Slashdot Mirror
Linux Cell Phones Coming Q1 2007
eldavojohn writes, "Prepare to salivate. D-Link has announced plans to put an unlocked Linux phone on the market in early 2007. Some features: Dual-mode WiFi and GSM/GPRS. Up to 24 MB of memory for user file storage, such as music and videos. 2-inch, 176 x 220-pixel color display. Opera browser. Email client. 3.4 ounces (95 grams). Tri-band (900/1800/1900) GSM radio — meaning it should work with any GSM-GPRS SIM card, including pre-paid SIM cards as well as those from traditional GSM service providers. Will it really be this easy to wean myself from the Microsoft mobile teat?" The phone is expected to list for $600.
Up to 24 MB of memory for user file storage, such as music and videos.
24MB of memory? That's about 4 songs or a 1/3 of a music video.
That doesn't sound too appealing.
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
Where on that page does it say anything about Linux?
I hate printers.
That is one ugly phone
May Peace Prevail On Earth
Hmm... d-link... would that be the company that recently tried to claim the the GPL was invalid in a german court case? Yeah, can see Linux fans climbing all over each other to buy stuff from this company...
I also recall D-link being in the press recently for configuring their hardware to synchronise to someone's private timeserver, costing the individual running it several thousand in bandwidth fees.
At one point I'd have said D-link were a quality brand. Now I'm not so sure...
To my knowledge, you can install whatever you want on the pda/smartphones from the bignames.
Not on a Sidekick, that's for damn sure. And the phone's software is always crippleware -- crippled Bluetooth, no wifi, no provisions for wifi. Extra software is always absurdly expensive.
But this is Linux, which gives you control of the phone's hardware and the ability to run anything you damn well please on it.
I kind of can't believe someone has actually done this. If D-Link actually gets this thing out the door I'll be shocked -- and more shocked if carriers don't ban the thing from their networks.
+++ATH0
1) GSM Is the REQUIREMENT in Europe by MANDATE. You can gloss it over with this or that, the "standards" were set up so one format met those standards, GSM. Suffice it to say you see it one way I see it another, and were not going to agree except to disagree. I heard the various arguments on this for a while and have not changed my opinion. GSM=MANDATED.
2) CDMA in its various formats is the de facto standard, in the US. NO CDMA you've lost out on 90% of the US market. Verizon, Sprint, Alltel (which may as well be Verizon, why don't they just merge and get it over with), US Cellular and a slew of other local and regional carriers. The fact that CDMA is going to be the air interface for the "new and improved" GSM shows they fubar'd with their anti US mind set. Pick the better technology, and thats not GSM.
3) Cingular can promote/crow all they want about being bigger sub count wise, that don't mean a thing. Their network is CRAP! CRAP! CRAP! Poor coverage, poor building penetration, lack of comparable coverage to Verizon. And as for TMobile, I would LOVE to use TMobile for 2 reasons - Catherine Zeta Jones and Deutsche Telekom. One their coverage SUCKS! Its even worse than Sprints 1900 CDMA network. Three networks I wouldn't touch Cingular, Sprint, TMobile in that order. Coverage, Coverage, Coverage and the ability to make a call in that coverage is all that matters. 99.99999% of my very limited calls are voice. The once in a blue moon tether to laptop for emergency and SMS to back up an alpha pager.
4) Verizon is not limiting me or making me ask for permission to use my phone. I purchase a phone which 1) Meets the requirements of the NETWORK ie: 800/1900, CDMA and AMPS (there are still and will continue even past the deadline to provide it analog areas, mostly rural, thus if you have a CDMA only phone your cooked). 2) Meets the features I need. I have had 4 handheld phones FOUR in 20+ years of service.FOUR. Compare that to others, some peple change cell phones more than they change socks and underwear. My present 9155GPX phone is as low tech as it gets. Supports 1x data for tethering and WAP or the low speed packet for tethering/WAP. It doesn't have color, doesn't act as a PDA or any of that other stuff, and I am not likely to purchase a phone that does either. I don't need it I pick up phones when they are cheap, and meet my requirements. I only gave up the Motorola UBC9000 brick because they never really made a CDMA version (it was made) just very low release volume. So I had to get a compatible phone.
