MS products have been crappy until the third version. Why should this be any different? Xbox-1 tanks. Xbox-2 is rushed. Xbox-3 will kill off Playstation AND Nintendo. (Well *I* hope not). But given the company's long history of the Third Version Charm, I'm saving my money for PS3.
It sounds like the guy is willing to accept the risk of an unstable system for the fun of tweaking and getting more for his buck. If he's not concerned about stability, what's wrong with that? Live and let live.
Oh come on. Are you seriously comparing the world famous SWISS banks, known for their secrecy and security with the US ones? Just because of the tax enforcement laws alone, US banks are insecure compared to the Swiss ones.
Someone else pointed out Packages so I'll try to enumerate things I like about FreeBSD:
1. Stability. The -stable branch (right now 4.x series) is ROCK SOLID. Even with a saturated CPU load, it is responsive and doesn't crash. It rivals commercial unix for stability in high-load environments. I think one can get linux to do this using a very stable kernel (ie, not the latest) or distributions (debian stable). The -current branch is less stable. I've had two kernel panics with it in the last year.
2. Saner release cycle. With RedHat and others constantly upping their version numbers, it is nice to see branches supported for long periods. 3.x got security updates for a long time, and I know 4.x will too after 5.x becomes stable
3. Saner Design. Unlike Linux, each release of FreeBSD dictate kernel+base system. Other packages are installed afterwards. Due to this, upgrades are a snap, as each cvsup, makeworld gives you a new release of FreeBSD but leaves your apps alone. Maybe to some people this is bad (KDE not being upgraded), but for servers this is ideal.
4. Part of No, 3, but oh well. Saner directory structure. Maybe I'm old school, but I *like* having all the base system (bin utils, etc) in/usr/bin and installed packages in/usr/local/bin. So when I do a system upgrade, only/usr/bin is updated. Linux's behavior of putting everything in/usr/bin drives me nuts.
5. Documentation. man will give everything you want, but there is also the Handbook, which in my opinion is only rivaled by Gentoo's. It is well written, clear, and easy to find.
So you can see where FreeBSD is geared towards--servers. As such, it is great to set-up, maintain, and run services on it, but it also has downsides, like lack of hardware support (can't have flaky hardware and drivers ruining uptimes). I suggest you try FreeBSD for your server needs, but stick to Linux for more general use, especially if there is no driver support for your favorite hardware.
Why our K-12 education system suffers
on
The Flickering Mind
·
· Score: 2, Redundant
The material that a K-12 student has to learn hasn't changed much in 50 years. Material K-9 students learn (reading, writing, and math) hasn't changed probably in a century. Chances are that a 10 year old text book on European history, physics, English, or Math is probably still good today.
But teaching the same stuff to kids year after year doesn't make someone a "Leader in Education". In order to be a Leader (heads of education departments at the local and national level) one must have "Vision". And of course this Vision doesn't come from updating history or science texts, or finding better ways to teach kids critical thinking. Leaders have to come up with "Visionary" ideas, like Computer in Every Classroom, or Laptop for Every Pupil, or Creation Science, and every other fad/scheme that garners broad *political* support.
Our K-12 system suffers because politicians are running the system.
I've said this before but always got modded as troll, but Karma be damned, I'll say it again.
There has to be a 100% MS Office compatible Office as a drop in replacement for MS office.
Think about it. If you like Emacs, would you accept anything other than 100% emacs keys compatible editor? If you like Vi, wouldn't you do the same? How about grep or sed? Would you accept a slightly incompatible perl? So why would anyone think all those office workers, secretaries, administrators, would give up MS Office to use something very different than what they're used to?
If an important application or program has to be replaced, there has to be a drop-in-replacement for it. The same was true for the IBM XT, it is true now. (IBM had zero competition from other PC makers who made "almost IBM compatible" machines. Only after Compaq made "100% IBM Compatible" machines did IBM started to lose marketshare)
If there was a free (or cheap) office suit that had all features and identical menu structure to say Office 2000, small businesses and individuals won't think twice about switching to that.
