No kidding. In the last month my Nextel went from 4 bars in all places
to 0-1 bar at most times now. Something bad is going on. And I am way
out in the sticks. Should be less interference.
Brian Rohrbacher
Matt Larsen - Lists wrote:
Brian,
I'm sure that there are a lot of upgrades going on in urban areas, but
it will take a while before they hit many rural markets. In the
meantime, all these folks that are going to try downloading videos and
music to their phones will put exponentially higher loads on the
cellular data networks. Even with the advantages of licensed
spectrum and cleaner noise floors, you are still talking about the
disadvantages of having to maintain that data stream to a moving
target, roaming between towers through widely varying signal
conditions and low gain antennas on the customer side. Fixed
applications don't have to deal with that at all, and it is possible
to optimize signal strength to make it perform. My former partner in
Vistabeam is the operations manager for a cell carrier, and I get to
hear about all the issues on their networks. Suffice to say, they get
to deal with a lot of the same problems we do, the problems are just a
lot more expensive to fix.
Hell, as far as I can tell the cellular guys are having problems just
keeping voice operational on many of their networks! Just as a few of
the guys on this list that I call regularly (Mac, Scriv, Marlon) and
ask them how many times my conversations with them get cut off because
of crappy phone service. They should get voice figured out before
they try to deliver live video to a postage stamp screen on a cell phone.
Matt Larsen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brian Webster wrote:
Matt,
The cellular folks have been quietly improving their data network
capability. Their biggest problem to date was the T1 backhauls from the
tower sites. These were already loaded with voice traffic. In many
markets
there are aggressive programs underway to replace all the T1's with
licensed
microwave backhaul with much more bandwidth. Cellular has the
advantage of
cleaner spectrum and lower noise floors. It has been proven that they
can
deliver over the air rates necessary, once they fix the backhaul
bottleneck
they will be serious competitors. Remember they also get to leverage
their
already existing tower network. Sprint/Nextel even has the advantage
of all
that 2.5 GHz spectrum they just announced their WIMAX plans for.
One of the major players for giving them wireless backhaul is
FiberTower
who just merged with First Avenue Networks. This gives them instant
access
to a lot of spectrum all over the US. While this may not be good news to
most of the folks on this list, there is an upside. The telcos are
going to
lose a lot of business from them dropping those expensive $1200 per
month T1
circuits to each and every tower site.........that should effect some
numbers for those guys.
Thank You,
Brian Webster
www.wirelessmapping.com <http://www.wirelessmapping.com>
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Larsen - Lists [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 12:44 PM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Check back in with us in a year and let us know how that cell data card
is working. If you thought the oversubscription on dialup lines was
bad, wait until more people get on the cellular data networks. Talk
about something that will not scale when the data hits it - wow.
Matt Larsen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brad Belton wrote:
I wasn't going to pipe in on this topic, but George hit it square on
the
head: Cellular.
Laptops are now available with built-in cellular data cards. This
trend
will only continue as the cellular data rates continue to increase. My
Sprint data card pretty consistently pulls 500Kbps and can peak at
nearly
1.5Mbps. This is far better than many WiFi hotspots I have
connected to
and
certainly better than any Muni-WiFi system I've seen.
Pure coverage alone will give the cellular networks a huge advantage
over
any muni system. I can guarantee you the next laptop I buy will have a
cellular data card built-in. <grin>
Best,
Brad
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of George Rogato
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 4:07 PM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Tom DeReggi wrote:
My arguement is that the biggest prospective client for use of a
mobile
network is the governement. If you give service to them free or
without
financial contribution from them, its just plain stupid in my mind.
But what about cellular?
Aren't they posed best to take advantage of mobile customers because
they are all theirs anyways?
Sprint just announced they will be doing mobile wimax. Verizon already
has a decent nation wide high speed mobile internet access product that
a lot of law enforcement are all ready using in the plice cars.
And just this morning we heard about 4g cellular delivering 100megs to
the police car at 37 miles per hour.
How does muni fit into the future that will be dominated by cellular?
George
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