Can cigarettes be good for you in small doses then?
Nicotine is a stimulant. If you consider a stimulant's effects "good for you" (for example, if they help you perform better on an exam), then cigarettes in small doses could be good for you.
IIRC, the boost is from 7 mbit to 15 mbit for those on the regular service, and 15 mbit to 22 mbit for those on the turbo service. With H.264, this is sufficient to stream higher quality video than provided by Time Warner's MPEG-2 services.
AT&T DSL (available in much of Ohio) has gone from 768/128 for $40/month and a one year agreement in 2002, to 6016/768 for $35/month with no one year agreement in 2007. AT&T never bothered to upgrade to ADSL2, so they can't offer speeds that are much higher than what they offer now. Only those who live in an area in which their IPTV service is available can get faster speeds (over VDSL.)
In the past 5 years or so, Time Warner/Road Runner (also available in much of Ohio) has increased the speed from 3 mbit to 7 mbit without any price increase, and have added "PowerBoost" - marketing term for a DOCSIS feature that provides a temporary burst of higher speeds. They also have a "Turbo" service which brings the speed up to 15 mbit.
Isn't that what Apple introduced earlier this year on the MacBook Pros? The ability to switch off the high power GPU when it's not needed and fall back to a lower quality integrated GPU? I realize that Apple used an nVidia solution instead of an Intel, but that still seems a little disingenuous.
The Apple GPU switching implementation appears to require the user to restart his or her session (that is, log off and log on again.) Intel's implementation seems to support switching GPUs without logging off or restarting. The Intel solution also has to handle two different display drivers.
Some older laptops supported switching between integrated and discrete graphics as well, but I think they required a reboot to switch.
Maybe someone can help me understand this differently, but I can't think of a more worthless contribution to society than a day trader.
Not every occupation necessarily contributes to society. Think of those who are employed, but do not do any productive work, or those who impede others trying to do productive work.
Assuming they pay taxes, day traders definitely contribute to society. By this metric, they might even contribute more to society than low-income individuals who receive government benefits.
I know that is how it reads, but the truth is that it is a tax imposed on the consumer. I pay my own bill plus I sign off on all the telecommunication bills for the company I work for and know that the USF is passed to the consumer. That is why any of the ridiculous plans congress comes up with whereby they say they will just 'tax' an industry (tobacco, telecommunications, oil, etc.) ends up just being more taxation on the private citizen or small businesses. Large corporations like AT&T will NEVER absorb those costs.
This is how companies typically do business: if the costs to provide a product or service increase for all competitors, they'll probably all increase their prices. Could be taxes, could be energy, could be equipment, could be raw materials.
USF is different from sales tax, which is a tax on consumers but collected by retailers. Some entities may be exempt from sales tax, so retailers do not collect sales tax for purchases by sales tax exempt organizations. The USF is charged on the phone companies' revenues from certain services.
Phone companies choose to itemize USF because it lets them advertise lower prices.
Well how about my own personal experience? My cableco/teleco duopoly hasn't moved a damned foot in ANY direction in a good 20 years. My mom had her house built 29 YEARS ago and was exactly two blocks from where the cable ended. Want to guess how far she is from the cable now? Can you say two blocks boys and girls? i think you can.
Is the cable company licensed to serve her house? Did she try paying to have cable installed?
As for more citations how many do you want? Because this isn't exactly some big secret here, we gave them 200 billion+ in tax breaks and other "bonuses" in return for nationwide broadband and all we got was the finger.
How about some sources that don't cite/involve Bruce Kushnick?
Note that the "broadband" the telecoms were apparently interested in providing was for a 45 mbit video on demand service - not Internet service. And offering "cable TV" services has its own problems. And the Cringely article even mentions the very high equipment costs for a brand new video service in the mid 90s.
The Cringely article states that each state contracted with its local telco(s) to provide video service. If this is the case, why do AT&T and Verizon have to fight for franchises from individual states/communities to offer their own IPTV (AT&T) and cable TV (Verizon) services in this decade? Have states decided that competition is a bad thing since the 90s?
We should give the teleco/cableco duopoly 90 days to pay back the money with interest, or we seize the whole damned thing. After all if a company rips off its customers you sue and seize the assets to pay the debt, yes? And I'd say robbing the public to the tune of 200 billion plus interest is more than enough to warrant seizing of their assets.
Cable operators aren't involved here. They already offer a service with almost 5000 mbit of bandwidth (excluding analog services).
