I attended a demonstration today by Verizon of their Express Network to a group of technologists within my company. I got there late, and missed some of the discussion, but what discussion I did hear, and all the data in their Powerpoint presentation is well known here.
Some interesting notes:
The rep explained that with 1x technology the total bandwidth is shared between voice and data, and that since voice has priority the data rate will vary.
There was much discussion about the pricing, and the rep explained that this was a premium service and there was essentially no competition for it, implying but not saying that they could charge what they wanted. He did, however, concede that competition was coming and expected pricing to not only drop, but to drop significantly. His best guess was that it would take about a year for all-you-can-eat pricing.
The $30 incremental fee for data was BEFORE discounting. Large companies will pay less but I am not free to discuss this.
The demonstration went well, but I was conferencing in so did not actually see it. Based on the comments from others in the room, the performance was above expectations. The rep did a lot of raving here about how fast it was in normal operations and how stable the connections were. There were no signs of any problems in the demo which took place in a large office building in Manhattan.
The rep also talked about future technology he saw but was Verizon was not yet ready to sell, the handing off of a connection, not just between cell towers but between 802.11b and 1x. He described having a laptop downloading a real-time video feed, leaving the building until he was out of range of the wireless Ethernet, and in 6-8 seconds having the 1x link, which had been standing by the whole time, pick up the connection and continue with the video feed. He was very animated about this, describing how mobility was on the increase and that smart companies will be installing 802.11b and seemlessly switching between it and cellular 1x when out of range. Not only will companies have better performance when on the Ethernet, but they will have cheaper overall mobil connectivity.
His take: focus on the trend, focus on the fact that people are becoming increasingly mobile and that pricing is coming down and that this stuff will be everywhere and will be used by everyone for about everything.
There's no doubt in my mind that Verizon gets it, or at the very least that this rep gets it, even if I quibble with their pricing model.
I was not able to ask questions due to time constraints so I'm afraid that this is it for now. However, I do have the rep's name and number and will be glad to gather up a number of questions and see if I can get them answered.
John |
