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Comparing Wireless Internet Services
Carl Oppedahl writes "AT&T has released its new "Edge" wireless Internet access service, claiming it is twice as fast (100-130K) as Sprint's "PCS Vision" wireless service (50-70K). I have written up a few comments on my experiences with the services. What data rates are others getting with Edge? I rarely get the advertised faster speeds."
Ok... I put the AOL CD in my computer but they didn't include a wireless wire. How do I connect to teh intarweb?
Trolling is a art,
I don't live on the edge :-(
What I'd like is a reasonably fast wireless service that is good enough to let VPN work over it. My boss has had a terrible time getting that working on his Sprint PCS connection.
I almost feel bad when he calls from Hawaii and he can't get access to our database from the beach chair.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
YUO TEH JEENYUSS!!!
T-Mobile is the only one that offers unlimited
service, to my knowledge, in the U.S.
I need to go to Kunming. Anybody recommend
mobile Internet service that works in
all major Chinese cities?
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Just to clarify things, those speeds should be in Kilobits per second, not Kilobytes.
"K" refers to kilobits, not kilobytes. Speed measured in optimal circumstances, not all users may achieve similar results. Figures may include sum of up/download speeds. Weather may impact throughput. Excess ozone or solar flare activity may impact throughput. Figures are provided for information purposes only and do not constitite a contractual obligation or guarantee of any kind. User equipment may impact network throughput. Compatible with all compatible equipment, non-compatible equipment may cause performance degredation. Not for use outdoors. Not for use by minors. Not end-user serviceable: any attempt to reverse-engineer software or hardware internals is contrary to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DCMA) of 1999, sections 2b and 3a. May cause fatal electrocution. Not for indoor use. May not be exported to the following countries: Afghanistan through Zimbabwe. Not for use in Canada.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
My love affair with Vision ended about two weeks into the service. It's never been fast, its never worked reliably, and most important, I've never found it particularly useful.
Like a lot of products I have an early-adoptor's love affair with, it solves a problem I don't have. About the most useful thing I ever did with it was write a wap frontend for the nessus batch commandline so I could really impress the ladies. Turns out most ladies don't even know what nessus is. In a college town, I tell you!
For those of you that read Gartner, you'll note where Sprint falls on the fabled magic quadrent. Its a special quadrent reserved for those who had a great idea and then blew it. Can you guess which?
trustedworlds.net - gaming, security, and the gunk that lives in between
You have a large nerd penis.
If they give you 4 time slots, and there are a total of 8 time slots per channel, what happens when you have more than 2 users in the same area trying to download a large file simultaneously? Sassan
Perhaps this report may be of interest. Certainly worth considering before plunging into AT&T's more expensive services.
OmG You ROCk
FiGHt M$
LOL^!%
Is this surprising? Have you EVER gotten the advertised specs from your high tech products? Have you ever gotten 56K from a 56K modem? Have you ever gotten 2Mbps from a DSL provider? Have you ever gotten 17" viewable from your 17" monitor? Have you ever gotten 20GB from your 20GB hard drive?
The advertised specs are almost always inflated and unattainable. But, the sad thing is that consumers continue to allow the vendors to get away with it.
I'm paying $8/mo for 1MB of GMRS data transfer. That's barely a few web pages these days. Each extra KILOBYTE is something like EIGHT cents.
Frankly, GMRS is plenty fast enough for me; it's just way, way, WAY too expensive. It's stupid, because the data rates pale in comparison to a voice call, and they're come+go...you'd think much cheaper for them to handle.
Of course, this is all because AT&T and every other provider seems obsessed with cameraphones. I don't know a single person in my office who has a cameraphone, nor a single person that wants one. They're useless toys, but because the wireless companies are fixated on 'em, and they're giving 'em away, they've jacked up the costs on data transfer to the point that anyone trying to actually use the phone for real work can't afford it unless they're a billionaire.
When I talk with friends, they don't say "oh, i want a phone with a camera!" They say things like: a)better reception b)fits in pocket(the camera phones are pretty damn big) c)easy to hold+use d)good battery life(and a battery that will NOT be gone within a year), and so on. Bluetooth is getting up there among my coworkers. Anyone at the phone companies listening?
Please help metamoderate.
I pay an extra $10 for unlimited data services through my cell phone on Sprint. It's called "Vision" and it has been around for several years. The data minutes don't count against your regular cell minutes.
