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Communications Handhelds Wireless Networking Hardware

Samsung Shows Off 3.6Mbps Cellular 118

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-isn't-that-fancy dept.
dsginter writes "At this week's CES, Samsung Electronics is showing off a 3.6Mbps cellular phone. The device uses High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) to acheive such speeds. "
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Samsung Shows Off 3.6Mbps Cellular More

Samsung Shows Off 3.6Mbps Cellular

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  • On a phone? (Score:1, Funny)

    by edgr ( 781723 )
    This is not useful untill/unless it is connected to a computer. With a connection to a laptop it would kick arse, but WiMAX or similar is probably more suited to that market. There is just no use for that much data on a phone.

    • Re:On a phone? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by rozthepimp ( 638319 )
      There is just no use for that much data on a phone. You mean "I personally have no use for this at this time."
    • 640kb/s ought to be enough for anyone.

    • Re:On a phone? (Score:3, Informative)

      by User 956 ( 568564 )
      This is not useful untill/unless it is connected to a computer. With a connection to a laptop it would kick arse, I use PDANet on my Treo 650 [google.com] connected to my laptop, and it's pretty good. It basically turns your treo into a pretty decent wireless modem. Certainly better than paying $10 for wireless everytime I want to check outlook at the airport on my laptop.

    • Re:On a phone? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ohreally_factor ( 593551 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:53AM (#14384627) Journal
      What's the upload speed? I've been wanting a portable web server on my cell phone so that people could ask me, "Is that a blog in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"

    • Re:On a phone? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by GoatMonkey2112 ( 875417 )
      There are plenty of uses for this. Especially when you consider the large capacity 1" hard drives mentioned earlier. It's probably fast enough to do some streaming video at low resolution and that sort of thing. You could play online games on your phone. You could synchronize your address book. You could use an online mapping system along the lines of google maps maybe integrated with gps based on the location of your phone. etc.

    • Lack of imagination kills species, story at 11. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MoralHazard ( 447833 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @11:49AM (#14385025)
      "Not useful" is some pretty strong language. You're just not being imaginative.

          - Streaming high resolution video and high-quality audio to a cellphone might not seem useful on a tiny little LCD with a crappy speaker, but what about to a phone that has an external "eye-projector" thingamajig and a nice headphone jack? You could watch HDTV on your mobile, reveling in the privacy of the eye screen.

          - Streaming similar audio/video FROM the cellphone, LIVE, to remote locations. Can you say "instant news feed"? I knew you could. (And you thought the guy with the pics from the explosive decompression on the airplane was cool?!)

          - Replacing expensive, proprietary mobile equipment (visual-overlay eyewear, biometrics) with a reasonably-priced, off-the-shelf cellphone.

      And come on, don't you think that one of the primary intended uses IS to connect to a laptop? Sheesh, they let you post any old thing on Slashdot these days, don't they?
      • Streaming high resolution video and high-quality audio to a cellphone might not seem useful on a tiny little LCD with a crappy speaker, but what about to a phone that has an external "eye-projector" thingamajig and a nice headphone jack? You could watch HDTV on your mobile, reveling in the privacy of the eye screen.

        That is surely more comfortable than my couch! Why didn't I think of that.

        So, is this yet another subway or public transportation thing in lieu of whatever misery you suffer on the way to and fr
        • Seriously, dude, you sound like somebody who brags about how they don't own a television. The fact that you don't personally see the fun/benefit in a particular activity doesn't mean that it's worthless, or unmarketable, or that the rest of the human race won't care, either. This simple but subtle truth of the human condition gets hammered home to me every Superbowl Sunday, and it cannot be denied.

          Or are you so self-absorbed that you assume that your own biases and foibles are representative of the entire
          • Or are you so self-absorbed that you assume that your own biases and foibles are representative of the entire first-world population?

            Considering fat, lazy, idiotic fools comprise most of the first world population, I think the man simply is sticking to his guns about what is important in this world.

            Learn it and learn it well: The rest of the world does not think exactly like you, and they pay in cash money, too.

