas its 300+ something over there. One of the tech leads they talked to said Verizon basically released it a little ahead of time to be able to say they did it first. That's why theres no real product other than data to it.

The pricing will be disgusting no doubt and anything but browsing w/ pictures OFF will probably be unwise except for those with to much money. They were saying how some of the current providers using the already existing technology charged as much as 75 bucks per SESSION online average. That was the extreme but I think thats a good indication it's not the pancea of wireless communication we're hoping for yet.

Jartan

Re:Silently? Try *clicking* on the links

[rfischer]

Although unlimited at $30/month is not bad

ahh... but you need to have a digital voice calling plan of $35 or more per month. I'm out.

Re:Silently? Try *clicking* on the links

[joshsisk]

It's not umlimited. I talked to them this morning about it, I saw it in the Post. It's $30 extra on top of your current cellphone calling plan (which they make you sign up for). It draws off your pool of minutes.

I guess, it might be unlimited night time minutes though, if you have a plan that has that.

Verizon Announcement

[NetMasta10bt]

Verizon Announces Relationship with Accenture; Introduces Kyocera 2235 and the
Sierra Wireless AirCard® 555

Starting today, Verizon Wireless customers in major East and West Coast
markets will be able to reap the rewards of a significantly faster,
more robust wireless experience with the company's commercial launch of
its 1XRTT network. The 1XRTT network will enhance all levels of
wireless communications - from a simple voice call, to full Internet
browsing, streaming video, and email. This high-speed network also
supports enterprise applications, giving companies with mobile
employees tools for increased productivity and efficiency.

The company is the first U.S. wireless carrier to commercially launch a
sizeable 3G footprint. The 1XRTT network is available now to
customers in areas of the Northeast U.S., from Norfolk, VA Washington,
D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, up to Boston and in Portland,
Maine; in the technology-savvy Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay
Area of Northern California; and in Salt Lake City, site of the 2002
Winter Olympics. 1XRTT network capabilities are already available in
more than 20 percent of the Verizon Wireless footprint, reaching more
than 53 million Americans.

The Express Network is Verizon Wireless' 1XRTT data network, capable of
data transmission speeds up to 144 kilobits per second (kbps.) Business
customers and individual consumers in Express Network markets may take
advantage of high wireless data speeds and robust Internet access by
using the new Verizon Wireless 2235 handset from Kyocera with a
compatible Mobile Office kit as a modem for their laptops, or by using
the AirCard 555 PC card from Sierra Wireless, for their laptops and
select PDAs. Express Network subscribers on the high-speed data
network can now have access to their company network or Internet at
faster speeds.

The Express Network will give users full Internet access, intranet
access and traditional email functionality via a laptop at
unprecedented speeds for wireless access. Users should expect average
speeds between 40 and 60 kbps, significantly higher than speeds being
produced by competing technologies and comparable to what PC users get
when using a dial-up Internet service at home.

The rollout of our Express Network is a major expression of our
differentiation in the wireless marketplace: the high quality of our
wireless network," said Verizon Wireless chief technical officer Dick
Lynch. "Wireless data is only as good as the network it's on, and the
premier Verizon Wireless network, already the most advanced in the
nation, just took another giant step ahead of its competitors." Lynch
added, "We will continue expansion of the Express Network, and by the
close of 2002 the majority of the nearly 222 million covered POPs
should be able to use the Express Network every day."

"Together with the nation's most expansive network, Express Network
gives our customers a strategic advantage as they continue to
increasingly rely on wireless products for their business and personal
communications needs, " said Lowell McAdam, executive vice president
and chief operating officer of Verizon Wireless. "Given the very
positive response from the participants who previewed the 1XRTT network
this fall, we are confident that our high-speed data network will
fulfill and exceed our customers' expectations."

