T-Mobile's First HSPA+ Modem Goes On Sale Sunday

adeelarshad82 writes "T-Mobile announced that the webConnect Rocket USB Laptop Stick, the first HSPA+ device for the US, will be available beginning on Sunday, March 14. The device was originally announced at MWC in February. HSPA+ is interesting because it could enable 4G LTE-like speeds using existing 3G infrastructure and according to a hands-on, it smokes Wi-Max. Right now, it's still just for Philadelphia, although we should see several major cities light up with HSPA+ on both coasts well before the end of 2010."

Comments

Portugal

[Anonymous Coward]

US cell phone market is so pathetic... Here in Portugal, we have HSPA+ for a couple months now...

Re:Portugal

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys also fuck sheep.

Re:Portugal

[jimduchek]

The problem with the US market when it comes to broadband, wireless tech, etc vs. Europe or Japan is population density. US cities (It's an American mentality, I suppose) tend to sprawl out, and most of the country is rural, but still fairly populated. Most countries have a higher density (the US is 178th), and most of the non-3rd-world ones that are lower (Canada, Russia, Brazil, etc) have large areas that are entirely unpopulated (and thus don't need to be taken into account for density when it comes to rolling out tech). Not to mention the US is freakin' huge to begin with -- Portugal is a little smaller than Maine, our 38th biggest state. But with a population of 10 million, that's more than Michigan, our 8th most populous state. Rolling out a technology here in the US requires an _enormous_ outlay of cash because of the area that needs to be covered in order to cover enough people to make it worthwhile.

Re:Portugal

[OzPeter]

The problem with the US market when it comes to broadband, wireless tech, etc vs. Europe or Japan is population density. US cities (It's an American mentality, I suppose) tend to sprawl out, and most of the country is rural, but still fairly populated.

I can buy that argument for the rural areas of the US, but when you areas such as NYC I can't fathom as to why they don't apparently have the population density and size to support all the fancy technologies that seem to spring up elsewhere in the world. If anything NYC should be showcasing to the rest of the world as to what high population densities and capitalism can do for technology. But then again, I suppose the technology they have actually *does* showcase the tech that the companies want to install, and that basically the companies couldn't give a flying fuck about providing the best shiny and newest technology.

Re:Portugal

[hazydave]

HSPA+ has actually been rolled out already by AT&T.. that's the 7.2Mb/s you hear in ads all the time. The problem with HSPA+ is the same problem GSM has always had. The original voice/2G protocols ran on 1.25MHz down, 1.25MHz up channels. The CDMA folks (Verizon and Sprint) run EvDO Rev A, which does 3.1Mb/s down, peak, on these same channels. This is why virtually every CDMA cell in the USA is 3G. The original HSPA wants 5MHz up and 5MHz down, to deliver 3.6Mb/s downlinks. Unfortunately, this demanded all new spectrum and hardware. So this, among other issues, it why only about 20% (by area) of the AT&T cells do 3G. HSPA+ works by pairing two separate cells on the same tower. You get 7.2Mb/s downloads, peak, but this requires 20MHz of bandwidth. So there are plenty of locales, in the USA, in which you Telco of choice simply doesn't own that spectrum. AT&T has announced they'll have 40-50 cities on HSPA+ this summer. They're waiting for 2011 for an LTE rollout, on their 12MHz chunk of the 700MHz spectrum. Verizon is also going to LTE, and claims they'll have 30-40 cities covered when they go hot this summer. We'll see. They have a 20MHz chunk of the 700MHz spectrum in the USA.

Re:Portugal

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf that means?

Re:Portugal

[DarthBling]

...non-3rd-world ones that are lower (Canada, Russia, Brazil, etc)...

Don't mean to nitpik, but Brazil is a third world nation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

Re:Portugal

[knarf]

Ah, the old population density bird... it still won't fly. Population density in Sweden - where I live - is lower than that in the US. Mobile telecommunications is quite popular here as you probably know. Ericsson and Nokia are well-known names in the field of mobile telecmmunications. Nokia from Finland, Ericsson from Sweden.

