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Wireless Networking Hardware

Review Of Verizon's New Wireless Network 202

Posted by timothy from the time-and-place-restrictions dept.
jagger writes "The service gives you the speed of broadband, the ease of WiFi and the coverage of cellular... sort of. The service is currently rolled out in Washington D.C. and San Diego, CA but offers speeds comparable to broadband. Read the full review from Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post at Yahoo News."
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Review Of Verizon's New Wireless Network More

Review Of Verizon's New Wireless Network

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  • Suspicious... (Score:4, Funny)

    by twilightzero ( 244291 ) <mrolfs@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Monday March 15, 2004 @07:45PM (#8574127) Homepage Journal
    Sounds too much like a Ginsu..."It slices, it dices, it can even cut a steel can! Call now, operators are standing by!" Personally I'm a bit suspicious of products that claim to do everything, they invariably do at least half the stuff they claim but are good at none of it.

    • Re:Suspicious... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by falconed ( 645790 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @07:48PM (#8574155)
      Sounds pretty lame. The article says it's $80/month, you don't get email or voice phone, and it isn't an always on service. And you have to use their hardware. Lot of money for not a lot of features. I bet you could get better service by wardriving.

      • Re:Suspicious... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by twilightzero ( 244291 ) <mrolfs@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Monday March 15, 2004 @07:54PM (#8574200) Homepage Journal
        I agree, as the article says probably nobody will get it except those who can write it off as a business expense. Unless the price drops precipitously it will quickly become just another service that home users will never get - think Nextel 2-way wireless radio on your cell phone. Nobody gets it except companies who can drop the money and write it off.

        • Re:Suspicious... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by iminplaya ( 723125 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:07PM (#8574286) Journal
          ...those who can write it off as a business expense. Unless the price drops precipitously...

          The gov't will have to raise taxes to make up for lost revenue.

        • Re:Suspicious... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Lord Kano ( 13027 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:35PM (#8574455) Homepage Journal
          think Nextel 2-way wireless radio on your cell phone. Nobody gets it except companies who can drop the money and write it off.

          I think that there is another reason for that.

          Imagine if people were using that 2-way walkie talkie function for "regular" as in non business related ways.

          Picture an executive in a high level meeting. He's laying down the law to mid level execs and as he's deriding them for their lack of vision and focus...BEEP BEEP "Henry! I told you to pick up diapers and tampons on your way home last night. Maybe I should just have the pool boy do it, he takes care of the rest of my needs anyway!"

          Or imagine you're at a bank going over the terms of the mortgage for your first home. Suddenly your Stiffler-Esque buddy from college chimes in BEEP BEEP "Yo fuckstick! I've been calling your apartment all day, I know you're not at work, I tried there too. You're not fucking my mom again are you?"

          I suspect that only businesses have signed on to this because they still have the ability to fire people for misuse.

          LK
          • I hear it every...single..bleedin'...day on BART.

            The same clueless wonders are surprised when their phone cuts off as the train heads into a 2 mile tunnel, too.

            I *HATE* Nextel phones for just that reason. People think that the rest of us want to hear both sides of their inane conversation. :P

        • Re:Suspicious... (Score:5, Informative)

          by LinuxHam ( 52232 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @09:27PM (#8574859) Homepage Journal
          You might be surprised but Nextel is becoming quite popular in the home market. I am very close friends with a family consisting of a father, mother, 3 kids, and an aunt and an uncle. Someone always needs to be picked up somewhere. Mother at the train station. Kids at various places. Grandparents all over the place. That family makes extensive use of the Nextel. My wife also pings me to come out and help bring in the groceries as she's pulling up to the house.

          Finally, thanks to the free incoming calls and unlimited 2-way radio with my wife and best friend my chargeable minutes have dropped significantly. At worst, I used over 1,200 minutes. Then I added unlimited nights & weekends, and that dropped to about 500. Added free incoming calls, and that dropped to under 200! Now that my best friend has the 2-way, too, we ping each other all the time, and I'm thinking about dropping from the free incoming 400 to the free incoming 250.

          It makes such a difference when you can get the point across without all the call setup hubub. Not the technical call setup stuff, the social stuff. "Hey, its me, got a minute?"

          Now its, "[beep-beep] Can I reboot the server?" "[beep-beep] Sure."