Verizon Wireless and Accenture Join Forces for the Enterprise

In conjunction with the Express Network launch, Verizon Wireless also
announced an alliance with Accenture (NYSE: ACN) to market and sell
mobile enterprise applications offered by the Accenture Mobile Service
Bureau. Through the alliance, Verizon Wireless and Accenture will be
able to offer enterprise customers access to a wide variety of
integrated mobile solutions deployed via Verizon Wireless' Express
Network as well as Verizon Wireless' existing coast-to-coast digital
network.

The Accenture Mobile Services Bureau takes the uncertainty and
complexity out of deploying enterprise mobile applications by
pre-integrating core solutions in a hosted environment. This provides
companies with enterprise-grade security, coordinated logistics and
provisioning for the distribution of wireless devices, high-caliber
customer service and wireless network integration with Verizon
Wireless' premier network. This allows companies to deploy mobile
applications easily, more quickly and at a reduced cost.

"By tapping into Accenture's experience in developing mobile solutions
and platforms, we can provide our business customers with a faster,
simpler way to achieve the benefits of mobility for their employees,
customers and suppliers," McAdam said.

Express Network Pricing

Customers with a monthly digital voice calling plan of $35 or more can
sign up for the Express Network, which lets customers use any of their
airtime allowance minutes for voice or data, for an additional $30 per
month. Verizon Wireless also anticipates introducing plans based on
kilobyte usage in the near future for customers and enterprises that
prefer such pricing.

Sierra Wireless AirCard 555 is 1XRTT Compatible

The Sierra Wireless AirCard 555, which retails for $299.99 will enable
customers to add voice, circuit-switched data and short messaging
service capabilities to their laptops, select PDAs, and other computing
devices.

"Sierra Wireless is pleased to provide Verizon Wireless with the first
PC Card product for its next generation service," said Jason Cohenour,
senior vice president of distribution for Sierra Wireless. "We look
forward to continuing our long-standing partnership with Verizon
Wireless, providing the award winning AirCard 555 as an important
element of the fast and reliable wireless connectivity provided by the
Verizon Wireless Express Network."

The Tethered Solution From Verizon Wireless

Beginning today, the Verizon Wireless 2235 by Kyocera, a 1XRTT
data-compatible wireless handset, will be available through Verizon
Wireless corporate sales and in those Communications Stores where the
Express Network is available. The tri-mode wireless handset, which
retails for $79.99, is a communications system that includes many
attractive features: voice-activated dialing, a WAP browser, electronic
games, two-way text messaging, and predictive text-input software for
rapid text entry. With a subscription to the Express Network and a
compatible Mobile Office kit, sold separately for $79.99, the 2235
offers customers the opportunity for faster Internet access. The
company expects to announce more wireless handset options soon.

"Kyocera Wireless is pleased to support Verizon Wirleless' launch of
their Express Network with our new Kyocera 2235 1XRTT wireless
handset," said Skip Speaks, president and COO of Kyocera Wireless Corp.
"The wireless industry has eagerly anticipated the launch of 1X, and
Kyocera Wireless is proud to offer the first 1X phones commercially
available on Verizon Wireless' Express Network."

Express Network equipment and service are available through Verizon
Wireless corporate sales, select Communications Stores, or by calling
1-800-308-DATA.

Other articles

[Metrollica]

An article is at At New York.com dated back from August 2, 2001. It says the speed will allow Web surfing at speeds as high as 144Kbps and full 3G service promises to support speeds of 384Kbps and higher. Since the newer article from CNN doesn't say what the speed is, it could still be the same.

There is also an old article at CNN here.

Could this be used for accessing the net?

[Ryu2]

As a former Ricochet user who greatly got value from the service, I'm always looking for a suitable replacement.

Can the Verizon 3G be used to fully access the Internet (not just a watered down "wireless web" subset of it like the current 2G phones) What ISPs support this access mode?

If Verizon does this right, then maybe Ricochet users will finally have a viable substitute.

Re:Could this be used for accessing the net?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes-- you would use a verizon as your access provider and they would supply the access software for your PC. remember that you'll be using airtime along with the 30 dollar/month charge (after March 16th) and you'll average at 56k type download speeds-- not very practical unless you really need wireless internet access.

Re:Could this be used for accessing the net?