Population density in Sweden comes to about 57 heads per square mile. Finland is lower with 44. Norway is even lower with 39.

The USA has a population density of 84 heads per square mile. Those heads are somewhat more spread out than they are in Scandinavia because of urban sprawl so in the end the USA probably poses the same challenge as Scandinavia when it comes to rolling out mobile networks. So... what are you waiting for?

Re:Portugal

[Anonymous Coward]

The US have huge population centers as well. All of Germany has only five times as many inhabitants as the New York City metropolitan area. The population density of New York City is 50 times as high as the population density of Germany. Even Los Angeles with its west coast sprawl has 15 times the population density of Germany (and more than 15% its population). When you have as much as a third of the population of Germany living in just two cities with an area smaller than Belgium, sparsity isn't the problem. You won't get coverage everywhere, but you only need it where the people are. Most of the people in the US live in areas with higher population densities than European countries which have almost 100% coverage.

Re:Portugal

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed... and while other responses also have valid points about the population density argument... We are still talking vastly different scales here...

covering an entire nation the size of one of our smallest states, no matter the population density, is a very different proposition than covering 50 small nations...

As for NYC and population density.. again, it boils down to money.. Why bother showcasing a technology in one city that you have absolutely no capacity to roll out to the rest of your customers... All that will do is piss off the 99% of your customers who DON"T get the tech... (And boost the already overly large ego's of the sophisticates in that big city who feel that all of us "redneck hillbillies" out in the country don't have mental capacity for their technology, much less actually deserve it...

Re:Portugal

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia has a ridiculously low population density (on the order of 2-3 per square kilometre). However we have the world's largest deployed HSPDA+ network through Telstra. The upgrade to 48MBit/sec is coming later this year.

Re:Portugal

[Anonymous Coward]

It's awesome that you have something we don't. Congrats. You're much better than we are. You rule. Now that you've heard that, maybe you can leave us the fuck alone already? Sheesh.

Re:Portugal

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Then stop posting on /. about how your Great Wild Country of Hardy Individualistic Hard Men can't have a proper cell network because the expense of building such a unique cell network is so much more expensive.

Re:Portugal

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm... he wasn't bragging that they have it. He was simply explaining why an often touted excuse is incorrect.

Re:Portugal

[strikethree]

Ok, that explains why Durango, Colorado or Selene, Kansas doesn't get this stuff... but what about New York City? Los Angeles? Chicago? Detroit (oops, never mind that one), Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Seattle, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Albuquerque, Boston, Miami, and on and on and on and on.

In other words, you are dead wrong. Thanks for playing. :)

strike
   

Re:Let's get butt-raped

[Sir_Lewk]

work week gets longer

Yeah! Damn tidal forces sapping our precious rotational momentum and lengthening our days! The moon is a communist!

Canada

[courteaudotbiz]

Up here in Canada, we already have HSPA+ in urban areas... strange that we are so much in advance, we are known to usually adopt technologies well after the US...

Re:Canada

[OzPeter]

Up here in Canada, we already have HSPA+ in urban areas... strange that we are so much in advance, we are known to usually adopt technologies well after the US...

Shhh .. the US likes top think that it gets all the cool new technologies first and that the rest of the world can barely use electric lights. If you let on that you have advanced technology then they will start to feel inadequate.

Re:Canada

[alen]

aren't there only 2 or 3 urban areas in canada?

Re:Canada

[xavierpayne]

Actually you guys get tons of tech before we do. I remember being in a McDonalds in Toronto 10 years ago and being asked "Cash or Card eh?" I was like "what? Er... Cash." I was amazed... Turns out Canada had this amazing system called interact that would let you swipe your credit card just like you were at an atm. It was everywhere. Meanwhile for the next 4 years or so in the US of A we all still had to carry around cash. Hats off to you folks for embracing technology! :)

Re:Canada

[Kjella]

Don't worry, the bits take so long to get there they'll never notice.