          Now that NASCAR's premiere racing series is Nextel Cup, you can expect a lot more subscribers to come online in the coming months and years. We are getting *bombarded* by Nextel ads these days.

          • Re:Suspicious... (Score:2, Insightful)

            by twilightzero ( 244291 )
            I find it very interesting that, with all the good arguments you give, the example you have at the end goes right back to IT departments and rebooting servers, i.e. business environment ;)

          • Re:Suspicious... (Score:2, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            I live in FL and every backwoods, inbred, red-neck somebitch has one of those things! Personally, I hate'em. I really don't want to have to listen to all their stupid conversations when I'm queued up somewhere.

      • Re:Suspicious... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "I bet you could get better service by wardriving."

        Yeah, it makes a lot more sense to go around looking for hotspots rather than having broadband access whereever you are. I can just see you running around looking for a free cell spot because you don't want to pay cell phone charges.

      • Re:Suspicious... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ezzzD55J ( 697465 )
        Indeed, but what if you could replace your home connection and phone? It'd be worth $80..

      • Re:Suspicious... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:16PM (#8574336)
        I've spent the last couple weekends war-walking the National Mall, Clevland Park, Capitol Hill and dupont circle. Woodley and Van Ness will be this weekend's projects. Suffice to say, war-driving in DC will NOT get you better coverage than Verizon.

        There are lots of unprotected default "linksys" and "netgear" wireless points in the residential areas ;however, I've had little luck getting signal in the Capitol/Mall area.

      • Re:Suspicious... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Arker ( 91948 )
        I'd happily pay that here, but not for a service that is windows only.
      • Your take is that it's lame? I agree, and I should know. I recently left a company that makes client adapters for this hardware (pcmcia cards and desktop adapters). While supporting this hardware, I learned that it's really a lot of hype. The documentation states that the maximum download speed is 1.5Mb. Sounds good on the surface...but actual download speeds depend on ambient radio noise, the shielding on your system processor, proximity to the nearest properly equipped cell site, the size and quality
        • Sounds alot like satellite, which sucks ass too btw. My brother, unfortunately, lives in the boondocks and has to put up with satellite also. Crap upload speed, unacceptable ping, but decent download rates on warm clear days.

          One of these days you'll be able to live in the country or small towns and have broadband. The broadband revolution in the US sucks.

      • Commercials (Score:4, Funny)

        by Lord Prox ( 521892 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @11:36PM (#8575769) Homepage
        I can see the commercial now...

        [Annoying Verizon twit walking around in wannabe geek attire]
        Can you ping me now?
        [Pauses so camera gan see uber-cool propritary branded gadget BS]
        Goood
        [Walks off stage leaving camera showing oh-so self-important suits and wanna-be geek types watching in "shock and awe"]
        [...and que fine print at bottom of screen scrolling so fast a hamster on crack can't even read it and Verizon Logo]

    • Re:Suspicious... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cmowire ( 254489 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @07:52PM (#8574186) Homepage
      Well, the big thing is probably that there's probably not too many folks using it.

      Wait till it gets popular, then it'll start slowing down. ;)

    • did you RTFA? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MC_Cancer_Pants ( 728724 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:37PM (#8574474)
      3G has been put off for a long time, i'm suprised it hasn't come until now. This (to the best of my knowledge) qualifies itself as 3G. From a company like verizon I believe it. Rikachet failed because it was a solo project of a company that relied on their wireless internet service only. Verizon is already well-established and doesn't need this to produce revenue immediately. As far as $80/month being too much, take a look at how many people pay $50/month to bluetooth through their cell-phone with increadibly long login time and unreliable service-coverage.

      By the way, this article was written by a reporter who probably either didn't know very much about the technology or was addressing it as being nice and easy to use, even for lusers (the "difficult to get working in a PC" comment). He claims it works wonderfully without any problem, he hasn't been payed to say it, and didn't say very much of anything on the negative side about it. This technolgy is not new (look at japan) I suggest you save your tinfoil for annother day's hat.

  • Nice, but how about bluetooth? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by weave ( 48069 ) * on Monday March 15, 2004 @07:46PM (#8574140) Journal
    I think I'd pay $80/month for speeds like that. I have T-mobile GPRS and it's really nice having wireless net access on the road, although T-mobile's service is painfully slow.

