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Review Of Verizon's New Wireless Network
jagger writes "The service gives you the speed of broadband, the ease of WiFi and the coverage of cellular... sort of. The service is currently rolled out in Washington D.C. and San Diego, CA but offers speeds comparable to broadband. Read the full review from Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post at Yahoo News."
The biggest blocking factor for me on Verizon is the lack of bluetooth phones. My t610 joined with my Powerbook is a shear joy (except for the speed). Bluetooth is great. Verizon sucks for not having any handsets that use it (or pressuring manufactures to make a decent CDMA phone with bluetooth).
We are starting to deploy the cards on sales laptops. While most of our sales guys are out of the highest speed markets noted in the article, the card and software have worked very well and both are an absolute cinch to install and use.
This is probably why there aren't a lot of posts to this article, yet. Every Slashdot reader is frantically trying to order "boradband".
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
I have to give some credit to Verizon for really putting their competitors to shame. I pay $30 a month for DSL thats 1024/256 Mb/s I get excellent customer service. I had been an earthlink customer prior to this for over 5 years and got tired of there ever creeping up prices. My only concern here is it seems this is basically WiFi via there current cell phone network. if so then again we are going to run into the local bells muscling the market.
Sounds pretty lame. The article says it's $80/month, you don't get email or voice phone, and it isn't an always on service. And you have to use their hardware. Lot of money for not a lot of features. I bet you could get better service by wardriving.
USE='clever' emerge -u sig
Are you kidding me? "boradband" has over 4,300 hits on Google! This technology is hot stuff!
I agree, as the article says probably nobody will get it except those who can write it off as a business expense. Unless the price drops precipitously it will quickly become just another service that home users will never get - think Nextel 2-way wireless radio on your cell phone. Nobody gets it except companies who can drop the money and write it off.
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
can you IM me now? good....
I can see this as being a promising service.. as of now Verizon Wireless has the largest nation-wide network and one of the best coverages in the nation..
BE DEAD CAREFUL OF VERIZON's WIFI SERVICE
This is for your New Yorkers who know what I'm talking about. (wifi service in the island of Manhattan free for all verizon dsl/dialup users)
What is to be careful of? Fake Verizon-WIFI APs. No joke. I was walking down 14th street next to Broadway, and suddenly I wanted to hop online to check what the weather would be for later that day.
I pop out my Zaurus, pop in my wifi card, and start sniffing for whatever wireless networks I can get to. I hit a Verizon-WIFI AP, which works for me being that my company is a customer of theirs. I pop in my Verizon Online password, and my password, hit enter, and I'm in.
Except for ONE problem. I typed in my username wrong! (Zaurus 5600 owners know how much of a bitch it is to type numbers with the damn Fn key.) But I still got in!!! I reconnected, typed in a bogus user/pass, and still had zero issues getting in.
At first I didn't realize what was going on (being that I was late for class, and rushing like crazy). But then it dawned on me, that this was a fake AP setup to steal real verizon user-names and passwords. Pretty slick if you ask me.
Yeah yeah, not too related to the topic at hand, but other verizon customers may want to know
Sunny Dubey
"...it includes neither an e-mail account nor voice phone service."
But it does sustain rates around 500 kbps or over...
Voice over IP, anyone? It seems like they're practically begging that application- why carry and pay for a cell phone too, especially if you can get this service on a PDA some day?
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Sadly, it also gives you the quality of Verizon.
now i can download my mp3's and screener iso's while leading the RIAA and MPAA's lawyers on a high speed chase!
:P :P
you cant sue me until you catch me and serve me with a summons
nyah nyah now im in mexico
I currently pay 40$ a month and use the Audiovox 5220 card that Verizon is selling.
Thing is, this is not a new service and I'm not getting it from Verizon. I'm getting it from Monet Mobile.
...but not for long...
