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Samsung Breaks the 4G Barrier

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ready-for-augmented-reality dept.

eastbayted writes "Samsung shifted wireless networking into a higher gear yesterday, demonstrating for the first time in public the power of it WiBro (Wireless Broadband) 4G technology. The company had two 4G demonstrations. A mobile stunt entailed providing delegates on a specially designed bus with a live broadcast of the forum, Internet access, and video on demand, all simultaneously at speeds of 100Mbps. Inside the forum venue, Samsung showed off its 1Gbps 4G service with 32 HD channel broadcast downloads, Internet access, and video telephony. The downside for users craving that kind of speed: WiBro won't be out until 2010, though Sprint has a 4G WiMax service in the works for later this year. The downstream speeds will be 2Mbps to 4Mbps, which seem downright sluggish — compared to WiBro."

14 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. I prefer... by Slider451 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The WiMansierre

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  2. This one goes to eleven by robla · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What does "breaking the 4G barrier" mean? The Samsung demo looks cool enough, but saying that they "broke the 4G barrier" means about as much as "this one goes to eleven". The "4G" moniker isn't well defined enough to use as a litmus test of anything other than "hey, if you thought that 3G was overhyped and overpriced, well, just wait until you see this!"

    1. Re:This one goes to eleven by Kesch · · Score: 2, Funny

      So wait, are you saying that 4G is LOUDER than 3G?

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    2. Re:This one goes to eleven by Karma+Farmer · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, it's one louder, isn't it?

  3. Tubes is also correct by Kesch · · Score: 4, Funny
    A mobile stunt entailed providing delegates on a specially designed bus with a live broadcast of the forum, Internet access, and video on demand, all simultaneously at speeds of 100Mbps.


    See! The Internet's not a truck that you just dump stuff on. It's actually a bus.
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  4. Samsung the new Sony? by Anubis350 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Offtopic perhaps, but it seems these days Samsung releases new technologies/products at a really fast pace. Not only that, their products tend to upper-middle of the pack (good feature sets, reasonably reliable, priced a bit higher than some of the competition but worth it). Seems to me like Samsung is becoming the new Sony... Discuss :-P

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    1. Re:Samsung the new Sony? by value_added · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Offtopic perhaps, but it seems these days Samsung releases new technologies/products at a really fast pace. Not only that, their products tend to upper-middle of the pack (good feature sets, reasonably reliable, priced a bit higher than some of the competition but worth it).

      I remember when Samsung was a crummy Korean electronics company selling crummy Korean electronics. At the time, I was a token Caucasian working in a similarly crummy Korean company that made equally crummy products. I thought to myself, "No way. These guys aren't Japanese. No one will ever rival the Japanese."

      Shame on me. Especially considering the fact that I was around when Sony, a Japanese company no one had ever heard of, decided to try and sell these tiny crappy transistor radios in the US. The rest, as they say, is history.

      Yeah, I'd agree. Samsung does seem to come out with a lot of new products. Any one of them would be a worthwhile purchase, especially given the fact their products tend to also be less expensive than their competitors.

    2. Re:Samsung the new Sony? by Dahamma · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Samsung isn't the new Sony - they have far surpassed whatever ever Sony was by now!

      I just walked around their booth (hah! ok, their "massive quadrant of the show floor") at CES 2006 and just shook my head in amazement. They are the largest flash manufacturer (as well as having a large share of the phones, mp3 players, cameras, flash cards, etc that use it), they are the largest LCD panel manufacturer AND one of the larger plasma panel manufacturers (why worry about competition? Just sell them both!) meaning they make consumer TVs and a lot of the panels for other TV manufacturers. They may even be playing both sides of the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war. I read they are not only providing all of the flash for Apple's iPods, but will be providing a custom CPU as well...

      And I agree with you, not only is their volume astounding, they have been first to market with a lot of innovations (LED DLPs, LED backlights for LCDs, high density flash) and at prices Sony has never come NEAR matching :)

  5. Still waiting.... by gamer4Life · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm still waiting for 3G or GPRS to be affordable...nevermind 4G. Perhaps the carriers will lower the prices for 3G or GPRS when 4G comes out... or maybe not.

  6. In Other P.C. News... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2, Funny

    The term "WiBro" has been renamed to "WiPer" to maintain a gender-netural terminology. The "WiMe" and "WiNot" camps are filing suit for being excluded from this group. A spokesperson for the White House states that the president is staying the course with the "WiCare" group.

  7. So "G" is a measurement? by Short+Circuit · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So "G" is a measurement? I always thought 1G, 2G and 3G were labels applied to generations. And all you have to do to have "4G" is produce a product sufficiently different from previous generations.

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  8. Re:I'm more impressed by the speed of the train... by wguy00 · · Score: 2, Funny

    But what if another train leaves Boston going the same speed?

  9. Re:Lead underpants time... by HaMMeReD3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They have a non-standard wimax network in vancouver, and you can actually feel the radiation coming off the receiving unit.

    But to be fair, technology is improving not because they are pumping out more watts through the transmitter (although that helps range) it's more because computational power and the ability for them to multiplex more data on the proverbial line.

    We have already been toasting our gonads with wireless data for the past 60+ years and I haven't heard of increased birth defects from people living next to radio stations and cellular towers.

  10. Re:wimax sluggish compared to wibro? by vstanescu · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is an insightful comment modded down by people who know nothing about Wimax. In EU/US licenses for Wimax are for 3.5-7Mhz usually. In Korea they allowed usage of huge chunks of the spectrum for this, and that's why they got that impressive bandwidth. It would be nice for us to have the same, but the fight for spectrum is harder here than there.