The one thing that lasts practically forever is micro engraved alumninum plates. I think microfische (used to archive newspaper) would come close (but not fireproof). It won't be too difficult to print 2-D barcodes onto either to preserve digital data.
You should have read more carefully before posting. It says Each PC runs runs a script twice a day. They are not logging on to each machine, but the machines keep themselves up to date through I would guess a reference box.
In fact, if you read the other article in the link, it says each machine is set up to wake-on-LAN, so they can be turned on and off remotely as well.
This must be god-sent to the Librarians. The machines turn themselves on and off, they update themselves from a central server (probably set up for the whole county), and they erase cookies and cache themselves. No more playing IT Admin whenever there is a new MS patch, no more virii, and at no additional software cost. As long as someone intelligent is updating the reference machine, this is an ideal set-up-and-forget system. I really hope this catches on.
screaming in panic. If enough public libraries realize it's cheaper to run OSS software MS is lost. How long do you think it's going to take before these librarians receive a visit from the local MS sales force and "Free" WindowsXP and Office2003 CD's arriving in their mail for "promotional perposes"?
I think it's indicative of Microsoft's own expectation of Longhorn's release date. Much better than estimates put out by the PR department or MS fanboys.
Right now, Dell sells "stripped down" 400SC for $350. I bought mine when they were having a sale, where it dropped to $300 plus a $100 mail-in-rebate. So I got one of those, and it ended up costing me slightly less than $250 for the computer after tax with free shipping. Oh, and it came with RAM, HDD, keyboard, mouse, and CD-ROM.
And I also like the fact that besides a quiet case, Dell uses decent components--Intel Mobo, Crucial RAM-- so I don't have to worry about stability issues. Sure, I can build a system for $250 using cheap components, but why bother?
I've tried a lot of things and spent a lot of money to quiet my older computers. But when I bought a Dell, (Poweredge 400SC), boy, were they *quiet*! The fans are low-speed, the drives are mounted on rubber mounts, and the power supplies are quiet. All for $250 including tax and shipping. That's a complete system for a price of a barebone. Even their cheapest (2400) models are very quiet. (I've got one). So I don't notice my computers anymore, even sleeping in the same room.
It goes to show, a little thought in case design can pay off handsomely, and without costing a lot of money.
Re:Why were MP ever such a big deal?
on
Beyond Megapixels
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Yup. I remember when I was at CompUSA once and some stupid guy was buying a computer. He was interested in only a few things. Will I be able to burn cds with this? Can I do e-mail? Can I plug my camera into it? etc. You just need enough power to be able to get the functionality you desire. Excess power is money wasted.
How was this guy stupid? He knew what he wanted to do with a PC and wanted the salesman to recommend a basic system for his tasks. Sounds like an average consumer with reasonable expectations. He seems much smarter than some guy who wants a 4GigaHurts machine with 2 GigaBites of RAM and 200 Gig hard drive so he can "surf the web faster" on his dialup and "print photos faster" on his ink jet.
Going back to cameras, 4 megapixels are good enough for most people to replace their 35mm cameras. Since 4MP cameras are still expensive, there is the perception more is better. But soon 4MP cameras will be $100, and people will realize 12MP cameras are not worth their dollars for what they use. Just give it some time.
I have a friend with a Gmail account. He got one through an acquantance working at Google. It seems like Google employees get accounts, and they could give out "passes" to a number of people. (not sure how many, though--definately more than 2)
I don't know if the poster is intentionally spewing FUD or maybe just not knowledgeable. I'll give the benefit of the doubt.
The idea of Open Access is not about publishing whatever you want for a fee. It is about having access to the journals that are already published. Both PLoS (Public Library of Science) and Nature are peer reviewed by respected scientists of their field. Both charge fees to author to submit/layout their papers. But the difference is that access to PLoS is free and unrestricted, whereas access to Nature or Science is fee based and restrictive. The whole Open Access (and PLoS) movement started when Nature and Science *refused* access to their past journals without a subscription. Even when the authors themselves wanted their papers to be more accessible.
