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Wireless Networking Communications Networking The Internet United States Hardware

Nextel Broadband: Take Two? 55

Posted by timothy from the future-unevenly-distributed dept.
Atryn writes "Many of you may recall the Nextel broadband trial of Flarion's Flash-OFDM Technology in Raleigh, N.C. last year. They have since shut down that trial. Now, Nextel has announced a new broadband trial of UMTS TD-CDMA in Washington, D.C. for this fall. Other coverage here and company press releases from Nextel and IP Wireless."
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Nextel Broadband: Take Two? More

Nextel Broadband: Take Two?

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  • 0 to /.ed (Score:2, Insightful)

    by NIK282000 ( 737852 )
    Before any post are made. I hope this isnt repersentitive of their service.

  • Broadband over CDMA (Score:4, Informative)

    by Em Adespoton ( 792954 ) <slashdotonly.1.adespoton@spamgourmet.com> on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @05:06PM (#12945628) Homepage Journal
    ...meanwhile, Allstream (AT&T) and Fido [inukshuk.ca] have had commercial 2.5MHz CDMA broadband in place in this city for over a year.
    • Just out of curiosity, how is the parent offtopic?

      The news posted talks about broadband trials coming out around the world, emphasizing CDMA 2.5MHz broadband by NexTel. The article that I linked to shows that in Canada and Mexico, 2.5MHz CDMA has been commercially viable for over a year.

      My point was that the information about NexTel is nothing earth shattering, only reporting that a company that has failed with one cellular broadband technology is now running a pilot of technology that has been proven

    • I think you mean 2.5 GHz.
    • 1X (Broadband over CDMA) is a greate technology, i consider it even more reliable than GPRS, the only problem is the high latency of the conection. I really want to try it with an FWT instead of a cellphone, so i can atach a directional antena, i actually did it with a Dowtel FWT, and i hacked the antena by connecting a standard 2.4ghz reflector corner antena (The cellphone is in 1900 mhz but it should work anyway) and connecting it with a homemade cable (4m of rg58 + 2 TNC connectors). The problem is that

  • Articles, In case of Slashdotting (Score:3, Informative)

    by Armadni General ( 869957 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @05:08PM (#12945647)
    FIRST ARTICLE:

    Nextel Commits to TD-CDMA Trial

    By Susan Rush
    June 29, 2005
    NEWS@2 DIRECT

    Nextel Communications is the latest carrier to test the waters of UMTS TD-CDMA technology. The carrier plans to launch a trial using IPWireless' equipment in Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas in during the third quarter.

    Nextel will use the trial to test network performance, customer satisfaction and digital convergence capabilities, among other things. The trial, which will last a minimum of six months, will be conducted in Nextel's 2.5 GHz spectrum.

    "The upcoming trial in the Washington, D.C. area is an example of our commitment to evaluate the best available broadband options..." says Nextel Chief Technology Officer Barry West.

    Select customers in Washington, D.C.; Arlington, Alexandria and Reston Va.; and Bethesda, Md. will participate in the trial. Nextel says it has no plans to make a service based on the technology commercially available at this time.

    IPWireless reports Nextel is one of roughly 30 trial or deployments of UMTS TDD around the world.

    Earlier this month, T-Mobile Czech Republic said it plans to commercially launch a wireless broadband network using IPWireless' UMTS TDD technology. The network will be up and running in Prague by year's end. T-Mobile Czech Republic's goal is to expand its coverage nationwide by mid-2006, the company said at the time of the announcement.

    In March, Orange announced a TD-CDMA trial with its enterprise customers in France using IPWireless' UMTS TDD equipment.

    Separately, Nextel announced it has enhanced its network in several Georgia counties to enable the delivery of its cellular, Direct Connect digital walkie-talkie services, Group Connect and wireless data services including text messaging, mobile e-mail and Web access.

    The upgrade will enable these services to be offered in Athens, Barrow, Carroll, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, Douglas, Hall, Heard, Henry, Pickens and White counties.