[Tschepsit]

Yes, you can plug your phone into your laptop just like a modem, and get your access that way. Try not to connect through the serial port, because that will slow your connection speed.

They are publicizing it...

[rbrome]

Relevant links:

http://news.verizonwireless.com/

http://www.verizonwireless.com/express_network/

What happened to I-mode?

[rfischer]

I thought I remember hearing that AT&T would be introducing DoCoMo's i-mode service for phones which is such a huge hit in Japan? Anyone know what happened to that plan?

How HOT do these 3G phones get?

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard from a colleague in Japan that their 3G phones get really freaking hot in use. Uncomfortably hot. And that battery life sucks rocks. Like 30 mins talk time. This struck me as weird, because I didn't think 3G was about higher transmitter power or higher quality(/bandwidth) voice transmissions. Anyone know if this is a common 3G occurence?

Re:How HOT do these 3G phones get?

[Tschepsit]

They ironed out most of those phone problems while introducing 1x in Japan last summer/autumn. The problem is that the complexity of 1X phones is significantly higher (more processing power) than previous phones. Lots of new stuff like reverse power control, etc. It will actually emit less RF, but possibly more heat.

Re:Silently? Try *clicking* on the links

[bribecka]

Although they do have an unlimited offer in effect:

Express Network service is available for just $30 per month on most digital voice calling plans.* Express Network data usage is taken from your airtime allowance just like your voice calls, so there's no need to keep track of a separate airtime allowance.

From now until March 15, 2002, when you sign up for Express Network, you get unlimited Express Network data session minutes! All you pay is the additional monthly $30 Express Network access fee - your Express Network usage will not be deducted from your airtime allowance.

They Ran a commercial Last Night

[haplo21112]

They Ran a commercial for it last night...I was coding, so i can't remember the Channel I was on, but on the of the ones(75+) that charter Basic cable in the Worcester area carries anyway.

Re:They Ran a commercial Last Night

[Anonymous Coward]

I pity anyone who lives in the Worcester area.

Silent REALLY IS Better

[UNIBLAB_PowerPC]

As a geek in a PR office, here's the inside scoop on why they're not beating their own drum on this one (or it's why 99% of all organizations will sit on newsworthy information like this): it's not "ready" yet (meaning they aren't ready to field internal or external questions about said stuff; they aren't ready to fill the rest of their own staff in on it yet or they're doing that right now while the public is left in the dark with rumors; there are problems that no one except a select few know of and they would like them "fixed" in whatever way necessary before the public is informed via the marketing droids; etc.). Mix any combination of said ingredients (or come up with your own possiblities and they're likely true) and you have a press release that's "on hold" until the events change or the marketing/PR folks find a way to respin things in their favor .... oh, and don't throw rocks, I'm not allowed to talk to outsiders in the office. I just know what happens ....

Re:Silent REALLY IS Better

[BrookHarty]

Absolutely correct, You can not deploy a 3G network from one vendor. No vendor has enough hardware to deploy an entire network. You have to use all Vendors, and those vendors equipment has to work seamlessly. And the hardware is brand new, there's daily maintenance, patches and software tweaks just to keep it running. There is no "Building it in the lab" with 3G, its tested and built in production. But the customers on those network are most likely internal employees and content providers who are testing applications. So its not really "Launched"..

Speaking of that, ever Telco is getting their hardware from the same vendors, Eriksson, Nortel, etc... So whatever Verizon is doing, all the vendors are learning and applying to other Telcos. My tech support is your tech support.

Re:Silent REALLY IS Better

[Red Storm]

Most of the wireless equipment comes from two vendors, Ericsson and Lucent. Lucent manufactures most of the switches and cell equipment used in the CDMA world. What's amazing to think is that Lucent came so close to going under... yet when you think about it they never would have, their telco market for equipment is too big and it would have been spun off for cash. As for Nortel equipment most of the stuff I have heard of is like the DMS series being used only for LEC (Local Exchange Carrier) switches.