Overall, it works really well. It's not as slick as the PCMCIA card Sprint offers, but it works just as well, uses the exact same network & speeds, and even turns heads when they seem me surfing my laptop over my cell phone.
Wireless data rates are not unlike modem data rates, in that you're fairly unlikely to get the maximum speed unless conditions are optimal. In the case of a modem with, say, a maximum potential speed of 56k, that normally means being within a mile of your exchange on a good line (most of the time I get connect rates of 40-48kbps). In the case of packet data on a mobile network, your base station provides a fixed number of data "slots". Your phone can negotiate for up to the maximum number of slots it can handle at once (for example, in GPRS the Nokia 7650 handles 4 "down" slots and 1 "up" (or maybe 3/1). If your cell is busy, you may only get 3, 2 or even 1 "down" slot (this direction is the one which sends data to you, and so directly influences your experience of network "speed"). Also, data rates fall off as a reciprocal of the distance to the base-station. Combine these two factors and it's easy to see that you're fairly unlikely to achieve the maximum theoretical rate, no matter what the operator tells you :-) EDGE may work slightly differently (the previous relates to GPRS) but I suspect that the principal's the same.
It's too late for me to die young
I blogged about this a few weeks ago...
3 /S printPCSDataServices/
http://www.peerfear.org/rss/permalink/2003/09/2
It turns out that most Sprint PCS Vision phones support wireless over USB... that and it works just fine over Linux.
All and all this means you can get wireless on your Linux box for only a few bucks a month (if you have an existing sprint phone and account).
Edge might amazing but it's hard to beat this price...
Verizon offers low bandwidth (14.4) service for free. (just ticks away from your plan's minutes). It's suprisingly fast for websites although you don't want to download anything.
EDGE is basically GPRS with a re-worked radio interface and some other sensible tweaks that should take it up to better bandwidth.
One of the most important things though is not the constraints that GPRS has in an ideal world but that it suffers really badly from congestion when loads of people are using it. This is particularly evident at the moment in places where LOTS of people are using GPRS (I live in London...). EDGE should be more resiliant to this kind of capacity constraing at the air-interface. Of course things like EV-DO compete with this on CDMA networks - and 3G should be good at this if they can sort that all out.
You can also just sign up for the regular Vision service on your Sprint PCS phone for $10-$15. Then get a USB-datacable (I bought the one for my Sanyo 4900 directly from Sanyo as Sprint doesn't sell them anymore (http://www.sanyo.com/wireless/)). The next thing is to setup a PPP-connection and you'll have everything you need to connect your Linux (or Windoze) box to the Internet.
Be warned though Sprint may frown upon too heavy use of Vision with an attached computer to the PCS phone. They intended the service to only be used with the builtin browser in the phone. If you use it too much they may contact you.
On the other hand I've been using this service occassionally when travelling to log into my VPN or access websites/ssh and it has worked very well. I typically see speeds between 28-110 Kbps and it definitely is useable.
regards,
Heiko
Facts:
AT&T 100-130 Max 200 Kbps avail to 215 Million Customers.
Sprint 50-70 Max 144 Kbps avail to 230 Million Customers.
Verizon Wireless 60-80 Max 144 avail to 230 Million Customers.
Verizon Wireless' NationalAccess has average speeds of 60 - 80 kbps, peaks at 144 kbps and is available to nearly 230 million. BroadbandAccess,
Verizon Wireless's faster EVDO service at 300 - 500 kbps on average (2 Mb peak), is offered in the San Diego and Washington D.C. markets.
EDGE makes its debut after nearly two years' delay due to technology issues. With no evolution path, EDGE is seen as a stop gap before AT&T has to invest in yet another technology like WCDMA. In addition, EDGE does not improve voice capacity and due to deteriorating data speeds over great distances from the base station, requires greater base station density thus adding to AT&T network costs.
Neither Sprint or At&T wireless is in position to provide any broadband services past their initial offerings. Vzw will be expanding the market for EVDO in 2004 to other major cities (I hope Dallas) Also sprint and verizon's speeds are slower due to technology limits with the initial offerings but compared to CDPD which was most times at best 14.4 speeds it's a leap ahead. I would expect to see 10-100Mbit wireless within the next 5 years in larger cities to compete with landline DSL and Cable which both have limits well under 40Mbit.
If a client sends me a Microsoft Word file and I need to read it to do my work, the Blackberry can't read it, nor can a cell phone, no matter how spiffy it is.
