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Experimental 4G Phone Service Faster Than Cable
JymBrittain writes "NewScientist reports that Japanese researchers have achieved blistering rates of transmission for cell phones that allowed for viewing of 32 high definition video streams, while traveling in an automobile at 20 kilometers per hour. From the article: "Officials from NTT DoCoMo say the phones could receive data at 100 megabits per second on the move and at up to a gigabit per second while static. At this rate, an entire DVD could be downloaded within a minute." These transmission rates were achieved using new experimental methods of multiplexing."
Wow. But if you think the data rates are amazing, imagine what the cost is going to be!
One wonders if it's even feasable to take this sort of technology at some point and use it within the home or for local ISPs. I'd certainly pay extra per month for gigabit wireless.
Somehow, I don't think the phones could acheive the same bandwidth if there was 1 million of them withing an area the size of a normal city. There's limited bandwidth on the airwaves. Might be good for broadcasting video streams, but if everyone wants different data, it won't work. Besides, we already had technology to transmit 30 channels of video to handheld viewers 20 years ago.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
So, with telcos providing data at 2c per kB, downloading that DVD in less than a minute will cost you $98,000.
Surely it's gotta be cheaper to just buy a helicopter and fly to the video store.