Re:Canada

[m.ducharme]

HSPA+ rollout in Canada was hurried along by Bell and Telus, who wanted to have GSM-compatible networks in place when the world showed up to Vancouver for a few weeks, not long ago. Could you imagine the stink if Van got the hot new toys while Montreal and Toronto and Calgary had to suffer with the old tech?

Re:Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I think the people running the US decided some time ago that they didn't want to invest in infrastructure. I'm really not sure what the plan here is, but I'm guessing it's "Milk this place for everything it's worth and jump ship just as it's going down the tubes."

Re:Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Roll out hasn't finished in the Toronto area yet. Bell has only lit 1/3rd of all their towers so far. HSPA coverage has been spotty in the downtown core .

Re:Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you guys get tons of tech before we do. I remember being in a McDonalds in Toronto 10 years ago...Turns out Canada had this amazing system called interact that would let you swipe your credit card just like you were at an atm. It was everywhere.

Meanwhile for the next 4 years or so in the US of A we all still had to carry around cash.

Where did you live in the US ("of") A that did not have POS card readers in 2000? Mississippi? Heck, they even had them in Florida!

Re:Canada

[tlhIngan]

HSPA+ rollout in Canada was hurried along by Bell and Telus, who wanted to have GSM-compatible networks in place when the world showed up to Vancouver for a few weeks, not long ago. Could you imagine the stink if Van got the hot new toys while Montreal and Toronto and Calgary had to suffer with the old tech?

Because otherwise, Rogers would get all the heavily sought-after roaming minutes. CDMA just isn't used that widely outside of North America. And with Bell being an Olympic sponsor, that would mean the vast majority of the cash from calls goes to Rogers, one of their competitors. And nothing sucks worse than paying for something, only to benefit your competitor.

It was due anyhow, as CDMA has no 4G migration. GSM has LTE, and the other 4G technology is possibly WiMax. Sprint's going WiMax, Verizon's LTE (as is T-Mo and AT&T). But if it weren't for the Olympics, there'd be no reason to rush out a 3G network.

Re:Canada

[gv250]

aren't there only 2 or 3 urban areas in canada?

Yep -- Detroit and Buffalo.

Re:Canada

[warriorpostman]

I have a friend who went to Canada to have laser corrective surgery done on her eyes back in the early 90's, because there were no reasonable choices for this procedure available here in the US (well at least within a reasonable distance in Pennsylvania).

I was completely baffled by her story, because I was brainwashed to believe that socialized medicine necessarily lags behind when it comes to new medical technology and procedures.

Re:Canada

[atamido]

Turns out Canada had this amazing system called interact that would let you swipe your credit card just like you were at an atm. It was everywhere.

I got my first Visa check card in late 1997, in the USA, and I knew many people that had one way before me. After that, I don't recall ever using cash outside of fast food places. Perhaps where you lived was just behind the times?

Re:Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

I was amazed... Turns out Canada had this amazing system called interact that would let you swipe your credit card just like you were at an atm. It was everywhere.

Actually, it's for bank cards, not credit cards. Interac is the network that all of the ABMs run on, so the principle is the same. Swipe your card, enter your pin, and the money is immediately deducted from your account. It's been everywhere for years, even small corner shops and fast food joints.

They also allow email money transfers between any two people with online banking accounts at one of the major banks, which is very cool.

There is the minor issue of card cloning and PIN capturing that comes with card payment being so pervasive, of course, but what are you gonna do? It's a PITA when your card is canceled by the bank because they detect it was compromised, but at least they replenish the funds.

Re:Canada

[newdsfornerds]

Some of us yanks know how far behind we are in the cell phone realm. The FCC is a corrupt, inept agency. Perhaps this will start to change with Obama in the White House. I'm not holding my breath.

Re:Canada

[zach_the_lizard]

It matters little what the FCC does or does not do, IMO, but what localities do. In some cases they offer monopolies to ISPs and cable cos just so that they can get them in the area. My own town has the same silliness, and they have stalled getting FiOS in the area for some time now. I also wonder if other countries had the same evil phone monopoly that we had in the US, and if we have simply not recovered from the effects of that yet.

Re:Canada

[zach_the_lizard]

People cross the border in both directions for medical care all the time, both those pro- and con socialized medicine. I would like to know how many people do this sort of thing.