            The future of human civilization is not the subject of a popularity contest. Stupid, inane to
        • First, there is no news that needs to be acquired in realtime. If you can't be at your child's birth or wedding, then a simulcast of it would not every satisfy you or your family. The most pressing "news day" in my lifetime was on 9/11/2001 because of the nasty stuff that was going on at the time. Most everyone knew of it within 1/2 an hour despite the complete devastation of the online news sites and telephone networks. I don't think instant news feeds would do anything to propagate the news any faster or
      • And come on, don't you think that one of the primary intended uses IS to connect to a laptop?

        I assumed the the primary use would be streaming pr0n...

    • Billing (Score:3, Funny)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *
      This is not useful untill/unless it is connected to a computer. With a connection to a laptop it would kick arse, but WiMAX or similar is probably more suited to that market. There is just no use for that much data on a phone.

      Just imagine what you can send in the way of text messages, photographs, audio content, etc.

      The big hurdle for the phone companies is going to be working out how best to suck huge amounts of money out of the customer for this high-speed service. I'm sure we're all behind them in this

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Ideally you could buffer the videos quite a bit. My commute is about 5 minutes above ground and 17 minutes underground on the El. No cell reception below the surface (not a bad thing in my mind).

    • Re:On a phone? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Heembo ( 916647 )
      There is just no use for that much data on a phone.

      Right. Just like PC's never need more than 64k of RAM. Dude, you have GOT to be kidding me!
    • 640k ought to be enough for anybody.

  • Latency? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GWSuperfan ( 939629 ) <`crwilson' `at' `gwu.edu'> on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:14AM (#14384366)
    I'm much less worried about the peak bandwidth than the latency, especially on wireless. Plus, beyond a certain point, what good does the excess bandwidth do? I've got much better devices than my phone for viewing/playing/streaming large files anyways.

    • Re:Latency? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Kijori ( 897770 )
      With the tiny HDs on Slashdot earlier, I can imagine this being useful. Perhaps not for downloading large files, but if a 500Kb+ service were provided with flat-rate residential broadband, I would definitely find uses for it:
      -Grabbing that file you've left on the home PC so you look organized
      -Checking the news
      -Streaming music from a home PC rather than storing it separately.

      I don't know about you, but I would love a service that opend up my phone as a thin-client for my home PC. If the service gets fast

  • lots of base stations (Score:3, Funny)

    by jacquesm ( 154384 ) <j&ww,com> on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:15AM (#14384372) Homepage
    With such a high bandwidth they'll need a ton of base stations to get decent coverage.
    There's only so much spectrum to go around and as the speeds go up the base frequency has to go up (otherwise you get less channels) so all the line-of-sight effects will go up as well. (this will go on until we use lasers for communication like this).

    some hot chick... [ww.com]
    • The nice thing about CDMA is that everyone elses' communication looks like noise, you get frequency diversity to reduce narrowband fade, and you can find all of your multiple paths using a rake receiver. So you can probably get decent SNR even with multipath effects.

      And, as we all know, information <= bandwith * log2(1+SNR)

      SNR is highly correlated to power output at a given distance, and I think you'll find that telecommunications base stations have a higher power allowance than your 802.11b WAN acc

  • Well, (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:16AM (#14384375) Homepage Journal
    I was trying to figure out what the point of this would be.

    But after seeing the download rates of German, UK, and Swedish downloaders in one BitTorrent session, I think it's to buy three of these phones for each side of the ocean and hook the remotes to Bredbandsbolaget.

    It'd be easier, faster, and cheaper than trying to find that kind of bandwidth from a local provider, even if you throw in the cost of a house in Sweden.

  • Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pHatidic ( 163975 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:17AM (#14384382)
    The article says the phone has a download speed of 10 MP3s per minute. At least LOC is a relatively fixed amount, this is just ridiculous.

    • Re:Wow (Score:3, Funny)

      by Billosaur ( 927319 ) *

      Forget MP3s/min; that's only really useful for broadband connections. For mobile phones it should be Ringtones/min, although I'm not sure of the conversion factor. But just imagine having te ability to almost instantaneously download the most irritating and annoying rings possible -- brilliant! What will Samsung think of next!

      Somebody call me when they invent a mobile phone with a built-in plasma cannon.

    • TFA gives an example of use most potential customers should be familiar with. I have no clue how long it takes to download the Library of Congress on my current connection.