.zip format
From the Blackberry website:
In addition to your email, corporate data and calendar events, you require access to email attachments when you're away from your computer. BlackBerry provides an attachment service that lets you open and view email attachments on your BlackBerry handheld.
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft PowerPoint(R)
Corel(R) WordPerfect(R)
Adobe(R) PDF
ASCII documents
HTML attachments
File types listed above archived in
Control how much information you receive
Request the table of contents of a document and go directly to the section you're interested in
Or view the full content of the document
Optimized for wireless delivery
Formatting and font information is preserved where possible
Documents are compressed for quicker delivery times
End-to-end security
Integrates with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server using the same encryption you receive with email and corporate data access so you can feel confident sending and receiving documents
Read the Attachment Service White Paper - PDF
*Check with your service provider for availability
rumor has it that another national wireless service is going to be releasing something in this arena real soon now....bursts to 3Mb....sustained 1.5 Mb with good signal strength....starts with N and rhymes with "tel" we shall see...
I'd be a lot less uninclined to use their service if the web site worked. I'm sticking with t-mobile as my choice for the switch.
funny munging
I'm a little confused by the article - I just got the Treo 600 with the $15 a month PCS Vision service and I love it. The Treo is amazing (as has been described). The blazer web browser renders webpages great (I was /.'ing on it the other day) and at VERY acceptable transfer speeds. AIM is already enabled and SMS/POP3 service is forthcoming.
smd4985
The person mentions a few technical details that aren't quite correct. From the article, "The Edge service works by giving up to four time slots of GPRS service to a single user. The four time slots, each good for about 30K of bandwidth, thus can add up to around 120K or so."
/.ers should know that everyone is not always right. ^_-
This isn't quite accurate. GPRS itself ranges from using 2-8 timeslots based on the class of the device. Classes 10-12 typically have 4 timeslots for download which gives you about 32-48Kbps (you can effectively get 8-12Kpbs per timeslot with GPRS). See here for some specifics.
EDGE is, more or less, an upgrade to GPRS just to push more bits of data through. A quote from Ericsson's info page about EDGE: "EDGE uses the same TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) frame structure, logic channel and 200kHz carrier bandwidth as today's GSM networks, which allows existing cell plans to remain intact." Of course, there is a white paper linked off of that page that gives more technical details for eany who are interested. Note: It's not about using any more time slots than GPRS.
For carriers choosing the GSM route, the upgrade path is GSM -> Add GPRS -> Upgrade to EDGE -> Upgrade to WCDMA (aka UMTS). It is a little ironic that the eventual 3G network of GSM carriers will be a CDMA type technology (though with a massively huge spectrum requirement compared to CDMA2000). Only time will tell which turns out to be the better technology, though the CDMA carriers seem to be jumping ahead of the GSM ones. Of course, some might argue that almost the rest of the world uses GSM so it should be the logical choice. But then again, most
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WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
I am using my Verizon phone (LG VX6000) connected to my ThinkPad moving at 85 MPH on the train from DC to NYC. I have a nice 115.2 kbps connection and I am checking my email and browsing at a decent speed. It uses a Fourelle Venturi compression system for the images which speeds things up a bit more. All in all I am very happy with it. And minutes are deducted from my pool- so nights and weekends it is free. Thanksgiving counts as nights and weekends so I am enjoying an IP connection the whole ride up!
Lies, damn lies, statistics, ISP bandwidth claims, and SCO legal arguments.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I have a Handspring Treo 300 with Sprint PCS Vision service. When I connect to my laptop with the USB cable I consistently get 140kbps. I'm not sure why AT&T is spreading lies about the service, but I have no problem opening up Shoutcast and listening to 128kbps MP3 radio streams over my cellphone. It works great and never stutters unless I try to browse the web at the same time.
The latency, however, is pretty bad. It's about 500 ms. latency, but you can't get everything perfect. I'm just amazed that I can be on the freeway travelling 70 mph and get faster than ISDN speeds to my laptop.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
I use Sprint's unlimited vision plan (professional pack) fopr $15 extra in addition to calling plan. It works great, I have used VPN software to connect to the PPTP VPN at work, even access the server using terminal emulation software and of course, in the included Sprint's business connection software, I can real my work emails, documents on my PC at work etc... and speed is fairly good.