Things are better now that PLoS has gathered steam--most journal articles are available after 6 months. Publishers are afraid of the outrage they could cause by not allowing more access. But even now, there are restrictions in place that doesn't allow these journal articles to be fully useful. Why? Because they don't allow article body searches, only abstracts. Imagine how much more effective journal searches could be if we could search through full text bodies instead of just abstracts. Uh-huh.
How about the second paragraph of the article:
Supporters of the two interfaces have often sparred with each other in flame wars on Slashdot, mailing lists and newsgroups.
Oh, why am I answering an AC troll....But I hate FUD.
Comparing UMTS/EDGE/GPRS with EVDO is invalid. The carriers assigned to the former can be dynamically assigned to voice or data depending on the call type
No, you cannot reassign UMTS to GPRS/EDGE. You can, however dynamically reassign EDGE/GPRS to voice. But that's not what you said, is it? Deploying EVDO is *exactly* like deploying UMTS. They both need spectrum and they both need new handsets. In fact, having a separate Data only network is advantageous than having a mixed voice-data, as each have different bandwidth vs latency requirements. That's why one can have a perfectly clear conversation over regular old telephone, but VoIP over the same line feels like crap.
VZ and other operators don't like giving up spectrum from voice (read volume revenue) for data (read premium unproven revenue).
What, are you arguing with yourself now? They'll provide data only if customers demand it and if it doesn't hurt their voice capacity. Deploying a single 1x channel to data is heck of a lot cheaper than deploying UMTS--not only do the operators have to insntall new hardware, give out new handsets, they still have to take away 5MHz of spectrum from existing GPRS users. Why do you think European operators don't have any UMTS plans? On the other hand, EVDO deployment only takes away one 1.25MHz channel. And the funny thing is, Verizon and Sprint do not have all of their channels deployed to full capacity in most markets. So adding a EVDO channel really *does not* reduce voice channels. Try doing that with UMTS.
4. Unlike EDGE/GPRS/UMTS, EVDO eats spectrum. The other standards co-exist with voice. This doesn't. Expect the service to fade away once EVDV comes out.
Proof this guy is totally ignorant.
GSM/GPRS/EDGE use the same frequency/timeslot mechanism. Yes, They can co-exist.
UMTS is a brand new WCDMA interface that doesn't co-exist with any of the above. It needs a whopping 5MHz carrier band plus guardbands all by itself. EV-DO takes exactly the same amount of spectrum (1.25Mhz) as other 1x voice carriers. Let's say Verizon has 10MHz PCS spectrum in a given area. They can have 7 CDMA carriers deployed (1.3x7 is about 10MHz including the guardband), and can swap 1 of them for EV-DO and provide broadband data in that area, while keeping 6 of them as voice(can still use slower 1x data in the voice channel). If ATTWS/Cingular wants to deploy broadband, they have to move 5MHz+guardband of GSM/GPRS users out in order to deploy UMTS. Verizon customer's voice capacity was reduced by 1/6 to provide broadband data. ATTWS/Cingular's customers lost half of theirs. Sure, if you had an UMTS capable hand set, you'd have the whole 5MHz to yourself, but all the rest of us will have lost half the calling capacity. Maybe with the merger they have plenty of spectrum to go around. Let's wait and see.
Sounds like you know a lot about GSM systems but not about CDMA systems. So I would like to point out a few things.
- 1xEV-DO is 2.4Mbps UMTS is 2Mpbs on paper, real world trials are showing 1xEV-DO pushing 650Kpbs and UMTS is pushing 2100Kpbs.
Um, you can't push more bits than the spec allows. Also, 1xEV-* is running on 1.25MHz wide band. UMTS (WCDMA) is running on a 5MHz wide band. That's a lot more bandwidth for similar data rates. And there is something called 3xEV (3 x 1.25=3.75MHz) that triples the data rate in smaller space than UMTS. And I'm not even talking about 1xEV-DV (Data/voice together in one 1.25Mhz channel up to 2Mbps. Imagine 3x versions of these)
- 1xRTT isnt upgradable to 1xEV-DO, this is why Verizon only has 2 markets.