  • Okay (Score:2)

    by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
    I want one. Include the same screen as my A900 and the screen but add 500Megs of flash, allow bluetooth headset to be used for multimedia playback, have it charge from the USB cable, and you can make it slightly thicker so it has a longer battery life.
  • maybe now we'll get a full-featured cell browser. I want lots of plugins built in.
    • Isn't the whole point of "plugins" that they aren't built in? Ideally, it should come with no plugins, but with a large library of plugins to choose from. Kind of like Firefox.

      • Re:Maybe now.... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by tomhudson ( 43916 )

        Isn't the whole point of "plugins" that they aren't built in? Ideally, it should come with no plugins, but with a large library of plugins to choose from. Kind of like Firefox.

        don't give them any ideas. "Download the latest plug-in - only $3.99 for 3 months"

        I want a phone that's a phone - period! I don't want a phone that's also a (crappy) camera and a (crappy) browser and a (crappy) email client and a (crappy) pda and a (crappy) mp3 player and a (crappy) tv and a (crappy) phone.

        If I want crap, I'll

        • I want a phone that's a phone - period! I don't want a phone that's also a (crappy) camera and a (crappy) browser and a (crappy) email client and a (crappy) pda and a (crappy) mp3 player and a (crappy) tv and a (crappy) phone.

          This [thinkgeek.com] should make you feel better, then. Right up your alley. All you have to do is ignore the rest of the "features" (that's Old Programmer speak for "Yeah, it's a bug. A BIG bug. I'm too damn lazy to go back and fix it, so cope.")...

        • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @11:59AM (#14385092)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • HSDPA (Score:5, Informative)

    by onion2k ( 203094 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:19AM (#14384389) Homepage
    3.6Mbps is actually a little low for the protocol that they're using .. it's supposed to be able to do 8 - 10 Mbps. No mention of why it's not up to scratch in the article though..

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSDPA [wikipedia.org]
    • Its a limitation of the Qualcomm chipset and software running on the phone. They may be able to scale the same hardware up to 7.2 Mbps in the future.

  • So... (Score:4, Funny)

    by squoozer ( 730327 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:21AM (#14384406)

    ...in real life, on a sunny day with a following wind, it should achieve about 2KB a second and cost about 2K$ a second. Where can I get one?

    • Acually I'm using a 1X-EVDO phone which is CDMA's equivalent of GSM networks' upgrade to HSDPA... 1X-EVDO has a peak download rate of 2.4 mbps, and we usually pull between 400 and 700 kbps steady. That's pretty good for a cell phone IMO.

  • HSDPA is pretty nice (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Stonent1 ( 594886 ) <stonent@stone[ ] ... t ['nt.' in gap]> on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:22AM (#14384414) Journal
    I'm testing some HSDPA cards with Cingular, though the area I'm in the majority of the time does not have HSDPA coverage. I can, however, get an EDGE connection, which is pretty slow feeling. I've been to areas that are covered and the experience seems much snappier (less latency) than the Verizon EV-DO cards that we have as well, though it seems the Verizon cards have better coverage (or maybe I'm just saying that because we can get an EVDO connection in our office where as we can't get an HSDPA or UMTS connection here).

    The feel is that there isn't a very big latency, but considering that online gaming is a different animal, it may be much higher.

  • Great! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@keir[ ]ad.org ['ste' in gap]> on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:27AM (#14384450)
    So, at 3.8 Mbps, I can be paying $7/s [shoprogers.com] for my cell phone, which sets a new world record for price gouging.

    Seriously, until the carriers have some more reasonable data plans available, all this speed is useless. There is currently no way to get an "unlimited" data plan without a Blackberry with Rogers, and check out this BS added to their "unlimited" blackberry plan:

    ***Rogers Wireless reserves the right to limit usage and charge $7 per additional MB for excessive usage over 25 MB of data per month.

    So, "unlimited" == 25 MB now? WTF?

    The only carrier I know of in North America with an true "unlimited" data plan is T-Mobile. I don't know how these companies expect a wireless revolution to take place when they are gouging the prices like this.

    I would gladly pay $35 / month for unlimited wirless data + only 100 anytime minutes. Unlimited talk time is useless to me - I want mobile data access dammit!

