GSM Standard for WiFi and Bluetooth Compatibility 60
sjbe writes "Fourteen of the major wireless service providers have released a set of Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) specifications permitting operation with licenced GSM and unlicensed (WiFi/Bluetooth) spectrum. So if we're lucky we might soon be able to use a GSM cell phone through a wireless base station and experience a seemless handoff to a cellular network once out of range."
Return of the ISPs? (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Would the ISPs have the bandwidth to carry all that?
3. Would they want it?
The reason I am thinking is that ATT/TimeWarner/Comcast/AOL would really like some vengeance against the cell providers, no?
Re:Return of the ISPs? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the handsets support a setting where they connect to any anonymous network automatically, then perhaps. Don't think they will though.
Also, I don't expect there will be any provisions in the telco's standard to reimburse whoever runs the WiFi network; the most you can expect is some discount on your per minute charges, and better indoor coverage.
2. Would the ISPs have the bandwidth to carry all that?
A GSM voice channel runs at 9600 bps, so a one megabit SDSL connection at 1:1 (no) overbooking can carry about 100 of those. The ISPs run that sort of capacity to your home and most of your neighbors, so, no problems if they had to run a line to a basestation every 1 or 2 miles. In fact, that's what the cell networks do (though they use T1 lines rather than SDSL).
3. Would they want it?
No. Blanketing a metro area with WiFi is hard. Preferably, you'd want to have your own licensed spectrum so people's home (or competitors') WiFi connections don't interfere with your network.
Also, only 3 802.11b/g channels don't overlap - you'd prefer having at least 6 non-overlapping channels to make hexagonshaped cells.
If you go with big cells, you piss off a lot of people by causeing interference on their WiFi and your capacity is limited, if you go with small cells you have better capacity, but people with higher strength signals can drown you out, and you need a lot of base stations.
Licensed/managed spectrum is the way to go to cover a metro area. That's not to say "companies know best" - if they licensed a hunk of spectrum to some HAMs to come up with a metro area WiFi network they'd do just as well.
Re:Return of the ISPs? (Score:2)
Don't you mean 7 non-overlapping when you count the cell that the 6 cells surround?
Re:Return of the ISPs? (Score:2)
a map of hexagonal cells.
Re:Return of the ISPs? (Score:1)
(It's always a Good Idea to have more channels though, because you will want to split up cells in subcells that might overlap, and cells won't be perfectly hexagonal..)
Fantastic (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fantastic (Score:2)
* Voice Over IP Over Circuit Switched Data
Re:Fantastic (Score:2)
It isn't apparent for analog lines because it is transparently converted to digital at many COs and transmitted.
Damn Editors (Score:2)
Re: cell coverage phone coverage, asking friends (Score:2)
Then you're either not listening, or living in a very insular world.
My spouse and I live in Fairfield County (i.e. southern-most CT) --
just 10 miles from the I-95 corridor --
and work in Westchester County, NY (40 minutes from NYC), just 10 minutes from I-684.
We, and MANY people we know, get NO coverage at home or on our commute-route.
The carrier DOES make a difference, and people with Verizon seem to do best in our ar
Re: cell coverage phone coverage, asking friends (Score:1)
Re: cell coverage phone coverage, asking friends (Score:1)
Re:Damn Editors (Score:1)
I think that actually reads correctly. It means that you would be sitting at home under your WIFI cloud and if you venture to far outside your cloud, the cell phone companies network picks up your call and allows it to continue.
something fishy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:something fishy (Score:5, Informative)
Not in the manufacturers interest (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason? Allowing direct file access cannibalises the market for emailing/SMSing them to people from the phone.
Now you expect us to believe that mobile telephone providers will make phones that can connect to peoples wifi hotspots to save the caller money?. Somehow I doubt it.
In the manufacturers interest (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason: The seamless handover doesn't mean that they can't earn money for it.
Instead of using their base-stations you will use a Bluetooth/801.11 base-station, but the traffic still has to go to their network as they route the traffic. Then they can make you a "special offer" for that service.
Re:In the manufacturers interest (Score:2)
is hyped far beyond its vanishingly small practical
importance.
What I really want is a cell that operates as a VOIP portable in WiFi areas, and as a cell elsewhere, no handoffs.
Re:Not in the manufacturers interest (Score:2)
So people can choose the phone based on the features and phone manufacturers make phones to appeal to the end-users. American users just need to rebel against limitations imposed on them by telcos.
Re:Not in the manufacturers interest (Score:2)
I suspect most Brits look to European phone systems with a degree of envy.
Re:Not in the manufacturers interest (Score:1)
Re:Not in the manufacturers interest (Score:2)
There is no government agency in charge of maintaining non-compliance or backwards features.
Re:Not in the manufacturers interest (Score:2)
The Motorola v710: Verizon's New Crippled Phone
http://www.nuclearelephant.com/papers/v710.html [nuclearelephant.com]
Re:Not in the manufacturers interest (Score:2)
Re:Not in the manufacturers interest (Score:1)
Uhm... (Score:4, Funny)
Ain't that just a tad bit of baseless wild speculation?
Re:Uhm... (Score:1)
I don't completely understand (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:I don't completely understand (Score:5, Informative)
Greed with prevent this. (Score:5, Informative)
With further thought, it will probably happen, but only for "public" access points being run by the telcos themselves allowing their slaves^H^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers to access higher speed data and possibly VoIP services when in range of their own hotspots.
