3G Internet Access Via PCMCIA Card

An anonymous reader writes "Found this on a European site. It's a PCMCIA card that connects you to the internet over a 3G network. With a download rate of 384kb/sec, it's close to broadband speed, and it works wherever there's network coverage. If you're tired of searching for a WiFi hotspot when you need one, this could be the answer."

Comments

Ehh....why is this on /.?

[halo1982]

How is this anything special?
Sprint has a variety of aircards operating on their 1xRTT network at up to 144Kbps. Verizon has an aircard for their 1xEVDO BroadbandAccess network with download speeds of up to 2MBps (also 1xRTT compatible) and another aircard for their 1xRTT NationalAccess network. AT&T Wireless also has an EDGE aircard at up to 384Kbps (they may have a WCDMA one too...not sure) and all of our GSM carriers have GPRS cards. Anyway any carrier with GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA/1xRTT/EV-DO or any other wireless data network offers aircards (American or not) and you can pick up unlocked ones up on eBay at decent prices. So why is this front page news?

Re:Ehh....why is this on /.?

[Anonymous Coward]

If by 144kbps, you mean 60kbps and by 2Mbps you mean 300-500kbps. The ATT numbers are actually what you can expect to get. The ATT network uses the same technology (3GSM) as the Vodafone one. I really don't know what makes this news since it really isn't new, but whatever.

Re:Ehh....why is this on /.?

[Anonymous Coward]

How feasible is online gaming on one of these cards? My university's network sucks for connecting to mmorpg servers. I'd love to combine one of these cards with one of these: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc ription=15-104-222&depa=1
If I can get a decent ping with these cards I can start playing Final Fantasy XI again.

Re:Ehh....why is this on /.?

[rjamestaylor]

Exactly what I was thinking. There's even Linux support for these things (I had a Sierra Wireless card for a brief time).

Re:Ehh....why is this on /.?

[halo1982]

How feasible is online gaming on one of these cards? My university's network sucks for connecting to mmorpg servers. I'd love to combine one of these cards with one of these: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc ription=15-104-222&depa=1 If I can get a decent ping with these cards I can start playing Final Fantasy XI again. The latency on these things is atrocious. No online gaming for a while. Maybe wait for Nextel's Flarion implementation.

Re:Ehh....why is this on /.?

[mobilebuddha]

latency for the aircards are measured in seconds, not ms that should tell ya something. :)

Re:Ehh....why is this on /.?

[TheNetAvenger]

How feasible is online gaming on one of these cards?

Depends on the network, card, and game...

I have a Verizon 3G card...

In San Diego or DC where they have the full 3G implementation, my download is faster than DSL driving down the road or at the beach.

I can also play real-time FPS when in my home city of San Diego, no problem.

Outside of San Diego or DC, I get the standard 144kps connection, and real time gaming is not fast enough for FPS type of games.

However, if you are playing something like Star Wars Galaxies or other online role playing game, even outside the 3G cities, it works fine, still better than dialup.

Like the above poster said, this stuff isn't new, not even in the US. I have had my verizon card for months and have been getting better than DSL speeds on average no matter where I am in the San Diego area. I have only tested it at the airport in DC, but it worked just as fast there as well.

As for regular coverage, I just did a road trip from San Diego to Reno, and after leaving LA the radio stations on the car started dropping off.

So I turned on the laptop, tuned into one of my favorite radio stations on the internet and listened all the way from LA to Reno with only a couple of drop offs, and it reconnected within secs.

It was ironic that out in the middle of nowhere in the valley, we could only get static on the car radio, but had full internet service and could listen to radio over the Verizon card.

Already in the UK

[FalconZero]

This kind of thing has been in the UK for quite a while now. I've used both the VodaPhone 3G and the Orange 3G datacard for employees. I personally prefer the Orange one for the benefit of the superiour network, but the Vodaphone one has a real no-brainer user interface, so I spend less time with employees ringing me up with that one. The one I'm REALLY waiting for is a 3G datacard that incorporates an 802.11b tranciever with seemless switchover when our employees enter one of our WiFi zones.

Re:Already in the UK

[Mod Me God Too]

But Vodafone reception spanks Orange - in terms of availability in dense areas and range in sparse areas. The greatness in Orange reception is all in the adverts... beats 1toNoOne (not TMobile) and MM02 though.

Re:Already in the UK

[FalconZero]

Without getting into a MyNetowrkIsBetterThanYours competition, It probably also has a lot to do with the handsets and the geography of the region your using it in.
I work mostly in the North, and (apart from underground) I can't remember a single instance of losing netowkr coverage with my P900, and I've travelled into Wales, through the Pennines, and pleanty of time in major cities (Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, York). Whereas my girlfriend uses a Nokia 6230 on Vodafone, and shes always getting signal dropouts in Liverpool and in the Pennines.

Re:Already in the UK

[Tony Hoyle]

There's an Orange dead spot about a mile south of Manchester stretching for about half a mile radius (just north of Levenshulme, if you know the area).

Before I ditched Orange I got used to losing the signal on the train for a few minutes as we passed through it.

Funilly enough there's another dead spot not far from my house... My wife knew when I was nearly home as the signal dropped.

Vodaphone has no dead spots around here that I've found, so for me it's far better.

Re:Already in the UK

[chewy_fruit_loop]

theres an O2 dead spot in my kitchen and living room (far side of bolton), if I want a signal in the house, i have to be upstairs pointing my phone at the window or in the loft.
mind you its a pretty effective way of stopping people phoning you, I get just enough signal to get texts. pick the phone up and aw damn it the signal dropped and i get a bit of piece ;-)

yes i know i could just switch it off, but i'm way to lazy and forgetful.

Re:Already in the UK

[afidel]

Well depending on your app you can achieve fairly good transitions by giving a higher value to the interface on the cellular card and a lower value to the WiFi card. This way any new communication will use the lower cost connection if it is available but you won't lose a connection mid stream.

Re:Already in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

VODAFONE YOU IDIOT

Re:Already in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

In most European countries, the GPRS/UMTS solutions offered are those of Vodafone. They use a standard card made by a (Belgian) company called 'Option Wireless Technology' (see http://www.option.com)

They have many cards, some even combine wifi + GPRS + UMTS. That is just what you are looking for....

For support under unix, see the http://www.kuix.de/umts/vodafone/

Re:Already in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

A better technology is currently available in Australia, it's called iBurst. It uses a PCMCIA card and has a download speed of 1Mbps and supports true roaming...looks very cool.

Re:Already in the UK

[Madcelt]

If you are in the UK, you may be able to get the Orange datacard on 1 months free trial. Sorry can't be arsed to find the link... ;-) On the subject of 802.11, I was at an orange bash the other day and I am sure they mentioned one being released by the end of the year.....

Why always somewhere else?

[BWJones]

So the question is: Why is the US the last place that gets many of these technological advances in networking and wireless data access? When I was over in NZ a couple of weeks ago, there were little tiny cell phones from Japan that were unbelievable in their capabilities. Stuff that typically takes years to show up here in the States are being used by Japanese school kids as a matter of everyday life. A card such as this that connects to a 3G network and auto switches to GPRS where available! (yes, I did read the article) would be huge here in the US particularly given the diverse geography throughout the US as one travels from one place to another.

Now if I could only get this either built into my Apple portables or get a 12in Powerbook or an as yet unreleased subnotebook with a PCMCIA slot....because the implementation and use of this particular card seems a little cluttered. You have to reboot with the card present in the PCMCIA slot which could be a Windows issue with networking I suppose. "You must restart your computer for the changes to take effect" type crap that I have to deal with whenever I use Windows systems.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[here4fun]

Why is the US the last place that gets many of these technological advances in networking and wireless data access? When I was over in NZ a couple of weeks ago, there were little tiny cell phones from Japan that were unbelievable in their capabilities. Stuff that typically takes years to show up here in the States are being used by Japanese school kids as a matter of everyday life.

The USA needs more time to add DRM. Seriously. No, just kidding. Maybe. :P

I think it has more to do with how many different systems there are in the USA. What is there? CDMA? GSM? There must be 4 or 5. Plus, if you have ever used a service from a bad provier (Sprint comes to mind), they keep signing people up even though they don't have the capacity for everyone to use the network, so many people get dropped calls even when they are near a tower. What would happen to the network if people decided to download porn on the train ride home?

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[Tezkah]

My 12" Averatec laptop has a PCMIA port, but thats not really a subnotebook.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several reasons.

Japan is about the size of a postage stamp, so "upgrading" the network takes a long weekend.

The US is quite large, and "covering" the bulk of the US with a new technology is a vast and expensive undertaking.

Also, we live in a political society that loves to write useless legislation that does nothing but complicate small matters and slow down new and cool undertakings.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[cmowire]

Ummm... Verizon has a EV-DO card that can get in the megabit range. And it downgrades to lower grades of CDMA if you are out of EV-DO range. So there *is* a card just like that already out here.

Also remember that the phones available are targeted at individual markets. It's not like there's some brand new extra-cool battery technology that they've got in Europe, it may just be that the average American consumer wants different features than a Japanese or European consumer. It's either that Americans want different features, better battery life, less cost, etc.

I mean, really. Does the lack of state-of-the-art Japanese toilets with sophisticated controls in America mean that we're behind or something? No, it just means that we prefer a simpler way to take a crap!

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[agristin]

because networks take infrastructure...

to cover japan in a 3 G network we'll say it takes X cell stations and it will cover all N Million Japanese.

to cover the US (unscientifically a zillion times the size) it would take Zillion x X cellstations and it will cover all N Million Americans.

Upgrading the Japanese network requires retrofitting X cellstations, while upgrading the US network requires zillion x X cellstations.

Very few networks actually cover the entire united states, because of the related problem of:

polulation density.

Japan is packed with people, and overall there are more people per square mile-

the US when averaged out, is not very dense. Sure there are some dense areas, and that is where the tests and pilot programs and prototypes are tried out...

but this impacts cost. So if you could deploy a network and it would be used pretty thoroughly all the way through with users paying for it, you would have a good network economic efficiency (in terms of dollar earned per dollar spent on infrastructure).

