USB EVDO Modem Without PCMCIA 109
David Ciccone writes to tell us that he got a first look at Sprint's new USB EVDO card. The new USB wireless card can help users connect their non-PCMCIA equipped devices to the Sprint Power Vision Network. Very few details are available for the card, but David was able to capture a few pictures and the couple of speed tests he ran seem halfway decent.
Why oh why? (Score:5, Interesting)
My question is why do they try to force us to buy a second USB or PCMCIA adapter when many of our existing phones will let us connect to the net just fine? Are they greedy? For another another line, hardware purchase, 1 or 2 year contract and $60 - 80 a month fee, Verizon/Cingular/Sprint will sell you these other devices to allow EVDO / EDGE connetions. But why don't they let us use our existing connections that work perfectly well already? (Or at least they WOULD work if the carriers didn't cripple them)
Is it just greed?
Re:Why oh why? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is just greed. I mean, does a 10 byte text message actually cost 10 cents? If that were the case, then it should be costing me $30.00 per minute to talk to people. It's just plain old greed.
Re:Why oh why? (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, too many people are obsessed with sending MMS and SMS and have no qualms about paying big bucks to do it.
Ignore this. (Score:1)
Re:Why oh why? (Score:1)
Re:Why oh why? (Score:2)
You know, while sometimes cartoons are informative and insightful, this is not one of those times, and an adult is expected to know the difference.
Sometimes, they wouldn't be able to hear you talk, or vice versa. For example, text messages work when I'm in fro
Re:Why oh why? (Score:2)
Re:Why oh why? (Score:1)
Come on. It was an opinion. Of course there is room next to the tower. Build as high as you want. I have always found cellphones a dangerous nuisance anyway because of safety concerns. I have seen too many wrecks and accidents caused because some dumbass was talking on their cellphone while driving. A lot of these were kids that were hurt, because my ex-wife is a pediat
Re:Why oh why? (Score:2)
People were ignoring the road in favor of other things before cellphones.
Just as people were killed before guns.
Specious arguments cannot be made less specious by verbiage like this.
Re:Why oh why? (Score:2, Insightful)
and then after that the low cost of maintaining the connection. Eg 8 cents to make connection, and then some very small cents/byte after that. Maybe that's why they charge per minute on the minute (at least mine does), so there is a minimum one minute cost.
That said, I still think you're right about greed being involved, the prices don't feel right.
Re:Why oh why? (Score:2)
Well... that and people pay for it. Greed or not, it'd be silly of them to charge the fraction of a cent for the data usage when people are already happy to pay $.10 for the privilege. Besides, as I understand it, SMS doesn't go through the internet. (or at least not the same way data usage does. SMS existed long before wireless internet.)
Re:Why oh why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why oh why? (Score:3, Insightful)
The cost is non-zero, but it is much less than 10 for 160 bytes. This works out at 64/KB or $655.36/MB. If data really cost the carriers this much then there is no way they could operate. I get 40MB of data included with my plan, and this means
Re:Why oh why? (Score:2)
That said I get unlimited SMS for a reasonable fee.
Re:Why oh why? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is just greed. I mean, does a 10 byte text message actually cost 10 cents? If that were the case, then it should be costing me $30.00 per minute to talk to people. It's just plain old greed.
That's a bit naive. A large telco has a lot of costs that aren't directly related to sending a single SMS message, that still need to be covered by things like SMS messages. Plus it's perfectly normal for them to want to make a profit on top of it all.
Re:Why oh why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why oh why? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, there are choices. All carriers bite you in one way or another, but one alternative option is EDGE through T-Mobile for $30/mo added on to your existing line. I think the V360 works fine for this purpose and allows Bluetooth DUN with no problems. I've used the V330 in the past with GPRS, but it's just to slow.
