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AT&T/DoCoMo Deal For W-CDMA Deployment In U.S.
murky.waters writes "The specifics of several amendments to the original deal are spelled out in a news.com article:
AT&T gets $6.2 billion from NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest telecom, for deploying a third generation wireless network in four of the top fifty cell phone markets by December 31, 2004. The chosen few are San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas and San Diego. However, there's a city-swap provision to possibly include either Miami or Detroit for Dallas, Phoenix or Houston for San Diego. Last, AT&T could get out of the deal if they chose an alternate third generation technology."
I have tried to do wireless data off and on for several years. In each case there were ill defined equipment costs, ill defined areas of operation, and convoluted 'data' plans. It shouldn't have been that hard. Hook the cell phone to the computer, dial the ISP, and be on the internet. Sure it would be slower, but it should have worked.
We now have these pseudo 3G services that claim internet connectivity. Of course to use such a service, you must subscribe to their content. I believe that even mail must be routed through their portal, at additional cost to the subscriber. It reminds me of the original bell attempt to make so much profit off modems that it threatened the BBS.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
AT&T is already in the process of converting their current network (TDMA) to a GSM/GPRS network. I any of you would read the standards, you would find that the upgrade path for GSM/GPRS networks to 3G is WCDMA. WCDMA networks will be backwards compatible with GSM, even though it resides on different frequencies, WCDMA phones also contain a SIM card, which you could easily switch out from your GSM/GPRS phone. Since AT&T has already chosen GSM/GPRS their choice to go with WCDMA was just a matter of time.
More likely, CDMA2000.
Unfortunately for the WCDMA camp, their vendors have not delivered on the technology so far. Handhelds are only available in limited quantities and are prohibitively expensive. Interop between different vendors is non-existent. In the meantime, CDMA2000 1x is charging ahead, and the economies of scale are driving down the costs.
In the US, Verizon is kicking the ass of GSM/TDMA -based providers; they can support much more users on the same spectrum and thus are more competitive. AT&T is on the run since their operating costs are higher and they cannot afford to wait till WCDMA is widely available.
Magnus.
My wife uses Sprint PCS Vision to upload images for her webcam site. The "killer app" part of this is the form factor of a webcam in a cellphone, which you would carry anyway, and actually has a lot of battery time. Check out the images in her gallery to imagine how this might be used, especially by teenagers at parties!
She used to carry around a stylus-based computer in a purse-like fashion using CDPD, which was easier to use (just turn on and it snapped pictures every few minutes), but suffered from low battery time (a few hours) and was just too heavy and bulky.
Of course, using Web browsers on Sprint PCS Vision phones sucks. I haven't checked out a Treo on the network yet, but I know that my Palm V with AT&T CDPD (Omnisky) had much better web browsers that could handle frames and such.
We went Sprint PCS Vision because we needed a cellphone anyway, and paying for unlimited Verizon 1xRTT $100/month was just too much. With Sprint we pay the same we would just for voice service, and possibly $10/month more once the introductory period is over.
The issue for the cell companies is this:
people don't care.
Seriously. AT&T Wireless, for instance, won JD Power awards for best wireless service in (I think) 18 or 19 of the 21 markets they were in last year. PacBell did really well in SF, Verizon won a couple.
The problem is that for each person, their usage is going to be different than every other person, so cell companies (or at least AT&T Wireless) has to play a game of triage, where they use trouble tickets to figure out where their network's dropping calls and then send engineers out to work on the switches/towers/etc. When people don't call, they have to rely on system diagnostics and no matter what they're going to tell you, that's not as good as having someone call up and say "my calls drop at the intersection of 124th and North Pine".
People are inclined to write dropped calls off (I have a friend in Texas, his Sprint calls drop every time he goes into Duncanville, and he's given up complaining) and not call in. They're also seemingly unwilling to reward providers who have better local coverage, probably because knowing that AT&T Wireless is the best carrier in your market doesn't guarantee you'll have signal in your apartment.
And the other problem is that since people don't seem to respond to the "our coverage is best" ads, providers are competing on gee-whiz gadgets like cameras that (really) no one's asking for, in an attempt to differentiate themselves.
It's a knotty problem. If everyone who was frustrated with their service canceled and found a better provider, Sprint PCS would be driven from the market in a month, AT&T Wireless, Verizon, and Cingular would buy out their towers to fill network gaps and the world would be a better place. Heh.