The US with it's low density tends towards poor network economic efficiency (except on the coasts) while Japan has high density and tends towards good network economic efficiency.

This higher efficiency in turn makes it easier to make enough profit which make it worthwhile to upgrade the network to offer more services to sell to your clients.

-E

BTW... The 15" PB has PCMCIA.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[cft_128]

Well, this wireless PCMCIA broadband tech is already here.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[mrgreen4242]

I was gonna post something to the effect of what you just said, so I guess this is just a Mod Parent Up post...

Something else related is that to develop wireless infrastructure in a country that hasn't got either wireless or a wired infrastructure, it is many times faster and cheaper to deploy a wireless one. As a result, there may be a time in the new future when barely developed nations will have superior wireless data connectivity than the US has at the time.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[JanneM]

Of course, some of the best connected countries in the world, like Sweden and Finland, have population densities that are lower than the US, and just as unevenly distributed.

It may be part of the explanation, but not the whole thing.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the blabbering of the other replies. Here is your answer in black and white:

Infrastructure. We don't have it. The Bells aren't willing to spend money on it because you and I (like so many others) continue to pay through the nose for whatever service we're offered.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[agristin]

That is why I covered size and density and network economic efficiency (which is the cost of the infrastructure taking into account # of users and amount users pay for network features).

-A

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[eggsome]

to cover the US (unscientifically a zillion times the size) it would take Zillion x X cellstations and it will cover all N Million Americans

In Australia we have 3G networks in all of the capital cities (bar one).
You don't HAVE to instantly have access in every part of the country.
3G internet access rocks BTW.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[megaversal]

I never really understand this argument. I'm not saying you're wrong, but here... every cell phone provider has dead zones everywhere. I have Sprint, and between all of my friends, we cover every major provider... yet no matter where we go, we always find our signal being dropped everywhere. Step inside a building? Lose signal. Elevator? If you haven't already lost your signal, you're about to lose it.

When I was in Japan last month, I found that none of these problems existed. On train rides in between cities, people were still using their cell phones as if they were standing next to a tower. I had many chances to interact with people who had the latest and greatest phones and they were watching TV on the phone, underground.. where my cell phone wouldn't even get signal.

If it's a population density thing, why do I still have this problem in a city like Los Angeles, yet they're fine travelling in between cities where often we get 0 coverage.

The only downside to their wireless system that I found was that whereas we get tons of cell phone minutes to talk, they get about 30 minutes... but their messaging system is really cheap. So where we spend most of our time with our cell phones to our ears, they're busy typing.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[Talez]

I'm so sick and tired of this bullshit excuse. I live in a country with a population that has a population density one tenth of that of the US and a market almost one fifthteenth smaller than the US and we've had 3G in the form of WCDMA in our state capitals for over a year now.

For places that don't have 3G coverage yet we *gasp* roam using GSM.

Also, you can only fit so many users on a base station and in a CDMA based system the cells only get smaller as more and more users jump onto them. So if you have large population densities you get sucky coverage and require more cells. If you have a small population desntiy you'll get longer range per cell and require less of them. While it doesn't work out exactly the same (the balance is still biased in favour of large population densities), X isn't nearly as small a number as you would think.

As for the network efficiency argument, stick the freaking towers in the middle of New York and LA. Theres 30 million users. 1/10th of the US market in 2 cities. Sure it doesn't solve the problem of "why can't I get 3G in the middle of the Arizona desert!" but theres no excuse for major cities not to be eqipped with the latest in cell phone technology.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[spectral]

No, it means that Americans are blind to the fact that they're being raped on connection charges, and their phones suck.

I bought a Japanese phone, it has a real address book (not just a phone book), built in email, web browser that would show pictures, games, and many other goodies.. plus it just looked sexy as hell.

That was two years ago. The phone was being phased out for a newer model.. I got it for $46 USD. My plan was $16 USD/month (I did have a student discount, so take this number w/ a grain of salt), and just paid as I went. No dealing with minutes or crap like that. Texting over there is insanely cheap, and it's the way people usually communicate on the things. Only if necessary do you call someone. Sorry. Emailing, since it was pointless to use C-Mail, Sky-Mail, whatever.. Every phone over there had its own email address, and the other texting networks weren't compatible with each other.

I just bought a phone here in the US (Verizon, unfortunately). No email, just SMS (though thankfully it works between providers). My web browser doesn't display pictures. My address book won't even store birthdays. I used to carry my Japanese phone around with me too, because it just did what I wanted, in a quick and easy fashion. I couldn't make calls on it, but I could take quick voice memos, and it stored my addresses. I often reach in to my pocket still and look for it, and am disappointed when I find my $150 verizon phone that can't do any of it.

So, perhaps I'm atypical. But I think it's just because the "Average American Consumer" doesn't demand features in their products that makes it so I have to deal with not being able to find a good phone over here.

(Yes, I know I could go tmobile and spend $700 to get a decent phone or something, but the coverage around here sucks.)

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, I'm sure when you were over here in NZ (yep, I'm a Kiwi), you looked at the prices of all our tech stuff and laughed at how much we pay for it :)

One instance of cellphones, compared to all the incredibly cheap technology and consumer items you guys get in the States/Canada/UK/anywhere else but NZ, is a small price to pay...

Not that I'm bitter mind you... (Well, okay, just a little)

P.S. Hope you enjoyed your stay btw ;)

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[afidel]

Well I wouldn't say we get raped, for $39/month I get 1,000 anytime national minutes, unlimited mobile to mobile with anyone on my providers network, and unlimited nights and weekends. Even with a 2.5 hour support call I only used about 3/4 of my anytime minutes last month. I have email, SMS, web browser with full HTML support, MIDP JAVA, Voice Dial, etc. There are slightly better phones available right now (3D support,MIDP 2.0, and Blue Tooth) but this one was free. Oh yeah and if you have a GSM provider just go online an order whatever phone you want since you can just insert your SIM and have it work as long as it supports your providers band =)

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[candiman]

Australia is as large as the continental US with a popolation 15 times smaller. Yet all the mobile phone networks cover the entire country.

This is due to legislation that stated if you want to build a mobile network in Australia you must cover the entire country.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[Fnyar]

You sound like a commercial!

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[Jim McCoy]

As for the network efficiency argument, stick the freaking towers in the middle of New York and LA. Theres 30 million users. 1/10th of the US market in 2 cities. Sure it doesn't solve the problem of "why can't I get 3G in the middle of the Arizona desert!" but theres no excuse for major cities not to be eqipped with the latest in cell phone technology.

And guess what? In some major cities in the US you can get EV-DO wireless broadband that kicks the shit out of your WCMDA and in most cities you can get 1xRTT that is not great but still better than dialup.

Getting this service everywhere in the US is the hard part..

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[Deliveranc3]

All the wealth you/we enjoy in North America comes from a huge amount of resources and increadibly low population density..

Because of this low population density selling in bulk never really caught on and things like transportation and yes technologies which require population density are increadibly expensive and lackluster.

Getting around in Asia is really cheap and watching 2 old women sell food to 60 people an hour at about 1/200th of their daily wage really makes your head spin...

One wonders if immigration laws are creating stagnation sometimes.

Perhaps we should prepare ourselves to live close together in smaller cars?

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kicks shit out? Bullshit... E.g. EV-DO is _data only_ (hence the DO) without simultaneous voice capability. In WCDMA you can share packet data connection with voice.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh soo sorry windows systems take up your valuble time... i mean with your mac system you saved countless seconds that can now be spent wishing you had an ipod or what ever retarded pretty gadget mac has!!

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[Aiofe]

This is especially relavent, since Australia has lower population and population density than America.

True, a lot of people live in the capital cities - but last I checked, the State of New York has more population than the entire country of Australia.

Then again - Australia is one of the most mobile-phone centric countries in the world, so it makes a certain amount of sense that we'd be using our laptops for 3G and similar internet soon after it arrived.

I'm sure the telcos would get more sales of such things if they had a decent charge rate for data, as stated elsethread.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[BishopBerkeley]

A co-worker's husband used to work for Verizon. They moved to New Zealand for a while because Verizon wanted to test a new technology there. The rationale behind going to small places is that, as others have said, it is easier to implement the technology. This is only part of the entire rationale, however. The main reason why New Zealand specifically frequently gets to be the proving grounds for Japanese cell phones and Verizon's new offerings is that the country is relatively rich and the demographics are similar to the demographics of Americans likely to eat up this technology.

P

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[ColaMan]

I don't know about your definition of "entire country" , but it obviously doesn't mesh with mine. I can drive from Mount Isa to Townsville (approx 900km) and have about 500km of that trip with *no* signal, GSM or CDMA.

There's plenty of self-aggrandizing ads that proudly proclaim "Now covering 97% of the population!!". They don't mention the many hundreds-of-kilometer gaps in coverage where people frequent (eg major highways), but where nobody lives. So, all you people that bitch about how your cellphone drops out all the time, consider yourselves lucky that you get service at all.

Look at me! I'm all bitter and twisted over fricken PHONE COVERAGE! Maybe I'll just go and have a lie down for a while :-)

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[kisanth88]

Because it's still a population density issue. In Japan it's cost-effective to deply mini-cels in buildings to cover that building. There is a higher population density that reduces network cost while still maintaining a higher deployment rate to the public. Thereby you can take a small amount of capital and deploy mini-cells to cover buildings or areas that have poor coverage while still maintaining a cost effective full-sized-cell network.

I would love to be a carrier in Japan. Technologically savvy public, readily adopts new technologies, not afraid of gadgets and a land-mass that makes network deployment extremely cost effective.

-k

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure if a cell phone company only had to worry about the state of California, they could probably have that area well connected too.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[ebbe11]

because networks take infrastructure...

It does - and as long as there is no clear decision on what that infrastructure should be, the US will have lousy coverage.

Sparsely populated countries like Finland and Sweden have exellent coverage because they - like the rest of Europe - have standardized on GSM. This hase several consequences that are all to the benefit of the users:

• There is a huge market and several manufacturers of GSM base-station equipment.
• There is nowhere near as much service provider lock-in because although there are several networks, they are all GSM so once you have bought a mobile phone (and had it unlocked) you can use it with any network.
• Being able to use your mobile phone anywhere in Europe means that they are much more useful when travelling.
• And finally, not having to pay when you receive text messages (SMS) have made texting unbelievably popular, especially among young people. In fact, SMSes are the major cash cow for most service providers in Europe.