Re:Canada

[newdsfornerds]

Most developed countries in Europe and Asia had a single, state owned and state run telco monopoly before the advent of cheap cell phones. Landlines were expensive and metered in these places. When I was traveling in England in the nineteen eighties I was cautioned about this. I was told I could net expect a phone in my hotel room, for example. This was the case. I think most landlines in the UK were metered back then. Telephony was cheaper and access too it was easier in the US. Again, this was long before the cell phone became cheap.

Re:Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what's really fucked up? The FDA regulates importation of lasers. The Food and Drug Administration Administrates Lasers, which are neither edible nor medicinal. Obama just wants more power to control your life, but he's pretending that this control will be beneficial for you. If you really want to be free, demand that government let you figure out your own problems instead of stepping in.

Vs. Sprint's WiMax/4G

[Anonymous Coward]

Sprint is supposedly rolling out WiMax to even more cities this year. Does anyone know their timeline? I'd think that getting a decent 4G presence earlier would help them fight off this newer, faster offering. The fact that it's unlimited is a big plus too. I'd be happy with either one around me, but preferably both!

My first first?

[Eggbloke]

How long before we get these in the UK? They sound good.

Re:My first first?

[amorsen]

You don't have them? 21Mbps is already old news here, although by law it can't be advertised as 21Mbps (because you'll never get anywhere near that, even theoretically). I think most companies have decided to call it 10Mbps.

It's advertised as a replacement for ADSL, but it just isn't. It beats trying to get on wireless in cafes or trains though -- especially when the train wireless is simply one of those shared by everyone on the train.

WiMAX is worlds better if you have line of sight because of its lower latency. That can easily replace ADSL and even compete with ethernet at the same speed, for fixed installations. I bet it's less successful when you only have a tiny antenna in a laptop or cell phone...

Re:My first first?

[bsa3]

Outside the M25? Could be ages.

Then again, T-Mobile's US UMTS network is practically nonexistent. Take Boston as an example: they've got 3G inside 495, except for a large number of inexplicable nulls and EDGE-only areas. Then you go from Worcester to Springfield and it's EDGE only. 2G coverage for a 4G world.

Re:My first first?

[Anonymous Coward]

We actually have better in the UK...

Re:Let's get butt-raped

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel like we're in some Communist country...

Good thing things really are getting that bad, otherwise you'd sound like a whiny little bitch.

Re:Let's get butt-raped

[Knara]

It's also well known that the Communists hold fast to the principle that "wireless network d/l speed shall not increase."

Is that a rocket in your pocket?

[Tree131]

Is that a rocket in your pocket? Or are you just happy to see me?

Re:Is that a rocket in your pocket?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm happy to see you. VERY happy to see you. Wanna fuck? ;-)

Latency..

[Anonymous Coward]

It still has HPSAs awful latency.
LTEs extremely low latency will allow alot of interesting stuff that'll make the devices much more useful.

Re:Let's get butt-raped

[daveatneowindotnet]

Well I live in the Philly Metro area, I'll keep you in mind if it doesn't pan out.

Why anyone would pick Philadelphia as a launch city is beyond me. That's like recruiting beta testers from the Special Olympics.

5GB cap ruins it though.

[lazn]

with a 5GB cap and 60c/mb after that makes it a so what.

(Like having a fast car with a half gallon tank.. you can beat anyone in a race for half a block, after that a geo metro is faster)

4G speed except for the cap

[theskipper]

IIRC, Sprint's 4G is being advertised as "unlimited" (usual caveats apply) where this isn't. Now that the majority of Joe Consumers are actually consuming more than email (i.e. mobile video, etc.), it'll be interesting to see how the networks respond with their marketing.

From the gearlog link:
The webConnect Rocket USB Laptop Stick retails for $99.99 with a two-year contract and an Even More webConnect data plan. $60 per month gets you 5GB, while $30 gets you just 200MB; both charge 20 cents per megabyte over that. Another new option, Even More Plus webConnect, drops the annual contract and lowers the monthly prices by $10 in each case, but raises the up-front price of the modem.