Indeed, cable operators spent quite a bit of money in the 90s upgrading to HFC (hybrid fiber coax) networks. This is how they are able to offer two-way data services.
The public paid for phone service, not "video dial tone" service. The article doesn't even allege that any of the alleged "$200 billion" phone companies made was a specific incentive to install residential digital video service, even though it tries to connect the two events. And you and Cringely somehow connect this once-planned "video dial tone" service to fast Internet access.
Well I don't know about mobile but we did pay 200 billion for nationwide fiber and all we got was the finger in return.
Are there any other citations for the allegations on the linked site?
I think the teleco/cableco cartel duopoly is pretty much proof that the country is royally screwed unless we take the last mile and open everything up to REAL competition
Yes, the country is royally screwed if we don't all have 100 mbit wired broadband and unlimited 7.2 mbit mobile internet. Right.
c) T-Mobile USA, for some unfathomable reason, uses a non-standard "fifth band" frequency for its 3G
In some US markets, T-Mobile does not have enough spectrum to run both GSM and WCDMA on 1900 MHz. Where I live, they have 10 MHz total 1900 MHz spectrum and would have to stop all GSM service in order to implement WCDMA on 1900 MHz.
Uncle Sam has doled out a lot of money over the last couple decades to build infrastructure.
I'm unaware of the US government funding mobile Internet services - just voice (and even then, they only fund mobile voice services when they compete with high-cost rural landline voice services.)
Indeed, networks pay the US government for the privilege to use the spectrum to offer their mobile communication services.
How much space will one wifi access point cover? A 100 ft radius? For 20,000 access points, that's only 22 square miles - less than a typical US township (36 square miles).
Oracle owns Berkeley DB, from when they bought Sleepy Cat Software. Has anyone heard of _any_ useful progress in Berkeley DB, which used to rule Linux for lightweight, small databases?
Anyway, Berkeley DB is a different kind of database than MySQL or Oracle Database.
I thought not: they supported it a little bit, and it's been profoundly ignored for years now, by both its owners and the open source community at large.
Surely the rise of SQLite has something to do with what you perceive to be Berkeley DB's decline?
AT&T receives goverment aids so the rural area's get supported too, and then by law they have to support them.
The Universal Service Fund is what you are thinking of. It is a tax imposed on phone companies, and some of this money does go to subsidize phone services for low-income and high-cost consumers. The USF is clearly flawed, but it does not require that wireless carriers provide rural service. Wireless carriers who get money from the USF do so as "competitive" carriers to the local telephone company...
Caltrain (like many public transit systems) has wifi on board (I think -- one of the ones around here does -- I walk to work). So for mass transit, there is a mobile solution out there that is already working.
The access point moves at the same speed and in the same direction as the users - and therefore has no handoff issues.
The smart roads side I am not as sure on, but the rough idea is that you can predict with some degree of certainty where each device will be for the next thirty seconds -- at least on major roads. Suppose you combine predictive handoff with wifi node federation -- maybe make them adaptive so they learn handoff flow probability. Would that remove a lot of the problems?
Knowing where the mobile device might be in the near future won't be very useful without some sort of dynamic IP routing or a replacement/overhaul of the Ethernet part of 802.11. Without soft handoffs, service quality would be very poor for even a slow moving vehicle. A vehicle moving at 20 mph moves at 30 ft/sec. A typical mobile device might enter the range of an access point, reach the point where the signal strength is highest, and leave the range of an access point within 100 ft of travel. It would essentially have to switch networks every 2 or 3 seconds. Without soft handoffs, this will result in an interruption on a voice conversation every 2 seconds or so... unless huge buffers are used, but this would result in a huge delay.
And implementing soft handoffs in 802.11 would probably require major changes in the way 802.11 works.
Finally, consider how far "ubiquitous" really needs to go. Suppose we started with the limitation, "As long as you're traveling slower than a quick jog." That would still be a pretty big step forward.
That is a step backwards from existing mobile networks, which are already designed to work from devices moving at highway speeds.
In addition, those who are walking or jogging probably aren't using a whole lot of data, unless they're streaming audio (in which case existing wifi technology might be OK, because the device can easily buffer many seconds of audio.) Voice congestion on current mobile networks isn't such a big deal. Those who are stationary will have no problem using a single wifi connection. Those who are using public transport will need something that will work for a few miles at higher speeds.
But if we could only solve the ubiquity problem with a new standard, wouldn't it be worth looking down that path?
There are standards that already meet the requirements of building a cellular network. They are currently used to build cellular networks.