All this is possible because the infrastructure is standardized by the governments.

In the US however, it was decided that the market should determine which standard should be the winning one. Unfortunately no clear winner has emerged so the US service providers simply don't have the same kind of uniform market. This means that there is less money to be made and hence less money for extending coverage.

Sometimes government mandated standards are a Good Thing (TM).

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[swmccracken]

Basically because the USA is afraid of the European inspired GSM network.

In NZ (where I live) it was always funny watching the CDMA, DAMPS and APMS provider - Telecom NZ - play catch-up in the technology, features and capabilities to the GSM provider - Vodafone.

It also helps that we can use phones that are literally from Asian countries. (At least, GSM ones.) You can go to Hong Kong and buy a GSM phone, and come here and put a Vodafone NZ SIM card in it and it will work. Keeps the competition up! (I don't have to wait for Vodafone NZ to play catch up if I don't want to.)

I must admit, I was confused what the heck this article was about. Cards like this have been in NZ since... oh, 2000? [looks at archive.org] Yep. There we go. Mentioned on Vodafone New Zealand's website four years ago.

The Nokia Card Phone in the year 1999. Sure this was GSM data old-school (the original - pre-GPRS - specification for data over GSM, at 9600 bps.) But hey. Same basic idea.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[LQ]

In the UK only about 40% of the population is in range of 3G but there is near 100% coverage for older technology. These 3G data devices fall back to the legacy protocol when out of range.

It is increasingly common to see the cards in laptops on trains.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[amorsen]

Actually it is the lack of legislation that is holding back the US cell phone network. In Europe frequencies are generally only given out/sold to companies which are using interoperable standards. Also, the US for some strange reason likes to assign different frequencies to widely adapted standards. This increases the cost of developing for the US market (and therefore protects domestic manufacturers).

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[megaversal]

Can they really deploy cells to individual buildings that easily? Wouldn't it be cost-prohibitive to outfit just about every building or are these mini-cells really that cheap and easy (ie. repeaters of some sort)?

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[mschaffer]

There are also plenty of areas in Japan where you cannot get 3G service.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[phearlez]

the US when averaged out, is not very dense. Sure there are some dense areas, and that is where the tests and pilot programs and prototypes are tried out...

And where law is made here in DC.

Re:Why always somewhere else?

[elhaf]

So where we spend most of our time with our cell phones to our ears, they're busy typing.

I can just see all the US Soccer Moms typing as they go down the road in their giant SUV's, running over motorcycles with wild abandon. Oh the humanity!

Summary for US readers

[RobertB-DC]

The Mobile Connect, as the full name suggests, is a 3G data card [...] connect to the Internet over Vodafone?s growing 3G network. The card also supports GPRS [...] You?ll also find a user guide, a driver CD and the all important SIM card.

So, for us norteamericanos, the summary of this story is simple: Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

(But I guess we can still slobber. And they say Slashdot is too US-Centric!)

/. Observations...

[Smitty825]

I can't wait to read all of the comments where posters claim $PREFERRED_WIRELESS_TECHNOLOGY is better than $OTHER_WIRELESS_TECHNOLOGY, even though they have no idea what they are talking about...

Available in Australia

[roly]

In Australia, this service is already available from 3. It's expensive, and the coverage isn't great (roams onto GPRS when no coverage), but it's available at the 384kbps speeds. In .au, that's more than the upstream of most Cable Modems and DSL lines!

Re:Available in Australia

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Unsurprisingly, we have that in the US too. It's called AT&T Wireless, and they offer EDGE nationally.

Sprint and Verizon offers 1xRTT nationally, and Verizon offers 1xEV-DO in certian markets.

Re:Available in Australia

[stoborrobots]

It's also available in limited areas at 1Mbps (and I mean real 1Mbps) via http://www.iburst.com.au/.

I was involved in the trial in Sydney at the start of the year, and it rocked... That said, their expansion is really slow, and I'm back in Melbourne, so it's out of the question now...

Re:Available in Australia

[Xrikcus]

Irritatingly 3 in the UK hasn't bothered to roll out any data services. Instead they're looking at the cheap calls market (you can put many more people on 3GSM cells than on old GSM cells, but you need a lot of customers for that to make things cheap for you). So Vodafone and Orange come along to grab the business market... I suspect 3 will not do well here as a result of that.

Yes indeed...

[hamisht]

If you're tired of searching for a WiFi hotspot when you need one, this could be the answer.

Only if the questions is: "Why can't I find any 3G coverage around here?"

You can do this via Bluetooth or USB already

[evil0ne]

I've been using my Sanyo VM-4500 phone with a USB cable to my powerbook to connect to Sprint's "Vision" service. Future Dial has been offering this for awhile.

Re:You can do this via Bluetooth or USB already

[Hobadee]

Screw Bluetooth and USB - I've been able to do this for a long time via infared!

Re:You can do this via Bluetooth or USB already

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the infrared a lot slower? Ever try moving your IrDA source while your on the internet?

Re:You can do this via Bluetooth or USB already

[Anonymous Coward]

The speed for IrDA is up to 4 Mbits per second (Mbps) and the distance is usually less than 30 feet in an unobstructed line of sight.
Bluetooth uses radio waves to transmit data and therefore doesn't have the line-of-sight restrictions of IrDA. Bluetooth also supports higher data transmission rates (11 Mbps) and uses the 2.4 GHz ISM bandwidth.

Re:You can do this via Bluetooth or USB already

[nolife]

Be careful with that. They will eventually notice and charge you per KB or remove your Vision service. They can tell the difference of total bandwidth used from a phone browsing the internet and a computer hooked to the phone browsing the internet. Read through alt.cellular.sprintpcs and search for Vision and usb cable (or some other key words) if you want to read some of the stories. This pops up roughly every month. It does work and works great but be careful. It is against the Vision TOS regardless of any salesman claims that may have been made otherwise.

Speed thanks to 3G

[YetAnotherName]

The card works thanks to the growing 3G (third generation) network that's common in the UK (where Vodaphone itself is). In the United States, Verizon has just started offering 3G coverage in three geograpic areas, including tech-savvy Silicon Valley.

I have no idea if Verizon's network will be compatible with Vodaphone's card. My guess is not.

Re:Speed thanks to 3G

[cmowire]

Nope. Completely different protocol stacks, slightly different modulation format.

Europe uses GSM and now UMTS, and there's no option to use something better, because GSM/UMTS is The Law.

America lets you use whatever the heck you want to. So Verizon uses CDMA.

Although, Vodaphone owns a chunk of Verizon Wireless. I'm glad it has the Verizon name and not the Vodaphone name. My friends would get tired of me referring to my "Bone-A-Phone" all of the time.

Re:Speed thanks to 3G

[Anonymous Coward]

att wireless currently offers umts service in 6 markets. they have a umts/gprs pc data card capable of hitting 2.5 or 2.75mbps while on umts service and 340+ kbps while on gprs $80 month gets you unlimited data nationwide.
the tech is here, just not as widespread as the rest of the world

Re:Speed thanks to 3G

[cmowire]

Indeed.

And when ATTWS/Cingular finish their merger and get UMTS properly rolled out and stuffed into the 800/850 MHz bands, Verizon's going to have a rude adjustment ahead of them.

Re:Speed thanks to 3G

[Talez]

Europe uses GSM and now UMTS, and there's no option to use something better, because GSM/UMTS is The Law.

Oh fuck. I better tell all these providers that GSM/UMTS is the law. Especially Portugal.

Or how about Sweden launching rural 3G in Sweden and Norway using 450MHz CDMA. Shit. I better ring them too. That was close!

Re:Speed thanks to 3G

[Xrikcus]

Firstly it's an operator defined standard, based on what the operators decided was best, not an arbitrary legal one. Secondly CDMA is no better than GSM except under certain population concentrations, they are no different unless the conditions are right for CDMA, which is unusual (and GSM has always had clear advantages in other ways anyway, battery life, SIM cards etc etc and international agreement has even more advantages). CDMA2000 is a different standard from 2G CDMA, as is WCDMA (UMTS) (to add to that, EDGE isn't a true 3G standard). Comparing UMTS to "CDMA" is a foolish one, because UMTS is true 3G, CDMA (with no qualification) is not.

linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Which ones of these cards work under Linux?

Re:linux

[Anonymous Coward]

None of them.

Chances are that you won't be seeing global-mobile internet for Linux ever either. It would be too much of a threat towards creating a perfect world.

Let's face it: Without internet, your computer is just plain boring. That's why you only lug it around when you have good reason to. If you had decent internet access any place you went with your laptop, you wouldn't be cramped behind your computer desk all the time. You'd rejoin society. Everyday people could see WTF you were seeing because you could actually show them, right there, on the spot.

Do you really think letting Linux geeks with that kind of potential power is a good thing?

Yeah... It makes me smile just thinking about it too.

Re:linux

[Alan Cox]

They should do. The ones I've seen are cardbus USB bridges hardwired to a USB serial device that talks AT commands. I guess they've gone from PCMCIA serial to cardbus usb serial because they need it for the bitrate and want to keep AT interfaces.

Re:linux

[Tony Hoyle]

Nope.. you're thinking of the GPRS ones which were apparently wired like that.

The 3G cards are proprietary tech and Linux hasn't got a clue what to do with it - if you want to use this card it's Windows or nothing, unfortunately.

Re:linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah? http://www.peck.org.uk/p/Projects/GlobeTrotter/V3G .html/

Re:linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoops I meant http://www.peck.org.uk/p/Projects/GlobeTrotter/V3G .html

Re:linux

[Anonymous Coward]

In most European countries, the GPRS/UMTS solutions offered are those of Vodafone. They use a standard card made by a (Belgian) company called 'Option Wireless Technology' (see http://www.option.com)

They have many cards, some even combine wifi + GPRS + UMTS.

For support under unix, see the http://www.kuix.de/umts/vodafone/

Re:linux

[zonk the purposeful]

The Vodafone 3G is not supported offically, and Customer care haven't got access to that information... however, check this out:

http://www.kuix.de/umts/vodafone/

Actually, thinking about it, I'll see if I can get it on our site.