    The biggest blocking factor for me on Verizon is the lack of bluetooth phones. My t610 joined with my Powerbook is a shear joy (except for the speed). Bluetooth is great. Verizon sucks for not having any handsets that use it (or pressuring manufactures to make a decent CDMA phone with bluetooth).

    • Haven't you heard about the potentially upcomming V710 [phonescoop.com] from Motorola?

      The big thing about EV-DO is that it's data-only, with no voice network with it. So the assumption is you just buy an EV-DO card and use that.

      The other problem is that Bluetooth is unfairly been victimized by wifi hype and, at the same time, not yet been done "right" in such a way that it becomes a must-have feature.
    • although T-mobile's service is painfully slow

      Actually, T-Mobile's service is pretty fast. If you're getting consistant speeds of 5-10 kilobytes per second, you're doing well. Really, it's the latency that worries me. I always get 800 to 1000ms in that department. That's fine for some things, but it seems to make intolerant programs time out, and multiplayer gaming is out of the question.

      P.S. Look into T-Mobile's Unlimited Internet VPN service. It's no more expensive than the normal unlimited, but you hav

      • Yeah, I have VPN. No ports blocked. Others can probably get it by using the internet3.voicestream.com APN I bet.

        GPRS is a bit spotty where I live (northern Delaware) but was really good in Phoenix area when I was out there in January. I had an ssh session open to my box fixing a problem as my buddy drove from Goodyear AZ about 40 miles to Fountain Hills. Never dropped connection once. Even worked up around Crazy Eds in Cave Creek!

        But yeah, latency is a drag. Editing text files over ssh can be a chore. F

    • Re:Nice, but how about bluetooth? (Score:5, Informative)

      by popo ( 107611 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @09:34PM (#8574900) Homepage
      I used to have T-Mobile GPRS with bluetooth, but it never lived up to its promise.

      T-Mobile advertises its service as "broadband", but their salesforce tells you (even to this day) that in fact its about as fast as a 56k modem.

      Unfortunately, neither claim is anywhere close to the truth:

      I spent months on the phone with T-Mobile tech support, and heard again and again that the "3k per second transfer rate you're getting is part of a known issue and our engineers are working on it."

      Bottom line: T-Mobile GPRS does not exist yet. You'll have max 5kbps with latency and timeout problems galore. Its busted.

      By the way, they finally refunded me retroactively for the 4 months that I "had" the service. So they're liars... not thieves.

      ______________________________________

      "I can't turn left. I'm not an ambi-turner"
      • Check the latency - this is a serious problem.

        ATT's edge is in my tests about 600-1000ms ping times.

        Voicestream is 1000-3000 ms on average.

        Ping times in seconds is not a good thing.

        If the Verizon service is similar, it will work pretty nice for downloading big files but suck for any interactive sessions such as VPN etc. (Not to mention packet loss etc which will make it lots worse!)

        Latency Latency Latency...

        We all want to know - what's the latency?

        Cheers,
        Greg
    • Why bitch about bluetooth? There are USB cables that work with Verizon phones that are small enough that allow for net access. I know, I've got one. Works for the Motorola V120E, free OS X drivers online for it. Cost me $20. Try http://groups.yahoo.com/group/maccellphone/ [yahoo.com] for more info.

  • Good stuff (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mytec ( 686565 ) * on Monday March 15, 2004 @07:47PM (#8574144) Journal

    We are starting to deploy the cards on sales laptops. While most of our sales guys are out of the highest speed markets noted in the article, the card and software have worked very well and both are an absolute cinch to install and use.

    • Re:Good stuff (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @09:07PM (#8574718) Homepage Journal
      So when will we mac and linux users be permitted to use it? Or is there an exclusive deal with MS that locks us out?

      My job requires that I do all the development on linux and OSX. Windows isn't permitted except as a leaf node (for UI testing), due to the extreme security problems. So I could easily get a business deduction for it, but not if I have to use MS software in the gateway/firewall.

  • sign me up. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Brigadier ( 12956 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @07:48PM (#8574151)


    I have to give some credit to Verizon for really putting their competitors to shame. I pay $30 a month for DSL thats 1024/256 Mb/s I get excellent customer service. I had been an earthlink customer prior to this for over 5 years and got tired of there ever creeping up prices. My only concern here is it seems this is basically WiFi via there current cell phone network. if so then again we are going to run into the local bells muscling the market.