    • Bell Mobility has a soft cap at 100 Mb for their "unlimited" data plan, but I often see customers using as much as 600 Mb without overage charges... They don't enforce this data cap.

      Also, don't worry about these overage charges with Rogers Wireless since they aren't scheduled to upgrade their network to before 2007, and they will probably skip HSDPA and go straight to UMTS.

      You can be confident that they will adjust their data prices accordingly by then.

      • they will probably skip HSDPA and go straight to UMTS.

        Given that HSDPA is an extension to UMTS, that seems unlikely. Did you mean that they'll launch HSDPA at the same time as UMTS? That would certainly make sense.

        • Given that HSDPA is an extension to UMTS, that seems unlikely. Did you mean that they'll launch HSDPA at the same time as UMTS? That would certainly make sense.
          Oops, I actually meant that they'll skip WCDMA and go directly to HSDPA... I didn't realize the article was already talking about HSDPA, since 3.6Mbps is really a WCDMA achievable speed...
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I pay $15/mo on Sprint PCS for unlimited data (treo, it would be $30 for a Windows Mobile device). I've blown through 2.7 Gigabytes (that's 1024 Kilobytes each, despite what the Hard Drive manufacturers claim). Never had any problems.

        It sure beets the $7/MB some canadians pay.
    • Sprint PCS' Vision service is unlimited use of the web on your handheld.
      • Sprint PCS' Vision service is unlimited use of the web on your handheld.

        And your laptop if you buy the data cable. Works just like a modem.

        Then, if you're really cool, you can share that connection over your wireless, so the two other laptops in the truck can be on the net at the same time while you drive 8 hours to Florida. :)

      • Actually, after talking to a few friends of mine, sprint complains (and eventually cut you off) if you exceed 3GB/mo on their $15 plan for cell phones.

        If you pay the "laptop data access" rate, they shouldn't care.

        So much for "unlimited" - still, it's not bad.
        • How can you download 3GB of data to your cell phone?

          RE this comment and the other reply, Sprint's TOS specifically disallows use of their handheld phones as modems. I've used mine as a modem on and off for years, but make sure to keep the transfers down to a minimum. I know one person who got slammed by Sprint for downloading almost 1GB in a month with his cell phone.
    • I have an unlimited data plan with Bell. It's on their $35 per month plan. Mind you, it's slow, so I don't know how you'd get more than 4 or 5 megs in a month, but it's unlimited. Here's a Link [www.bell.ca] It's unlimited mobile browsing, which I guess isn't really true data, or I'm not sure if they differentiate. I don't really use it, it's just included in the plan.

    • Re:Great! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Red Flayer ( 890720 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:46AM (#14384578) Journal
      " I don't know how these companies expect a wireless revolution to take place when they are gouging the prices like this."

      It's not gouging. Gouging is when you charge overly much (take an unfair advantage) during times of shortage (particularly when the shortage is due to a crisis).

      You think it's too expensive -- fine. Don't purchase it, and (hopefully) competition will bring the price down.

      But just because something costs more than you feel it's worth doesn't mean that it's gouging.

      The reason I think it's important to make this distinction is that price gouging is a serious matter, and 'dilution' of the term by misusing it lessens the effect of using it approriately.
      • What about when the shortage is artificial due to government granted spectrum monopoly?
      • I'm in the same position as GP. I would love a high-speed, truly unlimited wireless broadband connection. We, however, are in the minority. As usual, the market is going where the meat is, and the long tail of users who just want broadband are being left out. pBut you're right; it's not gouging. It's lying. They say it's "unlimited" and then proceed to define "unlimited" as 25MB.
      • The reason I think it's important to make this distinction is that price gouging is a serious matter, and 'dilution' of the term by misusing it lessens the effect of using it approriately.

        first, who cares if the word "gouging" diluted? Of all the things to worry about, "diluted gouging terminology" is about 10 millionth on my list.

        Second, anyone who doesn't think the telephone companies are gouging (my term) is crazy. with tens of millions of customers paying $20 -$100 PER MONTH even for plain old telepho
    • I use a Verizon EVDO card at work, $80/month unlimited. Much faster than tmobile EDGE. Maintain .7-1mbit in well-covered areas.
    • Already ehre. [t-mobile.com]

      $20/month with a phone plan, $30/month stand alone. Unlimited.

