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FCC Gives Thumbs-Up To First LTE Phone
eagledck tips news that the FCC has "finally approved the first 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) phone for sale in the US." The Samsung device will use MetroPCS as a carrier, but tech specs, software details and a launch timetable are still uncertain. Meanwhile, Verizon is ramping up testing of their own LTE infrastructure, hoping to launch in 25 to 30 markets by the end of the year. An anonymous reader notes that LTE rollouts could be hampered by a confused and conflicted patent situation. "It is impossible to know where all the patents are but we have identified more than 60 companies holding essential patents. It is a very large landscape and fragmented. If there was one major patent pool and a handful of individual companies to deal with, that would be possible. But signing license deals with 40 plus [entities] is not. A unified patent pool is best," said a representative for one of three patent pool organizations trying to accomplish that.
Makes me skeptical of the coverage and reliability they will be able to provide for 4G but I dunno.
meep
What is an "LTE" phone? Google is not helping me find an answer.
Does it come with the bigger GBs?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
as long as I control it."
LTE or no LTE doesn't matter as long as the data plans in US are as horrible as they are now. LTE can be useful if the operator somehow enables tethering, secondary data line, or other ways to use the fast data connection. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have to pay close to $50/month to get LTE/3G data connection with restricted data usage via tethering, or $10-30/month if you want to use data just on your mobile phone, or both if you want LTE/3G usb data stick + data on your mobile.
This obscene pricing for data is holding back any real breakthrough in wireless data market in US. When comparing that to current prices in Finland the difference is huge. Currently operators are offering up to 14.4mbit/sec 3.5G (HSPA) data line for 14€/month. The plan includes data for your mobile phone + USB data stick for your computer with secondary SIM without data usage restrictions. Both data connections will work simultaneously and use the same phone number, secondary SIM doesn't receive text messages otherwise it's identical to primary SIM.
The result of such pricing scheme in Finland is that many families have several high speed internet connections at their disposal. Surprisingly telcos are quite profitable and have been able to offset the declining revenue in fixed line business with new wireless services.
That statement would of been far more civil if you replaced black or white with a blank character.
And pretending that racist and or bigot did not type that above statement, Metro PCS is a much more friendly company than any of the major carriers, and is probably a superior product if you have no need to travel.
I wonder how many taxpayer-funded subsidies were given to the telecom companies to develop LTE, just so we can get soaked again on our monthly bill to pay the patent royalties on technology we already paid once to develop.
Long-Term Evolution, so does that mean all carriers and phones are going to be using the same frequencies so that I can use my phone with whatever carrier I want?
MetroPCS is the perfect company to start with, it doesn't have national coverage and it's located in only a few of the highly dense metropolitan areas (and surrounding vacation spots). 4G will probably much easier to roll out if they don't try to roll it out all at once nationwide.
And no, MetroPCS is not just for low-income people that can't get credit. MetroPCS is one of the very few companies that doesn't try to rip off its customers (whether be it overages, roaming, or international calls). I highly recommend them if they're in your area. If anything, MetroPCS is in it for the long-haul, think of them like Southwest. Southwest does attract some of the most budget-conscious customers, and also Southwest is by no means perfect, but it still is one of the better airlines out there (that's assuming they cover your area and where you actually need to go).
I'd rather have an long term infrastructure with intelligent design.
What's wrong with saving money? $100/month phone plans are really quite expensive, and if you can get phone service for $40, couldn't you find something better to do with the remaining $680 per year? That's like getting a free computer. Every year.
There's only so much a user would want to do with a phone, even with the extra bandwidth. You can stream a movie perhaps but the inevitable trend towards usage caps all but eliminates that fantasy. What's more interesting here is the infrastructure. More bandwidth means more devices can be supported, such as laptops as TFA mentions. Bona fide ISPs can be built on LTE, so the possible availability of alternate internet services is something to look forward to.
Wake me up when they approve an FTL phone!
No, ablution of patents is best. Many proponents of patents have stated how important patents are to innovation, but where are the economics studies supporting this? While a number of economics studies have concluded there are negative impacts of patents, where are those that claim there are positive impacts? As noted in Ars technica's article Study: free markets superior to patent monopolies the debate has made it's way to Science magazine. To cite one example, in The Patent Paradox Revisited: An Empirical Study of Patenting in the U.S. Semiconductor Industry, 1979-1995, in "Rand Journal of Economics, Vol. 32, 2001", based on studies by Yale and Carnegie Mellon "R&D managers in semiconductors consistently reported that patents were among the least effective mechanisms for appropriating returns to R&D investments".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Read up on the wholesale LTE network LightSquared is contracting Nokia Siemens to build ($7 Billion contract). This is the main reason Nokia Siemens is in the process of buying the Motorola infrastructure division.
I'm surprised this hasn't been on Slashdot already.
HSPA+ that T-Mobile USA has launched 21 megabits/sec today. I have seen 10meg peaks on it myself