5GB?

[natehoy]

Yay! Now I can burn through my monthly allotment in 33 minutes and 20 seconds, and incur overage charges at 50 cents a minute for the remaining 43,167.67 minutes of the month!

Does speed really matter if your monthly allotment is that low?

Re:5GB?

[GenP]

I usually just divide the transfer cap by 30 days to get the effective throughput.

Re:5GB?

[NeutronCowboy]

It's actually going to be 15 cents a second, more or less.

Let's assume you want that high speed for... something. Hi-res remote doctor consultations, watching Avatar in HD over the air, using onLive.... you get the idea. Let's say you burned through your allotment already. Let's also assume that you get 3Mbit/sec instead of the full 6Mbit/sec. A 15 minute consultation then will cost you $80, a 5 GB movie $200, and an all-night onLive session will run you a whopping $2500. Somehow, I don't think that whoever buys into this will have thought this through.

I suspect that

[bugs2squash]

most of this technology's advantages will be used to improve life for the Telcos (by squeezing more subscribers per cell) than for improving life for the user.

Re:Let's get butt-raped

[hazydave]

Well, the HSPA+ modem is only a potential. HSPA+ is also supported on many smart phones, and even on the download side by the iPhone 3GS (upload is still the basic 384kb/s, not even HSPA-regular speeds). And yeah, ideal HSPA+ download rates hit 7.2Mb/s. Sprint is claiming 6Mb/s for their WiMax "4G" link, while Comcast and Clear claim 8Mb/s and 10Mb/s or more.. funny thing, though.. it's exactly the same WiMax network. As for HSPA+, AT&T claims they'll have rolled it out in 30-40 cities, as of this summer. If you're not in-town, or not in the right town, don't expect to get faster connections. But much of this is marketing hype anyway. If you listen to Sprint ads, you'll expect to find 4G is a real thing. And it is... for computer connections. But they have yet to ship a WiMax phone. And I can sympathize about that "incredible thing" 1000 miles away. Or 3 miles away. Where I live, there's no wired broadband offered. So I'm paying $120 a month for satellite at 1.5Mb/s down, with heinous download limits per day. Three miles away, there's 12+Mb/s cable with no announced per-day limits. This summer, Verizon 4G comes online, too. They're using LTE, the global standard, not WiMax, and on 700MHz (versus 2500MHz for WiMax), so they have a big advantage. They're going hot in 30-40 cities all at once. LTE trials have demonstrated 50Mb/s links, but once it gets real, there are per-client maximums imposed, regardless of the actual cell traffic. I'm in a local totally ready for this as a home connection, there's "Stimulus" money to hit up us rural folks, and yet, I still imagine Verizon hooking this up in places that already get Cable, FiOS, and HPSA+ just dandy.

Re:Let's get butt-raped

[hazydave]

As opposed tot the Appleists, who hold fast to the principle that "wireless network u/l speed shall not increase" (all iPhones can only do 384kb/s uploads... despite the HSPA+ rate of 2Mb/s, which is supported by most other current GSM smart phones).

Latency?

[Otterley]

These tests are useless without latency measurements. For nearly all practical purposes, a 21Mb transfer rate is not significantly better than a 1Mb rate if the round-trip time is 500ms.

Re:Latency?

[afidel]

That really depends on what you are doing now doesn't it? If you are streaming an HD video then the greater speed matters, if you are trying to load the 1,000 elements in a complex webpage or doing XMLHTTP requests then the 1Mbps connection with the lower latency may be preferred.

Re:Latency?

[Otterley]

Streaming HD video is not what 99% of people use these connections for. If you do, the service provider hates you and is likely to cancel your service.

Re:Latency?

[bugs2squash]

If you're trying to load 1,000 elements of a complex webpage in series, yes. In parallel, not so much.

Re:Latency?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well.. uhm... it's way better from where I stand. Videos will download faster. FTP will go faster... most anything will go faster as long as it's not to latency dependent. Games... well they are for children.

Re:Latency?