Re:Silent REALLY IS Better

[kent_eh]

As for Nortel equipment most of the stuff I have heard of is like the DMS series being used only for LEC (Local Exchange Carrier) switches.

Nortel switches can also handle cellular, and they have a cellular base station product. As you said, Nortel's customers tend to be landline phone companies. If they also happen to oparate a wireless system they tend to stay with Nortel for that.
However, as you said, Ericsson and Lucent supply switching and base station equipment to the majority of wireless-only providers.
I have personal experience with Ericsson equipment, and I know that they are struggling to keep up with demand for certain base station products right now.

Re:Silent REALLY IS Better

[Red Storm]

Any word on the rumor I heard about 6 months ago about Sprint having to change out a majority of their Lucent RFUs for Nortel ones? I heard that Lucent had sold the wrong equipment to them for a majority of use and that they were having to swap out wholesale for Nortel in some markets. The problem had to do with the Mod Cells or something along those lines.

Sound Quality

[Washizu]

I wouldn't mind if the extra bandwidth was used to improve the sound quality. Modern cell phones still are not as clear as land line phones and I would rather that than extra features I'll never use.

Don't be surprised if new and exciting ad placement techniques are used in conjuction with the new connectivity as well.

Re:Sound Quality

[sulli]

Ain't gonna happen. People actually don't care about sound quality as much as they say they do, from what I understand from talking to folks in the industry.

IIRC TDMA (used by AT&T) allows the carrier to select various levels of sound quality, cramming more calls onto the circuit in exchange for crappier sound; since users always complain about dropped calls and don't usually complain about tinny voices, you can guess which choice they made.

Re:Sound Quality

[peterdaly]

My Verizon phone (Syracuse, NY) is crystal clear. Manytimes people I call are impressed, and don't even know until I tell them, that I am talking on a wireless phone. I have to say their network around here is known as the best in the area by far.

Just because they are owned by a former big bell doesn't mean they are all bad.

-Pete

Re:Sound Quality

[Tschepsit]

Look for a phone that supports EVRC vocoding. It should give you higher quality audio than the standard 13k vocoder, and you don't need a 1x phone for it.

Don't you get it: Time for dialup to DIE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Only one other seems to have mentioned this. You have a phone with an irDA interface, serial, or USB. You sync this up with your laptop and connect to the net almost ANYWHERE and at 56kbps up to 115kbps ... atleast thats what I understand from Cingular which I hope check into tommorow. Cingular just came out with their service, but its considered 2.5G but probably just as good or better as Verizons 3G. 3G is suppose to transfer around 2mbps depending on quality of connection.

So this is great for us who want to ssh (with high compression) from almost anywhere. And from a quick search on google there are several phones which work with *nix.

Very Limited.

[A Commentor]

It is currently only available in the NE, Salt Lake City, San Francisco.

For pricing, you must have a $35 or above voice plan with them. Then pay an additional $30 for data access, AND pay per minute (minutes come out of voice allowance minutes + charge the same as your voice minutes for any overage).

Also, billing based on minutes make absolutely no sense, since these data connections do not tie-up a line like a voice call does, it only transmits/receives when there is activity. Many people can share a single channel.

Re:Very Limited.

[Phil Wherry]

I must admit that I'm impressed at Verizon's ingenuity here. I really didn't think it was going to be feasible to find a way to do per-minute pricing for a packet service, but I underestimated the company's ability to misunderstand the utility of packet data.

Whether it's the entertainment industry or the telecom industry, consumer preference is pretty clear: predictable costs drive product acceptance. The cellular industry, however, is justly famous for deliberately making costs hard to understand, let alone predict.

This pricing scheme is doubly insulting from a CDMA carrier; as those who are familiar with CDMA are aware, it's far and away the most bandwidth-efficient wireless communications system in widespread use. There's at least one carrier that's been quite successful in using CDMA technology to offer a truly flat-rate all-you-can-talk local calling service in a number of areas in the U.S. [Important disclaimer: I work for the aforementioned carrier's parent company, but don't speak for it in this forum; I'm mentioning the service here in order to illustrate a point, not advertise the service. If you live in a coverage area, you've heard about it already, I'm sure...]

