"ScottW" wrote in message
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"soundhaspriority" wrote in message
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"ScottW" wrote in message
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soundhaspriority wrote:
"ScottW" wrote in message
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http://www.i4u.com/article6402.html
In addition to ipod functionality..
this is one of the first generation new TV phones. LGE has one in
test
as well.
The DMB function is Qualcomms mediaflo.
http://www.qualcomm.com/mediaflo/index.shtml
They bought spectrum (UHF channel 55 IIRC) and will
begin offering digital broadcast in most major metro centers by year
end.
Verizon has already signed up to offer the service to their
subscribers.
ScottW
Thanks, Scott, for the heads up. Although I am professionally involved
in
media creation, I am personally more of a data/text person.I carry a
subnotebook everywhere I go, and two EDGE data terminals: one card, one
phone. When available I may add a Sprint EVDO rev A card, or simply
upgrade
to T-Mobile's coming HSPDA. I actually prefer to view static websites.
In
terms of media leverage, however, video is where it's at.
There will be universal phones available in a year... but I'm not sure
if they've worked out the kinks with the network operators...
for example can you pick the fastest data service available without
incurring some ridiculous roaming fees?
Have to wait and see on that one.
Why can't you use your phone as modem?
I can and I do. But I used to have a Nokia 6820, which is only an EDGE
Class 6 device.
Do they allow the
data card and phone to share time/data service on one account or is it
considered
two numbers?
I swap the SIM card. The tradeoffs are as follows:
1. The Sierrra 775 card is a Class 12 EDGE device - 4 slots down/up. It
has a large power budget, with a Blackfin software radio and
2watts/800mHz, 1watt/1900 mHz.
2. The HTC Wizard is a Class 10 EDGE device - 4slots down/1 up.It doesn't
have the power budget. It seems to have additional latency over that
inherent in GPRS/EDGE. It used to be that Google would seldom load. It
appears that sites that were Ackamai hosted would load, but others with
large back ends would not. I haven't checked since I installed the new
AKU 2.0 ROM image, but this is why I bought the card.
Currently, T-Mobile charge nothing for domestic roaming. There is good
signal in much of the southwest. There is also bad signal in much of the
southwest. The Northeast is very good, frequently providing downlink at
the theoretical maximum EDGE speed of 236 kbs. People who use Sprint EVDO
for onsite service in suburban Philly report mediocre coverage, with
dropback most of the time to 1xRTT. Now my old standbys, the T-mobile
hotspots are giving me trouble. The installations did not anticipate
local competition. In many seats, one cannot log into their vaunted
802.1x network, sometimes not even their open network.
WiFi was simply never designed to have lots of access points operating
in an area. No coordinated channel assignment..its just a free for all
RF wise.
So it's very much a crapshoot. The coverage maps are not truthful. The
purpose of another connection card would be to increase the chances of
broadband.
HTC has a new phone, the TYTN,
http://www.europe.htc.com/products/htctytn.html, which actually has
universal triband HSPDA coverage on top of UMTS, EDGE, and GPRS. However,
reports are that the phone simply cannot host a modem connection at full
speed, which is faster than Bluetooth 2.0. I don't have any data on
phones that can act as a broadband modem without a speed penalty, but I
know of several that cannot. New HTC models seem to have buggy ROM code.
It took them six months to straighten out the Wizard. It would seem that
because PC cards are simpler devices with larger power budgets, they
should be assumed more reliable, in the absence of substantial user
experience with 3G phones for laptop data.
Thats generally true...but because the PC card market is substantially
smaller than phones...they use the same basic chipsets as phones.
Not as a rule. Perhaps some do, but as a counterexample, the Sierra 775 EDGE
cardbus card uses a Blackfin software radio:
http://www.analog.com/processors/bla...ics/index.html
The card draws a tremendous amount of power and runs HOT. It could never be
powered off a cellphone battery. The HTC Wizard uses the dual core TI OMAP
850:
http://focus.ti.com/general/docs/wtb...contentId=4679
While the Blackfin radio is completely firmware, the OMAP 850 was designed
for EDGE, period. It's built into the DSP core. Firmware, but specialized.
The WM5 core is a typical ARM derivative.
ARM cores do not have DMA. They are strictly PIO. This is the cause of the
data bottleneck. The ARM core simply can't ship the data out the usb port,
or bluetooth, as fast as it comes in. This is another reason to go with a pc
card.
We use cellular modems in equipment tracking and sometimes
its a challenge to make sure all the ancillary features remain off in the
modems chipset.
I can't tell what the HTC design is based on...but it isn't quite
universal yet.
The Tytn uses a Samsung 400 mHz ARM core. I don't know what the phone chip
is.
This chipset gets real close to universal coverage with minor variance in
RF bands supported depending on the chips used.
http://www.cdmatech.com/download_lib...00_chipset.pdf
That is very impressive. What's missing from this picture is the willingness
of carriers to allow subscribers to roam at reasonable rates.
It remains to be seen how many manufacturers will support the "global"
roaming market and what kind of premium they can charge.
ScottW
The question is, how/will Verizon, Sprint, and others use it to our least
advantage ?
They all want to lock us in and charge exorbitant rates for
data. That's one reason I went with T-Mobile. A Wizard is easy to unlock,
and with 4-band EDGE/GRPS, closest to global as currently available. And
T-Mobile data is cheap, if slow away from hotspots.
By 2010, Vista will be in handhelds. See
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/06..._sells_xscale/ The days of
ARM cores are numbered. But power consumption will always be a problem for
broadband. Current user experience indicates marginal talk time with UMTS.