It’s interesting how married to Operating Systems people can become. My first computer was an Apple IIGS, but then we swiftly moved to Windows. I used to join in deriding Macs, then I got one. Mac OS, especially 10 and up, became my OS of choice. However, I still used Windows (and occasionally Linux) on a daily basis. I’m basically platform agnostic. A platform is a tool, and the one that works best for you is the best… for you. There is no perfect platform for everyone, for computer or phone.
I mention this because of discussions I’ve been having with some fellow techies. This week I finally broke down and bought a Pre. The reactions from my iPhone, WindowsMobile and Blackberry using friends (Sort of sad, but I don’t personally know a single Android user – no I’ve never met Justin) were almost comical in their predictability. I even got complaints about the Pre from a fellow Pre owner… because he’s really a Blackberry user. I’m not saying they’re wrong – I’m just saying the Pre is closer to my “ideal” phone than most of those other options (In fact, I recalled a doodle I drew ten years ago and it resembles the Pre to the point of scariness).
Every phone does its job in one way or another and every phone does it for someone. The cell market is really big enough for everyone. So how about we all just calm down and let people find the right solution?
So, why is the Pre my “perfect phone” (so far, anyway?)? Click the read link and find out.
[Warning – this thing is a fricking essay. I clearly have no life.] (more…)
In one of the strangest stories to hit the mobile space in quite some time, T-Mobile USA’s parent company, the mobile giant Deutsche Telekom is rumored to be in talks with Sprint/Nextel about an acquisition.
This sounds hardly likely for a multitude of reasons- first and foremost, the technology isn’t compatible with their current GSM networks. Sprint, being a CDMA carrier, uses completely different frequencies and protocols- the network could never integrate together into one, and would have to be operated as two independent providers. Sound familiar?
Yeah. Sprint did that when they bought Nextel. Nextel was built around yet another competing technology, called iDen, which was famous for its excellent push-to-talk service. When Sprint’s own attempt at a Push-to-talk service didn’t catch on (anyone remember ReadyLink?), the company made a bold move and just bought up their competitor Nextel.
Not only did the move baffle users everywhere, it apparently baffled themselves as well. What was Sprint supposed to do with Nextel? Consolidate into one network? Not possible!
How do you juggle two networks that have nothing to do with each other? The phones aren’t compatible, the towers and infrastructure are different… you’re basically left with one company trying to run two independent networks along with a totally separate lineup of phones.
Sure, Sprint/Nextel tried to make it work with their hybrid phones (superior voice & data of CDMA, instant walkie-talkie chirp of Nextel), but that unfortunately didn’t catch on as well as planned, and it didn’t help solve the infrastructure problem of maintaining towers for both.
In fact, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse was recently interviewed by Charlie Rose, and asked if he thought the Nextel aquisition was a bad idea. His response? “In 20 / 20 hindsight, it was, yes… the premium that Sprint paid for Nextel was too much.”
There is a lesson to be learned here. Competing technologies don’t blend together well. So why on earth would one of the largest GSM providers in the world be interested in purchasing the very same US provider guilty of that very mistake?
What could they possibly do with it?
Imagine- T-mobile, together with Sprint, together with Nextel. Three totally different, totally incompatible technologies with different phones and different towers, trying to be maintained by one parent company.
No, this sounds like a hoax.
But isn’t it true that Sprint was planning on selling their Nextel division? Perhaps Deutsche Telekom is interested in just that?
Still rather unlikely. Even though iDen and GSM both use SIM cards, their similarities end there. They would still have the dual-network problem to tackle, although admittedly this is better than a triple-network to tackle. Still, why would D.T. want to take on Sprint’s headache, especially when they admit it wasn’t worth it?
Numbers.
It could very well be that D.T. wants a stronger US presence. T-mobile USA is currently in 4th place as far as subscribers for national carriers. Unlike Sprint, D.T. has very deep pockets due to its worldwide presence, and the sheer number of subscribers may be worth trying to maintain both networks, even if it is not profitable at first. Still, it sounds far fetched, and besides the rumor circulating is about Sprint/Nextel, not just Nextel.
So, no one will ever buy Sprint?
No, I’m not saying that. Sprint has been losing money according to its financial reports, however Deutsche Telekom seems like a poor suitor. Fellow CDMA carrier Verizon seems more like a viable option, especially seeing how they recently bought and are merging networks with CDMA carrier Alltel.