    • Re:sign me up. (Score:4, Informative)

      by cmowire ( 254489 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:01PM (#8574249) Homepage
      Uhhh.... Verizon *is* the local bell muscling the market.
    • I pay $30 a month for DSL thats 1024/256 Mb/s

      You meant Kb/s, right?
    • Its Windows-only PC Card modem...

      Sign me too up when it runs on a real OS, not some insecure, overpriced POS.

    • ...and the rest of the country? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by D-Fly ( 7665 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:40PM (#8574501) Homepage Journal
      The article leaves out some interesting details. Like--how many antennas per square kilometer do you need to get this kind of speed? When I lived in Santa Cruz, Ricochet [ricochet.net] did one of their first deployments around town. This was in the early 90s, so you were getting 2400bps (yeah, bps) wireless all over town, which was kind of cool. Except they had to hang transmitters from every other light pole to blanket town. I think that's one of the reasons they never caught on: deploying infrastructure was too expensive.

      It sounds to me like Verizon has something with much better range going here, but I guess Pegoraro didn't think to ask.

      One of the reasons I'm interested is that my parents live in one of those oft-forgotten places in the US where high speed internet is a far-away dream. The town (population 500) is about an hour's drive over a terrible mountain road from civilization, so the local CLEC never bothered to run phone lines in: they just set up this crappy microwave link on top of a mountain.

      No cable, no wired phone lines: needless to say, broadband is impossible (satellite being the unacceptable semi-exception). Which makes going back to hang out at the ranch pretty annoying.

      The point (I'm getting there!) is that if these guys have figured out a way to get high speed internet to travel a good long distance, this could help solve the access problem for rural america.

      Of course, I've seen so many supposed solutions [wired.com] come and fade away, that I sort of doubt it.
      • I always liked the Ricochet model. Dead-simple low-power transmitters all over means that you can have tiny cells with only a few users per. Ricochet was intended only for the cities and only works "downtown". The good part is that they can tolerate the loss of an individual cell because of the overlap, which makes maintenence slightly easier. The trick would have been to also set up cell-tower-like relays in the surounding areas.

        This is just using turbo codes and CDMA modulation with the same old ante

  • oh yeah... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cynikal ( 513328 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @07:54PM (#8574201) Homepage
    can you IM me now? good....

  • Personal outlook (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15, 2004 @07:55PM (#8574213)
    I can see this as being a promising service.. as of now Verizon Wireless has the largest nation-wide network and one of the best coverages in the nation..

  • On a related note ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by phoxix ( 161744 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @07:56PM (#8574219)
    BE DEAD CAREFUL OF VERIZON's WIFI SERVICE

    This is for your New Yorkers who know what I'm talking about. (wifi service in the island of Manhattan free for all verizon dsl/dialup users)

    What is to be careful of? Fake Verizon-WIFI APs. No joke. I was walking down 14th street next to Broadway, and suddenly I wanted to hop online to check what the weather would be for later that day.

    I pop out my Zaurus, pop in my wifi card, and start sniffing for whatever wireless networks I can get to. I hit a Verizon-WIFI AP, which works for me being that my company is a customer of theirs. I pop in my Verizon Online password, and my password, hit enter, and I'm in.

    Except for ONE problem. I typed in my username wrong! (Zaurus 5600 owners know how much of a bitch it is to type numbers with the damn Fn key.) But I still got in!!! I reconnected, typed in a bogus user/pass, and still had zero issues getting in.

    At first I didn't realize what was going on (being that I was late for class, and rushing like crazy). But then it dawned on me, that this was a fake AP setup to steal real verizon user-names and passwords. Pretty slick if you ask me.

    Yeah yeah, not too related to the topic at hand, but other verizon customers may want to know

    Sunny Dubey
    • ..and suddenly I wanted to hop online to check what the weather would be for later that day.

      Couldn't you just wet your finger and hold it up to the wind?

    • Re:On a related note ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:14PM (#8574328)
      > At first I didn't realize what was going on (being that I was late for class, and rushing like crazy). But then it dawned on me, that this was a fake AP setup to steal real verizon user-names and passwords. Pretty slick if you ask me.