[Otterley]

Browsers don't load every page element in parallel. Usually the concurrency is limited to 4 connections per server, per the HTTP spec.

Re:Latency?

[bugs2squash]

I think the user can choose to change that. I'm not inclined to view this as a moral issue, after all someone blessed with lower latency can make more requests per second. And I'm not inclined to view it as a technical problem because I think it's likely that that most servers are more limited by network capacity than by ability to service connections because memory appears to have gotten cheaper more quickly than internet speed has become cheaper.

Fuck that, I'll stay with Clear/Sprint.

[Chas]

Sorry, 5GB.

5 measly little gigs?

I fart hard and I'm over that cap.

HSPA+ is not HSDPA

[Erich]

The GSM side of 3G standards has many different upgrades to the basic WCDMA air interface:

• HSDPA: 7.2 MBit/sec downlink
• HSUPA: 5MBit/sec uplink
• HSPA+: 21 MBit/sec - 48 MBit/sec downlink

The most interesting thing is that HSPA+ is getting close to the same efficiency (bits/Hz) as LTE; 21MBit/sec in a 5MHz channel vs. 100MBit/sec in a 20MHz channel.

Cincinnati Bell has an HSPA device (since 06/09)

[Anonymous Coward]

Actual, this is not the first device. Cincinati Bell is offeing iCon 452, (since last June), and it is HSPA. In several speed test, it tested out faster then there DSL offering.

How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which part of this is News?

Telstra in Australia (comparable land area to USA) has had 21 Mbps nationwide for over a year and their network now supports 42 Mbps. At the GSM world congress at Barcelona in February they announced their intent to have 84 Mbps in the network next year.

Yet T-mobile announce they can do this only in Philadelphia and it's considered news? Why are we so far behind the rest of the world and think that a bit of bandwidth in one small area is news worthy?

DC network ramping up already?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been seeing 3.5G on my N900 in northern VA/DC several times in the past month. While the N900 is interface limited to 10/2 or so, it does have 3.5 tech.

Its distict from the 3G icon but limited to whatever area I notice it in and happen to have it open at the time. Since I'm only around the beltway when I'm at work theres no time to test a bunch of heavy browsing, let alone running a speed test to confirm their stuff is really up or just sending the signals that let my phone know its there.

Re:DC network ramping up already?

[wdixon]

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=35116

To cap or not to cap

[sjpm]

Guess I will stick with my unlimited EDGE for $20/month then, TMO. It may only be a pathetic 20kbyte/sec or so but I can do that speed all month long for $20, no caps.

lame

[sixsixtysix]

really? this is the next big wireless thing to come? it doesn't sound too impressive, especially with the caps. this is not what consumers want. they want ONE connection that can go anywhere with similar speeds wherever they go. can we get rid of home/mobile barrier once and for all? maybe get that network working and leave the other stuff alone until it gets made? it's the same bullshit that doesn't allow for a simple $30/month unlimited voice/text/data(which should just be sold as one fucking thing, as its all 1s and 0s anyways) plan.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I hate to break it to you, but look at it this way:
I have 21Mbit HSPA+ now with no cap. It's great, and convenient, and I could use it as my only connection, but... I have 100Mbit internet at home. Doing web surfing, etc., it doesn't matter, but when, for example, I want to download stuff with iTunes or something like that, it is a good deal faster if I use the home connection.

I am sure the mobile speeds will continue to increase, but so will the land-line speeds. I have a feeling that they won't converge, of if they do, it will be many years later. It's just easier to push more data over a piece of fiber-optic cable (a dedicated channel) than it is to do it over the radio spectrum with lots of interference, reflections, etc.

Since that's not likely to change, you just have to decide when the mobile is "good enough". For me, it could be good enough right now. Since I have the extra $40 to spend for the Fiber, I do, but it isn't really necessary. (Other than the speed, I sometimes like to connect to my server at home from my laptop when not at home, so I need some kind of connection there - although I am sure DSL would do just fine.)

Re:Let's get butt-raped

[Anonymous Coward]

3 Miles away from losing a $120/month bill? google 'cantenna' and live happily ever after.