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Dell Strikes Deal For High-Speed Wireless

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the invisible-fastness dept.

Jason Jardine wrote to mention a C|Net article describing a new Dell deal with Vodafone to provide high-speed wireless access. From the article: "Dell said Tuesday that it plans to embed Vodafone's High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) technology into laptops built to order and sold in Europe. The technology will be backwards compatible with earlier 3G, or third-generation, wireless technologies including UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), the company said."

5 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Woohoo by Realistic_Dragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now we can be locked into paying more for wireless because of the laptop provider we chose.

    One of the shitty features of the US market that the UK cellphone market has been picking up recently is longer contracts (now up to 18 months) and higher and higher fees to unlock your device at the end of the term. Orange are up from £free to £20.

    And now they want us to pay this on a laptop as well? Sure, fine, throw in a 3G/GPRS data card if you want - but FFS don't cripple it by making it work only with one service. No one would accept a wireless card that only worked with T-Mobil hotspots after all.

    --
    Beep beep.
    1. Re:Woohoo by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 3, Interesting
      the UK cellphone market has been picking up recently is longer contracts (now up to 18 months) and higher and higher fees to unlock your device

      I don't know how well the 18 month contracts are selling. No one I knows has signed any of these deals. They all think - hang on, my phone will be obsolete in 12 months, even if it still works. As for unlocking, that nice man in the market does it for £ 6 anyway. And if he tries to charge more, there's another in the next street. Round here, even the meat stall in the market offers phone unlocking. I did my own with a file downloaded from the internet.

      Personally, I would like to see the whole business of locking challenged in the European court as an illegal restraint of trade.

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      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
  2. I miss Steven by Sierpinski · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can see the marketing ploy in 2015 now....

    Dude! You're gettin' 15 year contract with a 5-figure penalty for early termination!

    --
    And they said zombies weren't real!
  3. Re:Interesting "solution" to a non-existant proble by speculatrix · · Score: 4, Funny
    having a small handset allows me to sit in bed ... and check my email, logon to IRC, access web-pages and catch up on the latest news.

    dude, you need a girlfriend real bad!

  4. NO contracts in INDIA by devilsandy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Cellphone service in India has NO contracts. Either you take the "prepaid" where in you buy certain amount of currency which is valid for certain days OR "postpaid" where in you get a bill at the end of the month. The best part is there is no airtime charge for receiving a call, your airtime is charged only for the calls you make from the cellphone. I am now in US and I miss the Indian cellphone system along with the tasty home food :-) .