http://www.gamingcenters.net/index.php has been around for 4-5 years now, and seems to be going strong. I don't know much else about it, but I'm sure you could contact the owners from the site.
I completely agree with this statement. I've been forced to re-image my work machine 4 times within the last year by our support group. After XP SP2 hosed my machine again a couple weeks ago, I've resolved not to call our IT support people anymore - I'm pretty confident I could do a better, faster job than they could. As-is, I lose a good three days of work time whenever this happens. Why? Because the standard image doesn't include most of the applications that I need to do my day-to-day job. Many of those applications are ridiculously slow to install and set up, so there is a mandatory two-day recovery time after each re-image. Why does it take a full day to do an image in the first place? Because the IT support guys go through an insulting standard script of Control Panel->Uninstall Program->uninstall/reinstall random crap every. single. time.
I don't recall ever using the actual library portion of the undergraduate library during my time there, and I left in 2000. There are other much larger libraries on campus anyway. In fact, I mostly thought of that building as the location of the computer lab, and little else that was useful to me.
Did we only need one car manufacturer when the automobile was introduced?
No, but this is more like diesel vs. otto cycle than Ford vs. Chevy or whatever. Most of the same manufacturers will be involved regardless of which wireless standard comes out on top. Even if some proprietary version seems to be the most promising one, it won't get widely implemented if there's only one vendor.
You also have to consider that most phones in the U.S. are bought through one of the service providers, and U.S. service providers require extensive testing to work out any problems a phone might cause with their networks.
Dear Sales Department,
Thank you for the suggestion. We'd like to ask that you take it and put it in whatever dark hole you've been storing our previous requests not to make promises or announcements about crap that isn't anywhere close to production yet. See, the whole "Motorola Labs" thing means exactly that - it's a lab, not a frickin' factory. If you keep doing that, you're just going to piss the Slashdot crowd off.
Sincerely,
The Engineering Department
If by "environment" you mean "living room wall", I think yes, I want them in my environment. If I end up unable to leave the house or something, at least I'll have a nice TV to "watch" all the commercials being beamed to me about drugs to cure my inability to leave the house...uh, nevermind.
Ironically, the blurb at the end of the article wonders what will happen with 3G services. If the U.S. had followed Europe's "one standard technology only" approach, the prospect of 3G services and the technology used to deliver them would be very different. The U.S.'s competitive landscape allowed CDMA to mature, and both GSM and the first incarnation of CDMA will migrate to 3G services on a CDMA-based technology. (UMTS/WCDMA for GSM, CDMA1x/DO/EV-DO/etc. for CDMA)
Actually, it becomes much easier for the network to implement new features if the phone is IP-based. It means that the radio access network can be blissfully ignorant as it passes the packets to the application server. Upgrade the application server, and you've got a new feature without even touching the access network (unless it requires a new QoS level).
The vast majority of cell phone networks are TTY-compatible and have been for years. I can't speak toward the widespread availability of this feature on the mobile side, but I know that commercial phones with TTY support DO exist.
Author's talking out his butt
on
Bad MEN Of Wireless
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The author has got quite a few of the supporting "facts" in his articles wrong, not to mention the fact that his conclusions are all backwards. From the inside of at least part of a wireless infrastructure division of MEN, things are going faster and more frantic with shorter product cycles just over the past couple years. The earlier comment was dead-on, profits for MEN are driven by upgrades to new technology, not by expanding existing networks. Ripping out all that 2G and 2.5G hardware and replacing it with backward-compatible 3G hardware is a pretty profitable enterprise, and the prospect of doing the same thing to convert the network backhaul to packet/IP is also lucrative.
Chances are, this is one of the tools they are using (except for CDMA instead of GSM/GPRS on part of Verizon's network). Problem is, each phone manufacturer has a different software package to do this, and they each cost about that much. Adds up quick, especially when you are analyzing your competitors also.
Verizon's cells expand and shrink (breathe) depending on how many people are talking on that particular cell. If you've got 50 people in a restaurant trying to talk on the same wireless network, somebody's probably not going to get service.
If that happens, you should talk to the FCC. The frequencies that each carrier uses shouldn't interfere with the others - if they bleed over, they could face serious fines by the government.
Cell sites are way too expensive to put out in the boonies - the problem isn't necessarily how many people live there. You also have to consider how much it will cost to run a T1 line to the site to carry the traffic from the base station to the public telephone network. That gets VERY pricy when you get farther from established infrastructure. Basically, you've got to have decent wireline systems somewhere nearby to allow economical wireless.
Actually, the connection will go "dormant" after a certain time (service provider defined) with no activity. It should re-awaken with the same IP whenever your PC tries to access the network again. Essentially your card will place a new call every time you access the network after a dormancy of about 30 seconds or so. It'll result in a 1-5 second delay when your connection is waking up.
Look for a phone that supports EVRC vocoding. It should give you higher quality audio than the standard 13k vocoder, and you don't need a 1x phone for it.
They ironed out most of those phone problems while introducing 1x in Japan last summer/autumn. The problem is that the complexity of 1X phones is significantly higher (more processing power) than previous phones. Lots of new stuff like reverse power control, etc. It will actually emit less RF, but possibly more heat.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.gamingcenters.net/index.php has been around for 4-5 years now, and seems to be going strong. I don't know much else about it, but I'm sure you could contact the owners from the site.