Persons using what ever phone that is 1900 only or any other single band only will realize the problems they have the first time they go some place where there is ZERO 1900 coveage, but tons of 800 coverage. I can think of several areas I go to that fit that criteria and will into the near future. The 800 has been built and these carriers will upgrade it, but there is barely enough volumne for the carrier already there for another to come in and build a new 1900 network or add 1900 unless they have saturated their 800 capacity, and in these areas thats very unlikely. 1900 only phones and digital only phones may work great as long as you never leave neverneverland NYC or similar metro area. I can drive just a few miles outside the my "metro" area here and a CDMA only or TMobile, or Cingular would all be DEAD! NO SERVICE. Verizon, Alltell both work. Spirnt will work a little longer than Cingular and TMobile, but not much, and Sprint still has a huge hole. Just look at their coverage map it looks like a highway map. Off the highway, NO SERVICE!
I don't think that "pda phone" users really care a hoot about what band or not, this crowd only wants the gee whiz features. Getting those may cost them functions in another area like making a call period in some areas. The majority of cell phone users don't understand the underlying issues of the differing formats and frequencies. I would love to see the phone selling structure in the US radically change. Thats one area which I will gladly tout th
1311393600 - Back to Black
A COMMON STANDARD is the requirement by Europe, and then only on the 900MHz, and after it became defacto on 1800MHz, on 1800MHz too. GSM was the standard that was picked by the operators. GSM was not pushed by any governmental organization, it's a flat out lie to imply that it was.
Any state government in Europe can also make available other frequencies for mobile phone service running whatever services operators want. Indeed, that's how 1800MHz came about - because Britain opened up that frequency for operators to use. Both operators chose, off their free will, without even having to pick a common standard, GSM. Had they, and the dozens of operators that followed, picked something else, that'd have resulted in a different environment.
You can gloss over this as much as you like. You can say that because governments told operators they had to choose a common standard, that it's some kind of terrible crime against the holy goal of free marketism. What you can't say is that GSM specifically received government support.
Quite the reverse. The only standard I see being given mandated government support is IS-95, which the US government has done - often to the detriment of US interests. When IS-95 was pushed on the Chinese by the Clinton administration, the fall-out was immense, with the Chinese Government deliberately using it as a weapon against the US's attempts to deal with human rights violations. Qualcomm's lobbying, and the US government's incompetent caving in to such lobbying, has probably actually ensured many human rights abuses couldn't be prevented.
Yet, despite this well documented support of IS-95 by governments, for some reason it's the Europeans who get it in the neck. Because the European community had the audicity to want to replace the situation where the entire community had half a dozen or so incompatible analog standards with no roaming with a situation where someone could at least buy a phone that was guaranteed coverage anywhere in the area.
Oh the humanity!
BTW Vodafone experimented with a version of GSM that used the same air interface as IS-95 in the mid-nineties and ended up rejecting it, not because of politics or legal reasons, but because Qualcomm wasn't able to come up with a system that worked well for them. Nothing stopped them from running it, any more than anything stops European operators from implementing GPRS, EDGE, or UMTS.
FWIW, CDMA is not a standard anywhere. It's an air interface technology. You might just as well argue that "Packet switching" or "Plastic buttons" is a standard.
IS-95, which is what you meant, is not the de-facto standard in the US. The biggest operator in the US is Cingular. Cingular operates a GSM network. GSM has many other operators, including T-Mobile, some of Alltel (in the old Western Wireless regions), and various regional operators. And before adding up customer figures, remember that only half of Sprint's customers use its IS-95 network.
It is a flat out lie to argue that 90% of US users use IS-95. I would be surprised if IS-95 is used by more than 45% of US cellphone subscribers.
Secondly, the fa
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.