      • The only carrier I know of in North America with an true "unlimited" data plan is T-Mobile. I don't know how these companies expect a wireless revolution to take place when they are gouging the prices like this.

        The parent [slashdot.org] evidences knowledge about the T-Mobile [t-mobile.com] plan. EDGE is fine, but way, way behind EVDO and HSDPA.

    • Here in the UK, we have "3" - a third generation mobile service with high speed internet connection BUT you are only allowed to visit their web sites.

      Their CEO said "anyone who wants to use the internet on the tiny screens on our phones is crazy" (they sell Motorola V3X, which is 320x240 - about the same as an Apple ][ without an 80 column card, or the American NTSC recorded on VHS). Yes, he has heard of WAP.

      Yet he expects these same crazy people to pay to watch TV on those same tiny screens?

      If I were a Hut

    • The only carrier I know of in North America with an true "unlimited" data plan is T-Mobile. I don't know how these companies expect a wireless revolution to take place when they are gouging the prices like this.
      Hrmm, Sprint, Cingular, and Verizon ALL have unlimited data plans for PDAs, Phones, and PC Cards. Pricing varies depending on the device, typically the PC Cards are at the high end in the $80/mo range.

    • The only carrier I know of in North America with an true "unlimited" data plan is T-Mobile.
      [ ... ]
      Unlimited talk time is useless to me - I want mobile data access dammit!

      Well, I guess you could switch to T-Mobile then. Just an idea.

      For what it's worth, I couldn't take a week off work this Christmas, but I went up to see the family for a week anyway. I took my computer and my T-Mobile GPRS/EDGE equipped phone (a Motorola V330) to access the net, and it worked pretty well, although it was painful

  • With cell phone companies the way they are.. (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is pretty neat, but with cell phone companies charging for data by the kilobyte...

  • YAUA (Score:4, Funny)

    by LordSnooty ( 853791 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:31AM (#14384476)
    Cooool... Yet Another Obscure Abbreviation

  • it downloads fast but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:39AM (#14384527)
    ...does it make clear phone calls?

  • Download fast, upload slow (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @10:42AM (#14384548) Homepage Journal
    I use Samsung's t809 with T-Mobile's EDGE to get about 150kbps (on the WAP browser as well as via Bluetooth tether to my laptop or PDA). 150kbps is more than enough on the road, and I actually find myself using it at home (even though I have a massive broadband pipe). The latency is very low, web browsing is very snappy, and most of my posts to slashdot come from that combo.

    7mbps is useless for a wireless connection, and I think it can be debated to being useless for even a landline connection. It is my opinon that what we need is snappier (lower latency) connections, not huge pipes.

    The big concern about 7mbps is battery life, too. My previous PDA phone (HP iPAQ h6315) had WiFi and Bluetooth and the WiFi connection killed the battery life. My current phone with my PDA using just Bluetooth offers me hours and hours of high speed-ish access without the battery hit.

    The other killer is upload speed. From what I can tell, FCC safety regulations prevent more than a few upload/transmission channels for cell phone users -- we may not be able to get much past the maximums we have now. I get about a 44kbps upload speed, which is fine for most portable processes. In order to double this speed, we'd need a higher transmit power, which could be dangerous (or maybe it's an unfounded danger, I'm not sure).

    Either way, I'd rather see manufacturers spending money on better user interfaces, better power management and reducing the need to lock features out of the phones released. My t809 is an awesome phone, but it still has enough locked and proprietary features as to make it less useful, especially for the power users. I'd happily stay at 100kbps-150kbps and get a few more features on the interface than get 7mbps and lose a few.

    • Could you do a quick test for me? Ping yahoo.com.

      I have 56K at home, and thus use my 114 Kbps Verizon phone (as a modem) for web browsing, but its latency makes it unusable for game playing. I get like 800 ms pings.

      If T-mobile has a low-latency (< 200 ms ping) 150 Kbps, I'd jump on it in a minute.

  • I'm GSM, I'm olllddd... ..oh, my hip just cracked.