Still, despite financial reports, Sprint appears to keep on pushing ahead with new technology and exclusive handsets… and has no sign of slowing. It is my personal opinion that Sprint itself will be around for some time still.
Still, at the mere mention of this news, Sprint’s stock jumped 11%. While I find the whole thing very unlikely, it would seem that at the very least some investors have reason to believe. Or… like so many other rumors in the wireless industry, this could just dissipate and be forgotten a month from now. We shall see…
Holy cow, what a week. Every time Mordy or I sat down to write a post, something else happened. I’m going to try to condense it all into one week, going by topic. Bear with me: (more…)
Here are some interesting things from DigitalLook, but not exactly interesting enough to be their own article (no offense to the vendors, who were all awesome)
Note that I do have photos, but I seems to be mangling the photo functions of the blog, so I will be holding off on adding them. (more…)
WOW. 3GSM… could probably be a bit overwhelming. Being the little planner I am, I knew who would be here, made appointments, and marked each meeting location on my map beforehand. And while I knew ahead of time that around 60,000 people would be here… um, actually seeing 60,000 suits with pink lanyards running around all saying “Mobile” in a different languages puts that number in context. Yeah, maybe even after heavy planning, it is still overwhelming.
There is SO much to see and do. SO many companies to talk to. SO many people to hand business cards out to.
The site of 3GSM is also worth noting… the main concourse area is placed in front of Palaca d’Espanya; with cascading water falls, jumbo-tron screens, and bimps. Its a nice mix of modern meets historic.
Finally… Ladies, where are you? I braced myself for a disproportionate ratio…. but… this is certainly far beyond what i expected. I would say there is a 3:97 women to men ratio. GIRLS, maybe we could represent a bit better next year!
Some of you may have noticed the new look and feel to MOpocket (if you are reading this from an RSS reader you should come and take a look!). As I mentioned a while back, MOpocket has been going through some drastic changes. I am honored to be able to launch the new and improved MOpocket.com in conjunction with the launch of 3GSM in Barcelona in which both Kathie and I are present and will be reporting to you all the latest mobile news at it comes.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS FROM AN RSS READER VISIT THE SITE AND TAKE A LOOK!!!
I should preface that the launch is only a soft one and that more features will soon be added. You thoughts and criticism are also welcome!
I would like to thank MOpockets new tailors Dana, Michelle, Jason and all the fine folks at Copia Creative for all their hard work and patience. They are an amazing team and company used to doing far greater sophisticated projects than a mobile technology weblog and highly recommend them for any web project that you may be perusing!
I would also like to thank Kathie Legg who, while I have been busy with the site redesign and work, has been blogging in earnest and has proved herself to be a loyal and indispensable friend and writer.
Ladies and gentleman I present to you the new MOPocket. Relax, enjoy, stay a while and comment!
Also, MOpocket is looking for new mobile enthusiasts to share their thoughts on the site, writers in other words. A more formal announcement will be made at a later date but I thought I would throw that out there now.
If you are anything like me then you are filled with jealousy when it comes to the GSM phones they have in Europe. And it;s not that its not hard to get your hands on some of them its just that for the most part, most of these phones don;t work up to their maximum capacity here in the United States. The reason for that is that most European cell phones ride off of the 900, 1800 and 1900 MHZ spectrum while the spectrums available in here in the States (and thus the one triband cell phones in the US ride off of) are 850, 1800, 1900 MHZ. This means that if you get a European cell phone, say like the Nokia N70 or the N91 that where given to me… they WILL work… but they will only be working off of ONE (the 1900 MHZ) spectrum and you WILL begin to notice it in your coverage. This is why I always also carry around an extra Nokia 6682 in my bag. I am SIM card centric, as they say.
This does not mean you have to give up your hopes of ever being the suave American with a crazy European phone. Some of these great European phones are actually Quad Band (meaning they pick up the 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHZ spectrum) and companies like ImportGSM.com help you out in determining which ones they are. Its not a deep discount solution but you can at least use it as a guide to shop around with. Most of the phones listed in this category are business like phones and are thus quad band to make the European business mans travel roaming a little more easier and more reliable. Some of the phones listed also have (or are soon to have) stripped down American counterparts which make the phones listed on ImportGSM’s quad band section all the more sexy. Honestly, why would I buy a Nokia E62 which comes sans 3G and built in wifi when I can buy the E61 and it will come with all that plus work well in the States as well.