I think UMTS via Cingular or Tmobile would be the only service speedy enough to compare to EVDO from S
Re:Why oh why? (Score:1)
Re:Why oh why? (Score:3, Informative)
As do I, though you have to unlock it first, it's not hard to do. One thing I did notice is that if you're in a good signal area, you get about twice the speed if you use a USB data cable instead of bluetooth. It seems (sadly) the A900 is a bluetooth 1.x device, and that just doesn't have the same bandwidth. With bluetooth the best I can do is about 400Kbps, but with the USB data cable I can get over 800Kbps. Pretty rockin'...
Re:Why oh why? (Score:1)
Re:Why oh why? (Score:1)
Re:Why oh why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why oh why? (Score:3, Insightful)
No I don't think it's quite that bad. (Score:2)
Here's the relevant portion from the link:
Re:No I don't think it's quite that bad. (Score:2)
That Power Vision TV stuff is great for when you're working on a relative's computer and you're bored out of your skull.
Re:Why oh why? (Score:1, Funny)
Hey! That spells SPAM Plan!
Re:Why oh why? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why oh why? (Score:2)
We spent four months fighting with them to enable bluetooth DUN on four of our cellphones (out of the 100s we have). We had some special equipment (survey-grade GPS equipment) that needed a bluetooth DUN connection to receive real time correction data from the internet. Suffice to say it was pulling teeth to get our Verizon rep to understand our situation and why we needed DUN on our cell phones. We didnt spend $100,000 on this equipment to get fucke
Re:Why oh why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Tethering (Score:1)
Verizon is a ripoff. (Score:2)
I use EDGE via Bluetooth DUN.. (Score:2)
I have to agree that it's just greed.
But anyway, Bluetooth (1.1) isn't fast enough for EVDO, it's barely fast enough for EDGE.
Bluetooth 2.0 support should rectify that.
I buy my GSM phones unlocked so I can use data over Bluetooth. Verizon/Sprint customers don't generally have this option.
Re:I use EDGE via Bluetooth DUN.. (Score:2)
Bluetooth is good for about 700 kbps. From the speed test shown in TFA (~500 kbps down, ~100 kbps up), it should be fast enough.
Bluetooth DUN also works with Linux. TFA says nothing about whether this USB wireless-data thingy works with Linux; the safest assumption would be that it doesn't.
bluetooth is not nearly 700kbps (Score:2)
Bluetooth has some concept of whether each slot should be allocated for upload or download, if you rig them all the right direction, you could in theory get 700kbps. But you won't ever see that.
I guess from your numbers it might be just fast enough, but it's pretty close. Many phones restrict the data rates between the Bluetooth modem and the cell radio to 115kbps or 230kbps (because they're using RS-232 in there!), which would bone you pretty
Re:Why oh why? (Score:1)
Granted, I don't use it that often. Quick connections when out somewhere odd to make a few small fixes.
I know lots of other phones have this ability as well, but don't enable it. Which strikes
Re:Why oh why? (Score:2)
Re:Why oh why? (Score:1)
Never had a problem.
Re:Why oh why? (Score:2)
However I'm not a fan of Sprint, having worked there. The company is fundamentally broken internally. Some markets might be better (or worse) than the one I worked in, but I doubt it. And yes even as a phone repair tech. I had a surprising amount of access to upper mgmt and
Re:Why oh why? (Score:1)
EVDO maximum speed is 2.4mbps and on average it will give you 900 kbps.
Bluetooth in its present form cannot support this high speed datatrasfer.
USB can also be used to charge your mobile handset or data card, which is important for longer usage.
you try using Bluetooth in active for an hour and your battery is drained.
Re:Why oh why? (Score:1, Interesting)
Greed, of course, is
Re:Why oh why? (Score:1)
Durable? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Durable? (Score:2)
Is it such a big deal that this is USB?
Don't they make PCMCIA --> USB adapters?