Well, if by "not upgradable" you mean having to clear out existing 1x users out of a carrier to put in the DO carrier than yes, it's not upgradable. But that's like saying GSM/GPRS isn't "upgradable" to UMTS. In fact it is easier to switch from 1xRTT to DO because you just reassign one carrier from RTT to DO. In order to switch to UMTS from GPRS/EDGE you have to 1) install a whole new base-station, 2) clear out 5MHz of spectrum. I think it is much easier to clear out 1.25MHz than 5Mhz. Also, I hear verizon is planning to role out DO nation wide.
In fact, ATTWS cannot deploy UMTS across all their markets because they don't have enough spectrum. In markets with only 10MHz of PCS spectrum, there is no way they are going to deploy 5MHz+guardband while pushing out existing customers to rest of less than 5MHz of space. Even in cellular markets with 25MHz, ATTWS have to support three separate carriers (Analog/TDMA/GSM). Only in markets where they had cellular 25MHZ plus PCS spectrum would they be able to deploy UMTS. Maybe with Cingular merger they'll have enough bandwidth to deploy UMTS nationally. But they still have to move people out of TDMA to clear that bandwidth, which will take a long time, and which is what the other poster pointed out.
- ATTWS and Cingular rank higher in data speeds and connect time, and lower ping.
Usenet reports points to the opposite. GPRS/EDGE users report 800-1000ms ping times, where is 1x hovers around 400-500. YMMV.
For GSM, EDGE is the end of the road. Seriously. 200Kbps is the best it'll do now or in the future. In order to achieve higher data rates, they have to deploy UMTS. But unlike CDMA companies deploying 1x-DO or DV, GSM companies have to invest more money, equipment, spectrum, and labor to deploy UMTS. In fact, many European companies don't have any plans to deploy faster data beyond EDGE. Where as in the US, Verizon, Sprint, Alltell are all itching to deploy DO.
In any case, it's good to see some competition happening in broadband data.
Slashdot Mirror
MS products have been crappy until the third version. Why should this be any different? Xbox-1 tanks. Xbox-2 is rushed. Xbox-3 will kill off Playstation AND Nintendo. (Well *I* hope not). But given the company's long history of the Third Version Charm, I'm saving my money for PS3.
It sounds like the guy is willing to accept the risk of an unstable system for the fun of tweaking and getting more for his buck. If he's not concerned about stability, what's wrong with that? Live and let live.
Oh come on. Are you seriously comparing the world famous SWISS banks, known for their secrecy and security with the US ones? Just because of the tax enforcement laws alone, US banks are insecure compared to the Swiss ones.
Someone else pointed out Packages so I'll try to enumerate things I like about FreeBSD:
/usr/bin and installed packages in /usr/local/bin. So when I do a system upgrade, only /usr/bin is updated. Linux's behavior of putting everything in /usr/bin drives me nuts.
1. Stability. The -stable branch (right now 4.x series) is ROCK SOLID. Even with a saturated CPU load, it is responsive and doesn't crash. It rivals commercial unix for stability in high-load environments. I think one can get linux to do this using a very stable kernel (ie, not the latest) or distributions (debian stable). The -current branch is less stable. I've had two kernel panics with it in the last year.
2. Saner release cycle. With RedHat and others constantly upping their version numbers, it is nice to see branches supported for long periods. 3.x got security updates for a long time, and I know 4.x will too after 5.x becomes stable
3. Saner Design. Unlike Linux, each release of FreeBSD dictate kernel+base system. Other packages are installed afterwards. Due to this, upgrades are a snap, as each cvsup, makeworld gives you a new release of FreeBSD but leaves your apps alone. Maybe to some people this is bad (KDE not being upgraded), but for servers this is ideal.
4. Part of No, 3, but oh well. Saner directory structure. Maybe I'm old school, but I *like* having all the base system (bin utils, etc) in
5. Documentation. man will give everything you want, but there is also the Handbook, which in my opinion is only rivaled by Gentoo's. It is well written, clear, and easy to find.
So you can see where FreeBSD is geared towards--servers. As such, it is great to set-up, maintain, and run services on it, but it also has downsides, like lack of hardware support (can't have flaky hardware and drivers ruining uptimes). I suggest you try FreeBSD for your server needs, but stick to Linux for more general use, especially if there is no driver support for your favorite hardware.