The service is fantastic- I can't imagine a better product. The truly sad thing is that Monet Mobile (www.monetmobile.com) is going bankrupt and shutting me down on April 1, at which point I'm going to have to pay the Verizon fees or go back to wired internet... (sigh)
Lets see.. I pay $50 / month for DSL. I also have to pay for a $20 / month "basic phone" line just to get the DSL. By basic, it's just a dial tone, no caller id, no features, even the ringer stays turned off so I dont have to deal with telemarketers. I could care less about it. I get free long distance, 400 anytime minutes, free nights and weekends, and free mobile-to-mobile minutes on my wireless phone. Plus voice mail, caller ID and I can take it anywhere. So why do I need a wired phone? Just so Bellsouth can establish DSL service. Yuck! It stands as an emergency 911 phone in case the wireless phone's battery is dead (if ever..).
That means I already pay $70 / month just to get DSL. I already have Verizon Wireless, so I might qualify for some kind of package deal discount.
The wireless phone I have is already a data-capable G3 phone. Possibly just a flash upgrade will enable the higher rates. So, I am probably out just a USB cable to get online. Anywhere, whenever. Hmmm.
Sounds like a good idea to me.
You know, it seems that where the telco's dropped the ball with fiber-to-the-curb, the wireless providers stand to prosper using RF.
The article didn't go in depth (or mention at all) about security the wireless service uses. If this is something that is widespread, I only hope that the security is something to be applauded. I would hate for a user in the home to go to their bank and enter their information only for the ever lurking hacker/cracker to gain access to their information.
Does anybody know of the security protocals used for this?
-- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
I've spent the last couple weekends war-walking the National Mall, Clevland Park, Capitol Hill and dupont circle. Woodley and Van Ness will be this weekend's projects. Suffice to say, war-driving in DC will NOT get you better coverage than Verizon.
;however, I've had little luck getting signal in the Capitol/Mall area.
There are lots of unprotected default "linksys" and "netgear" wireless points in the residential areas
and I wrote a story about this months ago. Here's what you Linux geeks won't like. So far it won't work in Linux. That's mainly a driver issue with the card or really that there is no Linux driver (that I am aware of). Also I think that it is installed (even in Windows) in a funny way. It has to connect under dial-up networking?!?!
"But at $79.99 a month, it's only a good deal to those who can write it off as a business expense."
Grrr. I'm paying $60 for a (highly rate limited due to the # of subscribers) 256Kbps 802.11 uplink, $99 for 128Kbps IDSL (yeah, I know it's just repackaged ISDN) because the former is too unreliable, and $15 for a decent dial-up to backup all the others because I can not afford not to have a connection! If I thought it would help I would kill someone to get 600Kbps for $80.
You can not function in the modern employment world above the level of "service" without solid, fast Internet connections. If you haven't figured this out yet you're grist for the unemployment line. It's a personal expense the same way a plumber pays for a toolbox full of tools. Get it?
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I just got wireless broadband out here in rural West Virginia. Amazing..I know. It is great as I get 1.3Mb down about the same up for $50 a month. Anyhow I just bought a wireless router and it seems to interfere with my wireless broadband antenna. When I enable the wireless functionality on the router my internet connect goes bye-bye. Anyone else had similar experience. I'm pretty sure my wireless broadband is over 802.11b and the wire router I bought is 11b as well. Any solutions?
No Sig For You
"But at $79.99 a month, it's only a good deal to those who can write it off as a business expense."
This guy apparently doesn't know any geeks.
With VOIP becoming so popular, a laptop with this would be portable broadband and mobile VOIP all in one. That would be well worth the expense to lots of us.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Verizon has no competition at this speed and won't for a while. Carriers using the competing GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) wireless standard aren't close; for instance, AT&T's new EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution) service tops out at 200 kbps.
So ATTWS has EDGE nation wide, and Verizons EvDO is only in a 2 markets. ATTWS already has UMTS trials in 7 major markets, at speeds faster than verizon, soon to launch commerically!
So you dont hear it much, ATTWS has the fastest nation wide network. When Cingular takes over, and the 2 merges coverage areas, expect the best nation wide coverage, and fastest speeds around.
I'm just wondering when Cingular starts expanding UMTS past the 7 markets, what will Verzion do? It cant offer what it doesnt have, or built out. Be interesting to see what Verizon does to counter the Cingular advantage.
think Nextel 2-way wireless radio on your cell phone. Nobody gets it except companies who can drop the money and write it off.