Hmm.. The only ones I saw in a quick Google search were large and expensive. I think they might be based off this company's chipset. [arstech.com]
Re:Durable? (Score:2)
I've used a minimax with Telstra in
It worked ok, but the 'skinnable' software interface was dog-slow. 20 seconds at startup loading pixmaps and graphic widgets before you could even press a button on it. It was crap.
Re:seems a bit useless (Score:5, Informative)
This might be welcomed to people who own these systems.
Re:seems a bit useless (Score:3, Funny)
Re:seems a bit useless (Score:1)
Re:seems a bit useless (Score:3, Informative)
In other news - many new laptops do not, in fact, include the archaic PCMCIA/PCCARD interface; the new one is "Express-Card", and it's not compatible, backwards or forwards or sideways. Nobody, noway, nohow. But they have USB connections GALORE.
nice blogvertisement (Score:1, Flamebait)
From the article:
"The Sprint Power Vision Network now covers 153 million people and services customers in 220 major metropolitan areas as well as 470 airports across the nation, the most of any carrier. "
What's that giant sucking noise? Ah yes, the blogger kissing the ass of Sprint in exchange for getting the "priviledge" of a "first look."
Re:nice blogvertisement (Score:1)
First Post! And from EVDO! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:First Post! And from EVDO! (Score:1)
Sierra PCMCIA (Score:4, Interesting)
I have the PCMCIA version but... (Score:5, Informative)
Another responder rightly notes that many phones with a data plan already have the ability to do "internet" for computers via a bluetooth link. Mine does that too. So why do I have a sprint card? My job got it.
Re:I have the PCMCIA version but... (Score:2)
There's a freakish USB module [psism.com] that takes some of those CardBus cards and makes them into USB devices. I think it's simply exposing that same internal USB interface, and if you look at the supported cards list, it bears that out.
So if this device has been out for a while, why is the monolithic USB version news?
You can already do this with an EVDO-enabled phone (Score:4, Informative)
More importantly (Score:2)
If you use a seperate data card (or this new USB dongle), you are required to get a contract just for data service.
So this new USB adapter gives you less but makes more money for the provider.
Great, they support both operating systems (Score:4, Informative)
Any word on Linux?
Re:Great, they support both operating systems (Score:2)
Can I have some of what you're smoking?
Re:Great, they support both operating systems (Score:2)
Re:Great, they support both operating systems (Score:2)
I live in Southeast Asia. There are two Mac stores within a 5 minutes' walk of my home. When I walk by Starbucks I typically see 2 or 3 Macs and 5 or 6 Wintel notebooks (running Windows; I am an incurable desktop-peeper). I went to a party on Friday, 3 people brought noteb
Re:Great, they support both operating systems (Score:2)
When I walk around, I see a large number of Windows users, and a few Macs. I have never seen a Linux laptop anywhere other than a Linux convention.
[1] Yes, I am well aware that people I know are not even remotely representative of the general p
Re:Great, they support both operating systems (Score:2)
<troll mode>
It is way cooler, too!
</troll mode>
Re:Great, they support both operating systems (Score:3, Informative)
I used this post http://kenkinder.com/evdo-pc574 [kenkinder.com]
Re:Great, they support both operating systems (Score:1)
Great but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Would be good for a MacBook (Score:4, Insightful)
USB EVDO Modem Without PCMCIA (Score:1)
Re:USB EVDO Modem Without PCMCIA (Score:2)
Not if Verizon or any other mobile carrier has anything to do with it! As has been discussed before, VoIP is a pretty scary idea for mobile companies. If everyone starts using VoIP instead of making phone calls (which essentially subsidise the rest of their data plans) then I'll wager good money that data charges will go through the roof.
Voice is just another application (Score:2)
Voice is just another application.
Re:Voice is just another application (Score:2)
But I maintain my original points. You and I quite rightly agree that broadband will soon be available at a handset level. Portable, always on (dependant on coverage?) broadband. And if I've got broadband with me, I don't need a 'phone' anymore. I just need a portable device with a suitable chip in it; a covergence device (PDA+antenna+sim?).
