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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."
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.
Perhaps this report may be of interest. Certainly worth considering before plunging into AT&T's more expensive services.
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
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.
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
The problem isn't bandwidth, it's latency. Cellular links have a minimum of 300ms pings and a fair amount of packet loss. Interactive applications like VPN and VNC are more affected by this than simple downloads, unrelated to bandwidth requirements.
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.
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
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.
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!