April
2008 19
2008 19
Even AT&T advises you to use WiFi
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Journalists sometimes portray WiFi as the enemy of operator based mobile services. But if you take a look at this email I got today from AT&T you will see that what we reply at Fon is true. That mobile operators are concerned about apps that use a lot of data and prefer that traffic to go over WiFi. Even with HSDPA if people start downloading 300 MB movies for the iPhone network costs are unsustainable.
This is why WiFi has a role to play alongside GSM/3G and other mobile technologies.
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Paul RODTS on April 19, 2008 ·
If telecoms want 3G to work with acceptable speeds, they will need in a city area, about each 400 to 500 meters, 3G antennas (except if not many users are connected to the base station, the serving cells will be a bit bigger). There are many drop-out problems while sending large data files via networks at 1.800 or 1.900 Mhz. The use of a lower frequency ( 600 or 700 Mhz ) is a more realistic approach for sending data, in this case they need an antenna every 1 to 1,2 km. A roll out for a good and always fast working network at high speeds with Umts/Egde/Gprs/Hsdpa is unrealistic due to the ‘not in my backyard’ syndrome. 3G and Wlan technologies must cooperate. 3G is only fine if the antenna is very close to you…Also most telecoms don’t have enough capacity on their network if everybody starts downloading via 3G !
(Trust me, I am an expert in this field..)
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