    Nextel first began offering service in Georgia 10 years ago.

    SECOND ARTICLE:

    Nextel Moves Forward With New Broadband Wireless Trial
    Posted: 06/29
    From: TechDirt

    Nextel got a lot of attention last year when they announced their Raleigh-Durham broadband wireless trial, using FLASH-OFDM technology from Flarion. The offering was reasonably priced (no, seriously) and offered high speed, mobile broadband access all over the region. In fact, there were plenty of rumors that Nextel was all set to announce Flarion's technology would be the basis of their next generation network. Then, along came the Sprint merger, along with Sprint's own plans to offer EV-DO broadband wireless technology. Still, many people thought that the combined Sprint-Nextel (officially named: Sprint) might offer two levels of service: an EV-DO offering focused mainly on mobile phones, and another offering aimed at DSL replacement. The combined company would most likely have enough spectrum to handle both types of offerings, and given Nextel's trials with Flarion, it seemed like it might be the technology they would use. Then, without much warning, Nextel shut down the Flarion trials, despite saying it had been a tremendous success. Almost everyone who tried it said they loved the service, and the new assumption was that Nextel figured they would just go with EV-DO once the merger was complete. Still, Nextel is famous for being incredibly thorough in trials that they do, and while the Flarion trial got all the publicity, they were still testing out plenty of other technologies in the lab (including EV-DO, pre-WiMax equipment, and UMTS-TDD). With that background, some may still find it surprising that, just ahead of the merger deal, Nextel is announcing trials with IP Wireless for UMTS-TDD technology in Washington DC. Unlike the Raleigh-Durham trials, this won't be entirely open to the public -- just to certain select Nextel customers. However, it's a pretty big win for IP Wireless, who seems to be on a roll, lately.

    • +Press Release (Score:2, Informative)

      by Armadni General ( 869957 )
      Sorry, forgot this. It's the same on both sites, so yeah.

      Press Release

      Nextel to Launch Wireless Broadband Trial on 2.5 GHz in Washington, D.C. Area with IPWireless; Trial will offer a range of wireless interactive multimedia and wireless broadband services using IPWireless' UMTS TD-CDMA solution
      RESTON, Va. & SAN BRUNO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 29, 2005--Nextel Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NXTL) will deploy a wireless broadband trial based on UMTS TD-CDMA technology from IPWireless, the companies a

  • Nextel Broadband Flash-OFDM (Score:5, Informative)

    by TimeTraveler1884 ( 832874 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @05:22PM (#12945749)
    I subscribed to this service when it was available in the Raleigh area. It was actually quite speedy, when in the right place. The service was very touchy to location, I could barely get any service in my aparment, because of all the trees near-by. However, in RTP, the service was excellent.

    My worst experience in the whole trial was when they screwed up my billing.
    • How fast was "quite speedy"?
      How was the latency over that link?
      And what kind of limits did they put to the bandwidth use?
      I'd guess they are limiting it somehow, because it's shared radio link.
      I'm interested because one major company won bidding on permission to build flash-OFDM network here in Finland to old, now obsolete 450MHz frequency band. They're planning to have the preliminary network up and running at september 2006 and the entire country covered at 2009.
      • I piad for the fastest service at $70 I got 3Mbitss down and 740Kbits up. But I had to be in the best location to get that fully; usually meaning outdoors.

        The latency was surprising low, I can't recall exactly, but it was acceptable for wireless service like this and you could probably tolerate playing games over it

        I never encountered bandwidth limitation myself. But I was not exactly using this to file whore, since I have an 8Mbs cable-modem pipe.
  • With all the WiMAX buzz in the wireless internet industry, it's interesting that a company like Nextel is using UMTS TD-CDMA for mobile wireless.