How centralized? As centralized as an ant or bee colony? Could we achieve that? How about smart nodes that know about their thousand closest neighbors and how to handle handoff? How about adaptive nodes that learn the patterns of probable handoff?
Devices need to know about the adjacent base stations to the one they are currently using. Adjacent base stations using the same channels need to coordinate power levels, and they can communicate using the shared channel. If adjacent base stations aren't using the same channels, they need some way to communicate - either with a separate transceiver on another channel or via a wired network.
But knowing the adjacent base stations is only a small part of the problem. For soft handoffs to work, both base stations involved must be using the same channel, and both base stations need to be sending/receiving the bitstream to/from a given mobile device. This requires a complete overhaul of the way IP routing works (not only a way to change the route to a host quickly, but also to route one packet to two routers, accept packets from one host via two routes, and drop duplicates), or it requires all traffic to go through a central point (which is how cellular data service currently works). That central point needs to be common between all access points that will support handoff between each other, or have a hierarchy where communication can be handed off between a group of access points and the individual access points in each group.
A cellular network might have all the base stations in a large city connected to the same switch or group of switches, and can support handoffs between base stations for many miles. When all of this works as expected, you can travel within a city without losing the session at all. In some cases, you can even handoff to an entirely different network - usually when crossing licensing boundaries.
Handoffs on 802.11 are certainly possible when all base stations are on the same Ethernet, but soft handoffs aren't. Connecting all the base stations in a large area via a single Ethernet is not feasible.
Suppose you toss in a server that you use as a proxy. It knows how to chunk large transmissions and parcel them out to your volatile IP address, so you only have to get a few hundred bytes from each node you pass.
It takes a long time to set up a new session on a 802.11 based network - you have to associate with the AP and get an IP address. For a voice call, this takes too long.
An interesting concept. How is the market penetration? Does it help solve the bandwidth crunch Genachowski mentions? Does it do better or worse at that than a decentralized solution would?
It's brand new, but I think Verizon and Sprint have similar devices. It probably doesn't help very much with bandwidth - the microcell is private and individual devices must be authorized to use it. At any rate, I would expect the worst bandwidth problems to occur away from residential areas - think schools, sports venues, offices, retail stores, etc.
In some places, using the open wifi might not be a good option. During the day, my AT&T 3G wireless Internet connection is sometimes faster than my office's Internet connection. In ideal conditions, the same 3G connection is also faster than a lot of DSL lines. I've seen DSL lines that have a downlink rate of 384 kbit or less due to poor line conditions, and I think some DSL and cable providers still have 1.5 mbit or even 768 kbit download tiers.
This would enable everyone to make and receive limitless free phone calls while at home and subsequently shift a lot of the burden off of the cell phone network, and everyone would have perfect reception in their house.
The main issue here isn't voice coverage but data service. Voice uses very little bandwidth. I think today's networks use codecs which compress voice to 4-12 kbit/sec.
Not only does T-Mobile typically have less spectrum than their competitors, they still have many customers on GSM, which puts them at a huge disadvantage over the other major providers who have many or all customers using (W)CDMA. Therefore, T-Mobile has much more of an incentive to move phone calls off their network.
This should also be a free service included with every cell phone plan - it is only because of the cell phone oligopoly that T-Mobile is able to charge you a monthly fee for the right to NOT use their network
T-Mobile is providing a service when you do this; it's not free for them. The call is transmitted over an Internet connection (that you are probably paying for) to a T-Mobile system which connects to their mobile network and then to the telephone network. For outgoing calls, T-Mobile pays for the call over the PSTN as well.
If you could solve the first point above, would that be a problem if open hotspots (or something similar) were ubiquitous?
If a 802.11-derived network was designed to provide the features of a modern cellular network, it will retain little in common with 802.11. It's not possible to avoid centralized coordination of all access points; otherwise, you'd just be switching between different Internet connections every hundred feet or so.
It's already possible to have low-powered base stations that are connected to a residential Internet connection, though. AT&T offers such a device.
What is going to happen? We will wish that we had standardized on gsm or something so that we could get the most efficient use from the spectrum.
Not really. Old GSM is horribly inefficient compared to WCDMA or CDMA, and simply using the same technology won't make all the providers decide to build one big wireless network or allow roaming between any network at any location.