      No kidding! OK, so now that we know, how do we ID the fake APs to avoid 'em? Always enter a bogus login first, or?..
    • Just so you know...the service phoxix is referring to is different from the one referred to in this article...the New York wi-fi service is run by Verizon Online, and offers free wi-fi access to current Verizon Online DSL customers, whereas the one in the article is being run by Verizon Wireless, a different subsidiary under Verizon Communications

  • VOIP anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Phat_Tony ( 661117 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @07:57PM (#8574226)
    "...it includes neither an e-mail account nor voice phone service."

    But it does sustain rates around 500 kbps or over...

    Voice over IP, anyone? It seems like they're practically begging that application- why carry and pay for a cell phone too, especially if you can get this service on a PDA some day?

    • Re:VOIP anyone? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Smitty825 ( 114634 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:04PM (#8574268) Homepage Journal
      The latency on CDMA 1xEV-DO isn't quite good enough to support VOIP. From the people I know who have used this service, it "feels" like a 56k modem in regard to its latency. (In a conversation on this site, Phil Karn [slashdot.org] pointed out that the latency isn't over the air interface, but elsewhere within the system)

      In (I'm guessing) early 2005, Verizon, Sprint, should be rolling out a service based on 1xEV-DV. That will provide even higher data rates (in both directions), and (IIRC), voice calls will be VOIP by default!

  • Verizon (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mori Chu ( 737710 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @07:58PM (#8574234)
    "The service gives you the speed of broadband, the ease of WiFi and the coverage of cellular..."

    Sadly, it also gives you the quality of Verizon.

  • woohoo! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cynikal ( 513328 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:01PM (#8574247) Homepage
    now i can download my mp3's and screener iso's while leading the RIAA and MPAA's lawyers on a high speed chase!

    you cant sue me until you catch me and serve me with a summons :P
    nyah nyah now im in mexico :P

  • wtf? (Score:2, Funny)

    by U.I.D 754625 ( 754625 )
    Verizon says BroadbandAccess's downloads should average 3oo to 500 kilobits per second (kbps) and can hit 2 million bits per second (Mbps) at best.

    ...and I thought slashdot editors were bad! I get 3oo kilobits per second myself though.

  • Monet Mobile did it first (Score:5, Informative)

    by danitor ( 600348 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:03PM (#8574263)
    I currently pay 40$ a month and use the Audiovox 5220 card that Verizon is selling.

    Thing is, this is not a new service and I'm not getting it from Verizon. I'm getting it from Monet Mobile.

    ...but not for long...

    The service is fantastic- I can't imagine a better product. The truly sad thing is that Monet Mobile (www.monetmobile.com) is going bankrupt and shutting me down on April 1, at which point I'm going to have to pay the Verizon fees or go back to wired internet... (sigh)

  • Good idea.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by brain1 ( 699194 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:05PM (#8574277)
    Lets see.. I pay $50 / month for DSL. I also have to pay for a $20 / month "basic phone" line just to get the DSL. By basic, it's just a dial tone, no caller id, no features, even the ringer stays turned off so I dont have to deal with telemarketers. I could care less about it. I get free long distance, 400 anytime minutes, free nights and weekends, and free mobile-to-mobile minutes on my wireless phone. Plus voice mail, caller ID and I can take it anywhere. So why do I need a wired phone? Just so Bellsouth can establish DSL service. Yuck! It stands as an emergency 911 phone in case the wireless phone's battery is dead (if ever..).

    That means I already pay $70 / month just to get DSL. I already have Verizon Wireless, so I might qualify for some kind of package deal discount.

    The wireless phone I have is already a data-capable G3 phone. Possibly just a flash upgrade will enable the higher rates. So, I am probably out just a USB cable to get online. Anywhere, whenever. Hmmm.

    Sounds like a good idea to me.

    You know, it seems that where the telco's dropped the ball with fiber-to-the-curb, the wireless providers stand to prosper using RF.

  • Security? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pholower ( 739868 ) <longwoodtrail@NOSpAm.yahoo.com> on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:08PM (#8574292) Homepage Journal
    The article didn't go in depth (or mention at all) about security the wireless service uses. If this is something that is widespread, I only hope that the security is something to be applauded. I would hate for a user in the home to go to their bank and enter their information only for the ever lurking hacker/cracker to gain access to their information.

