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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.
AT&T Wireless and Ericsson currently pursuing the path to 3G capabilities in the U.S. market by deploying EDGE-ready GSM/GPRS systems.
Remember when your teacher told you grammar wasn't that important as long as you could get your point across? THEY LIED.
That writeup is KOC*. It has a LOA** . WIKWTHTM***!
* Kind Of Confusing
** Lot of Acronyms
*** Wish I knew what the hell they mean
SONY. Because caucasians are just too damn tall.
I'm using Sprint's PCSvision system right now (for this post in fact). It gets somewhere between 144 to 230 kbps (similar to ISDN) and is available right now. I have the unlimited service, which is $110/month-to-month. Pretty resonable, I use it on the road for business.
The only thing that's been kinda sucky so far is the slow upload speeds and it really sucks battery life out of a notebook...
Other than that, it works as advertised. Setup is a bit of a pain, but it's only been out for a month or so, so perhaps the next release of the software will fix that.
-- I don't have a cool sig.
I am one of the toughest critics of cellular operators, whom I believe are the weakest links in the value chain to create viable wireless data businesses. However, I don't think the cellular operators are -- or should be -- embarrassed about 3G vs. WiFi. The operators should be embarrassed about lots of things -- misleading the public about capabilities, marketing WAP as "wireless Internet," providing virtually no customer education, etc., etc. -- but not about the concept of 3G vs. WiFi. Some points of comparison: * WiFi was designed for local area networks. 3G was designed for wide area networks. * WiFi was designed for data. 3G was designed for voice and data. * WiFi emphasizes computing devices (laptops, desktops, PDAs). 3G emphasizes (so far) handsets; I hope the cellular industry gets more aggressive about promoting PC Card/Compact Flash radio modems and wireless-enabled PDAs for 3G. * WiFi uses non-licensed spectrum. 3G uses licensed spectrum. Businesses are often more wary of using unlicensed spectrum than licensed spectrum. * WiFi doesn't require corporations or home users to pay airtime charges for local usage. WiFi companies trying to develop nationwide paid access are still figuring out the business model. 3G (2G and 2.5G) requires local, national and international airtime charges. If the cellular industry fails to develop a viable business model for integrating WiFi with cellular and if public fee-based WiFi networks expand dramatically across the country, then it's possible that WiFi could steal some of the thunder and customers away from 3G data services.
I have a friend in Japan who was telling me about this product. Land line quality phones and a data connection over the same wireless connection!!
7 megs/second!!!
http://www.somanetworks.com, I've heard they are trialing a few places in the US and maybe Canada. IIt would be pretty nice to get away from Bell.
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.
Actually, alot of the 3G phone handset designs have AGPS (Assisted Global Positioning Satellite) receivers built in, so they don't need triangulation to spot ya any more. Part of the requirement that E911 systems have imposed on cell phones being able to identify their own location so they can send help out as needed.
Karma: Not Particularly Funny.
Here is the NTT (the telco doing trials of SOMA technology in Japan) tiral page: www.winq-kanazawa.net. But it's not much good if you don't read Japanese -- it does have a pretty picture of the client hardware.
-- bartman