Why not use a booster to ensure the best data rate.? An number of vendors offer a range of fixed directional antennas and repeaters and phone booster antennas.
Unless you are driving in a car or reading email as you walk, "mobile" users are stationary during actual use (a car-top cellphone antenna might be the answer for truly mobile use). For semi-mobile use, a little stand and a Yagi antenna would help improve transmission/reception to the local cell tower. A simple signal strength app would help you point the antenna (for extra credit it could even help you find a tower in an adjacent, less used cell for access to more slots). For boosted use in a hotel room, cafe, or client office, a directional antenna or repeater would be quite useful.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I am a full time RVer and we have found Verizon is way better than Sprint. They let you use phones with real antennas instead of Sprint's limit of using cards. And Verizon coverage is now better than sprint on 1X data (not the case until recently).
Yahoo Groups: InternetByCellPhone
It's easy... and sort of touched on in the article itself.
Instead of installing the Connection Manager from Sprint, call you need to do in is make a new PPP connection, and for the phone number, put in the #777.
This directs the base station at the cell site to direct the call to the PDSN and make a data connection. Then your phone acts just like a 70k modem. This will work in any OS that can make a PPP connection, no proprietary software needed.
It's frustrating to read this article, for one, there is just one measure of performance - 'k'. This 'k' is what, kB, kb? OK, let's assume it's the same 'k' as in a 56k modem, what's the latency then? Can I expect to work as if I was on a slow landline modem, or is it going to remind me of the 'world wide wait' days? I expect the latency to be pretty high, the link latency plus that of the internet. The most efficient strategy is still probably to search for a Starbucks.
If you're the type that doesn't care for speed, and only cares for such things as SSH, mail, etc. then you definately want to look into Sprint's older Wireless Web.
.... its also only 5 dollars a month. AND, you do not get charged for how much data you transfer. Your wireless internet time comes out of your normal cell phone plan. So you can use it during the night and weekend for free. (NOTE: you need a standard dialup company to dial into). Also Sprint has some phones that act as standard AT modems (a whole bunch actually), so linux users need to worry about such.
Its pretty slow, actually its pretty damn slow, its about 19.2kbps. BUT
Verizon also has a great offer. They have Mobile Office which is pretty much the same as Sprint's service. However verizon provides you with a virtual ISP to dial up into. (*No extra* cost to anyone either)
For a little more info, take a gander at this tread
Sunny Dubey
If the "Lawyer" warning about Goatse shows up before the image, it's no good. The best part about a high speed connection is that nobody realizes they've hit the Goatse site because both the warning and image load up at the same time.
It's not the fastest in the world, but it works fairly well and I usually use it while moving (bus, train, passenger in a car).
Fortunately for me, the mail.app client on OS X works fairly well with net connections going up and down.
OMG!
LOLz
We have a local wireless company Skynet Broadband in NW washington that has been hacked twice in what seems like less than that 60 days. As a result its subscribers are out of internet for 3-4 days while they rebuild everything.
I'm willing to give them a chance though I'm not entirely confident in their services.
Boredom's not a burden anyone should bear.
Well... yes and no.
BEWARE - Some of those plans (presumably the cheaper one's) are meant for use only inside the phone itself (Camera phone/Cell Phone "Web"). *not* for driving an laptop or whatever. An number of people have gotten burned because they have done this and used an "large" amount of bandwidth, to make themselves show up to their radar.
If your quiet enough, you can probably get away with it.
What you want is Ricochet. I used it for about 6 months to "telecommute" from my patio, the park, or any other place I felt like. I used VPN and it was reasonably fast.
Sprint's specs list a maximum of 128kbps on the Vision service, and I get very close to that. But you must remember that speed and latency are completely different. I've seen an average or 300-800ms latency on Vision. If you start a large download, I'll see close to the the full 128kbps. However, the latency makes the average web surfing or ssh session (send a little, receive a little, repeat) feels as slow as a 28.8k modem.
If AT&T can decrease the latency rather than increase the speed, I'm there!
I dumped Sprint because of billing disputes, but it was a tough choice, because I had become addicted to the Vision service. (I switched to Qwest, who is about to switch from their own network to Sprint's, so I figure I'll be back on Sprint's 3G network soon enough, only with someone else doing the billing.)