Re:Voice is just another application (Score:2)
Re:Voice is just another application (Score:2)
Even if carriers allowed VoIP, they could still make more money by allowing you to choose the priority of each packet you send, and charge you more for the higher priorities.
About Verizon (Score:2)
"If they create a global multi gigabit network, they can easily create a fault tolerant telephony and data network that would rival any ISP currently in existance. " I have heard that phrase before....from fiber company Level 3.
Any "push-to-talk" service not by Nextel is VOIP over cellular data. Nothing new there.
Well... (Score:1)
Wireless Data Pricing (Score:4, Interesting)
Why are data/voice rates so high?
Why doesn't the FTC go after these bozo's for collusion? They are obviously avoiding real competition because they are afraid of what happened to the long distance industry.
If I can pay $20 for local telephone service, something that requires burying miles of cabling, why are wireless prices so high???
Sorry for the incoherent babbling but I just paid my wireless bill. Just slightly frustrated.
Re:Wireless Data Pricing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wireless Data Pricing (Score:2)
Because it's all the same satellite-and-landline based backbone.
Let me put it this way...what do you think happens to your call after the tower gets it? How do you think landline customers get your call?
Think, McFly.
Re:Wireless Data Pricing (Score:1)
Let's look at it this way. Consider a 10 sq mile area with 10,000 customers, in the wireline world this requires building a wired connection to all 10,000 customers from the central office. A very expensive proposition. Now think of the wireless world, you have 10 towers that have 10 connections
Well the FCC won't let me be or let me be me (Score:2)
But then each of the 10,000 customers has her own dedicated waveguide over which signals can be sent on unregulated baseband. A cell tower's hardware has only one waveguide -- the air -
Re:Well the FCC won't let me be or let me be me (Score:1)
Now yet again, I pay less montly for a superior quality and capitally less efficient wireline network. Now, why does the inferior quality and capitally efficient wireless network cost more per month?
Re:Well the FCC won't let me be or let me be me (Score:2)
IP? [gnu.org] What does Internet Protocol have to do with patents?
Did you take into account the FCC spectrum lease payments? I was talking about those more than the patent royalties.
Re:Wireless Data Pricing (Score:2)
First, wireless companies had to switch their wireless technology from AMPS (analog) in the late 80s/early 90s to some sort of digital-based system (TDMA/GSM/CDMA) in the mid to late 90s. Now, everybody is transitioning again t
Re:Wireless Data Pricing (Score:1)
Copper cable has a life of 10 to 15 years, that means it has to be replaced. Fiber last longer but also has to be replaced. Even if it lasted forever, this does not account for cuts made by other parties, forced move of cable (for roadwork), storms, etc.
The wireline companies have gone through simialar changes. The moved from mechanical switching, to electronic switching, to packet switching at the central office and have
Re:Wireless Data Pricing (Score:2)
Because you're willing to pay (Score:2)
Re:Wireless Data Pricing (Score:2)
What I'm waiting for (Score:3, Funny)
Submitters: learn to write in decent English.
Editors: Edit, dammit. Or reject the crap. Or resign. Or at least change the job title to something less misleading.
Re:What I'm waiting for (Score:2, Informative)
Complainers: do your fact checking.
Already possible with the PPC-6700 (Score:2)
TJTMAIOH (Score:2, Funny)
Re:TJTMAIOH (Score:1)
MAXON USB EVDO modem (Score:1)
Please use fewer words! (Score:2)
Out of the five words in the title of that article, four are acronyms, and the remaining word can be replaced with a common abbreviation:
USB EVDO MODEM W/O PCMCIA
Much better. As to what it means, I have no idea. But there is absolutely no fucking wasted space in that title! And that is something to be proud of.
ETHERNET (Score:2)
Re:ETHERNET (Score:2)
Re:ETHERNET (Score:1)