The installer is windows only, and is got an interface, but is mostly fluff.

Further Irritation

[FalconZero]

The only thing that DOES irritate me with these is when employees go to places like China w/ laptops, and complain that its really slow, I consider explaining 3G vs GPRS/GSM, but is about as productive as explaining why we cant use bluetooth to make free calls.

Should have added...

[interactive_civilian]

The original poster should have added ...in Japan.

And then gone back in time about a year or so...

Already available in Australia

[dan_barrett]

Hutchinson's/Orange already sell this in Australia under the "3" brand (their 3g network).

Apparently it works well as long as you don't mind the AUS$10 per MB download charge and are in the reevant coverage areas.

Details are here.

Re:Already available in Australia

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Sprint sells a CompactFlash card / PCMCIA card for US use. The costs are pretty high, I don't think nearly $10/MB high but still high enough that even when I was stuck on a modem, I wouldn't consider it.

Ironically, on the cost front, I bought a T1 line and am splitting its cost and bandwidth with three businesses. :)

Re:Already available in Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

In Sweden I have been using this for free the last couple of months using my 3G mobile phone. http://www.tele2comviq.se/ has had an introductory offer with unlimited 3G data traffic for free until the end of the year. Also 3 in Sweden offers a flat rate for companies of about US$53 per month. Unfortunately that offer is only available to companies yet though.

Re:Already available in Australia

[matthew.thompson]

Actually Hutchison no longer have anything to do with Orange. Orange is now a brand of France Telecom.

In the UK 3 don't offer Data on 3G yet but Orange and Vodafone do.

Re:Already available in Australia

[JohnboyHolmes]

Sorry but the parent was talking about Orange Australia, they are a separate company.
Have a look at theire web site

data plan == arm & leg

[sPaKr]

There are a ton of these pcmcia wireless cards floating around. Now if they had a unlimited data plan that didnt break the bank that would be NEWS!

Re:data plan == arm & leg

[hcsteve]

T-Mobile has an unlimited data plan for ~$20/mo. And you don't need a pcmcia card - many bluetooth phones can do this as well. Works great with my 12" powerbook and nokia 3650.

Re:data plan == arm & leg

[sPaKr]

Run voip over the data plan and get cheaper unlimited minutes?

Re:data plan == arm & leg

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

T-Mobile USA - $19.95 per month for unlimited GPRS access with a voice plan. Alternately, $29.95 without a voice plan.

If that's too much, how about $4.95 for "T-Zones" which provides unlimited HTTP and HTTPS access.

Re:data plan == arm & leg

[sPaKr]

Is that GPRS with EDGE so its 128K? 384K? Hmm, I might need to scream at sprintpcs.

Re:data plan == arm & leg

[romerom]

with sprintpcs.. if you have a 3g phone, you probably already have unlimited 3g access (like 10 or 15 a month).. you can use a cable made by datapilot with most phones and it'll let you connect to the net at 230.4kbps.

Re:data plan == arm & leg

[Xrikcus]

Careful with that, I think you'll find it is a violation of contract to use it anyway but on the phone's screen, that's how the unlimited access is viable. (it's also not true 3G as I recall unless this is separate from the original tariff of that nature that they branded 3G).

Now available with colors that actually contrast!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/21/2 220209

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

This is NOT new

[crapnutassneck]

We have had "cellular data cards" in the US since about 97. It started on the TDMA side with CDPD at 19.2kbps (9.6kbps usable) mainly from ATT over the TDMA network. They then went to GPRS (30kbps in real life) and now EDGE (120kbps in real life) and in select markets UMTS (actually a WCDMA technology that is hitting 800kbps on unsaturated networks). Previous to this they were doing the circuit switched thing over AMPS (some of this still exists for telemetric devices).

Concurrently the CDMA carriers started with CS/CDMA (going off hook and dialing a modem at 14kbps over the CDMA network), then went to 1xRTT at 50kbps in real life, then to 1xEvDO and eventually to 1xEVDV in some markets (saw evDO tested and was about 720kbps in a mobile environment). The reason we don't have ubiquitis coverage with said devices is the pure and simple fault of the FCC for breaking up spectrum the way they did initially. This is NOTHING NEW. I was installing and deploying CDPD to telnet into servers/routers in 98-99 (before I went to work deploying this stuff for one of the carriers). It is available at dialup/bri speeds everywhere you get CDMA or GSM voice today and at dsl speeds in many major markets.

Re:This is NOT new

[garyisabusyguy]

Sure thing, I had 3g(2.5g really) gprs service attached to a Treo through Sprint in '02.

It was pretty nifty, but the small screen size, poor accomodation for html (especially frames) and billing rate (first 10mb included in plan everything billed by the bit afterwards) made it a not-so-attractive toy.

IMHO, hotspots offer a lot more promise if only in the aspect of pricing.

Plus, if hotspots become competitive with cell phone networks, then the cell phone providers will have to really put forward some innovative and price-competitive products.

Heck, look at the wringer that the 'net put ATT through ;)

Re:This is NOT new

[cmowire]

CS/CDMA is not dialing a modem at 14kbps. It is sending data instead of voice over individual "slot" and then using a modem on the cellular->POTS transition, which is the same way that GPS data worked before GPRS came out. Running a modem over digital speach compression is a very Bad Thing.

I'm not sure if you'd call the FCC breaking up spectrum a bad idea. Sure, it's lead to some standards clash, but it also means that there's more of an incentive to roll out new technology. Remember, CDMA is from Qualcom and was first rolled out in the US, because GSM wasn't the legislated standard.

Re:This is NOT new

[jsebrech]

Personally, I'd like to see combo cards that can talk to all the wireless networks, in a trickle-down fashion. I'm thinking of some kind of ubiquitous degrading wireless service like in neal stephenson's snow crash. It would start out trying to use bluetooth and/or wifi to find a local network. If it didn't find that, it would try UMTS, GPRS, and basic cell phone service, with a gradual degradation of data speed. It would have two settings: "fast" and "cheap", where it would either always choose the fastest link, or always choose the cheapest link.

Re:This is NOT new

[Dr_LHA]

I'm glad someone posted this, after reading all the "why don't we have this in the US?" posts I was starting to wonder if I was going mad and there wasn't really a PCMCIA Verizon EvDO card in my laptop right now.

Interestingly the software for the thing displays the Vodaphone logo pretty prominantly.

Re:This is NOT new

[aardwolf204]

You didnt get the right plan. I got the Sprint PCS Vision plan back in late 02 and it was $10/mo all you can eat data. Thing is the wont sell you the data cable for your laptop so you have to get it from BB or online. They're like $10-15. I've heard rumors that excessive use of the vision phone as a modem will get your service disconnected but no facts. I think they just want to scare enough people into not hogging the bandwidth with their unlimited accounts and charge the business people an arm and a leg per MB. Funny though, I'm actually looking at getting a Treo 600 or 650 when it comes out, hopefully the browser has improved since when you had it.

PS: There is a WIFI SD card that the treo might be able to accept, not sure, worth checking out.

People claim Australia is lagging....

[thehenman]

... but Americans are surprised at this technology? This technology is nothing new in Australia, even though the take-up is not as expected, due to exorbitant pricing structures.

Re:People claim Australia is lagging....

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia has terrible phone service. Probably the worst in the world. Great, you have tons of technology, but it costs so much it is not worth it. Not to mention despite having these things, the services from Telstra/Vodaphone are unreliable and shoddy. Oh, and call Telstra for service and see if you ever actually get it. Vodaphone will just try and trick you into another service plan reguardless of what you are calling about. Yeah, you go Australia.

Re:People claim Australia is lagging....

[kayak334]

... but Americans are surprised at this technology?

No. The article is very old news to us also.

Finally, damn stalkers

[Man in Spandex]

If you're tired of searching for a WiFi hotspot when you need one, this could be the answer."

I can finally be rest assured to have less bandwith-seeking nerds entering my wireless hotspot but, IANAL.

oooold news

[Anonymous Coward]

this should be from the "why are we even bothering to act like we know tech" department.

this could complement 802.11 nicely

[bersl2]

if it weren't so damn expensive. 1GBP =~ 1.8USD. yikes.

Re:this could complement 802.11 nicely

[cmowire]

You have to remember that if there was a demand for it, they could make a card that's mildly more expensive than 802.11 but also uses one of the two 3G formats.

But you'd have to have it "catch on" where people were buying it and promoting the economy of scale.

Re:this could complement 802.11 nicely

[bersl2]

The card isn't the real expense; it's a one-time sunk cost. The service charges are the killers.

They charge like wounded bulls...

[Goonie]

They have this in a number of countries with post Stone-age cellular networks (that means most western nations except you, USA), but it's not at all cheap. In Australia, you get about 500 megabytes download a month for about 70 USD. Over that limit, though it's 2.80 USD per megabyte!

I don't think you'd be downloading warez and pr0n at that price... :)

Re:They charge like wounded bulls...

[Bruce McBruce]

Yeah, true. Plus in Australia there's little 3G network coverage relative to other networks around (One reason why 3 hasn't taken off too well in Aus).

I might just add the question that who's going to use it? People who carry laptops around in the city usually have pretty good access to Internet in offices anyway.

384kbps

[highway]

I've been using a novatel card to get 384kbps for 2 years now. Sprint is even offering a 2mbps service in select areas. My toshiba cellphone through a usb cable averages about 300kbps.

I'm working with sprint global right now to provide a dedicated secure link to police cars in City of Atwater. The service is called Sprint DataLink. That link will be 384kbps. Soon it will be upgraded to over 2mbit.

Re:384kbps

[zenneth]

Within what boundries do you use this service? Where do you reside?

ZeN

Japan

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used technologies like this for years now (I live in Japan). There's a service from AU which offers 4.something Mbps. I have a 512K card and the price is about US $80 a month for unlimited usage, pricy but not for what you get. You can also connect essentially any cell phone here to a computer and use that, but if you don't have a service plan that accomodates it the price would be through the roof.

Re:Only timothy...