I hooked up my PowerBook to my Sanyo 4900, and it was very simple. Just plug it in, OS X showed it as a 'SANYO USB PHONE' modem, and I had it dial #777 (as has been mentioned elsewhere.) Instant 70-120kb/s connection. The connection was fast enough to use Apple's iChatAV over it! (Albeit with some heavy latency, 500-800ms makes video conferencing very disorienting.)
If AT&T's new service really is that fast, and if it has an unlimited data plan, I may get it as a second plan to go with my Qwest voice service.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
so we are probably meaning 800-1040kb/s when we are talking about 100-130 kB/s wireless.
Konppix has a sprint pppd scripts (/etc/ppp/peers/sprint and /etc/chatscripts/sprint) ready to go. I use the following login script:
/#!bin/bash
/bin/setserial /dev/modem baud_base 460800
/usr/sbin/pppd call sprint
/usr/bin/tail -f /var/log/messages
The uploads on Sprint go faster than the downloads. I can get 20KB which is actually above their 140Kbit speed claims. Downloads range in the 12 to 14KB range. When I lived in Silicon Valley (Redwood City) I couldn't get DSL/cable so Sprint wound up being my primary ISP.
Deuteronomy 13:06-9
It is possible to use certain phones to gain EDGE Service. Just wanted to clarify that a separate card is not required if the subscriber has the correct phone.
I have had wireless internet service from Cingular for nearly a year. Two things you should know before you buy this:
1) It's about 9 kbaud. Barely acceptable for checking a low-volume email account.
2) I have had consistent billing problems with this service for the past 3 months. Seems they think each connect is a "directory assistance" call, for which they want to charge an extra $2 a pop. I have had to call them up to get these charges deleted each of the last 3 months (one month, it was over $150 for this alone).
In addition to these problems, I found that the setup was not straightforward, and the Cingular helpdesk was thoroughly clueless. I currently have what might be a hardware problem -- I can connect via IR port, but not with the cable. Again, getting any help from Cingular has been an exercise in futility.
I am obligated to keep Cingular for another 9 months on my current contract, at which time I may take advantage of WLNP -- and by which time the current shakeout due to WLNP should be settling down. I'll be looking first and formost for whichever mobile service has the best deal on wireless internet.
Concealed Handgun License Courses in Plano, Texas
there's a couple other things that might be nessissary (for sprint/verizon) depending on your situation... easiest way would be to get serial cable and setup your phone as an external modem... you can easily set this us with a usb cable, just make sure you've got all the proper modules compiled in (most usb cables from sprint/verizon are all usb->serial converters). after setting up you phone, be sure to include the following settings per connection: qnc (14.4) username: qnc password: qnc init string: at$qcmdr=2; at$qcqnc=1 number: #777 1x-rtt (peak 144k, realistic 40-60k) username: MND@vzw3g.com (where MND is your mobile number, (not your MIN, in cases of LNP) don't know username for sprint) password: vzw (ditto) init string: at$qcmdr=3; at$qcqnc=0 in cases where you want to buy a card instead of using your cell phone, sierrawireless (http://www.sierrawireless.com) has walkthrough for setting up their cards for use under linux. these walkthroughs apply to all of there cdpd, is-95 and 1x-rtt cards. unfortunatly the only 1x-evdo cards we have right now (airprime) are really buggy and have no real way (currently) of opperating under linux.
A common mistake: the article is referring to AT&T Wireless, NOT AT&T: the two are separate companies, with separate employees, separate board of directors, etc. AT&T spun-off the Wireless division into its own company.
AT&T Wireless just happens to be allowed to use the AT&T name and logo. But it is a separate company.
PdaNet software was what made PCS Vision into something I can use. Just plug the Treo into hotsync cable and bingo, you have a mobile modem that's fast enough to be liveable. No bullsht with special wireless modem cards or any of that. Speed and latency is as described in the article, and this is actually my only connection at home, since I don't have a land line or broadband. It works damn fine on the road, too, no more Wayport charges for in-room net connection.
-fister
This site has ppp options and stuff.n .shtml
https://schizo.psychosis.com/~dcinege/sprintvisio
I use Sprint PCS for my cell service and have the 2000 minute plan, which gives me their 'vision' for free, unlimited*. Using a third party data cable, I get unlimited wireless access (where ever I can get a Sprint signal)to my laptop. I am posting from my laptop now in a remote part of N. Carolina, having traveled here from Columbus, Ohio. With a full signal, I get a transfer rate of about 25KB/sec, about 5 times faster than 56k.
