This is NOT True 3G
3g.co.uk
Verizon Wireless on Tuesday announced it is providing Portland's first,
"3G," or third-generation, high-speed wireless Internet service.
It unveiled the technology to a crowd of about 125 business managers
at its Portland office
Wireless carriers have been promising for years to bring broadband speeds
to phones, laptops and handheld organizers. But the technology has taken
longer to roll out than many had expected, because of both the large
cost attached to high-speed networks and scant consumer demand. Thus,
smooth videoconferencing from your car or quick music downloads on your
handheld organizer are still at least a year away.
Verizon says it now offers the fastest wireless Internet connections in the
Portland area. Indeed, it is fast. At the demonstration, Microsoft's
MSN home page took 15 seconds to load on a laptop with a wireless connection.
Google, the search engine, loaded in 6 seconds.
The fast connection enables customers to send e-mail, browse the Web and
download files over their wireless phone account, though it doesn't
allow talking on the phone and surfing the Internet simultaneously.
But it's still much slower than land-line broadband connections -- digital
subscriber lines and cable modems. And many experts say it isn't 3G.
"I don't understand why they position it that way," said Goli Ameri,
president of eTinium, a Portland telecommunications consulting firm.
A true 3G network, Ameri said, is much faster than what Verizon turned
on in Portland.
According to the international board that sets 3G standards, the technology provides
minimum connections ranging from 144 kilobits per second in moving vehicles
-- about 2.5 times the speed of a fast dial-up modem -- all the way
up to 2 megabits per second indoors -- about 35 times the speed of dial-up
access and comparable to fast land-line connections. Verizon
says its 3G network, which the national wireless carrier has introduced
elsewhere in the United States, usually provides speeds of between 40
and 60 kilobits per second -- less than half the minimum 3G speed. But
it is 3G, Verizon said, because it provides "bursts" of data
at 144 kilobit speeds.
"It meets the minimum requirements," said Randy Walter, Verizon's senior
engineer for planning and development. But he noted that the company
called the launch "A Taste of 3G." Verizon will roll out faster
services next year, Walter said.
Nigel Ballard, a Portland-based wireless consultant with joejava.com, said
he'd classify Verizon's service as "2.75G."
The spurts of high-speed connections, he said, aren't reliable enough for
businesses and consumers who need fast connections.
"3G is supposed to offer consistent high bandwidth enabling you to do always-on
services such as videoconferencing," Ballard said. "When you
have bursts, you can't do those services."
Then why don't the companies provide full 3G yet? As with most technology,
investment has slowed. It has taken billions of dollars in capital from
the wireless carriers to upgrade networks, which now usually offer speeds
of 14.4 kilobits -- about a quarter that of dial-up connections. Some
carriers, such as AT&T Wireless, offer "2.5G" service,
with speeds that are close to those of a dial-up modem and higher if
customers use compression software on their laptops.
Cell phone surfing
And unlike Europe and Japan, where wireless phones are
people's only telephone and not just supplements to land-line connections,
the United States hasn't seen a strong demand for surfing the Internet
on cell phones, said Neil Strother, senior analyst at In-Stat/MDR, a
consulting firm based in Scottsdale, Arizona. The
United States has been slow to adopt wireless technology, he said. Cell
phones, for example, took 10 years to reach the mass market..
This lack of interest has caused wireless carriers to delay massive network
investments. Qwest Wireless has not even set a time frame for launching
3G service because its consumers have been satisfied with their 14.4
kilobit connections, said Carey Brandt, spokeswoman for Qwest Wireless.
"We're pursuing 3G technologies as consumers start to demand them," Brandt
said.
And many businesses are using faster and cheaper fixed wireless networks,
which enable workers to access the Internet from a laptop or handheld
device from anywhere within or near the building. But these access-point
setups don't allow employees to tap the connection away from the building.
Verizon, however, said demand for fast wireless Internet hookups is strong. "We
already have customers asking for faster speeds," Verizon spokeswoman
Sherrie Coronas said. "We're definitely expecting people will be
interested in the higher-speed access."
Another problem, Ballard said, is pricing. Unlike the unlimited, always-on pricing
for digital subscriber lines and cable modems, wireless carriers typically
charge by the amount of data users download. "People
are used to not having to measure how long they're online," Ballard
said.
Verizon's Walter said wireless carriers do not offer an "all-you-can-eat"
price plan for the Internet..
"The business model isn't there yet that the companies can live with,"
he said.
Verizon's high-speed service is now available to businesses, and individual customers
in Portland will be able to sign on in the next 60 days.
Verizon offers the service for $30 in addition to customers' monthly bills,
but they must pay airtime charges for every minute online. Business
prices also are set by the megabyte, with fixed amounts of monthly data
available for $9 to $150 a month, with charges for exceeding the limit.
Reported by The Oregonian oregonian.com. All Material Subject to Copyright |