The material that a K-12 student has to learn hasn't changed much in 50 years. Material K-9 students learn (reading, writing, and math) hasn't changed probably in a century. Chances are that a 10 year old text book on European history, physics, English, or Math is probably still good today.
But teaching the same stuff to kids year after year doesn't make someone a "Leader in Education". In order to be a Leader (heads of education departments at the local and national level) one must have "Vision". And of course this Vision doesn't come from updating history or science texts, or finding better ways to teach kids critical thinking. Leaders have to come up with "Visionary" ideas, like Computer in Every Classroom, or Laptop for Every Pupil, or Creation Science, and every other fad/scheme that garners broad *political* support.
Our K-12 system suffers because politicians are running the system.
Since when did Linus need to justify himself to the Slashdot crowd?
I think you just answered that yourself
I love the fact that they seem very serious about OSS. But anyone want to comment on how they plan to make money?
I've said this before but always got modded as troll, but Karma be damned, I'll say it again.
There has to be a 100% MS Office compatible Office as a drop in replacement for MS office.
Think about it. If you like Emacs, would you accept anything other than 100% emacs keys compatible editor? If you like Vi, wouldn't you do the same? How about grep or sed? Would you accept a slightly incompatible perl? So why would anyone think all those office workers, secretaries, administrators, would give up MS Office to use something very different than what they're used to?
If an important application or program has to be replaced, there has to be a drop-in-replacement for it. The same was true for the IBM XT, it is true now. (IBM had zero competition from other PC makers who made "almost IBM compatible" machines. Only after Compaq made "100% IBM Compatible" machines did IBM started to lose marketshare) If there was a free (or cheap) office suit that had all features and identical menu structure to say Office 2000, small businesses and individuals won't think twice about switching to that.
The one thing that lasts practically forever is micro engraved alumninum plates. I think microfische (used to archive newspaper) would come close (but not fireproof). It won't be too difficult to print 2-D barcodes onto either to preserve digital data.
You should have read more carefully before posting. It says Each PC runs runs a script twice a day. They are not logging on to each machine, but the machines keep themselves up to date through I would guess a reference box.
In fact, if you read the other article in the link, it says each machine is set up to wake-on-LAN, so they can be turned on and off remotely as well.
This must be god-sent to the Librarians. The machines turn themselves on and off, they update themselves from a central server (probably set up for the whole county), and they erase cookies and cache themselves. No more playing IT Admin whenever there is a new MS patch, no more virii, and at no additional software cost. As long as someone intelligent is updating the reference machine, this is an ideal set-up-and-forget system. I really hope this catches on.
screaming in panic. If enough public libraries realize it's cheaper to run OSS software MS is lost. How long do you think it's going to take before these librarians receive a visit from the local MS sales force and "Free" WindowsXP and Office2003 CD's arriving in their mail for "promotional perposes"?
I think it's indicative of Microsoft's own expectation of Longhorn's release date. Much better than estimates put out by the PR department or MS fanboys.
Right now, Dell sells "stripped down" 400SC for $350. I bought mine when they were having a sale, where it dropped to $300 plus a $100 mail-in-rebate. So I got one of those, and it ended up costing me slightly less than $250 for the computer after tax with free shipping. Oh, and it came with RAM, HDD, keyboard, mouse, and CD-ROM.
And I also like the fact that besides a quiet case, Dell uses decent components--Intel Mobo, Crucial RAM-- so I don't have to worry about stability issues. Sure, I can build a system for $250 using cheap components, but why bother?
And sometimes they have rebate deals (typically $100). That's how mine got to $250 including tax/shipping.
I've tried a lot of things and spent a lot of money to quiet my older computers. But when I bought a Dell, (Poweredge 400SC), boy, were they *quiet*! The fans are low-speed, the drives are mounted on rubber mounts, and the power supplies are quiet. All for $250 including tax and shipping. That's a complete system for a price of a barebone. Even their cheapest (2400) models are very quiet. (I've got one). So I don't notice my computers anymore, even sleeping in the same room.