    Does anybody know of the security protocals used for this?

    • Re:Security? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by petecarlson ( 457202 )
      shttp, ssh?? If your bank is letting you log in plain text on there web server, you have biger problems then your Wifi provider.
      • The real threat is having thousands of poorly administered machines all connected directly to the same high speed network at the same time and for long periods of time. Open shares, insecure services, you name it, it could all be open to anyone that cared to look.

        With normal high speed you get a lot of people using NAT boxes on personal networks, which at least offers some measure of security, but that's not possible with an access device that must be run from the connecting machine.

  • That kind of speed, that good of coverage and that low of a price.. Hmm.. I gotta see it to believe it.

  • I actually used this... (Score:5, Informative)

    by neildiamond ( 610251 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:17PM (#8574345)
    and I wrote a story about this months ago. Here's what you Linux geeks won't like. So far it won't work in Linux. That's mainly a driver issue with the card or really that there is no Linux driver (that I am aware of). Also I think that it is installed (even in Windows) in a funny way. It has to connect under dial-up networking?!?!
    • Sounds like a good project to put out on Sourceforge. If I can use Ndiswrapper to run this broadcom card, the we should be able to wrap their windows dial-up networking driver into a module. Dont underestimate the power of geekdom.

      I cant wait to get started!

    • Re:I actually used this... (Score:5, Informative)

      by jumpingfred ( 244629 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:47PM (#8574566)
      Try this:
      http://www.ka9q.net/5220.html
    • The card essentially is a modem, and a 'software modem' at that. Although it is not for a phone network, it still must negotiate a connection much like a phone, so hence the dial-up networking. Theoretically speaking, there is nothing preventing someone from writing a driver for Linux, but as a practical matter, noone will unless the manufacturer releases the specs.

      It also means that Verizon always know who is connected where and when. It is not at all like war-driving.

      Come to think of it, the network pro

  • I wasnt impressed. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Gen. Malaise ( 530798 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:19PM (#8574353) Journal
    I was troubleshooting a problem that my client was having today, so I traced his IP and found a misconfigured (jacked) router on the "myvzw" network. The thing was routing packets to itself, preventing anything from sending data to him........ "Can you get packets now?"

  • $80/month must be a business expense?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:19PM (#8574356)
    "But at $79.99 a month, it's only a good deal to those who can write it off as a business expense."

    Grrr. I'm paying $60 for a (highly rate limited due to the # of subscribers) 256Kbps 802.11 uplink, $99 for 128Kbps IDSL (yeah, I know it's just repackaged ISDN) because the former is too unreliable, and $15 for a decent dial-up to backup all the others because I can not afford not to have a connection! If I thought it would help I would kill someone to get 600Kbps for $80.

    You can not function in the modern employment world above the level of "service" without solid, fast Internet connections. If you haven't figured this out yet you're grist for the unemployment line. It's a personal expense the same way a plumber pays for a toolbox full of tools. Get it?
    • $40/month for a cable modem.
    • I don't know what you do for a living, but I can't personally say I really agree. Connectivity is a must for today's fast-paced business. But high-speed wireless connectivity at high prices? Count me out.

      I already have to shell out close to $100 per month for my cellular service, but that gives me the *voice* communications I *need* to do business, plus the ability to get online at a slower speed to send/receive short messages, or look something up on the net.

      For me, that's really good enough. DSL giv

  • A Bit Offtopic.. But I Need Help (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rustycage ( 550599 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:23PM (#8574376)
    I just got wireless broadband out here in rural West Virginia. Amazing..I know. It is great as I get 1.3Mb down about the same up for $50 a month. Anyhow I just bought a wireless router and it seems to interfere with my wireless broadband antenna. When I enable the wireless functionality on the router my internet connect goes bye-bye. Anyone else had similar experience. I'm pretty sure my wireless broadband is over 802.11b and the wire router I bought is 11b as well. Any solutions?
    • Just choose a non-conflicting 11b channel for your wireless network. Try them all to see which one interferes the least. I think the 3 isolated channels are something like 1, 6, and 11. And hope your wireless internet isn't broadcasting on all channels. :)

  • Rob says (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lord Kano ( 13027 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:26PM (#8574395) Homepage Journal
    "But at $79.99 a month, it's only a good deal to those who can write it off as a business expense."