I think that there is another reason for that.
Imagine if people were using that 2-way walkie talkie function for "regular" as in non business related ways.
Picture an executive in a high level meeting. He's laying down the law to mid level execs and as he's deriding them for their lack of vision and focus...BEEP BEEP "Henry! I told you to pick up diapers and tampons on your way home last night. Maybe I should just have the pool boy do it, he takes care of the rest of my needs anyway!"
Or imagine you're at a bank going over the terms of the mortgage for your first home. Suddenly your Stiffler-Esque buddy from college chimes in BEEP BEEP "Yo fuckstick! I've been calling your apartment all day, I know you're not at work, I tried there too. You're not fucking my mom again are you?"
I suspect that only businesses have signed on to this because they still have the ability to fire people for misuse.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
3G has been put off for a long time, i'm suprised it hasn't come until now. This (to the best of my knowledge) qualifies itself as 3G. From a company like verizon I believe it. Rikachet failed because it was a solo project of a company that relied on their wireless internet service only. Verizon is already well-established and doesn't need this to produce revenue immediately. As far as $80/month being too much, take a look at how many people pay $50/month to bluetooth through their cell-phone with increadibly long login time and unreliable service-coverage.
By the way, this article was written by a reporter who probably either didn't know very much about the technology or was addressing it as being nice and easy to use, even for lusers (the "difficult to get working in a PC" comment). He claims it works wonderfully without any problem, he hasn't been payed to say it, and didn't say very much of anything on the negative side about it. This technolgy is not new (look at japan) I suggest you save your tinfoil for annother day's hat.
The article leaves out some interesting details. Like--how many antennas per square kilometer do you need to get this kind of speed? When I lived in Santa Cruz, Ricochet did one of their first deployments around town. This was in the early 90s, so you were getting 2400bps (yeah, bps) wireless all over town, which was kind of cool. Except they had to hang transmitters from every other light pole to blanket town. I think that's one of the reasons they never caught on: deploying infrastructure was too expensive.
It sounds to me like Verizon has something with much better range going here, but I guess Pegoraro didn't think to ask.
One of the reasons I'm interested is that my parents live in one of those oft-forgotten places in the US where high speed internet is a far-away dream. The town (population 500) is about an hour's drive over a terrible mountain road from civilization, so the local CLEC never bothered to run phone lines in: they just set up this crappy microwave link on top of a mountain.
No cable, no wired phone lines: needless to say, broadband is impossible (satellite being the unacceptable semi-exception). Which makes going back to hang out at the ranch pretty annoying.
The point (I'm getting there!) is that if these guys have figured out a way to get high speed internet to travel a good long distance, this could help solve the access problem for rural america.
Of course, I've seen so many supposed solutions come and fade away, that I sort of doubt it.
\
http://ramp.ucsd.edu/~bellardo/darwin/airprime/
You might be surprised but Nextel is becoming quite popular in the home market. I am very close friends with a family consisting of a father, mother, 3 kids, and an aunt and an uncle. Someone always needs to be picked up somewhere. Mother at the train station. Kids at various places. Grandparents all over the place. That family makes extensive use of the Nextel. My wife also pings me to come out and help bring in the groceries as she's pulling up to the house.
Finally, thanks to the free incoming calls and unlimited 2-way radio with my wife and best friend my chargeable minutes have dropped significantly. At worst, I used over 1,200 minutes. Then I added unlimited nights & weekends, and that dropped to about 500. Added free incoming calls, and that dropped to under 200! Now that my best friend has the 2-way, too, we ping each other all the time, and I'm thinking about dropping from the free incoming 400 to the free incoming 250.
It makes such a difference when you can get the point across without all the call setup hubub. Not the technical call setup stuff, the social stuff. "Hey, its me, got a minute?"
Now its, "[beep-beep] Can I reboot the server?" "[beep-beep] Sure."
Now that NASCAR's premiere racing series is Nextel Cup, you can expect a lot more subscribers to come online in the coming months and years. We are getting *bombarded* by Nextel ads these days.
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