Comments on: For Cingular, 2007 is about 3G

By: William

William — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 07:10:23 +0000

From my understanding Cingular is currently running HSDPA at 1.8 mbps, and is planning to up it's speeds to 3.6 shortly. Also planned for 2007 is another bump up to 7.2, at which point would be faster than Rev. A.

One thing to consider is the fact that they don't have an express card. My suggestion even though I HATE them is to get the new Razr (v3xx), which runs at 3.6 even though the speed is not supported yet. Express cards are reported to be available the first quarter of 2007, which means we'd see them sometime in may…

Many mac customers will find tethering a phone the only option to get high speed on their notebooks. I hope that Apple rethinks the launch of the iphone with an edge modem and throws in a 3.6 HSDPA modem upgradeable with firmware to 7.2 mbps. I tether now with my 8525, I can't beat the fact that I can be on the phone and using the internet at the same time.

By: Lance

Lance — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 05:14:51 +0000

Do you guys konw what content they’ll offer on 3G? I hope they get CavengerNews…

By: NC

NC — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:01:13 +0000

When Cingular supports an HSDPA Express Card for either Windows or Mac, then I’ll get excited.

Om, I would think you’d be scream at the lack of Express Card support for Mac on Cingular…

By: tf

tf — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:31:02 +0000

I would suspect that, whether or not their #G network matures quickly enough, the iPhone will be adding, conservatively, one or a couple of million subscribers with higher ARPU.

I think, with the Moto and Nokia results, we are seeing that carriers and phone manufacturers are hitting a wall in the U.S. -- the only demand for high end services is coming from business. (And unlike the PC business where business means hundreds of millions of units, when it comes to high end, high speed services for phones, we are talking about 10 million units.)

I think the iPhone really will lead a revolution in terms of growing the demand for higher end devices and services at the consumer level. Breaking through that wall will be a big advantage for Cingular.

By: John Thacker

John Thacker — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:46:57 +0000

“165 cities, including 73 of the top 100 markets1.” As of December the company had said “more than 160 markets, including most of the top 100 major cities in the country.”

Yeah, it's tricky to tell. They do have maps on their website. Comparing the maps with Verizon's EV-DO maps, it looks like Cingular/AT&T has indeed rapidly expanded recently and is in most, though not all, of the markets that Verizon is in. OTOH, the area covered in each market and city seems to be smaller too. Verizon's EV-DO in all the cities I checked seems to cover more area and more suburbs.

By: DH

DH — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:31:35 +0000

Hmmm, the same day that it is mentioned that Cingular needs to realize a way to make up for sliding voice revenue, the Wall Street Journal runs a story on streaming video on a full size screen for cell phones (story on Microvision, symbol MVIS) on page B5 in January 25 WSJ. Lots of new revenue potential still out there from new services.

By: HSDPA scam

HSDPA scam — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:59:55 +0000

Cingular is throttling the HSDPA bandwidth pretty hard, so they can advertise HSDPA theoretical maximum speeds and charge you for it, but offer you slower than EVDO speeds. I think they do it for capacity reasons.

They are totally evil. I did a broadband speed test in multiple cities with my HSDPA card and my Verizon EVDO PC card and the HSDPA PC card is consistently slower lower. Last week, I also got a Sprint REV A card (yes, I am a geek) and if you compare the much ballyhooed HSDPA to the Sprint REV A card, then it doesn't stand a chance.

Cingular's idea of 3G is $40-50/month for 2.5G speeds. It is like their silly dropped call commercial. How can you drop a call unless you get a connection to begin with?

I would like to see how long the Steve Jobs - Stan Sigman love affair lasts after the iPhone finally manages to lose its EDGE (2.5G) radio, gets an HSDPA radio and Jobs turns it on for the first time to do some of that fancy Safari browsing.

God help the poor slob called the customer paying the carrier through his nose for 3G dreams.

By: S R Raja

S R Raja — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 11:02:17 +0000

According to 3g today, there seem to be 500 odd registered 3G services across the 3g networks in the world. Milking 3G Wireless suggests a large number of such applications getting milked - Do you actually get such indications with respect to Cingular Wireles ? I am not so sure… Perhaps you could substantiate…

By: Miguel

Miguel — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 09:59:31 +0000

So why no 3G on the iPhone?

By: petabro

petabro — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 09:06:31 +0000

HSDPA speeds are not as much as they should be on the B’Jack