[Mod Me God Too]

Legal definition of broadband on UK is min 150kbps down. Yes, that sucks, especially when moving to somewhere that 'has broadband connection included' on such a connection... shared across 6 flats...

europe

[Anonymous Coward]

Europe is the hot bed for all the great internet technology. You'll be lucky to pay 19.95 a month for a land line running at 400k/s in America.

Been connected for a while with Orange 3G

[caluml]

I have an Orange Novatel Merlin card plugged in right now, and it's pretty good. I every wrote a HOWTO in case people were having trouble getting connected, but it just looks like ttyS1 to me. Saves all that faffing around installing drivers for Windows.

Any Work with a Mac/Apple?

[Viscount9]

I am day dreaming about saving money for a Powerbook and getting wireless Internet. But all of these cards are PC only? Any of them work with Apple? I guess its the Dell/Sony laptop for me. Thanks, Daniel

Re:Any Work with a Mac/Apple?

[O]

Get a Bluetooth phone. My Nokia 6600 works great with my PowerBook G4.

Re:Any Work with a Mac/Apple?

[JohnnyGTO]

MotherInLaw is using Verizon with her G4 laptop with great success! You need to find the appropriate drivers. This software supports the Express Network PC Card (PC 5220) in Mac OS X, for use on the Verizon Wireless network. To use this card, you need an account with Verizon (fees may apply).

Re:Any Work with a Mac/Apple?

[Computerguy5]

There was a /. story (or comment maybe?) the other day that said that the Audiovox PC 5220 offered by Verizon works in a powerbook by just sliding it in. The ensuing conversation revealed that Apple included the drivers in OS X. Unfortunately I can't seem to find the link.

Re:Any Work with a Mac/Apple?

[JohnnyGTO]

One other thing, we found that she needed to have the latest updates for OSX for this driver to work. Kinko's came in very handy, she used their high speed link to upgrade!

Not half bad for someone's grandma.

Re:Any Work with a Mac/Apple?

[Jim McCoy]

The Merlin card for Sprint works just fine on my Powerbook. You need to activate it on a PC, but once you jump through this hoop it works fine on the Mac.

Re:Any Work with a Mac/Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Vodafone card does work with Mac, but you will need to download the dialer from a Vodafone web site (www.vodafone.co.uk for instance). I've only used the card on Windows, but I have colleagues who have used it extensively on Mac and it works fine on both platforms. No Linux support at the moment, but you should be able to treat it like a GPRS modem if you need to get it going on that platform.

BTW, the article was a bit confusing - you definitely do not need to reboot after inserting the card! I can't say for certain if you need to restart the Windows application if the card is not present when it starts.

Re:Any Work with a Mac/Apple?

[cayenne8]

I just recently got an iBook G3...is dual boot with Gentoo Linux and OSX (Jaguar). I just bought the data cable for my Sanyo 8100....hooked it up to the USB port...and with OSX, just just set up a PPP connection Link for instructions

This worked for me quite easy...was able to surf and email while riding in car during the Ivan evacuation...quite handy.

Get real...

[Hamster Lover]

It's Kraft Dinner and the movie is Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer

So What

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get 1X in Australia throughout most of the Telstra CDMA footprint.

384KBps on your laptop while being driven down the highways.

Nothing to see here - move on ...

Vodaphone(vodafone) bites

[Anonymous Coward]

For those unaware, Vodaphone is a huge telecommunications company that basically attempts to flood every single market it can get into. It purchased J-phone in Japan for example, and then proceeded to loose customers by changing all their rates from those previously contracted, changed internal systems to the point where older phones no longer operated, etc. Now, while Vodaphone still has a market presence in Japan, their bad reputation has turned the once extremely popular J-Phone into the mobile company with the fewest customers and lowest profit (in Japan, VS AU, DoCoMo, etc.).

Complaints abound from Australia as well, but their system sucks beyond compare. Telstra or Vodaphone, I don't know which is worse.

Re:Vodaphone(vodafone) bites

[Zen Punk]

What is it with Slashdot users and replacing the word "lose" with "loose," which has a completely different meaning? I see this too often to dismiss it as a typo. When you cease to have something, you "lose" it. Using "loose" as a verb means you are unleashing something. Come the fuck on, people!

Already available in Oz

[pbjones]

From the same people, watch out for the call charges! Not too bad, but not cheap.

maximize profit, not maximize quality of life

[Cryofan]

America was set up from the beginning to maximize investor profit, at the expense of the quality of life of the average person living in America. Well, just look at the early history of America--a great place to be a wealthy businessman--plenty of slaves and indentured servants and exploitable Indian hunting grounds; and with a Constitution set up to guarantee maximum investor profits--at the expense of the quality of life of said slaves, indentured servants and Indians.

And that SAME Constitution is around today. Every other western nation has gone on to modernize their government and system. And as a result they have a better quality of life. But here in America, the structure of our govt still enslaves us, by allowing corporations to do as they pretty much please. It is not as bad as it once was. At least that is their justification. Why, in a couple of minutes, some rightwinger will reply to this post, telling us how good we have it...compared to the 3rd worlders.

Anyway, by stringing us along with slow upgrades, wringing out of the consumer every bit of profit possible before moving on to modern infrastructure, the corporations make more profit. Same as it ever was....

Re:maximize profit, not maximize quality of life

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that people are modding you down because they are rightwingers, I think they are modding you down because you are full of crap.

The simple truth of the matter is, no matter what sort of government construction you try, it's going to suck. Flopping to socialist democracy from liberatarian is merely exchanging one set of problems for another.

The problem is, forcing somebody to do something because it's "maximizing the quality of life" requires far too much wisdom. The Europeans tried to do that with the GSM standard. They laughed at America 10 years ago when they started to have good GSM service. But GSM is obselete UMTS is built around primarily American technologies.

You can't just wave the magic government wand and make things that aren't profitable suddenly be worth people's time. Russia and China both tried that and history shows that it doesn't work.

See, the problem that you are having is that Noam Chompsky is just as big of a moron as your average liberetarian whacko. Except that you don't realize it yet.

Re:maximize profit, not maximize quality of life

[Cryofan]

see, there goes that meanspirited, intolerant, narrowminded Rightwing conservatism again.

Re:maximize profit, not maximize quality of life

[Tralfamadorian]

You should shut up about the US. People in the US have it much better than people living in third world countries.

Re:maximize profit, not maximize quality of life

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, but I'm not a rightwinger. I end up being lumped into that wonderful category they like to call "moderates", which is generally defined as people who haven't espressed an opinion yet, but also tends to include folks who feel that the right and left wings do not, taken as a total doctorine, have enough to offer.

I can see that arguing with somebody who's major identity is being an extremist with less regard for any particular side, is not going to get anywhere. It'll be about as interesting as seeing George W. Bush talk intelligently without a script.

Re:maximize profit, not maximize quality of life

[Brandybuck]

Why, in a couple of minutes, some rightwinger will reply to this post, telling us how good we have it...compared to the 3rd worlders.

You're right. Anyone who thinks the US is better off than the 3rd world can only be a rightwinger...

Re:maximize profit, not maximize quality of life

[anothy]

you're wrong on a number of fronts. the American Revolution was as much a revolt against the domination of British corporations as it was against the British government. the event that made reconciliation between the colonies and the British government impossible - the Boston Tea Party - wasn't an attack on British government or its assets, but on the East India Company. it was that company that then pressured the British government into punishing the colonists (not to say that the government wouldn't have anyway, but EIC certainly influenced the nature of those measures). after the revolution, the resulting American government was exceedingly wary of corporate power. corporations were heavily restricted and regulated, and violation of one's corporate charter would result in that corporation simply being disbanded (a real corporate death penalty!).

then came the Civil War, and reconstruction. the Civil War was, in a very real way, a fight over the idea that what's good for business is good for the country. in many southern states, the state had in many ways taken the place of the corporations you (and i) dislike so much, with the accompanying abuse of power - only more so, with government approval and arms. the Federal government was fighting a war to be able to regulate that power, for the good of its citizens.

the Federal government (in the form of "the North") won the civil war, but - sadly - lost the reconstruction. they were indeed now more able to regulate the states, but lost control (or, more probably, gave away control) of corporations. the landmark decision came in the form of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. an almost off-hand assertion by a single Supreme Court Justice was used repeatedly over the next several years as the grounds for elevating corporations to the status of "natural persons". this began the almost totally unchecked growth of corporate power in America, and secured, at least to the present day and for the near future, the place of the Corporation as a fixture of American life, politics, law...

the dissolution of the state as a pseudo-corporation with immense power arguably influenced the types of mega-corporations seen immediately afterwards, in particular the railroad companies. take a look at social security numbers, for example. the first three digits indicate the state of birth. but did you know there was a specific three-digit head reserved for railroad employees? nothing like that existed before the civil war, nor (thankfully) does it today.

that's because, after the huge spike in corporate power at the end of reconstruction, the government has been struggling to reign in those corporations again. while corporate power is still well beyond anything seen pre-reconstruction, it's well less than the reconstruction peak. i, at least, would like to see it further limited, but it is a difficult fight, and contains many legitimately difficult questions that need answering about how to fairly - and in many cases, safely - do that.

you make the mistake (among others) of equating very rich individuals to corporations. it is, of course, true that the early American government allowed slavery, and that this was meant for maximizing profits of landed (white male) aristocracy. both slavery and indentured servitude, mind you, were inherited directly from the British. regardless, the power of any of these individuals pales in comparison to the power of, say, the railroad and oil companies of post-reconstruction America, and even a large collection of such powerful individuals had more direct accountability than a pre- or post-reconstruction corporation. it is simply not a useful comparison.

even post-reconstruction, corporate power in America, while certainly not any less in degree, has a very different character than that p

Re:maximize profit, not maximize quality of life

[jsebrech]

The simple truth of the matter is, no matter what sort of government construction you try, it's going to suck. Flopping to socialist democracy from liberatarian is merely exchanging one set of problems for another.

No, the simple truth of the matter is that the US electoral system is designed to shut out third parties by making it next to impossible for small parties to form coalitions and thus get any power. As a result you get two behemoths who take positions on issues, and people choose the least of two evils. That's not a very democratic way of running things. And you see this reflected by government policy often being contrary to what the american public actually wants.