At any point in the past 6 years or so, there have been 2-3 GSM networks and 3-4 CDMA networks in my area. The GSM phones are technically capable of working on any of the GSM networks, and the CDMA phones are technically capable of working on any of the CDMA networks. But in most cases, customers can only use the network they subscribe to. Back when I had a T-Mobile phone, I'd often see "Emergency Only" or a similar message with maximum signal strength, because T-Mobile's signal was too weak to be usable and they did not allow roaming on AT&T or Cingular's GSM networks.
I know radio is more complicated than that but if it worked and does work for cable ISPs then why can't it work for cell companies as well?
Cable companies:
have almost 1 GHz of bandwidth, although much of it is used for TV. Wireless providers have much less; in some markets, some providers might only have 10 MHz.
have control of the coax/fiber on their network. If there's a problem that results in increased transmission errors, they can fix it. Mobile providers don't control the space between the base station and the mobile device, and can't tear down obstructions to the signal.
don't really have to deal with variable signal quality, like mobile devices do. When a mobile device's signal quality drops, error correction must be increased and/or the raw data rate must be decreased.
don't need to introduce additional latency to better handle errors, and don't need to retransmit dropped frames/packets as often.
can allocate more channels to data if necessary, especially as analog channels are eliminated and digital channels are moved to SDV.
can split a node so that fewer customers use the same shared channel(s), and can do so as many times as needed. Cellular providers can't build towers whenever they want.
can use the same channels on separate nodes with no effect between them. Adjacent cells on (W)CDMA-based networks can share a channel - but this increases the total noise, and will not result in the full bandwidth being available from all given cells. (It also results in reduced power levels, which means poorer service in areas with poor signal strength.)
don't have to deal with handoffs at all - a DOCSIS modem stays plugged in to the same line, and doesn't physically move to another location. Cellular networks support handoffs, and customers get upset when handoffs do not work.
DOCSIS provides 38 mbit shared downstream iny 6 MHz. In optimal conditions, current HSDPA tech provides up to 14.4 mbit shared downstream using 5 MHz, and real world results will frequently be less than that.
Suppose every house with a land-line connection also had a wi-fi hub that was open. I think the bandwidth problem would not exist.
802.11 based systems aren't good at many things that existing cellular systems are. It doesn't have soft handoffs and doesn't work well when the same network has adjacent cells using the same channel. For 2.4 GHz 802.11, there are only 3 non-overlapping channels.
802.11 can't support devices at the same distances / similar power as modern cellular networks.
Not only do I see a lot of negative reviews on Newegg, I see a lot of negative reviews that indicate ignorance by the reviewer - usually, the reviewer didn't properly research the product before purchasing or doesn't know what they are doing. I also see occasional four-star reviews that claim a product is awesome, but only deserves four stars because it doesn't have some feature found in more expensive products.
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I've used at least one less user-friendly content management system - Tridion.
Nicotine is a stimulant. If you consider a stimulant's effects "good for you" (for example, if they help you perform better on an exam), then cigarettes in small doses could be good for you.
Correction - sufficient to stream higher quality video without the boost feature.
IIRC, the boost is from 7 mbit to 15 mbit for those on the regular service, and 15 mbit to 22 mbit for those on the turbo service. With H.264, this is sufficient to stream higher quality video than provided by Time Warner's MPEG-2 services.
AT&T DSL (available in much of Ohio) has gone from 768/128 for $40/month and a one year agreement in 2002, to 6016/768 for $35/month with no one year agreement in 2007. AT&T never bothered to upgrade to ADSL2, so they can't offer speeds that are much higher than what they offer now. Only those who live in an area in which their IPTV service is available can get faster speeds (over VDSL.)
In the past 5 years or so, Time Warner/Road Runner (also available in much of Ohio) has increased the speed from 3 mbit to 7 mbit without any price increase, and have added "PowerBoost" - marketing term for a DOCSIS feature that provides a temporary burst of higher speeds. They also have a "Turbo" service which brings the speed up to 15 mbit.
The Apple GPU switching implementation appears to require the user to restart his or her session (that is, log off and log on again.) Intel's implementation seems to support switching GPUs without logging off or restarting. The Intel solution also has to handle two different display drivers.
Some older laptops supported switching between integrated and discrete graphics as well, but I think they required a reboot to switch.
Not every occupation necessarily contributes to society. Think of those who are employed, but do not do any productive work, or those who impede others trying to do productive work.
Assuming they pay taxes, day traders definitely contribute to society. By this metric, they might even contribute more to society than low-income individuals who receive government benefits.
Plus the thousands of other reasonable-sounding government funded projects that cost less than a dollar per taxpayer...