The problems of hand-over of an IP connection to a cellular network are non-trivial as well, which would make it far more likely that it will only be teleco owned and run hotspots which will be able to do this.. at a large per megabyte cost, no doubt. (Probably the same as they charge for GSM data transfer. In the UK that's about £3 a megabyte!)
Re:Greed with prevent this. (Score:2)
Re:Greed with prevent this. (Score:1)
They must be really carefull not to loose any highly-billed traffic. Thats why you cant put any java app on a three (3?) phone (nec?), at least thats what I read somewhere. You could write an java app that had an conn to a server, which in turn could send you data (when any of your friends decided to send you stuff) and you would be notified. Come to think about it, there already exists irc and IM software for java mobiles. No need for expensive SMS. Apart from the battery dying after a coup
Re:Greed with prevent this. (Score:2)
How about they charge you the same whether your calls originate from WiFi or from GSM, or perhaps a smallish discount (a few cents per minute)?
People will still want to use the service, because they can now expand their coverage themselves, especially indoors.
That would be very interesting for corporations that have cellphone contracts for their e
Re:Greed will prevent this. (Score:1)
Let's face it folks, nothing in technology is free. But such innovations in a competitive environment will benefit us all eventually.
Think of it as a feature set (Score:2)
Re:Think of it as a feature set (Score:1)
The whole introduction of UMA into the GSM specs was a masterful piece of politics, masterminded by.... the cellular operators.
UMA allows cellular networks to offer new, enhanced network features to subscribers very quickly and easily, and still bill them via their cellphone accounts.
Most newer mobile phones are entirely able to operate as modems, and WiFi (or anything else: ultra-wideband, even a good old 100Base-T Ethernet connection) *could* be built into a phone.
If you
Re:Greed with prevent this. (Score:1)
Low power phones? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Low power phones? (Score:2)
I think you meant high-frequency. The set of definitions of "high-power" wouldn't appear to include cell fone transmitters.
But until there's some hard scientific evidence for negative medical effects of long-term exposure to RF, I'm remaining on the "RF isn't going to hurt you" side of the fence.
p
Cisco is nearly ready to deploy this technology (Score:3, Interesting)
We can expect them within the year.
One rainy day (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd then write some software which used the bluetooth APIs to accept messages requesting that the computer makes a phone call.
When the computer made that call, it would then use the mobile phone as the bluetooth headset for that call, routing the audio to/from the fixed phone line via the modem.
I'd also write a Java app for my mobile phone which asks for a phone number (or lets you look one up in your phone book) - just like the phone does normally - and then sends off that bluetooth message to the computer.
Now I'd be able to make phone calls via my fixed line while in the house, without to be bothered to reach over and pick up the fixed line handset.
Energy saved: 12 joules
Money saved: EUR -10
Why negative money saved? I always get charged when I used my fixed line, but I get a number of inclusive minutes on my mobile.
Oh, I forgot, I can't access bluetooth from Java on my mobile. Sony Ericsson thought it was best, for some reason. I'm not sure if I can even access the phone book, come to think of it.
Never mind.
Rik
WiFi carried by GSM? Uh-oh! (Score:1)
Lets hope this isn't going to work vice versa:
Through, i can imagine advantages logging in at my home network while in the train.. :)
Good thing for E.T. (Score:1)
Gmail invites! (Score:1, Insightful)
Ok, what I'd really like to see is...... a VoIP phone that works with wifi! That would be the future as wireless network coverage gets better and better!
But it is probably unlikely to happen, with the current stranglehold on the mobile industry, they will do everything they can to protect their cash cow.
It's about billing, people (Score:3, Informative)
It seems like no-one has really gotten the point, so I'll try to explain.
What's really going on here is GSM has one thing to offer to wireless technologies which many of them need: a reliable, proven billing system, supporting roaming between networks, which gives the ability to access millions of paying subscribers (who already have cellphones).
There has been a realisation that there are somethimes reasons why it may be better to use a short-distance, but high speed technology in preference to a cellular (even 3G) based service.
Things it probably isn't about:
What is it?
What we are talking about is basically a gateway box which allows some other technology to talk to the GSM A/Gb interface, which is what connects the Base Station System (BSS) to the Mobile Switching Centre (MSC) (for voice calls) and the GPRS packet network.
This enables a network which can speak IP to interface with a network which speaks GSM/GPRS. The data traffic goes through the GPRS core network (SGSN to GGSN to Internet), and voice traffic (e.g. VoIP) could be routed straight to the MSC, and hence to the PSTN (or Plain Old Telephone System).
Everything which passes through a GSM/GPRS core network is subject to authentication and billing, so all of a sudden, you can have more interesting payment plans than are typical for WiFi networks - pay as you go, pay per MB, unlimited packages etc... (look at all the cellular plans out there).
The probability is that you'll also need to start seeing SIM cards in laptops - GSM security is pretty much premised on using a SIM card (although you could get out of using one if really required.
Utterly inconsequential (Score:2)
Either I'm at home, or in an airport or a starbucks, or Philadelphia, and I can make free VOIP calls or else I'm on the road, out of range,
and I can't. If I'm riding downtown, I don't
want my call to be handed off 20 times in order to save 5 minutes on a cell plan, I just want it to work. I just don't care if a call in the theatre lobby or the museum parking lot is VOIP or GSM.
British Telecom using this soon for live service (Score:2)