    Makes you wonder if it's because of the slow development of WiMAX, or if it's just not as good a technology as it's being touted as.
    • IIRC, WiMax doesn't work when moving. Which is a showkiller for cellphones.
      • Must... be on... all the time... need Internet in car... in bathroom... in speeding train... cannot... survive... without Internet... email coming... never stops... got to... read it all... don't have sex... must get... instantaneous stock quotes... on cell phone... while being dragged... by out of control... bus on bumpy... road... screw wife and kids... just give me Internet... while moving... can't stand no Internet while... driving car... backwards down... one-way road
        • ... just give me Internet... while moving... can't stand no Internet while... driving car... backwards down... one-way road

          Needs to be finished with "... BAM!!!"
    • Mobile WiMax doesn't exist. It's still being designed, and there might be products in 2007 if you're lucky.
    • Who is using "WiMAX?" It's the biggest piece of marketing bullshit I've ever seen. I'm dealing with a company called Clearwire right now that's all up about their WiMAX solution. Except it's CDMA too. If you read the fine print it's called "WiMAX class service" but Intel paid them money to commit to WiMAX. The sales reps get really uneasy when you start asking them about if they'll ever want to switch us to WiMAX or not.

    • Re:No WiMAX (Score:3, Informative)

      by Atryn ( 528846 )
      Makes you wonder if it's because of the slow development of WiMAX, or if it's just not as good a technology as it's being touted as.
      This comparison [wirelessne...gnline.com] might help a bit. It's not comprehensive (and sounds a bit biased) but it does talk about the advantages of TD-CDMA over WiMAX.

  • From what I read, TDCDMA is easilly affected by interference which can drastically reduce the data rate. If this is true then I would think it wouldn't be reliable enough for standard mobile phones travelling through bad coverage areas. Maybe a good candidate for fixed locations as a WIMAX competitor? Based on these observations, I take NEXTEL's statement "We have no plans for a commercial offering at this time" to mean they don't know what exactly it's good for yet:P
  • God dammit, why SO FAR? I just got everything unpacked!
  • In soviet russia, broadband tries YOU!

  • Nextel is dead... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Mindragon ( 627249 ) *
    They were "merged" with Sprint. Sprint is already going with EV-DO (like Verizon) for everything...Sprint is the "parent" company of the merger so I wouldn't be betting on anything from Nextel for a while...

    • Re:Nextel is dead... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jmilne ( 121521 )
      Sprint and Nextel haven't merged yet. They're still waiting on approval from the government, as well as the share holders. On the off-chance that the merger falls through, it's going to be necessary for Nextel to have a higher speed data solution.
    • Ther merge hasn't been approved by the FCC yet and there are signs that it may not happen [rednova.com] at all if some Sprint partners have their way.

  • GO GO ACRONYM PATROL! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @05:57PM (#12946015)
    I had to look a bunch of stuff up just to figure out WTF is happening in this story. Here's what I found. Posted as AC to avoid getting karma for quoting Wikipedia

    Nextel
    NEXTEL Communications (NASDAQ: NXTL) is a telecommunications firm based in the United States which provides a national mobile communications system. Unlike other cellular operators, NEXTEL utilizes the specialized mobile radio band (SMR) and was one of the first operators in the United States to offer a national digital cellular coverage footprint.
    Flarion
    Flarion Technologies is a telecommunications company specializing in broadband access to the Internet and wireless technology. It was founded by Rajiv Laroia in 1996 and is based in Bedminster, New Jersey, USA.
    UTMS
    Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is one of the third-generation (3G) mobile phone technologies. It uses W-CDMA as the underlying standard, is standardized by the 3GPP, and represents the European answer to the ITU IMT-2000 requirements for 3G Cellular radio systems.
    UMTS is sometimes marketed as 3GSM, emphasizing the combination of the 3G nature of the technology and the GSM standard which it was designed to succeed.
    W-CDMA
    W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) is a type of 3G cellular network. W-CDMA is the technology behind UMTS (a.k.a. 3GSM) and is allied with the 2G GSM standard.
    More technically, W-CDMA is a wideband spread-spectrum 3G mobile telecommunication air interface that utilizes code division multiple access (or CDMA the general multiplexing scheme, not to be confused with CDMA the standard).
    TD-SCMA
    TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) is a 3G mobile telecommunications standard, being pursued in the People's Republic of China by the Chinese Academy of Telecommunications Technology (CATT), Datang and Siemens AG, in an attempt to develop home-grown technology and not be "dependent on Western technology" [1]. It is based on spread spectrum CDMA technology. The launch of an operational system is projected by 2005.
    What's TD-CDMA then?
  • had the service here in Raleigh.. It was nice.. didn't like how the basic plans where already NAT'ed so had to spend a little more than i wanted.. but it was all good.. till it stoped working (they canned it..) i hate it when they do that.. your paying for something that is worth while and they jsut say.. sorry we don't offer it any more and no there is no alternitive..
    • I too had the service here in Raleigh and quite enjoyed it. It worked great and I really didn't have too many problems. It was quite disappointing when it died.