    This guy apparently doesn't know any geeks.

    With VOIP becoming so popular, a laptop with this would be portable broadband and mobile VOIP all in one. That would be well worth the expense to lots of us.

    LK

  • Card interface? (Score:3, Informative)

    by nsayer ( 86181 ) <nsayer@MENCKENkfu.com minus author> on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:27PM (#8574397) Homepage
    I've used PCCard based wireless internet access devices in the past, and every one of them has been only "supported" on Windows, but every single one of them has simply emulated a standard COM port that required you to guess the particular "AT" command to bring up a PPP connecetion.

    With data rates as high as claimed, this one may indeed be proprietary, although it would still, I believe, be *theoretically* possible to emulate a COM port that simply provided data a lot faster than you think it should (all of these virtual COM port style devices all ignored the baud rate setting anyway).

    Can anyone confirm or deny? If you're using a Windows XP box, bring up the device mangler, properties of the device, Details, and give us the "Device Instance ID". Decoding that should tell us about the attachment (PCCard or Cardbus) and if it's Cardbus, should give us PCI vendor/device ID info.

  • EDGE (Score:5, Informative)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @08:29PM (#8574414) Journal
    Verizon has no competition at this speed and won't for a while. Carriers using the competing GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) wireless standard aren't close; for instance, AT&T's new EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution) service tops out at 200 kbps.

    So ATTWS has EDGE nation wide, and Verizons EvDO is only in a 2 markets. ATTWS already has UMTS trials in 7 major markets, at speeds faster than verizon, soon to launch commerically!

    So you dont hear it much, ATTWS has the fastest nation wide network. When Cingular takes over, and the 2 merges coverage areas, expect the best nation wide coverage, and fastest speeds around.

    I'm just wondering when Cingular starts expanding UMTS past the 7 markets, what will Verzion do? It cant offer what it doesnt have, or built out. Be interesting to see what Verizon does to counter the Cingular advantage.

    • ATTWS has the fastest nation wide network

      Yes, users of attws(like me) know how fast and good AT&T's network really is.
      The coverage itself is a damn joke when I compare it with friends who use Verizon.

    • Re:EDGE (Score:3, Interesting)

      by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 )
      Sorry, Mr. ATT/Cingular GSM apologist.

      - ATTWS/Cingular/T-Mobile all have roaming agreements. Their coverage areas are already "merged". And Verizon's coverage is still *way* better. Try going up into Wyoming with your ATT GSM phone. Then try doing it with a Verizon phone. With Verizon, I had CDMA2000 + 1xRTT in Yellowstone National Park. With ATT, I had nothing. And it's not just Wyoming. I often have trouble in major metro areas with ATT.

      - ATT's EDGE is nowhere near "nationwide". It's being rolled out in

      • Re:EDGE (Score:3, Informative)

        by BrookHarty ( 9119 )
        I shouldnt really reply to a troll, but what the heck, you are wrong on so many points.

        - Edge is deployed nation wide, ATTWS converted all coverage areas to EDGE last year, All coverage areas. If you include Tmobile and Cingular, the market combined is larger. Dont forget the UK which is all GSM. (You keep Korea). GSM phones will roam in the UK now, Verizon doesnt have any global roaming phones.

        - 1xEV-DO is 2.4Mbps UMTS is 2Mpbs on paper, real world trials are showing 1xEV-DO pushing 650Kpbs and UMTS is

        • Re:EDGE (Score:3, Insightful)

          by dokebi ( 624663 )
          Sounds like you know a lot about GSM systems but not about CDMA systems. So I would like to point out a few things.

          - 1xEV-DO is 2.4Mbps UMTS is 2Mpbs on paper, real world trials are showing 1xEV-DO pushing 650Kpbs and UMTS is pushing 2100Kpbs.

          Um, you can't push more bits than the spec allows. Also, 1xEV-* is running on 1.25MHz wide band. UMTS (WCDMA) is running on a 5MHz wide band. That's a lot more bandwidth for similar data rates.
          And there is something called 3xEV (3 x 1.25=3.75MHz) that triples
    • 1xEvDO is a stopgap. 1xEvDV is the big one, and 1xEvDV will be able to intermingle with 1xRTT.