You can't just wave the magic government wand and make things that aren't profitable suddenly be worth people's time. Russia and China both tried that and history shows that it doesn't work.

Russia and China were communist nations (china is gradually transitioning away from communism). There is a world of difference between communism (the abolishment of private property with the aim of maximizing quality of life by providing goods and services on an as-need basis) and social democracy (government funding and regulating of enterprises that are unprofitable and/or natural monopolies with the aim of providing a minimum quality of life by guaranteeing a minimum level of service). If you take something that is not naturally profitable for some segments of the population (like healthcare), and you leave it entirely to private enterprise, private enterprise will cut out service to the least profitable segments of society until it makes maximum profit. That's why so many americans don't have affordable healthcare. You need government involvement in some classes of enterprise to be able to provide that minimum quality of service and life.

As an aside, the reason communism failed was not government involvement, it was lack of personal incentive. When working hard gets you no more than working the absolute minimum, you lose all motivation to work hard. Productivity in Russia was abysmal. Social democracy does not have this lack of personal incentive, and as a result productivity per hour of labor in Europe is roughly equal to the US. The reason Europeans have lower net wages, is because they work fewer hours, have more free time, spend more time with the kids. It's a lifestyle choice, not some inherently bad design of government.

This lack of personal incentive can occur under capitalism too. Everyone knows at least one person who slaves away at a job that won't pay them more regardless of how well a job they do, and as a result spends most of their job hours procrastinating and generally being useless.

Re:maximize profit, not maximize quality of life

[Anonymous Coward]

If the distinctions were as strong as you say, then the USA would be an impoverished nation like Guatemala. Even if the United States has never fully lived up to the uber ideal of equality, you cannot deny that there was not something to what the founding fathers created.

If it is true that "America was set up from the beginning to maximize investor profit", why did the USA end up as wealthy as it has, and not ended up like Ecuador or Brazil?

Re:maximize profit, not maximize quality of life

[anothy]

As an aside, the reason communism failed was not government involvement, it was lack of personal incentive.

well, that's the most commonly cited flaw in the basic design, yes. the reasons most of the known examples of communism in reality have failed, however, are more varied and complicated. probably the biggest one is corruption in the systems. russia, in particular, had a significant upper-class early on, in contradiction of the goals of communism. note also that Marx and Engles, the ideological fathers of communism, didn't think it could work in primarily-agricultural societies, as existed at the time in Russia and China; rather, they looked for it to take over in industrialized countries, specifically Germany and England. we have arguably never seen an example of communism in the style Marx and Engles envisioned.

note also that (other obvious flaws aside) communism has worked reasonably well for Castro's Cuba. they've managed to survive with reasonable (although not tremendous) prosperity despite occasional blockades and the closert of its significant potential trade partner (the US). they also have a health care system unparalleled, in many respects, in the western hemisphere.

old news

[rubz]

australia (and im sure the US) has had this exact technology avaiable for yonks now. i read apout it in apc (aus PC) months ago, it seems to be lately /. have been reporting out of date news articles lately i.e. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/19/012022 5&tid=172&tid=1

Are you kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now this and this would have been more news worthy. Pre-WiMax rollout downunder.

GPRS, Bluetooth and TMobile

[LetterJ]

A couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd give hooking my laptop up to GPRS access would be a worthwhile project (as my house is for sale and I keep getting kicked out for hours at a time for showing) so I could access email, etc. from anywhere. Tmobile offers unlimited GPRS for $20/month if you already have phone service with them. They try to steer you to an expensive ($200-300) PCMCIA card like the one in the story. However, if you have a bluetooth phone (like the Sony Ericsson T610 that they are giving away in the US) and a bluetooth enabled laptop, you already have the hardware you need. On WindowsXP, I didn't even need any software other than the stuff that came with my bluetooth dongle.

After pairing the devices and getting my TMobile account set up for the access, I connected to the phone through the bluetooth devices, selected the dialup networking "service" the phone provides, using "*99#" as the number with no username or password and a few seconds later, I was connected. That's it.

It's not fast, but neither are half of the WiFi hotspots I've used (both pay and free), and many of those don't work at all. With GPRS, it doesn't matter if the restauranteur doesn't have their WiFi connected properly, I can still work while strangers stomp through my house.

Re:GPRS, Bluetooth and TMobile

[Doppler00]

And if you don't need full internet access (just e-mail and HTTP) you can get T-Mobile's "T-Zones" service for $5/month on top of your phone plan. Very good deal, but it's still painfully slow GPRS data transfer.

Re:GPRS, Bluetooth and TMobile

[LetterJ]

Right. I needed the SSH access. However, even as slow as GPRS is, the fact that it works pretty much *everywhere* I might want access. Plus, since it's a pretax business expense for me, it's pretty cheap for the benefit it provides. And, it's the only access I can get that goes beyond a handful of restaurants, Starbucks and the airport, none of which are places I spend much time.

Re:GPRS, Bluetooth and TMobile

[bdipert]

Save yourself the $20; as long as you don't need to access email, etc from the phone itself, GPRS via phone-as-modem-to-laptop is free (unlimited) now with T-Mobile. Understandably they don't publicize this, but they use GPRS to download ringtones, etc to the phone so it's now 'unlocked' for everyone. I got T-Mobile standard phone service last week and can personally confirm that this is true.

Have had one for more than a year in Japan

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had one for more than a year here in Nippon. It's nice to have my laptop always connected. About $30 a month for "tsukaihodai" (as much as you can use). I clarified that it truly was unlimited use before buying, because I suspected a catch.

But I have damn well leeched from DoCoMo for more than a year now (bittorrent, etc.) and no one's said anything...

realy old news....

[vsimoes]

I Live in Portugal and all networks have been offering this kind of hardware for quite a while (included 3g phones)...

Re:Because it's new to someone...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone with a crap .sig like yours (which isn't a .sig, as I have .sigs disabled) should be modbombed and bitchslapped.

Take your pyramid-wannabe scheme, roll it up and swallow it.. Once it leaves your body, it will be more obvious just what it's made of.

automatic would be nice

[hey]

Would be nice if your laptop used ethernet if available then Wifi if available
and if not then used G3 and if not used GPRS.
Automatically.

Re:automatic would be nice

[mbaudis]

well, that is how it works under mac os x. you just do a drag-and-drop select in a network pane, for the order of your ports, e.g.:

• IP over firewire (e.g. for fast backups to another machine; yes, FW has built in nework functions)
• Ethernet
• WiFi (built in AirPort)
• GPRS card
• phone over bluetooth
• built-in modem

though, i have no experience if there is a way to automatically disconnect the phone etc. in case a faster option becomes available.

Why is this on Slashdot?

[Eeknay]

This is very, very old news. This has been around in the United Kingdom and most of Europe for around 18 months now. Apparently it works fairly well, but only in major metropolitan areas. If ytou travel into the countryside, where there's no 3G coverage, the card falls back onto the GSM/GPRS network, and back you go to dialup speeds.

Slow news day?

Yawn. I use 1xRTT from Verizon, and

[CFD339]

AT&T has their supposedly 3G version out now here in the states.

Reality: You get an "effective speed" that feels just like dialup from a hotel room.

Itself, it isn't bad when you need the link in the middle of nowhere.

In town, its usually much faster to pop up Net Stumbler and drive into the first suburban neighborhood you see. It generally takes less than 5 minutes to find an ssid called "LINKSYS".

Re:Because it's new to someone...

[Artifex]

Except when I was called in to set the thing up, the librarian complained that it was so slow. How slow? Why, 56k! It was no better than a modem connection.

There is a substantial difference between a symmetrical, 56K-maximum-each-way link and an asymmetrical, 53K-practical-maximum-down and 33K-max-up link.
It's noticeably better than dialup, particularly if you're not just browsing or downloading mail.

Re:Only timothy...

[stimpleton]

For our american bretheran:

Flat = Apartment

Or typically for midwestern US etc:
(Block of) Flats = Duplex

Hence:
Flatmate = Roommate or "Roomie"

"Have you found a flat yet? Will you get in some flatmates?"

Beware the Hidden Charges!

[SUB7IME]

Just getting a data plan on your wireless service isn't enough, in cases like this. With AT&T, at least, if you use this sort of device, you will be charged an additional $0.001 per kilobyte. This doesn't sound like a lot, but $1.00/MB is outrageous for laptop Internet browsing.

In case I didn't get my point across: Even if you buy the $25.00/month plan, you will be charged $0.001/KB download fees by AT&T, at least as of last week when I last checked.

Re:Beware the Hidden Charges!

[ItMustBeEsoteric]

That's wrong. And I know because I have ATT Wireless GPRS service, which I use with my Bluetooth PDA and my Nokia 3650 for web browsing. It's extra per KB OVER your plan limit.

Re:Beware the Hidden Charges!

[SUB7IME]

Do your research before counterindicating facts.

The $25/month plan is an unlimited data plan, so by your indications, you'd never pay more than $25/month. However, as I said before, if you dock your phone to a computer so that it is used as the computer's Internet connection, you'll be charged per KB.

A direct quote from the website:
"*** Unlimited referes only to usage on your device. Connection to another device or computer via cable, Bluetooth, or infared will be charged $.001 per KB."

If you don't want to take my word for it, here's the URL:
http://www.attwireless.com/personal/features /mmode /plans.jhtml;dsessionid=D1FGG4VYBYKSZB4R0G1SFEY

Nextel Broadband

[brgomeistr]

Nextel Broandband has been doing a trial of its 750Kbps - 1.5Mbps service in the Raleigh/Durham area for months now.

They have both a wireless PC Card and Wireless AP for your home (both of which are $50 for now, though who knows what the price of a nationwide rollout would be).

A coworker has been demoing the service for my office for a few months and has nothing but good things to say...DSL-like speeds with little latency, and no interupted service that he has noticed. It is definately more expensive than DSL, but may be a nice alternative for travelers or those who can't get DSL or Cable.
At least there is no annoying Nextel "beep beep" when it connects...

why buy a card?

[ruiner5000]

when I can use my sprint cell phone with a data cable and pay only $15 a month for 2.5G vision internet service?