    Why can't we just switch to packet based G3 systems? GSM sucks.
  • I'll be impressed when I can buy a cell phone that actually makes calls without dropping out every 30 seconds.
    • With no details of your service provider or phone model, one can only assume your phone is broken, or you live at the bottom of a volcano. Most people don't have trouble with dropped calls.
  • Browsing on a phone that small, would still be annoying, no matter how fast it is.
  • Or should we still expect to get our standard 10MB/month for a fixed rate?

    "Damn...I went over my alloted bandwidth in 3 seconds!"

  • I am one of those old fashioned people who believes the purpose of a phone is to speak to other people who also have phones. Even if I speak really quickly, 3.6Mbps transfer speeds will not be necessary. Where these speeds I guess come in handy is for those people with terapixel video/camera/pda/file storage devices with phone attachments. Maybe, I shall be convinced these make sense by the end of the decade.
    • What about putting a camera in the cell phone, and be able to make video calls, see the person you're talking to and talk to them. Video confrencing! Be able to have a meeting from anywhere with as many people as you want!
      • This actually kinda concerns me. We have folks in the bathrooms all the time talking on their camera phones. Now, if they take a picture I am expecting to see a flash. What if they start streaming live video from these cell phones while I'm in there? Scary. Of course, if they can get unlimited internet access at 1.5Mb/s via my Cell phone with low latency at a good price, I could drop my current ISP and hook up via my CellPhone. Lord knows the cable company can't keep their routers up.
  • Now I can get pong instantly on my mobile, or my britney spears ringtone! Thanks, but I actually use my phone for... GASP! Calling people...
  • We work with the major carriers for our GPS software (which tracks their cell phones for our corporate customers), so we are fairly plugged in to whats coming down the pipe.

    HSDPA is part of the W-CDMA standard, which is Qualcomm's next generation high speed cellular tech. The current generation is CDMA data 1xRTT (slow as shit), which is being phased out by the higher speed EVDO (about 400 kbps down, much less upstream), and in some markets by EVDO revision A, which will provide about 400 kbps in both d

  • With so much of this technology being developed and produced in the United states can someone please explain why the US is so far behind in cell phones, Having moved to the US from the UK i was very suprised to find that cell phones over here are at least 2 or 3 years behind Europe.. Why is this? PS. for you elitists on here, if this question has been asked or answered before then flame me, im just too lazy to read through 300+ pages of replies :P

    • can someone please explain why the US is so far behind in cell phones

      At $4.00 per megabyte and $.10 per text message, I would never consider using my cell phone for anything other than voice calls. To me and everyone else I know, a phone is a phone and nothing more. I don't care about cameras, stupid ring tones, browsers, multimedia messaging, games, etc. My three year old phone does everything it needs to do.

      But, the cell carriers have created a new market by turning blue tooth headsets into a ridi

    • US consumers view cell phones as portable phones. Japanese and Korean consumers view cell phones as integrated communication devices. Because of this, US consumers (by and large) have no desire to spend $500-$1000 per phone and would prefer the low end crappy phones that all carriers give out for free with a 1-2 year service agreement.

      Because so few US consumers want the high-end phones, there is no purpose in mass producing the phones for the US market because the vendors wouldn't have enough customers

      • but thats just the point im saying, in the UK now some of the video phones are being given away free so it cannot be a cost thing unless the US puts a mark up on these things.. which would be a first.. most technology over here is far cheaper than the UK
  • Now we know why the Telcos are so dead against Muni-WiFi. It cuts them out of the deal. Most Muni-WiFi services aren't as fast as DSL or Cable but its fast enough for snappy web browsing and online games. FPS games do fine on a 512kbps connection speed and MMORPG will do even better. Now we're talking about a phone here, but what if you could connect a USB cable to a high-speed cellphone one day and use it as a WiFi adapter? That would be something that's really useful.
  • 1. GMail mobile 2. BBC News (mobile edition) 3. eBay mobile All of these sites are perfectly well suited to the small screen (320x240) and to my GPRS T-Mobile connection (fast enough for all of the above three and runs at about $6/mo unlimited). Does slashdot have a mobile site? Navigating the main page is a real pain on my phone...
  • Can I get that standard on my laptop or pda for $50 bux instead of my phone? I prefer to have conversations while browsing the net. Not to mention I'll miss an important phone call because my 1.21 Jiggawatt internet connection sucked all the battery out of my phone.

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