OhioJoe
*"unlimited" is not completely true. If I were to use this to download files 24/7, it'd catch Sprints attention, and I've heard stories that they will shut off the service. But, since I don't use this so heavily, I am not using as much bandwidth as someone who contantly checks sports scores on their cell phone.
"Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity."
So, enough rhetoric (to much rhetoric, just want to like service, just can't avoid company, arrr.), the tech stuff... I played with it for 2-3 days with no success, had to create my own modem script by dinking around modifying other scripts. I had an idea it would work it was just a matter of time, but I really didn't want two plans and two devices and I knew at this point it wasn't something that was going to be worth it for the occasional use, among other things... so, I just returned it and got a Sanyo 4900 to do voice and data and went to Radio shack and bought the USB cable to plug it into my Mac. Sprint was originally planning on supporting this but killed it after realizing they couldn't track data usage on voice/data plans. After dinking around with it for a couple more days. I had a working solution. Yeah!
My initial report over a year ago (I don't believe it's online anywhere now, but will repost to my journal if requested) is that I was getting about 8k a second of real world download, an average ping of 400ms, but rather erratic. One time a web page would load in a couple seconds, the next not at all for 30 minutes or until I restarted the connection. Anyway, it worked for me in a pinch, if I needed to check mail, or needed to pull up map-quest while traveling or just dink around at an airport.
So, I've used it in Phoenix, Chicago, Mich, San Diego, and numerous places near and far with a very high success rate and without to much frustration. My first time connection rate was nearly 90%. I was pleased. Oh, btw, I did notice when using it with Windows I was able to get about 16k/sec in real download situations. About twice as fast. I always assumed it was my crappy hack modem script. I'm sure several others could have been found online in the last 9 months if you really dug, but I never really bothered to check.
So!! Here is the great news. I installed 10.3 a couple months ago and I don't know if sprint supports it or what, (as mentioned I find it best to have as little interaction with them as possible to reduce frustration) but the pcs vision modem script is included in 10.3! Yeah. Upon my first trial I found it was incredibly improved. In fact it was just not the mac support, but I should mention I have noticed improvements in Sprint's systems as they updated their networks and in my phone when I upgraded the phone software. Anyway, it is now very reliable over the last few weeks and I've been using it much more. Getting an average of 16k/sec in realtime situations although still the 400ms ping times. My first time online with it in OS 10.3 i went over and downloaded the newest alpha of Mitch Kapor's and the OSAF's Chandler (about 20mb) in less than 30 minutes. Of course the latency goes completely to hell when you're maxing out the pipe on a large download and you can barely load a web page, but even being able to download a 20mb file at 16k a second is way better than expected.
Anyway, my recommendations are th
I am a monkey. This is slashdot.
Really!? Can you substatiate that with online documentation references? If they crack down on me I'l just leave them. I'm late to these threads, but I just made a large review post of exactly this sprint voice/data solution. The url follows. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=87287&threshol d=4&commentsort=3&tid=137&tid=193&mode=nested&cid= 7580470
I am a monkey. This is slashdot.
One point might help understand why EDGE doesn't always mean higher bitrates: EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for Gsm Evolution) adds new channel coding schemes that allow you to push more data through per timeslot. As usual, TANSTAAFL, and the downside is that the new coding schemes have less robust error protection. The end result is, that to get the higher EDGE-enabled data rates, you'll need to have a good connection to the base station. If there are a lot of errors in the air interface, the system will drop to more robust coding schemes and you'll get lower bandwidth, even though the number of timeslots stays the same.
It's of course also possible that not every base station has EDGE support yet, even if the operator claims they have an EDGE-capable network. Then your bandwidth may vary depending on the base station you happen to use. And, finally, (E)GPRS currently doesn't give you bandwidth guarantees, so depending on the amount of traffic your bandwidth may vary even under ideal radio conditions.
The username/password of qnc only applies to 2G data calls (14.4k).
Just wanted to clarify that. If you want "Vision" or the 3G data calls, you need to use your own 3G login/password.
Unless something is broken with Sprint, and they are allowing QNC calls to connect via the 3G path. If that's the case, that opens some interesting possibilities.
They advertised 128Kbits and I often got more than double that. I remember being in a hotel room in San Francisco and was able to get bother 32KBytes (256kbits) in BOTH directions UP and DOWN.
I call that delivering on their promise. Too bad they've had so many business related issues.
Man this comment feels like a Beowolf cluster.