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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."
As I write this, my cell phone is chirping to inform me that it is switching in and out of roaming mode. The reception at my home is horrible.
Every time I read an article about "next generation network features", I'm curious as to when they'll make the first generation feature - voice communication work better.
Maybe it's different in other parts of the country, but here in Lake Mary, FL, Sprint PCS and their suppose-ed "next generation network" is a bunch of features and fluff surrounded by unusable service.
I think I'm going to make my New Year's resolution to switch cell phone providers.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
One problem with the nice docomo phone in Japan is there are towers everywhere. The things have no power because they don't need much.
I met a guy in Perth who had just come from Japan. I showed him how to rechrge the phone using the shaver plug (the 240V ac would have fried the recharger) and when it was fully charged he tried to make a call. He got a voice in Japanese saying there was a problem with his account. I wonder if they are doing trials in Perth.
I worked for a wireless Interent start-up. The problem was not the technology itself. Its that there are no real uses. I mean, who cares that you can stream video on your mobile phone? Who is dumb enough to pay for it?
IMO, Wi-fi has removed all the need for umts. The mobile phone operators should concentrate on making voice work better, especially in the US where coverage and incompatible networks are a joke.
1000s Warcraft Gold while you sleep
While I see the need to begin a rollout of WCDMA service by AT&T in the future, shouldn't they work on getting their GSM service widely available first? They've still got issues with their TDMA network not having enough towers in some cities to be worrying about moving up in the world.
I took my AT&T phone all over the country and had some pretty good digital reception. Then when I get home (my house is pretty far from AT&T's nearest tower) I get crappy reception and dropped calls all the time. Cingular has a tower down the street from my house. It isn't like I live out in the boonies, I do have a Cingular tower down the street, yet AT&T doesn't feel the need to cover this area better.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The article is all about scaling back the requirement to deploy WCDMA UMTS to, basically, trial deployment.
It also, very significantly, allows AT&T to choose a technology other than WCDMA. For example, they could choose TD-SCDMA.
I wrote parts of this stuff
This thread was listed as the top Sci/Tech story this morning on google :-) ...
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AT&T/DoCoMo Deal For W-CDMA Deployment In US
Slashdot - 3 hours ago
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
NTT DoCoMo's $6 billion AT&T guarantee BusinessWeek
AT&T Wireless could owe $6B if W-CDMA rollout is late ComputerWorld
$8.95/mo web hosting
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
When AT&T Wireless first rolled out digital cellular they went with TDMA, the logical 3Gish extension to which is Rx1TT (as used in Korea).
Then, about two years ago they announced they were migrating their network (building an overlay) to GSM, the logical 3G extension to which is WCDMA (European version).
Now they look like they are going down the Japanese WCDMA route, which is based on an earlier standard tham European WCDMA (although it does actually work, which is a plus!)
It seems to me that they really need to sit down and decide exactly what system they want to use. There are numerous issues with cell planning, roaming, etc. affected by their choices. If they continue to mess around like this, who knows when a decent 3G service will be available to Americans.
--- My dad's political betting
This is stupid. Right now, it sucks enough going to a city where there is no GSM service that ATTWS has roaming agreements with. This is just going to make things worse. Right now, we have TDMA, GSM 2G, CDMA, and now W-CDMA. Why can't cellular providers just agree on one standard like in Europe and go with it? So is ATT going to continue to build their GSM 2G network which is still half-assed at best? It will be a happy day when number portability is enforced by the FCC.
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Couldn't at&t try finishing their GSM upgrade first? I just switched and it has a long way to go...
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
They ARE going GSM/GPRS. But that's 2G/2.5G. The upgrade path for GSM/GPRS is UMTS, better known as Wideband CDMA. CDMA as Verizon, Sprint, and Alltell use it will go the CDMA2000 path. CDMA 1xRTT is 3G, i believe.
Most likely the only difference in this case between a 2.5G phone (1xRTT is 2.5G, not 3G) and a 2G phone/service is the PRL (Preferred Roaming List).
Essentially, this tells the phone which towers it should be connecting to in each individual area.
Old phones' PRLs can usually be updated automatically (Not sure exactly how old - But any phone less than 2-3 years old, maybe more). On a Verizon network, dialing *228 and then selecting option 2 will update your PRL.
That said - Sprint's coverage sucks. If you want good coverage, get Verizon. Yes, their plans are more expensive, but you get what you pay for.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Um, UMTS and GSM cannot interoperate with each other. Unless you mean "field-upgradable" as meaning "Drive out to tower, remove old equipment, and install new equipment, shutting down old service", there is NO upgrade path whatsoever from GSM to UMTS. GSM uses a TDMA scheme at 1.9 GHz (or 1.8, depending on country), or around 800-900 MHz. UMTS uses a CDMA scheme at 2.1 GHz. There is no technical relationship whatsoever between the two technologies. As a result, if a carrier wants to roll out UMTS, they have to roll out an entire new network essentially from scratch, because the new phones won't work with the old towers.
Also, all of the GSM equipment providers, while well-established, have no experience with CDMA. As a result, UMTS handsets are having the same problems (heat, battery life, etc) that Qualcomm and the other "classic" CDMA companies solved years ago.
Last but not lease, CDMA2000 (both 1xRTT which gives 140-300ish kilobit speeds and 1xEV-DO which gives megabit speeds) IS backwards-compatible with cdmaOne. A CDMA2000 handset will work with a cdmaOne tower and vice versa. (See Verizon Wireless - They have a partial CDMA2000 rollout, but people with old handsets have no problem on the new network, and people who get CDMA2000-capable handsets won't have the handset become useless where Verizon hasn't upgraded yet.)
CDMA2000 lets network providers upgrade as demand dictates, UMTS requires them to upgrade everything at once.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Official 2.5G/3G extensions to TDMA, or more specifically D-AMPS (which AT&T and Cingular used to use) -> Null. (i.e. there are none)
Official 2.5G extension to GSM (Also a TDMA-based system) = GPRS
Official 3G extension to GSM = UMTS (CDMA-based, ZERO technical relation to 2G GSM. i.e. no seamless upgrade path that doesn't involve buying new spectrum and replacing all phones)
Official 2.5G extension to cdmaOne (Known most often as simply CDMA) = CDMA2000 1xRTT
Official 3G extension to cdmaOne = CDMA2000 1xEV-DO
All three are both officially and technically related (cdmaOne was designed with future expandability in mind), and as such CDMA2000 rollouts do not need additional spectrum, and do not require customers to immediately purchase new phones even if they just want to stay with basic voice service. Conversely, CDMA2000 phones work on CDMA networks that haven't yet been upgraded from cdmaOne.
1xEV-DO is what's being rolled out in Korea, 1xRTT is old hat there. 1xRTT or 1xEV-DO is also what KDDI, DoCoMo's main competitor in Japan is doing. KDDI's CDMA2000 rollout has gone much more smoothly than Japan's - Thanks to handsets with horrible battery life and numerous technical problems, UMTS has dragged DoCoMo's name through the mud in Japan. 1xRTT is also the 2.5G service being rolled out by Sprint and Verizon Wireless (Vision and Express Network respectively)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
CDMA2000 1xRTT = 2.5G (144 kilobits with a 300ish kilobit extension available) Rev 0 and Rev A are the two subdivisions of RTT I believe, Rev 0 being the 144 kilobit version and A being the 320ish kilobit upgrade)
CDMA2000 1xEV-DO = 3G (Megabit speeds)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?