Packet data can be even more bandwidth-efficient than voice traffic since the latency requirements are relaxed considerably, so it seems to me that there's really no excuse for Verizon to be billing for this service in such a boneheaded way.

Re:Very Limited.

[TheSync]

It is currently only available in the NE, Salt Lake City, San Francisco.

The Wired article claims "...20 percent of Verizon's infrastructure in Philadelphia can accommodate the services. Verizon has also been testing the network in Philadelphia for at least a year..."

Re:Very Limited.

[A Commentor]

Those cities I listed was directly from Verizon's own pages.

Cell phone porn was the only app you thought of???

[JohnDenver]

Maybe you don't have enough imagination or you don't understand that the existing CDMA standard doesn't offer anything close to 144kbs (even if that's just a theoritical limit), let alone 56K. Try more like 9600 bps if you're lucky.

This is a DATA service primarily aimed at laptops and PDAs and the users who want to connect to the Internet from anywhere.

2 years ago, I wrote a small order-entry application for a automotive parts company. Salesmen would download the update for catalog in the morning (about 400K) and send thier orders when they needed to later.

If such a wireless system has existed, this would have enabled me to expand the application to provide realtime inventory updates and order status updates without having to hook up to the customers phone line.

I'm sure a lot of people have a lot of killer uses for wireless Internet access than just watching Jenna Jameson porn on thier cell phone.

not news

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon was not the first to roll this out in the US; Sprint's been running limited trials of their own 3g network for at least a month now (or so I was told from their Kansas research group). Haven't heard how they're faring though.

In the event Verizon botches this anything like their other tristate data services (granted, Vodafone's national Airtouch is now Verizon too, so who knows), it will be an utter miserable failure. Based on what I saw personally and heard from others of their DSL, reliability was atrocious. You can probably get more intelligent tech support from your local 10 year-old newspaper delivery boy.

On the business data side, their handling of corporate leased lines is comical. I've had people spend weeks for me trying to resolve circuit issues; one customer I worked with had staff personally responsible for nothing other than Verizon circuit problem resolution. I wish I could show you some of the "beautiful" Verizon wiring underneath this data center...ugh.

But anyway, call me a Verizon pessimist. With good reason. To be fair, their major cell advantage here (NY/NJ) is their tower coverage is far better than most, and they rarely drop calls or misroute incomings compared to Sprint/Omnipoint(or whatever they're now called)/ATT/Worldcom/etc. And for this I pay $200/month. Sigh.

No, I won't be rushing to get this until I see some positive feedback.

A couple of Applications

[JohnDenver]

* Police, Fire, EMT services (Forms, MAPS, real-time info)
* Order entry/tracking for roaming salesforces
* Inexpensive Logistics Tracking System using Commodity Technology (Combine w GPS and map system)

WIRELESS INTERNET ACCESS!!!

Doesn't wireless Internet Access say it well enough?

Re:A couple of Applications

[Anonymous Coward]

I would pay good money to take my broadband with me. Thats probably the only thing missing on my laptop. I would love to play UnrealT from anywhere.

HOW FAST IS IT?

Circuit-switched?

[Wesley Felter]

Since the 3G service uses minutes from your plan, does that mean it's circuit-switched? I think I'll stick with GPRS.

(Also, can someone mod up the comment about how this service is not targeted to phones but to the AirCard that goes in your laptop?)

Re:Circuit-switched?

[pugs]

The 1xRTT technology, like GPRS, is packet switched.

BUT, the boneheads are charging by the minute anyways.

Aaaarrrrrggghh!

Calls lost to "blind spots" cannot be avoided

[Circuit Breaker]

Some of it is not really their fault. When you study the associated physical phenomena (specifically, Riley's distribution), you see that blind spots cannot be avoided in a narrowband network.

Ultrawideband (and to a certain extent, wideband) communication solves this problem by having a transmission band so wide that even if part of the band has blind spots, some of the signal will still make it through. Commercially, we're not there yet.