It goes to show, a little thought in case design can pay off handsomely, and without costing a lot of money.
Yup. I remember when I was at CompUSA once and some stupid guy was buying a computer. He was interested in only a few things. Will I be able to burn cds with this? Can I do e-mail? Can I plug my camera into it? etc. You just need enough power to be able to get the functionality you desire. Excess power is money wasted.
How was this guy stupid? He knew what he wanted to do with a PC and wanted the salesman to recommend a basic system for his tasks. Sounds like an average consumer with reasonable expectations. He seems much smarter than some guy who wants a 4GigaHurts machine with 2 GigaBites of RAM and 200 Gig hard drive so he can "surf the web faster" on his dialup and "print photos faster" on his ink jet.
Going back to cameras, 4 megapixels are good enough for most people to replace their 35mm cameras. Since 4MP cameras are still expensive, there is the perception more is better. But soon 4MP cameras will be $100, and people will realize 12MP cameras are not worth their dollars for what they use. Just give it some time.
I have a friend with a Gmail account. He got one through an acquantance working at Google. It seems like Google employees get accounts, and they could give out "passes" to a number of people. (not sure how many, though--definately more than 2)
Somethimes this place is too scary!
New 'round here, aint cha?
Put it in the trash of course. Another victim of early adoption.
I don't know if the poster is intentionally spewing FUD or maybe just not knowledgeable. I'll give the benefit of the doubt.
The idea of Open Access is not about publishing whatever you want for a fee. It is about having access to the journals that are already published. Both PLoS (Public Library of Science) and Nature are peer reviewed by respected scientists of their field. Both charge fees to author to submit/layout their papers. But the difference is that access to PLoS is free and unrestricted, whereas access to Nature or Science is fee based and restrictive. The whole Open Access (and PLoS) movement started when Nature and Science *refused* access to their past journals without a subscription. Even when the authors themselves wanted their papers to be more accessible.
Things are better now that PLoS has gathered steam--most journal articles are available after 6 months. Publishers are afraid of the outrage they could cause by not allowing more access. But even now, there are restrictions in place that doesn't allow these journal articles to be fully useful. Why? Because they don't allow article body searches, only abstracts. Imagine how much more effective journal searches could be if we could search through full text bodies instead of just abstracts. Uh-huh.
I for one welcome our new PLoS overlords.
Excellent point. Better tools gets the job done faster. And open source dev tools are one of the best and most flexible out there.
How about the second paragraph of the article:
Supporters of the two interfaces have often sparred with each other in flame wars on Slashdot, mailing lists and newsgroups.
Looks like submitters don't read articles either.
Oh, why am I answering an AC troll....But I hate FUD.
Comparing UMTS/EDGE/GPRS with EVDO is invalid. The carriers assigned to the former can be dynamically assigned to voice or data depending on the call type
No, you cannot reassign UMTS to GPRS/EDGE. You can, however dynamically reassign EDGE/GPRS to voice. But that's not what you said, is it? Deploying EVDO is *exactly* like deploying UMTS. They both need spectrum and they both need new handsets. In fact, having a separate Data only network is advantageous than having a mixed voice-data, as each have different bandwidth vs latency requirements. That's why one can have a perfectly clear conversation over regular old telephone, but VoIP over the same line feels like crap.
VZ and other operators don't like giving up spectrum from voice (read volume revenue) for data (read premium unproven revenue).
What, are you arguing with yourself now? They'll provide data only if customers demand it and if it doesn't hurt their voice capacity. Deploying a single 1x channel to data is heck of a lot cheaper than deploying UMTS--not only do the operators have to insntall new hardware, give out new handsets, they still have to take away 5MHz of spectrum from existing GPRS users. Why do you think European operators don't have any UMTS plans? On the other hand, EVDO deployment only takes away one 1.25MHz channel. And the funny thing is, Verizon and Sprint do not have all of their channels deployed to full capacity in most markets. So adding a EVDO channel really *does not* reduce voice channels. Try doing that with UMTS.