I completely agree with this statement. I've been forced to re-image my work machine 4 times within the last year by our support group. After XP SP2 hosed my machine again a couple weeks ago, I've resolved not to call our IT support people anymore - I'm pretty confident I could do a better, faster job than they could. As-is, I lose a good three days of work time whenever this happens. Why? Because the standard image doesn't include most of the applications that I need to do my day-to-day job. Many of those applications are ridiculously slow to install and set up, so there is a mandatory two-day recovery time after each re-image. Why does it take a full day to do an image in the first place? Because the IT support guys go through an insulting standard script of Control Panel->Uninstall Program->uninstall/reinstall random crap every. single. time.
What's the over-under on how long it takes for somebody to use the security holes in Sony's DRM this to create a botnet used to DDoS Sony?
I've worked in 4 companies which have bitten the dust in the last 10 years, some good indicators of problems are:
Centurix is one of your co-workers.
I don't recall ever using the actual library portion of the undergraduate library during my time there, and I left in 2000. There are other much larger libraries on campus anyway. In fact, I mostly thought of that building as the location of the computer lab, and little else that was useful to me.
Did we only need one car manufacturer when the automobile was introduced? No, but this is more like diesel vs. otto cycle than Ford vs. Chevy or whatever. Most of the same manufacturers will be involved regardless of which wireless standard comes out on top. Even if some proprietary version seems to be the most promising one, it won't get widely implemented if there's only one vendor.
You also have to consider that most phones in the U.S. are bought through one of the service providers, and U.S. service providers require extensive testing to work out any problems a phone might cause with their networks.
Dear Sales Department, Thank you for the suggestion. We'd like to ask that you take it and put it in whatever dark hole you've been storing our previous requests not to make promises or announcements about crap that isn't anywhere close to production yet. See, the whole "Motorola Labs" thing means exactly that - it's a lab, not a frickin' factory. If you keep doing that, you're just going to piss the Slashdot crowd off. Sincerely, The Engineering Department
If by "environment" you mean "living room wall", I think yes, I want them in my environment. If I end up unable to leave the house or something, at least I'll have a nice TV to "watch" all the commercials being beamed to me about drugs to cure my inability to leave the house...uh, nevermind.
Ironically, the blurb at the end of the article wonders what will happen with 3G services. If the U.S. had followed Europe's "one standard technology only" approach, the prospect of 3G services and the technology used to deliver them would be very different. The U.S.'s competitive landscape allowed CDMA to mature, and both GSM and the first incarnation of CDMA will migrate to 3G services on a CDMA-based technology. (UMTS/WCDMA for GSM, CDMA1x/DO/EV-DO/etc. for CDMA)
This would be sweet! Especially since pig & elephant DNA just won't splice...
Actually, it becomes much easier for the network to implement new features if the phone is IP-based. It means that the radio access network can be blissfully ignorant as it passes the packets to the application server. Upgrade the application server, and you've got a new feature without even touching the access network (unless it requires a new QoS level).
The vast majority of cell phone networks are TTY-compatible and have been for years. I can't speak toward the widespread availability of this feature on the mobile side, but I know that commercial phones with TTY support DO exist.
The author has got quite a few of the supporting "facts" in his articles wrong, not to mention the fact that his conclusions are all backwards. From the inside of at least part of a wireless infrastructure division of MEN, things are going faster and more frantic with shorter product cycles just over the past couple years. The earlier comment was dead-on, profits for MEN are driven by upgrades to new technology, not by expanding existing networks. Ripping out all that 2G and 2.5G hardware and replacing it with backward-compatible 3G hardware is a pretty profitable enterprise, and the prospect of doing the same thing to convert the network backhaul to packet/IP is also lucrative.
Chances are, this is one of the tools they are using (except for CDMA instead of GSM/GPRS on part of Verizon's network). Problem is, each phone manufacturer has a different software package to do this, and they each cost about that much. Adds up quick, especially when you are analyzing your competitors also.
If you are relying on a cell phone for emergencies away from a city, ALWAYS make sure you have a cell phone that can analog roam.
Verizon's cells expand and shrink (breathe) depending on how many people are talking on that particular cell. If you've got 50 people in a restaurant trying to talk on the same wireless network, somebody's probably not going to get service.
They already do this, you just can't catch everything this way. They will often use this to figure out where to send the guy though.
If that happens, you should talk to the FCC. The frequencies that each carrier uses shouldn't interfere with the others - if they bleed over, they could face serious fines by the government.
Cell sites are way too expensive to put out in the boonies - the problem isn't necessarily how many people live there. You also have to consider how much it will cost to run a T1 line to the site to carry the traffic from the base station to the public telephone network. That gets VERY pricy when you get farther from established infrastructure. Basically, you've got to have decent wireline systems somewhere nearby to allow economical wireless.
This has been going on since the early analog cell days. Only new thing here is that this behavior is now part of Verizon's marketing.
Actually, the connection will go "dormant" after a certain time (service provider defined) with no activity. It should re-awaken with the same IP whenever your PC tries to access the network again. Essentially your card will place a new call every time you access the network after a dormancy of about 30 seconds or so. It'll result in a 1-5 second delay when your connection is waking up.
Look for a phone that supports EVRC vocoding. It should give you higher quality audio than the standard 13k vocoder, and you don't need a 1x phone for it.
They ironed out most of those phone problems while introducing 1x in Japan last summer/autumn. The problem is that the complexity of 1X phones is significantly higher (more processing power) than previous phones. Lots of new stuff like reverse power control, etc. It will actually emit less RF, but possibly more heat.