Shannon knew this in 1948 and documented it; it took the rest of the world nearly 50 years to follow.

NOT useless.

[SuperRob]

Two Words.

Bluetooth.

Laptop.

(Note: You can replace "Laptop" with "Handheld" if you wish.)

Re:NOT useless.

[rjamestaylor]

Forget bluetooth... I mean, this is useful without adding bluetooth into the mix. Heck, for mobile highspeed internet access I'll live with a freakin' cable.

Data is not the main benefit

[boster]

Quite right about this being 2.5G, not 3G.

I'd like to point out that while the data features of 3G and related technology is what gets the most press, it's not what most providers care about the most. The new networks that will be built in the next 5 years on 3G tech (starting for real in '03 or '04) will have much high voice call capacity. The limiting factor for providers is how much (i.e. how little) spectrum they really have. Spectrum utilization is much better in CDMA2000 and WCDMA (the 3G protocols) than in CDMA or GSM. While theres a lot of hype and hope about wireless data, the fact that, as it stands, you can about tripple the number of calls in a cell on a 3G system is what really counts.

At to vaporware: We are going to see 3G systems... we just might not see the data features that have been hyped so much, because these are not critical to the providers business.

A modular alternative

[TheMCP]

I don't want a unit with that whole set of tightly integrated features. I don't want a phone with everything built in. I want a modular system of digital tools.

I want a little black box with no particular features that I can drop in a pocket that connects to a 3G network on one end and creates a bluetooth cloud around me on the other. It doesn't have to have any real interface.

I want a handsfree bluetooth earpiece which interfaces with the black box.

I want a bluetooth PDA which interfaces with the earpiece and the black box to provide directory and dialing services, and to browse the web and do wireless email.

I want a bluetooth digital camera which interfaces with the black box to transmit my photos to my mac, so when I get home the photos are already in iPhoto. Perhaps it could cache them in local storage and transmit them when I happened to have the bandwidth available. That would also give me the opportunity to review them and delete any duds, and mark pictures I want printed so the mac could know to send a copy directly to Kodak for me. It would also be nice if the camera would interface with the PDA so I could use the PDA's more comfortable screen and interface to manipulate my photos (delete some, select others for printing) before they get sent to my machine at home.

I want all of this stuff to be separate so I can choose whatever manufacturers, models, and features I want, but to communicate seamlessly so I can use it pretty effortlessly together.

I don't expect to ever get what I want. It would be too... consumer focused. Manufactuers want to sell you an all-encompassing, proprietary device to ensure you pay *them* for everything you want. I'm looking for an open, standards-based system of interchangable devices to perform specific tasks well and interoperate smoothly. It'll never happen.

Yes, but we knew that already.... *sigh*

[tweakt]

Do I hear an echo...echo... echo?

[OT] WorstAcronymEver

[sulli]

Wow, WCDMA/UMTS is a mouthful. Still, I think PCMCIA takes the cake, just because it's widely used, and yet everyone gets it wrong. Best way to remember it:

People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms

Re:[OT] WorstAcronymEver

[bbqdeath]

Those aren't even acronyms, they're initialisms. Acryonyms are pronounceable. 'Round these parts, PCMCIA isn't "pissemseeyuh," so it's not an acronym. But, hey, whatever. ;)

Not Unlimited

[dew]

You don't get unlimited minutes: time you spend on the data network is taken from your call minutes. Spending two hours reading up on news one day could eat half of your monthly minutes -- if you've gone over, your per-minute Internet access cost could be as much as forty cents, or $48 for a two-hour session. Yikes.

I sure hope Verizon can make it work

[LM741N]

I work in the cellphone chip business, and we and many others really need some carriers that can make a 2.5G phone that people will really want. In order for them to want it, it has to be easy to use and truly deliver on the bandwidth. So far we have seen none of that, and its reflected in the poor earnings reports for Nokia, Motorola, and Ericsson, which has rippled down to everyone else in the supplier business

Re:I sure hope Verizon can make it work

[timcuth]

But, they have it in Japan, now:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/14578

The US companies seem to be struggling to provide us with something that is already obsolete in Tokyo.