4. Unlike EDGE/GPRS/UMTS, EVDO eats spectrum. The other standards co-exist with voice. This doesn't. Expect the service to fade away once EVDV comes out.
Proof this guy is totally ignorant.
GSM/GPRS/EDGE use the same frequency/timeslot mechanism. Yes, They can co-exist.
UMTS is a brand new WCDMA interface that doesn't co-exist with any of the above. It needs a whopping 5MHz carrier band plus guardbands all by itself.
EV-DO takes exactly the same amount of spectrum (1.25Mhz) as other 1x voice carriers.
Let's say Verizon has 10MHz PCS spectrum in a given area. They can have 7 CDMA carriers deployed (1.3x7 is about 10MHz including the guardband), and can swap 1 of them for EV-DO and provide broadband data in that area, while keeping 6 of them as voice(can still use slower 1x data in the voice channel). If ATTWS/Cingular wants to deploy broadband, they have to move 5MHz+guardband of GSM/GPRS users out in order to deploy UMTS. Verizon customer's voice capacity was reduced by 1/6 to provide broadband data. ATTWS/Cingular's customers lost half of theirs. Sure, if you had an UMTS capable hand set, you'd have the whole 5MHz to yourself, but all the rest of us will have lost half the calling capacity. Maybe with the merger they have plenty of spectrum to go around. Let's wait and see.
Sounds like you know a lot about GSM systems but not about CDMA systems. So I would like to point out a few things.
- 1xEV-DO is 2.4Mbps UMTS is 2Mpbs on paper, real world trials are showing 1xEV-DO pushing 650Kpbs and UMTS is pushing 2100Kpbs.
Um, you can't push more bits than the spec allows. Also, 1xEV-* is running on 1.25MHz wide band. UMTS (WCDMA) is running on a 5MHz wide band. That's a lot more bandwidth for similar data rates.
And there is something called 3xEV (3 x 1.25=3.75MHz) that triples the data rate in smaller space than UMTS. And I'm not even talking about 1xEV-DV (Data/voice together in one 1.25Mhz channel up to 2Mbps. Imagine 3x versions of these)
- 1xRTT isnt upgradable to 1xEV-DO, this is why Verizon only has 2 markets.
Well, if by "not upgradable" you mean having to clear out existing 1x users out of a carrier to put in the DO carrier than yes, it's not upgradable. But that's like saying GSM/GPRS isn't "upgradable" to UMTS. In fact it is easier to switch from 1xRTT to DO because you just reassign one carrier from RTT to DO. In order to switch to UMTS from GPRS/EDGE you have to 1) install a whole new base-station, 2) clear out 5MHz of spectrum. I think it is much easier to clear out 1.25MHz than 5Mhz. Also, I hear verizon is planning to role out DO nation wide.
In fact, ATTWS cannot deploy UMTS across all their markets because they don't have enough spectrum. In markets with only 10MHz of PCS spectrum, there is no way they are going to deploy 5MHz+guardband while pushing out existing customers to rest of less than 5MHz of space. Even in cellular markets with 25MHz, ATTWS have to support three separate carriers (Analog/TDMA/GSM). Only in markets where they had cellular 25MHZ plus PCS spectrum would they be able to deploy UMTS. Maybe with Cingular merger they'll have enough bandwidth to deploy UMTS nationally. But they still have to move people out of TDMA to clear that bandwidth, which will take a long time, and which is what the other poster pointed out.
- ATTWS and Cingular rank higher in data speeds and connect time, and lower ping.
Usenet reports points to the opposite. GPRS/EDGE users report 800-1000ms ping times, where is 1x hovers around 400-500. YMMV.
For GSM, EDGE is the end of the road. Seriously. 200Kbps is the best it'll do now or in the future. In order to achieve higher data rates, they have to deploy UMTS. But unlike CDMA companies deploying 1x-DO or DV, GSM companies have to invest more money, equipment, spectrum, and labor to deploy UMTS. In fact, many European companies don't have any plans to deploy faster data beyond EDGE. Where as in the US, Verizon, Sprint, Alltell are all itching to deploy DO.
In any case, it's good to see some competition happening in broadband data.