Re:why buy a card?

[romerom]

whats what i was just about to say :P i got the samsung vga1000 and use it with datapilot.com's software/cable solution.

Re:why buy a card?

[AchilleTalon]

I don't see much interest as well for such a card. However, a CF form-factor card would be much more interesting.

Who cares to carry the phone and a cable when he already carry a laptop...

Free -- albeit slower -- alternative!

[Oliver Aaltonen]

For T-Mobile customers: all T-Mobile accounts -- including prepaid EasySpeak customers -- have free WAP access available. T-Mobile doesn't charge minutes usage or bandwidth used for GPRS internet access. If your cell phone can connect to your laptop via Bluetooth, IR or with a cable, this means free internet access via GPRS from your laptop. The speeds aren't great, about that of a 56K modem, but definitely useable for the convenience it offers. Check out T-Mobile.HowardForums.com for more details and discussion. If you're interested, more information on my experience with T-Mobile GPRS internet access and a Nokia 6610 here and here.

Re:Free -- albeit slower -- alternative!

[bdipert]

Free WAP is no more....right? But free GPRS is still in place

unlimited plan at Malaysia

[doubtless]

There's already an unlimited wireless "broadband" over cellular network right here in Malaysia, granted they are using EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution) instead of 3G. The data rate is about triple that of GPRS. It goes for RM99, which works out to be around US$26 per month.

thier FAQ is here.

Remember, there are more to Malaysia than just good quality pirated discs.

3G / 384Kbps is a DINOSAUR

[Crypto Gnome]

I have a PCMCIA that connects via a Wireless CellBased technology (like cellphone/3G but a different technology) that gets me 1Mbps down.

Why on earth would I want your 3G at marginally better than one third that speed?

Re:3G / 384Kbps is a DINOSAUR

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on earth would I want your 3G at marginally better than one third that speed?
You wouldn't, because you live in sidney, the only place this service is available. The rest of the world might, though.

Re:3G / 384Kbps is a DINOSAUR

[f3lix]

Using this card it is currently possible to access the Vodafone 3G network in Italy, UK, Germany, Sweden and possibly some other countries in Europe with seamless roaming. Pretty much anywhere else in the world, it's possible to use this card on GPRS networks, all using the same SIM, same billing and no hassle. That's why you might want it...

Re:Only timothy...

[Mod Me God Too]

Of course 6 flats!= 1 flat with 6 flatmates.

worse post ever....

[Anonymous Coward]

yuck...

...and this is special because?

[Lesrahpem]

I used to have a Verizon phone (don't remember the make and model) which had 3G net connectivity and a USB port so it could be connected to a computer and used as a "modem" for 3G access to the internet. Therefore, I really do not see why this is all that special.

Two choices available for Mac OS X

[Macka]

You can either get the Mac OS X driver for this card direct from Vodafone in Germany, here.

Or, Nova Media have a package that adds support not just for this card, but a range of other 3G cards as well as 3G and 2G phones. I'm not overly sure why, as Mac OS X comes with builtin support for 2G connections via a long list of phones already (as well as AddressBook and Calendar iSync support). And there are a number of free dial-up scripts out there to support some of the newer phones until Apple fill the gap.

I've already tried the default Vodafone driver, as one of my work colleagues has one of these cards and uses it to VPN into his company network when he's out and about. The install was a snap, just taking a few minutes. No reboot was necessary, and I was up and running. I was quite impressed. When the coverage improves (it's patchy at the moment) and the cost comes down a bit, I'll probably get one.

Macka

So you're saying it's almot as fast ...

[DigitalRover]

... as the Nextel Wireless card I'm using right now? I get between 1 and 3 Mbps downstream and a little less than 1 Mbps upload.

nope

[tacokill]

If population density is the driving factor, then why isn't this available in:

Houston
NYC
Boston
Philly
etc...

I'm tired of the "population density" argument. I live in Dallas and I can barely keep a regular cellular phone call going, much less, get broadband other than WiFi at Starbucks.

Just an observation.

Re:nope

[thephotoman]

Houston's average population density is much lower than that in Dallas. MUCH LOWER. The city is spread out all over hell. It takes the better part of a day to drive through, even without traffic. Of course, I've never made it through without traffic...because Houston without traffic just doesn't make any sense.

So if population density is the driving factor, Houston will get it last.

This is way over priced

[max born]

I build access points and donate bandwidth for the sflan project with the hope of bringing low to zero cost Internet access for everyone in San Francisco. One of our problems is the ridiculously low FCC imposed power restrictions on our trancievers while phone companies who paid millions to buy their part of the spectrum are allowed to use thousands of times the power we are.

I don't want to come off as a pessimist but my concern is that the furture of wireless be look more like the control-and-toll method of owning the spectrum and charging what you like for, spending nothing on R&D yet billions on marketing to create a lockdown system of over priced mediocre service.

Re:This is way over priced

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the American way, and you see this in just about every industry.

Re:This is way over priced

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm. So this would be 802.11b you're using? The one with a real-life capacity of about 5Mb/s on each of its three available channels, which has to be shared with anyone in range of the access point? And this would be the same 802.11b that is used by people for their private access points? So you want to turn up the watts, so you contend with more private APs that fall into your expanded area. Clever.

BTW, GSM handsets run at 500mW, and my Cisco card shows 30mW - that would give an advantage in range of a factor of 4 if power were all. In practice GSM has a range of 1-15 miles, depending on the terrain.

Re: Subnotebooks

[billstewart]

My Hitachi Visionbook Traveller weighs 2.7 pounds (about 1.2kg) and has a ~10" screen, and it was what passed for a cheap subnotebook back in its day, and it has three PCMCIA card slots, two of which are aligned so you can use a fat-form-factor PCMCIA disk if you want.

Alas, like many lightweight machines, part of the lightness was because of flimsy construction, so it's gradually fallen apart, and you can no longer buy critical parts like the little plastic doors that hold in the batteries. (Too bad - it's sensibly designed to use standard video-camera batteries, so they'd be replaceable at a quasi-rational price if the silly doors weren't missing.) That all became less relevant when the screen cracked, so the machine now looks like a nice little keyboard that has VGA and Ethernet interfaces instead of PS2.

Wireless Telcos are Clueless about Market Price

[billstewart]

The wireless telcos are totally clueless about the potential size of the market for these devices, because they keep assuming they can charge rip-off prices per bit/packet/message just like they do with text messaging services, and they're unwilling to risk reducing their revenue from texting by changing the economics. The right price is something competitive with DSL / Cable Modems, e.g. $30-60 flat rate per month for all the bits you can eat, trading off convenient access for a bit more money.

Supposing they could make a profit at that price, they'd be able to sell to a lot of people. The price of the raw internet bandwidth feeding their towers has come way down; the real question is how many users their frequency bands can handle if they're actually using the system.

Back when Metricom was around, and DSL mostly wasn't, most of my geeky friends had it, for prices like $40/month, compared to $20 for dialup, and at least one non-geeky coworker had it supporting the four users in his household who'd otherwise all have phone lines and modems. (Of course Metricom _died_ at those prices, but they were running really customer equipment back when raw Internet upstream was expensive, and they never got the customer volume to get economies of scale. By contrast, wireless phone companies already have tons of volume - they're just short on clues.)

Is that 3G?

[Doc Ruby]

"Connection via 3G will give you up to 384Kbits/sec download speed - uploads are limited to 64Kbits/sec"

Even ignoring the tiny upload speed, is 0.3Mbps 3G? Even in the US, where "broadband" means "500+Kbps", that would seem small for 3G. We're promised EV-DO and EDGE mobile connections starting around the States by the beginning of 2005, and those start at 384Kbps, and promise up to 1.5Mbps. Of course, Europeans don't relate to "can you hear me now?", so maybe they're just really getting 0.3Mbps they're promised, and we'll usually get 0Mbps, bursting up to 0.3Mbps, with the occasional sales demo showing us 1Mbps in their store.

Re:Is that 3G?

[f3lix]

EDGE does NOT provide anywhere near 1.5Mbps - it approximately triples the max GPRS download rate of 50kbit/s or so to give a max of 150kbit/s or so, or less than half of what UMTS currently tops out at.

and the reason that this is better than...

[dadman]

Nextel, or insert any dialup wireless boardband service here, is that you can use this card and have 384kbps downlink speed in Australia, Demark, Japan (yes, Japan), Hong Kong, UK, Sweden, Ireland, Isarel, Italy, and Austria except, well, US of A...

However, you'd better be very rich to use this service as the tariff is very expensive, and PCMCIA means you are virtually out if you are in favor of light weighted devices such as PDAs or mini-notebooks, and for these devices, battery life alone is already a show stopper, not to mentioned the added weight and size, and if the device will support PCMCIA at all.

As with any piece of technology, they will get smaller, cost less, and consume less power. Remember, this is only the first generation of 3G data cards, you can be sure there will be more (and hopefully better) to come.

sig reply

[stoborrobots]

Windows in 6 Bytes (IA-32) : 90 90 90 90 CD 19

I get the soft reboot, but why the four no-ops?

Re:sig reply

[FalconZero]

I just feel it sums up windows....
Do nothing,
Do nothing,
Do nothing,
Do nothing,
Reboot.

Coming soon to an igloo near you...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably the first time I've ever read about a "new" technology on /. and it is already available here in Alaska! http://www.acsalaska.com/ ACS - a locally-owned telco - is offering it in the urban areas of Alaska (all 3 of them). It is a cool service. Sure beats having to run Netstumbler before deciding on where to have coffee...

Re:Only timothy...

[whitespacedout]

Dunno what you mean by "legal". Oftel, which is
the telecom regulatory authority,
defined it as 256kbps+ downstream a while ago.

Uh, no. 3G CDMA works great under Linux.

[Dr. Ion]

Verizon's "BroadbandAccess" works just great under Linux using their Airprime 5220 card. Here are instructions from someone who should know:

http://www.ka9q.net/5220.html

You may recognize him as inventor of TCP/IP, but the point is that Windows is not required at all to get maximum use from this card.

Efficient markets fallacy reloaded

[DriedClexler]

What you're arguing here is a version of the efficient markets fallacy: "If it's such a good idea, why don't we already know about it?" That's what slashdot is for: to get people to know about stuff!

