3G Network Coming to America 268
Not2Bryt64 writes: "Reuters has a story about Cingular building a nationwide 3G network. According to Cingular it 'will deliver mobile users data at rates of up to 470,000 bits a second -- fast enough to watch video clips over phones.'" I just hope it doesn't mean that we have to see more annoying Cingular commercials. But I want my video cell phone!
So how long... (Score:1, Insightful)
So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Watching movies on my phone is dumb -- I'd rather watch them on my home theater or in a real movie theater.
Reading/writing email on my phone is dumb -- I'd rather do that on something with a _real_ keyboard, thanks.
If we can make wireless devices that actually have a _use_ (think wireless Newton), then maybe we're getting somewhere.
If I can read my email comfortably and actually _write_ a response (pressing 4433555555666 just to write "hello" is unacceptable!!) then I might have a use for it.
Of course, none of this matters since 3G doesn't work anyway.
A bit of convergence... (Score:2, Insightful)
OTOH, this could suffer a catastorphic death to high cost and a perception that it's a fad. Witness the trouble going on with @Home. If high speed internet for a traditional internet market is floundering... who's going to jump on the band wagon for high speed Cell Phones?
Let's hope they use the same 3G standards ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Then we'll no longer have phones that work in only 199 countries of the world, we'll be able to get ones that work in the USA as well, and no longer be in a communications black hole when travelling to the States!
(For making voice calls, that is. Of course nobody wants video clips or other advertising on their phone.)
Cell Phone, Schmell Phone (Score:2, Insightful)
Ben
Re:So now (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because you don't seem to be what 90% of the people in this country are: idiots. These are the same people that don't know how to merge, drive 50mph in the left lane and read books/newspapers while rolling down the road at a high rate of speed. Should they have licenses? Probably not...but what are we gonna do about it?
instead of. (Score:2, Insightful)
Improving call quality, dedicate more bandwidth and more CRC checks, etc.
I want my bloody phone to make phone calls and do that well. That is all.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
In Asia, wireless devices are utterly *booming*. They're functional, stylish, and most importantly, useful. Companies over here see how much our youth and tech-savvy individuals respect and revere the wowing technology and products they have over there, and figure that they can give us some knock-off crap and we won't know the difference. The problem comes from the fact that Asians have long had exposure developing and using handheld devices like what are sold overseas. Here, with the solid exceptions of the Psion/Palm/Newton devices, nobody likes handhelds. Take a look at how many people like those little Casio organizers - They're cheap $30 plastic devices that break in no time. They reek of feature creep, and their PC connectivity it pathetic - Output to a CSV file? You're kidding, right? Marketers just don't have a clue about the American audience of personal/home technology buyers compared with the eastern markets.
Unfortunately for them, we're a lot smarter than they think we are, so we won't fall for it. Unfortunately for us, though, the odds are reasonably good that it'll get crammed down our throats whether we like it or not (Anyone try to get service for a Motorola Lifestyle analog cellphone these days?). At the end of our contracts, they'll transition us all to the stupid new phones they'll make, and they'll declare 3G a success because millions of people use it, regardless of the fact that they were forced into it.
Screw 3G - I want useful 2G (Score:4, Insightful)
- Good voice clarity - equivalent to wired when in better-than-marginal conditions.
- Good enough battery life to talk for at least 3 or so hours on a charge. LiIon batteries for no memory and good power density.
- Antennas that are either recessed or integrated to the body. Nokias do this well in current models. No protruding breakable dongles like the StarTAC.
- A phone that fits in my pocket.
- The ability to download phone numbers from my PC. But that's all the PIM functionality I want.
And from the phone company, I want the following:
- Coverage almost anywhere. Digital, too. No more AMPS service anywhere.
- No roaming. At all. And no long distance if the carrier has a national footprint.
- Either free incoming or "caller pays" incoming, the way real telcos do it.
- Finally, and most importantly - I want a service that just gives me minutes, at a comparable cost to wired minutes. I should pay less than $0.10 per minute for any kind of outbound call, regardless of location or destination. One of the things that sucks the most about US mobile phone companies (I can't speak to what they do elsewhere) is the way they differentiate between peak and off-peak, and the high cost of minutes once you use the monthly allotment. I don't pay extra on my wired phone - I shouldn't have to on a mobile.
Slightly better data support would be nice (up to, say, 56k support), but not essential. If I need wireless data badly enough, I can buy it separately. And if I want broadband, I probably will do better having it wired (to my home) than in my pocket on the road.
Re:I am so sick... (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely you don't think that video over a mobile phone is being pushed merely to watch movies.
Please!!
The reason for video over a phone is simply to improve communication (oh and of course to show you advertisements so the companies can make more money
I work for a broadband provider and one of the big products being developed is video conferencing over an IP/VPN. People want to see the people they are talking to. It's the next logical step after standard voice communications.
Check out this article [usatoday.com] at USAToday [usatoday.com]. See the small picture. There is a small video camera in the hinge of the phone. This is what video phones will/should be used for. Not movies.
3G doomed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider this - local wireless is becoming increasingly popular and powerful. How long will it be before your handheld, Palm, or whatever, instantly connects to your office network via wireless so that you can have a broadband connetion to the Internet via that? Project a bit further - how long is it going to be before your handheld instantly becomes a guest on other companies' networks when you are visiting them, so you get a broadband internet connection through that? How long will it be before hotels also have this facility? Universities? Schools?
The technolgy to do this is very nearly here, today. It will be relatively cheap to implement. So, the telcos are going to be loosing out on all that lovely revenue from connections to the internet made in or near company offices, hotels, schools, universities, etc. What proporition of their mobile phone revenue has that got to be? Sixty per cent? More?
Remember Iridium? Once upon a time it sounded like it couldn't loose, didn't it?
The telcos are years behind with 3G. My advice - don't invest in it.
HYPE Warning: 3G is still illegal. This is GSM (Score:4, Insightful)
The FCC has not authorized ANY frequency band for 3G yet. Plans to re-allocate military spectra fell through.
3G deployment is years in the future in the US because no standard can be set till the Government gives up some useable range of frequencies.
So this is just GSM with the added benefit of a hyped up press release. GSM can be upgraded to EDGE (3G) in the future (though it will require more towers and different equipment on them), but it ain't happening now (we're talking about now, aren't we?)
Heat? (Score:3, Insightful)
Does anyone know what kind of sillicon they're planning on throwing into their phones? I read a while (6 months or so) back about some ericson engineers who complained that they could get the throughput (the bandwidth) happening, but they kept melting the phone chassis because the processor was too hot.
You'd need some fairly muscular processing to do video replay, etc... and small phones don't really ventilate well, especially inside my pocket.
On the other hand they could bill it as a combination tool. "It's a cell phone, a portable video-on-demand device, and a hand warmer
The arcticle says '3G services' not '3G network' (Score:2, Insightful)
The quoted maximum bandwidth is the theorectical maximum (8 TDMA timeslots). In practise mobile terminals will probably support only about half of that (about 235 kbit/s) in ideal conditions. Most terminals will not even support that.
For example, none of the current GPRS phone supports maximum data transfer rates.