America's First WCDMA Call

k-hell writes "Ericsson and AT&T Wireless recently completed the first WCDMA/UMTS call in a live network environment in the Americas, capable of data transfer speeds of up to 384 Kbps. AT&T Wireless and Ericsson currently pursuing the path to 3G capabilities in the U.S. market by deploying EDGE-ready GSM/GPRS systems. This path ensures an evolution to EDGE, then UMTS, a wideband radio technology that provides mobile users with data rates up to 2 Mbps." This is not yet a strong enough reason to move to Dallas, though.

Comments

Up to xxx Mbps... until it gets customers

[phorm]

With initial packet data speeds up to 384 kbps a wideband radio technology that provides mobile users with data rates up to 2 Mbps

More interesting would be a test of this under high saturation. Current systems are already getting bogged down, reception is getting craps, calls lost, etc. Once the user-base for the service gets high, I would predict a decrease in speed (at least for a time).

Never trust the "up to." My internet is supposed to get "up to " > 2.5Mbps transfer rate down. Average or mean would be a better indicator.

Texas has a history in wireless

[t0qer]

Well not a huge history, but just some interesting trivia..

Ricochet's wireless modems were not run out of the Bay area office as some like to think. Bay area was mainly a "peoples interface"

The real behind the curtain work occured down in texas. The NOC in texas was responisible for authenticating the modems and ultimately had complete control over the system.

[training speil]
When the ricochet is turned on, it's unique number goes over the poletops until it hits a WAP, then down to texas where the number is checked against the customer database. If it checks out an authorization command is sent back to the modem allowing it to connect to the ricochet network.
[end training speil]

Texas is a huge flat land mass located in the southern portion of the united states. It borders the carribean and has fairly nice weather (except for the occasional tornado) These geographical features are what makes it so appealing to wireless development.

Also to note are the remote oil fields that depend on pump yeild data that is usually sent wirelessly because it's cheaper in terms of right of way. So basically there's a demand in texas for anything new in wireless data transfer.

Texas is cool place to watch on "King of the Hill", but I wouldn't want to live there just because I love where I live (Friends, family, ect) I'm surprised slashdot editors would allow such a seething comment to make it through. Just because you love where you live is no reason to clown on someplace else.

Not the first?

[mdechene]

Its probably more accurate to say this is the first WCDMA/UMTS call on a commercial network, as Motorola and probably others have been doing this on their private networks for some time now.