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Tarmax
join:2001-05-03
Fort Lauderdale, FL
| wireless connections faster than ones at home??
Anyone read AT&T's press release about this whole GSM rollout? It talks about how the GSM/GPRS rollout is the first step of their three step "3G" technology rollout.
And as AT&T claims, GPRS allows downloads up to 115KB/s, which if i'm not mistaken, is much faster than even the majority of what consumers home connections are. Not only that, but they plan to upgrade that even further (step 2)- once the GSM rollout is complete- using so-called "EDGE" technology (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) to 384KB/s.
Finally, they plan on upgrading GSM again (step 3) using the UMTS standard (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System)- aka W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access)- which would allow 2MB/s communication...
Now what I'm getting at.. is this just marketing techno-babble and these speeds will be nearly unreachable to anyone on the network? Or will this actually work, and could the wireless/mobile network truly be that much more advanced than the wired available to consumers??
I mean, yeah, I know that everything outside the US is deffinately more advanced, especially when compared to Japan and Korea; but could AT&T have actually found a loophole in the FCC's giant cabinet of rules and the government's mile-high stacks of acts, laws, and other miscellaneous rules regulating everything from how fast we're able to drive down I-95 to how a farmer should f**k his goats..!??
As an afterthought: Sorry if I've offended any farmers or government employees in this post :P  | |
TZi
k1L0
join:2001-07-05
Miami Beach, FL
| said by Tarmax:
And as AT&T claims, GPRS allows downloads up to 115KB/s, which if i'm not mistaken, is much faster than even the majority of what consumers home connections are.
That's what GPRS is technically capable of under the best conditions and network configuration. I've used their GPRS service on my laptop, and you get up to 45kbps at best. Furthermore, unless you specifically ask for it, you don't get a public IP address and the connection only supports a handful of rudimentary protocols like SMTP, FTP, HTTP, POP3 and DNS. While you can check your e-mail, browse the web and do some minor streaming video, there are way too many limitations on the service right now to actually use it unless you really have to. To top it all off, 10mb of usage a month can cost you $39.99 a month and 5$ per megabyte in excess of that. AT&T's GPRS network is not going to be your primary ISP anytime soon, nor does it want to be. It is, however, definitely better than it's predecessor, CDPD/TDMA or GSM data which were both limited to ~ 14 kbps, and if you're truly in need of it, GPRS can be a godsend as long as you've got the $$$.
Granted, the price will eventually come down, but it will never be a wireline broadband substitute. Sure, their UMTS system may support 2mbps symmetrical connections to the internet, but their spectrum licenses are far too valuable to clog up with always-on broadband equivalent services. The most likely application of that 2mpbs bandwidth will be true 3g applications like phone-based video conferencing and streaming-media.
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