All the phones that are sold on ImportGSM are unlocked to, by the way.
My dilemma, by the way is the following. I really want to buy a Nokia E Series phone because of the Qwerty keyboard. I like the E61… but it has no camera. The one phone that does the same thing as the E61plus including a 2 megapixel camera and is even cooler and of which I am even more in love with is the E70… but alas it is only a European triband phone… no 850.
Then there is also the problem of 3G spectrums which you can read about here.
This is one year old Make news but it has been getting a lot of blog flair since, it would appear, someone has finally capitalized on the idea of a mobile version of a rotary phone that links up to a cell network via a GSM card. The phone has that real authentic old time rotary ring to it of course and, no, it cannot send or receive text messages
Warning. The manufactures Spark Fun warn that the phone really works but is for entertainment purposes. Oh, and you have to unscrew the battery to recharge it. Oh, and this entertainment only 2 pound phone costs 400 dollars for the black model and 500 dollars for the red.
Not really something you want to make your main phone. But hey, if you have the luxury of an extra SIM card…
The website does have an interesting description of how they managed to pull it of which is kind of cool. 1
We all have them, stories of our first time roaming internationally with our GSM phones. There always seems to be a problem of one kind or another. I personally found this one both amusing and disturbing.
The infamous Joi Ito has a European friend who was traveling on ship. Before he boarded the ship he was in LA and made on phone call using his european cell phone and plan. He then got on a ship for what was more than a three hour tour, a many month tour as a matter of fact… never once using his cell phone. For a month or so, people who called his phone got voicemail. But according to T-Mobile, since the last call they have him at was in LA so, therefore, all of his voicemail calls incurred roaming charges… the voicemail calls where routed through LA. When he got back from his cruise he found a nice 300 dollar bill waiting from him from T Mobile. He argued. The declined to compensate. Come on T-Mobile… its not like you also do not have a network in the US.
But roaming charges for minutes used in voicemail? Thats just cheap, real cheap.
I took advantage of my empty Cingular store today by walking in and asking them a few questions about the new 3G HSDPA service that has begun trickling into NY. Even though I live and travel to the areas in which the 3G is operating, I have not yet been able to receive a 3G signal on either my Nokia N70 device or my Nokia N91.
The reason for this, I thought, is because I have to get a 3G SIM card capable of picking up the signal (the 3G SIM card also works in non 3G phone). So, I got a new SIM Card (pictured above) and got that special little tingly feeling when I saw the 3G icon written on it and realized that at long last American GSM users are catching up to their European counterparts.
So, if you have Cingular, have a 3G capable phone and live in the area’s where they are launching the service for early adapters you have to go into Cingular and ask for the 3G SIM card yourself. They wont tell you about it unless you are getting a new phone.
It has also been reported that in order to get an unlocked European phone like the N70 and N90 to function properly via the 3G network, Cingular has to scan the phones IMEI number so that Cingular will register it as a 3G phone and send the appropriate signal/info to the phone.
But their is a good chance that this still wont work with the N70 or N90 being that they are programed for WDCMA 3G in Europe on the 2100MHz frequency and that that frequency (recently retired from US military use) is now being auctioned off to the highest bidder… so its safe to say that it is not in use in the US right now.
Around the world both 1900MHz and 2100Mhz are used simultaneously. The way it’s been set up everywhere outside the US (i.e. the way it’s supposed to work), 1900MHz is used for outbound transmission, and 2100MHz is used for inbound. Right now Cingular is using 1900MHz for both inbound and outbound signals for UMTS and HSDPA which means we will have to see if any of these N Series Tri-mode European 3G phones with a a 3G 2100 antennae we’re drooling over will work on that frequency. Its possible that these two 3G networks are incompatible. The 1900 hundred antennae on the N70 and and N90 is for GSM and outbound 3G only. If this is the case, well then that sort of eliminates the U from UMTS.
Its very important that a cell operator in the US (preferably Cingular) gets the 2100mhz channel, otherwise we will be looking at another world wide de-standardized cell phone conundrum with two variants of WCDMA… much like the 850mhz (US) and 900mhz (EU) GSM mess we have today.
Comments on this would be most appreciated if you have any knowledge on the subject. Thank you.
In one of the strangest stories to hit the mobile space in quite some time, T-Mobile USA’s parent company, the mobile giant Deutsche Telekom is rumored to be in talks with Sprint/Nextel about an acquisition.