Any of these (E.U. or U.S.) have Linux support ?

[pspinler]

Any of the cards mentioned have support in the linux kernel ? Do they appear as a modem to the PC, or something totally non-standard ?

Thanks,
-- Pat

Swisscom Unlimited

[dago]

Shameless plug : Swisscom launched a GSM-UMTS-WLAN card which can virtually roam between the different network and seamlessly connect to the fastest one (webpage).

However, this is somewhat expensive ...

Well, duh.... (very old news in in Italy)

[RenatoRam]

What next, a news item on Gigabit Ethernet?

It's pretty much unknown tech around here (italy), so I'd be justified in writing a news item like it was a breakthrough in technology!

H3G, known in italy simply as "3" is a UMTS mobile operator and has been selling phones and "datacards" (PCMCIA phones) for I think two years now.

If in a UMTS covered zone (in italy most biggest cities, and expanding) you get bandwitdh similar to ADSL. If you step outside the coverage of the 3G network the connection drops to a fast GPRS roaming with another operator.

Actually, right from the start the technical reviewers have been saying that Videocalling is the least interesting use of UMTS, and preaching for the data connections.

So I reiterate: how a Vodafone UMTS card is news?
We've been shipping and configuring those to the agents of a large italian food group in the last months (we do tech support for them)... and vodafone has LESS umts coverage than 3, and just started to offer it.

2.35 per mb?

[Anonymous Coward]

SP2 at 250mb.

That's one expensive service pack!

Blatant Plug

[Tryfen]

My employers sell a 3G data card. It's compatible with PC, Mac and, so I'm told, Linux.

It's a [franticly remembers details] a USB bridge device, so there's no reason why it shouldn't be compatible with anything.

Details here - manager's guide here

I've used it - it works very well. It seamlessly moves from 3G to 2.5G without a loss of connection and the server side compression really makes things fly. Works fine with VPNs etc.

T

I'm using this

[umrk]

I use the Vodafone UMTS card in my laptop for about three months now. It works really fine. Download speed is ok, but round trip times are a bit high which makes ssh sessions sluggish.

I guess we in Europe have the advantage that we have GSM/GPRS networks europe-wide with very good coverage almost everywhere you'd want it. Now, they start covering the hot spots with UMTS/3G and will expand it from there.

It's great!

This is Old

[Mikelikus]

This is old news for Europeans.
This is old news for Americans.
This is old news for Asians.
This is old news for Africans.
This is old news for Everyone.

But it makes Slashdot's front page...

Advice. Dont get the techdesk/design imports.

[edgedmurasame]

I'd just go get a R51/T4x/T4xP if you have that kind of money. Besides, most of those have only one pcmcia slot if any *cough*Dell*cough*Sony*cough* and if you manage to snag one with good onboard video and at least 1400x1500 display, you might as well have a reliable, flakeless laptop that'll hold to the abuses of daily travel. If you're lucky enough, you'll have Doom 3 on it and see how it plays out somewhere with the broadband style connection in some of your spare time.
BTW: This one will probably not work for a while until the guts are figured out, and you still have only one slot for pcmcia, which is a bit surprising for any laptop worth its salt today. Provided it's not some redundant cardbus USB bridge or some saner, purer PCMCIA card that appears as a serial port, it will be a mystery.

so what?

[RMH101]

that is NOT a 3G phone. you can use if for GPRS, but that's analagous to dial up speeds, as opposed to 3G broadband cards

the american idiot !

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the lack of state-of-the-art Japanese toilets with sophisticated controls in America mean that we're behind or something? No, it just means that we prefer a simpler way to take a crap!

According to your "logic", tribe people from the most obscure jungle in africa could say:
"we don't have cars and roads like in USA but that doesn't mean we are behind or something. It it only means we prefer walking"

It's just amazing how you people will try to twist anything in order to refuse the truth - that you are behind!
Better stop being idiots, it'll be a lot more helpful.

Very expensive

[farnsaw]

This is here in the UK and I have considered subscribing to it, however, the cost is prohibitive. At 75 GBP / month for 1 GB of data transfer included each month, it would be very simple to go over the limit and incure the extrememly high surcharges for each additional MB. A GB sounds like a lot until you do the math. If you use this 4 hours a day to surf the net like you would on a 56k modem is about 100 MB of transfer per day. This is 10 days of usage in a month. Even if you only use it during the week, it is still only 1/2 what you would normally use. With the second GB costing 590 GBP, this is much too costly to use regularly. Also, image paying for that huge load of SPAM we all get on a per megabyte charge.

Card Price: GBP 99.00 (US $178)
Monthly: GBP 88.13 (US $158) for 1000MB
Additinal MB: GBP 0.59 (US $1.06)

If they would make the second GB of transfer as cheap as the first, it might be worth it.

Re:Very expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Well yes, but no-one's expecting you to use it to replace a land-line. I shift about 30-50Mb/month using this card, mainly for email and web while I'm travelling. BTW, the Vodafone client has a volume meter, and there is an "optimiser" which reduces the volume transferred, at the expense of image quality.

mod parent up

[DJCF]

Agreed. I was seeing adverts for this years ago. And BTW, vodaphone is a very well known cellphone provider here in the UK.

"...Found this on some European site." (Shakes head sadly.)

1mbps wireless connections in Australia

[discordance]

You guys forgot about Iburst and Unwired services in Australia. Upto 1mbps downstream... No reception over 60Km/h
http://www.iburst.com.au/site/iburst/iburs t_mobile .php

I've heard the iburst pcmcia card can chew threw your battery though.

Back in Time...

[Anonymous Coward]

more like three and a quarter years ago.

Japanese phones/service etc in my experience tend to be around three years ahead of the rest of the world, with the exception of Korea.

In this case, it seems they were three years ahead, too. The FOMA P2104 3G card has been available since June 2001!

No big news

[MC68040]

I got 5 3G operators in my area offering this kind of service... All with their own "branded" data cards. I wouldn't call this breaking news though, as it's been around for well over a year now.

Yet another Verizon plug

[BadluckShleprock]

I found this card on the verizon wireless website. It's an Audiovox PC 5220 and according to them it has the following throughput:
- Typical download speeds of 300-500 kbps with bursts up to 2 Mbps
- Qualcomm MSM5500, data speeds up to 2 Mbps
I can't prove or disprove their claims, but since Verizon is owned by Vodafone (the company mentioned in the original posting), I can imagine that it will be at least as good.

P.S. have you checked out the pricing of data services?
$79.99
Unlimited NationalAccess & BroadbandAccess for wireless data

They also have per-megabyte plans for a little less.

3G vs Wifi

[tji]

Data access via fast cellular networks has always seemed like a better route than wifi to me.. Anyone more versed in cell networks care to debunk this?

With the very short range of WiFi, it's great for using my laptop around the house, but for ubiquitous access it has big limitations. Then, add on the pay-per model that many places have, and it is a big pain in the butt. If I could subscribe once to all hotspots it would be okay. But, as it is now, I go from a coffee shop - to the airport - fly to another airport, and they all have different wifi services.. each wanting $15 for that five minutes of access to grab my e-mail.

Even at slower speeds, the ubiquity of cell networks is the killer app.

What are the other factors?

- I have seen talk of a metro-net version of WiFi, which would presumably cover areas similar to cell networks.
- Capacity issues. Will 3G cell networks have the capacity for a huge number of data users? How about metro area wifi?

Add wifi,3G, GPRS to my cheese & chocolate fo

[iskandar1877]

Media blurb: Swisscom Mobile presents: the first PC card in the world which always guarantees the fastest possible connection available - with fully automatic selection! It switches back and forth between UMTS, GPRS and WLAN without any interruptions so that you can access your data fast and securely anywhere and anytime, just as if you were at home or in your office. Within Switzerland, you do not have to worry about registering with several networks, network links or different price plans: the fastest solution for your data traffic is simultaneously the simplest. You will be charged in accordance with one single and transparent rate. http://business.swisscom-mobile.ch/bus_asp/bus_hom e.asp?nid=1865&UserLanguage=E&Sitename=BUSINES S

Cell Router

[Seldon_21]

Did a little looking and came up with the following links. Who wants to be tied to a client and another power drainer. Hook up ethernet or wireless. http://www.lan-cell.com/1XMG/index.htm

Open letter to 3-Mobile UK

[t_allardyce]

Do cell companies actually comprehend the fact that decent quality wireless access (even as low as 128k) for the same flat monthly price as wired 'dsl etc is such a killer app that they could even steal half the wired ISP userbase and have people accessing the net at home from their mobiles??? do they even understand that offering at the same price as current home access would mean that _anyone_ with a decent mobile phone would want it (you could browse the net on your phone without a laptop). Do they simply not understand how this would practically make 3G overtake GSM in one month? Who the fuck wants to pay stupid prices to download some stupid football goal video on their phone in poor streaming quality??? mobile broadband would kick so much and since most home connections arnt going to be used while the person is out they will easily switch to mobile and dump their current ISP! - you could even have a 'shared' account between 2 phones and only one person would be able to use the net at a time. Stop this stupid stone-age per/mb pricing or even more stone-age business plan pricing: If you can ensure a good network think about this: how many people have mobiles? how many people have broadband at home? they would all switch to paying you money mr greedy phone company and you could say good-bye to wireless access points in starbucks, whos going to want them anymore? internet cafes would surely take a hit to and all this going into your pockets, so fucking offer us the package at a reasonable price (ie the price we pay for fixed access now): we want to give you our money!!!!!!! stop wasting network bandwidth on stupid 'value added services' that no-one wants!
Frankly, i wouldnt even care if you did everything in your power to try and stop people using voip on your network, i just want decent net access:|

News?!??

[linrunner]

Sorry, but i don't think this qualifies for "news"! I saw this card demonstrated live at the Vodafone booth, Cebit Hannover in March(!) Btw: performance was quite impressive. Greetings, linrunner

Not special, and available in the US too

[freitasm]

Why is this special to be on Slashdot? These cards have been in the market for some time now, and this performance is available in the US, either through AT&T Wireless or Verizon.

Chunk

[Anonymous Coward]

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