This is how companies typically do business: if the costs to provide a product or service increase for all competitors, they'll probably all increase their prices. Could be taxes, could be energy, could be equipment, could be raw materials.
USF is different from sales tax, which is a tax on consumers but collected by retailers. Some entities may be exempt from sales tax, so retailers do not collect sales tax for purchases by sales tax exempt organizations. The USF is charged on the phone companies' revenues from certain services.
Phone companies choose to itemize USF because it lets them advertise lower prices.
Is the cable company licensed to serve her house? Did she try paying to have cable installed?
How about some sources that don't cite/involve Bruce Kushnick?
Note that the "broadband" the telecoms were apparently interested in providing was for a 45 mbit video on demand service - not Internet service. And offering "cable TV" services has its own problems. And the Cringely article even mentions the very high equipment costs for a brand new video service in the mid 90s.
The Cringely article states that each state contracted with its local telco(s) to provide video service. If this is the case, why do AT&T and Verizon have to fight for franchises from individual states/communities to offer their own IPTV (AT&T) and cable TV (Verizon) services in this decade? Have states decided that competition is a bad thing since the 90s?
Cable operators aren't involved here. They already offer a service with almost 5000 mbit of bandwidth (excluding analog services).
Indeed, cable operators spent quite a bit of money in the 90s upgrading to HFC (hybrid fiber coax) networks. This is how they are able to offer two-way data services.
The public paid for phone service, not "video dial tone" service. The article doesn't even allege that any of the alleged "$200 billion" phone companies made was a specific incentive to install residential digital video service, even though it tries to connect the two events. And you and Cringely somehow connect this once-planned "video dial tone" service to fast Internet access.
Are there any other citations for the allegations on the linked site?
Yes, the country is royally screwed if we don't all have 100 mbit wired broadband and unlimited 7.2 mbit mobile internet. Right.
In some US markets, T-Mobile does not have enough spectrum to run both GSM and WCDMA on 1900 MHz. Where I live, they have 10 MHz total 1900 MHz spectrum and would have to stop all GSM service in order to implement WCDMA on 1900 MHz.
I'm unaware of the US government funding mobile Internet services - just voice (and even then, they only fund mobile voice services when they compete with high-cost rural landline voice services.)
Indeed, networks pay the US government for the privilege to use the spectrum to offer their mobile communication services.
How much space will one wifi access point cover? A 100 ft radius? For 20,000 access points, that's only 22 square miles - less than a typical US township (36 square miles).
Berkeley DB is still being developed with new features - such as those in version 4.8, released less than a month ago.
Anyway, Berkeley DB is a different kind of database than MySQL or Oracle Database.
Surely the rise of SQLite has something to do with what you perceive to be Berkeley DB's decline?
The USF does not cover broadband Internet service.
The Universal Service Fund is what you are thinking of. It is a tax imposed on phone companies, and some of this money does go to subsidize phone services for low-income and high-cost consumers. The USF is clearly flawed, but it does not require that wireless carriers provide rural service. Wireless carriers who get money from the USF do so as "competitive" carriers to the local telephone company...
The access point moves at the same speed and in the same direction as the users - and therefore has no handoff issues.
Knowing where the mobile device might be in the near future won't be very useful without some sort of dynamic IP routing or a replacement/overhaul of the Ethernet part of 802.11.
Without soft handoffs, service quality would be very poor for even a slow moving vehicle. A vehicle moving at 20 mph moves at 30 ft/sec. A typical mobile device might enter the range of an access point, reach the point where the signal strength is highest, and leave the range of an access point within 100 ft of travel. It would essentially have to switch networks every 2 or 3 seconds. Without soft handoffs, this will result in an interruption on a voice conversation every 2 seconds or so... unless huge buffers are used, but this would result in a huge delay.
And implementing soft handoffs in 802.11 would probably require major changes in the way 802.11 works.
That is a step backwards from existing mobile networks, which are already designed to work from devices moving at highway speeds.
In addition, those who are walking or jogging probably aren't using a whole lot of data, unless they're streaming audio (in which case existing wifi technology might be OK, because the device can easily buffer many seconds of audio.) Voice congestion on current mobile networks isn't such a big deal. Those who are stationary will have no problem using a single wifi connection. Those who are using public transport will need something that will work for a few miles at higher speeds.
There are standards that already meet the requirements of building a cellular network. They are currently used to build cellular networks.