      It'll be interesting because you can't intermingle UMTS/EDGE/GSM like that. And ATTWS/Cingular is still un-rolling-out TDMA.

      Although, they do have the hope, once they get rid of TDMA, of using the 900 band instead of the 1900 band, which gives them better wall-penetrating abilities, which is the main reason why Verizon often has good coverage.

    • Re:EDGE (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Smitty825 ( 114634 )
      First, let me say this: I think that it is important that we have more than one competing wireless standard! They will constantly try to out-innovate each other, leaving the consumer as the big winner.

      1. Verizon has committed to rolling out EV-DO nationwide. I don't work for Verizon, so I don't know any exact dates, but I would guess a year from now would be reasonable to have major city coverage.

      2. I doubt ATTWS has trial UMTS stations in all 7 markets. I work for a large cell phone manufacture
      • 2. I doubt ATTWS has trial UMTS stations in all 7 markets. I work for a large cell phone manufacture in San Diego (one of the "initial rollout markets"), and I have used a UMTS device that can receive signals on the 1900MHz band. In San Diego, I have not seen any sort of UMTS pilot. (I know a trial network exists in Dallas, though)

        You so sure? (-:

        IMHO, UMTS won't be ready to be rolled out until 2005 at the earliest in the US.

        Really. (-:

        Damn, I hate non-disclosure agreements.

        Goto ATTWS Newsroom [primus.com] and

    • Re:EDGE (Score:2, Informative)

      by my_breath_smells ( 762618 )
      EDGE is better than GPRS but is limited by the spectral inefficiency of its GSM heritage. CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) based systems are by their nature far more efficient. That's why ALL wireless (cellular) standards are migrating toward and incorporating advanced CDMA techniques and technology.

      UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) is the CDMA-based successor to GPRS (& EDGE). Its theoretical transfer ceiling (or the ceiling of the Qualcomm UMTS chipset) is 384 kbps down and 6
  • Nextel appears to be doing the same thing. Those in the Raleigh/Durham area can sign up for a free trial for a couple of months yet I think. More details are here [nextelbroadband.com].
  • The other day I was talking to some Qualcomm guys (who do the chipsets) and they told me this basically works by using an entire channel multiplexed in time. Since the service has not yet been widely deployed, the reviewer probably got most or all of the available time slots. I'd imagine the average bit rates to go down as the number of users increases.
  • What services like this work with a Powerbook??? As far as I know Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint all need windoze. Powerbook + Starbooks 802.11 via TMobile (here in NY) does NOT do it for me. Are their any Mac drivers for these things that I might have missed?

  • I Hate Verizon (Score:3, Informative)

    by Soong ( 7225 ) on Monday March 15, 2004 @09:34PM (#8574901) Homepage Journal
    It took them over a month to connect my DSL. It's a long story [bolson.org]. They are incompetant. They are probably breaking a handfull of FCC rules. I want very much to never do business with them again and I encourage others to avoid doing business with them.

    • Although they share a name, Verizon and Verizon Wireless are distinctly different companies (in behavior at least, the financial situation is unclear at best). I've hated Verizon for years myself, however I have a Verizon Wireless cell phone and have been quite pleased. Anytime I have to call customer service they practically fall over themselves to help me (not to mention there's no wait times) and always have things fixed quickly. They may not be the best company out there, but they are a far cry from

  • their 1x is fast and easy (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    get yourself a kyocera 2235 phone and a serial cable. this will allow you to use verizon's 1x network (nationwide) at 130 kbps. the neat thing about the 2235 is that there are no drivers required - the phone speaks hayes commands all by itself - i have even hooked it up to a dial-up router to share connections with multiple computers. oh and if you take the cable off, you can use the phone as a phone.
  • As I live in the raleigh area, I was quite happy to see this article [slashdot.org] a few weeks ago. I signed up and got in the six month beta. The service is still in beta stage and not allways up. The area covered is also quite small at the moment. But the speed is great. It is quite fast, I often see speeds of over 750 kbps down and 80 up. I get a ping of 50 from google.

    The downside is they assign you a private ip address, and route you through a NAT. So bittorrent and game serving stink.

    "The speed of broadband, th

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