    • I also was enrolled in the trial in Raleigh. It was nice, but finding a free hotspot in Chapel Hill is pretty easy, so I used it rarely.

      Since the trial ended, I graduated and moved to DC! I wonder if they want a comparison tester . . . sign me up!

  • I hope they manage to do it better than their wireless service was with the IM 1100 [nextel.com]. That was an absolute piece of crap. I could get a connection, but don't expect to do anything on it. Latency was in the high 3 digit range (like 900ms pings), and even for a simple web page, you'd be waiting for 5 minutes.

    The only practical thing I ever got it to do was send a webcam feed, while I was driving. One small picture every 5 minutes was ok for that.

    The only upside was that it worked under Windows a
  • What about Craig McCaw's other offering: http://www.clearwire.com/ [clearwire.com]? I haven't seen much discussion on slashdot about this. I am currently connected through this service (as of last night). So far, so good ... but time will tell. Clearwire is currently offered in 9 metro-areas in the US, with 3 announced as 'coming soon', and is not a 'trial' platform.
  • I find the Nextel service to be rude and annoying. We got away from walkie-talkies to go to phones, why go back? And if you live in the sticks it doesn't work anyway /Vote Quimby
  • Hope NexTel have better luck with their IPWireless deployment than Woosh Wireless [woosh.co.nz] have had in New Zealand.

    While UMTS TD-CDMA has great potential, it just hasn't worked right in NZ, with average end-user latency of 250ms - just over the air. Add another 200ms to get to a website in the US (or another 250ms to get to another Woosh user) and it's like using satellite.

    Upstream bandwidth has been reported at a paltry 38-64kbps, while download has not fared much better, averaging 256kbps. I have used several W
  • "Nextel" and "modern technology" pretty much don't belong in the same sentence together, unless it's a sentence like this one stating how little they have in common. The phone I got a little over a year ago has a monochrome screen, and no Java support. Go Nextel.

    Sure, their radio coverage is superb, but their phones are like 1998 models, and their packet services are pretty much a joke. Not to mention inaccessibly overpriced.

    • Re:Nextel? More like Previoustel hur hur. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The phone I got a little over a year ago has a monochrome screen, and no Java support. Go Nextel.

      Wow, slashdot users can be finicky. Whenever a new phone announcement gets posted its all "why can't they just have simple phones that don't do all this fancy stuff??!!?". But here a carrier is being criticized for having such a phone.

      FYI -- Nextel was the first US Carrier to launch J2ME phones. We have had color screen java phones on the market for about 3 years. Just because you didn't buy one does

  • I know this is not on the topic, but I believe /. is the place to ask.

    I work with a team of developers who write a program for SIM card management, and we plan to add support for Nextel iDEN cards.

    Does anyone know where the specifications of these cards can be found?
  • If all of the US carriers just went to 3GSM... we'd have better phones... faster... and the underlying infrastructure (things like mobile sites/towers) would be cheaper as well.

    Granted, they'd have to be tuned to different frequencies here in the states... but the prices would come down a bit since the market would be much larger. Hell, Nortel and Nokia are probably making hardware that simply has modules that are swapped in depending on the intended geographic location...

    It makes too much sense, I guess.

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