Devices need to know about the adjacent base stations to the one they are currently using. Adjacent base stations using the same channels need to coordinate power levels, and they can communicate using the shared channel. If adjacent base stations aren't using the same channels, they need some way to communicate - either with a separate transceiver on another channel or via a wired network.
But knowing the adjacent base stations is only a small part of the problem. For soft handoffs to work, both base stations involved must be using the same channel, and both base stations need to be sending/receiving the bitstream to/from a given mobile device. This requires a complete overhaul of the way IP routing works (not only a way to change the route to a host quickly, but also to route one packet to two routers, accept packets from one host via two routes, and drop duplicates), or it requires all traffic to go through a central point (which is how cellular data service currently works). That central point needs to be common between all access points that will support handoff between each other, or have a hierarchy where communication can be handed off between a group of access points and the individual access points in each group.
A cellular network might have all the base stations in a large city connected to the same switch or group of switches, and can support handoffs between base stations for many miles. When all of this works as expected, you can travel within a city without losing the session at all. In some cases, you can even handoff to an entirely different network - usually when crossing licensing boundaries.
Handoffs on 802.11 are certainly possible when all base stations are on the same Ethernet, but soft handoffs aren't. Connecting all the base stations in a large area via a single Ethernet is not feasible.
It takes a long time to set up a new session on a 802.11 based network - you have to associate with the AP and get an IP address. For a voice call, this takes too long.
It's brand new, but I think Verizon and Sprint have similar devices. It probably doesn't help very much with bandwidth - the microcell is private and individual devices must be authorized to use it. At any rate, I would expect the worst bandwidth problems to occur away from residential areas - think schools, sports venues, offices, retail stores, etc.
In some places, using the open wifi might not be a good option. During the day, my AT&T 3G wireless Internet connection is sometimes faster than my office's Internet connection. In ideal conditions, the same 3G connection is also faster than a lot of DSL lines. I've seen DSL lines that have a downlink rate of 384 kbit or less due to poor line conditions, and I think some DSL and cable providers still have 1.5 mbit or even 768 kbit download tiers.
The main issue here isn't voice coverage but data service. Voice uses very little bandwidth. I think today's networks use codecs which compress voice to 4-12 kbit/sec.
Not only does T-Mobile typically have less spectrum than their competitors, they still have many customers on GSM, which puts them at a huge disadvantage over the other major providers who have many or all customers using (W)CDMA. Therefore, T-Mobile has much more of an incentive to move phone calls off their network.
T-Mobile is providing a service when you do this; it's not free for them. The call is transmitted over an Internet connection (that you are probably paying for) to a T-Mobile system which connects to their mobile network and then to the telephone network. For outgoing calls, T-Mobile pays for the call over the PSTN as well.
If a 802.11-derived network was designed to provide the features of a modern cellular network, it will retain little in common with 802.11. It's not possible to avoid centralized coordination of all access points; otherwise, you'd just be switching between different Internet connections every hundred feet or so.
It's already possible to have low-powered base stations that are connected to a residential Internet connection, though. AT&T offers such a device.
Not really. Old GSM is horribly inefficient compared to WCDMA or CDMA, and simply using the same technology won't make all the providers decide to build one big wireless network or allow roaming between any network at any location.
At any point in the past 6 years or so, there have been 2-3 GSM networks and 3-4 CDMA networks in my area. The GSM phones are technically capable of working on any of the GSM networks, and the CDMA phones are technically capable of working on any of the CDMA networks. But in most cases, customers can only use the network they subscribe to. Back when I had a T-Mobile phone, I'd often see "Emergency Only" or a similar message with maximum signal strength, because T-Mobile's signal was too weak to be usable and they did not allow roaming on AT&T or Cingular's GSM networks.
Cable companies:
DOCSIS provides 38 mbit shared downstream iny 6 MHz. In optimal conditions, current HSDPA tech provides up to 14.4 mbit shared downstream using 5 MHz, and real world results will frequently be less than that.
802.11 based systems aren't good at many things that existing cellular systems are. It doesn't have soft handoffs and doesn't work well when the same network has adjacent cells using the same channel. For 2.4 GHz 802.11, there are only 3 non-overlapping channels.
802.11 can't support devices at the same distances / similar power as modern cellular networks.
Not only do I see a lot of negative reviews on Newegg, I see a lot of negative reviews that indicate ignorance by the reviewer - usually, the reviewer didn't properly research the product before purchasing or doesn't know what they are doing. I also see occasional four-star reviews that claim a product is awesome, but only deserves four stars because it doesn't have some feature found in more expensive products.