Lil' Ol' Salt Lake City

[BermJumper]

I was surprised to see Utah in the same list as Silicon Valley and the Northeast for this coverage-- Maybe it has to do with the Olympics, which are fewer than 300 hours away. Still, according to SLOC, two of Verizon's competitors, AT&T and Qwest, are the official sponsors, not VZ itself. Maybe it's planning to upstage them while the world is watching the Beehive State? As long as the rates stay relatively low (HA!-- not likely) it may be that the Olympics got something for Utah, aside from a few billion in highway money--

Re:Silently? Try *clicking* on the links

[joshsisk]

Unlimited minutes UNTIL March 15th. After then, it goes back to normal. I asked about that.

This is Old News.. .

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon announced this back on the 24th. Here is the link. .

http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/art icle/articleDetail.jsp?id=7957

30 hour old duplicate story!

[Anonymous Coward]

Still on the homepage with my settings...


Verizon High Speed Wireless: Posted by michael on 09:52 AM January 27th, 2002
from the oxymoron dept.

Please editors... this is rediculous.

Streaming Video

[glassware]

It has been asked, so I will answer.

The reason you enable streaming video on a cellphone is so you can have a video phone. You are correct that nobody is interested in watching a Britney Spears video on their cellphone; but once our phones are powerful enough to do video encoding, you'd be able to do a video call as easily as a regular voice call.

Pricing issue - what is a "minute" of data time?

[TheSync]

On the Verizon Express Network Terms and Conditions page, it states:

Charges for each Express Network data session that connects begin when you press or click the "SEND" or "Connect" button and have selected the "Express Network (1XRTT)" option at the user interface. Charges end when you press or click the "END" or "Disconnect" button.

OK, now imagine you are using the Sierra Aircard 550 PCMCIA card. Does just turning on the laptop start the session (and billing)?

I wonder if the PC card or interface software can be smart enough to recognize that it only needs to be connected to the network when you are sending or receiving data. The actual data utilization of most Web browsing at 114 kbps is probably only 10-20% of actual time spent by the surfer.

Of course, it you are watching video pr0n, your results may be higher.

Health Risks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone even considered what effect a 3GHz signal that close to your ear might have on your health? I mean people were worried about HAM radio's, then cordless and cellular phones..and they don't even approach close to the frequencies that these devices would be dishing out.

Re:Health Risks?

[StrandgecK]

I beileve it stands for 3rd generation wireless, not 3Ghz.

Re:Fix these errors

[Inthewire]

Fluent in English?

No, I'm not stalikng you. I just happend to notice this, and thought it was an odd thing to say.

Re:Fix these errors

[Inthewire]

...and that's why I should hit "Preview"

Re:Pricing issue - what is a "minute" of data time

[jetgirl25]

No, the Watcher software for the AirCard 555 has been set up so you must click Connect to start the data connection.

Why i-mode succeeds

[Anonymous Coward]

i-mode of NTT DoCoMo charges you PER 1 kbyte PACKET!. So you're charged the amount of data you transmit. No monthly data charge, and no minutes deducted. Which means if you don't transmit anything that month, you'll be only paying a voice bill. THAT'S the way things should work out. And THAT'S the way why i-mode succeeds in Japan.

When companies charge you PER MINUTE of data usage instead of PER BYTE, they're falling essentially to the same trap circuit-switched WAP has suffered. If that's the way VZ will bill, they'll probably become the world's FIRST 3g network to fail in a massive scale.

Treo with 3G...

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be fat cell phone with a flip cover, a low -res monochrome screen on an expensive network with bad coverage...

Color-enabled i-mode is what I want, thank you very much.

Or not so silently...

[ghostis]

Verizon told me all about it including the release date just after Christmas at shopping mall in Massachusetts. There was even a Verizon engineer (passing by on his way to return gifts) there to confirm the sales babble in real terms. All I had to do was to lay out a solid case for Cingular ;-). I went away thinking this is what they were telling everyone so I was a bit confused when people called it a surprise announcement :-P

-ghostis

Bluetooth to the Rescue?

[Jeppe Salvesen]

If your cellphone acted like a gateway, with PDA's and laptops and car systems connecting through it using bluetooth (or another short range solution), wouldn't that help out? You would still move the same amount of information, but through a common pipe. Am I mistaken that this would ease the load on the service provider equipment? There would be fewer circuits needed per person, eliminating some of the bandwidth used on protocol overhead.

Folks - am I way off? This is not my specialty, after all.

Re:3G? Meh. iden is the way to go...

[Tschepsit]

iDen's got to switch to either GPRS or CDMA2000 going forward though in order to get the same rates. Either way (with Nextel or Verizon/Sprint) you'll need a new phone.

Re:Pricing issue - what is a "minute" of data time

[Tschepsit]

Actually, the connection will go "dormant" after a certain time (service provider defined) with no activity. It should re-awaken with the same IP whenever your PC tries to access the network again. Essentially your card will place a new call every time you access the network after a dormancy of about 30 seconds or so. It'll result in a 1-5 second delay when your connection is waking up.

1XRTT

[alecks]

You obviously have no clue what you're talking about. I work for VZW, and I have had a chance to play with the 1X cards (the technology is called 1XRTT) and they average about 60-90k in peak hours, and over 100k off peak.

It does work... and it's as fast as my cable connection sometimes.

Wireless broadband IS here.

The cool thing about this is that you can have both a phone or a PCMCIA card that act as a 1X modem OR phone... (the card has a 2.5mm headset jack and phone software)

Re:1XRTT

[JohnDenver]

I misunderstood the original post just like you misunderstood me.

I *BELIEVE* 1XRTT works. I was pointing out that before 1XRTT, you really couldn't dream of 100k.

Unfortunately, the original poster wasn't saying "this is useless", he was saying, "this is useless for a cell phone". (I didn't catch that)

We're both dopes for responding to each others respective parent threads.

Re: Absolutely!

[King_TJ]

It seems we think alike!
In fact, I just bought a Kyocera smartphone. Let me tell you, if you get one - you'll be very happy with it!

First and foremost should always be the fact that these things are telephones. I can't stand when they do things like drawing the keypad on a flat screen (can't dial without looking at it first)!

But I agree, an integrated GPS would be icing on the cellphone cake. I suspect the only limiting factor is battery life. I've owned several portable GPS devices, and all of them ate through AA batteries in only a few hours of operation.
If you have to power a phone in standby + some actual talk time, and still run a GPS in the background, today's small batteries just aren't going to last.

You can't really just power on a GPS "as needed" either. They take as long as 10 minutes to calibrate themselves to satellites on initial power-up. You can cut this time down to maybe 2-3 minutes by giving it a rough idea of your current location, so it knows which satellites to listen for; but that's still pretty inconvenient. If you're in front of a house and want it to fetch the number, it'll suck to key in your city and state from a list, and then wait 3 minutes for the GPS to sync.

3G is 3rd Generation NOT 3 gbit

[markstinson]

Having worked with Sprint PCS, I've seen promo's of what it "will" do. It's all Hype. It's US companies attempt to do what Japan has - the iMode phones. It's the "3rd Generation" of US Wireless phones. Instead of a having a 14.4Kb connection through your PCS type phone, you can something more along the lines of 128 Kb.

Think about your phone bill. High $ for a "premium" service and wasting tons of minutes. It will be years before "3G" cost the same as current plans & the iMode. They are going to milk it for some time - provided it doesn't flop and WiFi & BlueTooth doesn't replace the features 3G claims to offer. (Which is now, significantly cheaper and falling in price, and potentially free access.)

Oh, and use your head. Do you think you want to have 3G connection drop downtown or piggy back off of some free shared access WiFi stations - like in San Francisco. BTW - this is a big concern of theirs since they've so much money invested in 3G.

Later, Markus.