Umts -- Engadget Mobile

umts posts

Imagine that: Bell offers video calling on the cheap

by Chris Ziegler posted Nov 4th 2009 @ 9:44PM

As expected, Bell lit up its shiny new HSPA network today, officially marking a magical transition from CDMA to 3G GSM over a year in the making as it prepares for an LTE upgrade in the coming years, and with it, a few cool phones launched -- most notably the iPhone 3GS and the Samsung Omnia II (you listening, Verizon?). That's not what really caught our eye, though: like Rogers, Bell's now offering video calling, a feature standardized with UMTS and arbitrarily disabled both by T-Mobile and AT&T in the States (though the latter offers the far less useful one-way Video Share service at $4.99 a month for just 25 minutes of usage). Granted, video calling hasn't exactly caught on like wildfire in Europe where it's widely deployed -- but when you consider that they're charging CAD $5 (about $4.70) a month for unlimited use, it seems like a worthwhile add-on even if you only use it for a few minutes now and then. It also makes AT&T Video Share -- and its pricing structure -- look even more ridiculous than it already did, doesn't it?

Bell confirms HSPA launch on November 4

by Chris Ziegler posted Nov 2nd 2009 @ 4:01PM

One-half of the worst-kept secret in all of Canada over much of the last year -- the HSPA networks being prepped by Bell and Telus -- is finally launching in just two short days' time. Bell has announced that its shiny new 21Mbps airwaves will be available to the public at large starting November 4, along with a host of devices ready to take full advantage of it; perhaps most impressive, though, is that they'll be covering fully 93 percent of the country's population out of the gate, which should make the new network a viable option immediately for would-be switchers. Your move, Rogers.

[Thanks, Shawny]

Motorola Sholes / Droid comes in US HSPA flavor, probably not US-bound

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 24th 2009 @ 7:19AM

We've been led to believe in the past that there'd be a GSM version of Motorola's mighty Sholes for markets outside the US, but this particular version that passed the FCC this week -- ID IHDP56KC5, if you must know -- has us particularly interested. Why? Well, it's packing WCDMA on the 850 and 1900MHz bands, which means it'd work on AT&T, Rogers, and HSPA newcomers Bell and Telus. We've been led to believe, though, that this particular device is destined for Latin America where 850 / 1900 is also used in favor of the 2100MHz spectrum more prevalent in Europe. That doesn't rule out Canada, but our instincts tell us that Verizon has every intention of locking up the Sholes as a US exclusive, which means AT&T is a likely no-go -- the carrier's been strangely silent on Android, anyhow, and we haven't heard a peep of recent intel suggesting they're prepping Google-powered gear in time for the holidays. Of course, enterprising individuals will probably figure out how to unlock and import this bad boy, so if you're an American and the thought of switching to Big Red for a Droid makes you physically ill, take heart that there might yet be hope.

[Via MobileCrunch]

India's 3G spectrum auction finally on for December, for real this time

by Chris Ziegler posted Sep 16th 2009 @ 9:56AM

After stone-cold blowing past its original planned start window in January, India has announced that its huge 3G spectrum auction will finally kick off on December 7 of this year. Interestingly, operators MTNL and BSNL have both already begun their respective 3G rollouts, but they're not getting out of paying fair market prices: when the auction concludes, they'll need to pay the equivalent of the high bidder's price to keep their own slices of the airwaves. After the WCDMA 3G auction wraps up, both EV-DO and WiMAX auctions kick off two days later, which means the world's second most populous country is about to get a whole heck of a lot more high-speed wireless data -- or the promise of it, anyhow. [Warning: PDF link]

Nokia Mural doesn't play nice with 3G, yanked from AT&T shelves

by Chris Ziegler posted Sep 15th 2009 @ 7:29AM

A North American Nokia with 3G that doesn't work on 3G, needs to be recalled and replaced... something about this story sounds familiar, doesn't it? Unlike the curious case of the 5800 XpressMusic, though, the Mural is a branded phone operated directly through AT&T -- so the fact that it was accidentally released without being able to connect to 3G is especially shady. It's a hardware problem which means a firmware update isn't going to magically make this particular quirk go away; replacement phones are expected next week, but if Mural owners prefer, they're welcome to come into an AT&T store and take a different device in its stead.

GSMA backpedals, changes Telus' HSPA launch window to October

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 27th 2009 @ 5:22PM

We can imagine the phone call now:

"GSM Association, how can I help you?"
"Yo, this is Telus... where'd you hear September for our HSPA launch? What are you smoking?"
"But we..."
"Yeah, 'but you' nothing. October, broham... you heard it here first. Telus out." (click)

[Thanks, Alex]

GSMA spills beans on September launch for Telus' HSPA network

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 26th 2009 @ 8:01PM

There was really never any question that Telus' shiny new HSPA network was launching this fall, but the carrier's generally been tightlipped on specifics; fortunately, standards bodies and industry associations have a funny tendency to unintentionally help fill in some of those blanks, and this time around it's the GSM Association doing the honors. The GSMA is now reporting that HSPA (well, HSDPA, anyway) will be live next month, and customers apparently can expect to be treated to the opportunity to buy some world-class devices like the Hero and BL40 to celebrate the launch. It's hard to tell what Rogers is really thinking through the poker face -- but if you look closely, we think you can see a few beads of sweat forming.

[Via MobileSyrup and HowardForums]

Nokia / InterDigital patent drama continues with ITC ruling in Espoo's favor

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 14th 2009 @ 9:54PM

Corporate legal teams are so large, so powerful, and often so evenly-matched that when you combine them with the glacial wheels of justice, patent disputes can take years to resolve -- in fact, we'd say it's the rule rather than the exception -- and inevitably, they end in anticlimactic fashion with the alleged offender agreeing to shell out some fraction of the plaintiff's original request in exchange for sweeping the whole matter under the rug. Nokia's had its fair share of such spats, and one that's been dogging the company for a good long while now is with InterDigital, which has been systematically targeting firms in the industry for years with claims that it holds patents inherently required for UMTS -- in other words, if you make UMTS gear, you automatically owe InterDigital money. Of course, Nokia has been politely disagreeing with that claim all along, and the US International Trade Commission has just issued an initial determination in its favor, saying that it doesn't violate the four patents InterDigital's all worked up over. For the record, the US ITC has been investigating this issue for a solid two years now, so yeah, if someone's ripping off your IP, don't expect a speedy resolution. The commission's initial determination will be followed by a final, binding determination this December; in the meantime; Espoo "will continue to present its case." Now that we think about it, we're pretty sure we saw this episode of Law & Order already.

Europe pulls 900MHz out of its 2G funk

by Chris Ziegler posted Jul 28th 2009 @ 3:40PM

Take yourself back -- way back -- all the way to 1987, when cellphones were still in their infancy and the nations of Europe threw together the forward-thinking GSM Directive. GSM, of course, would go on to become the world's dominant digital cellular technology, but here's the thing: it's not 1987 anymore. Sadly, part of the original Directive are still in full effect, and the 900MHz band is stuck in a world of days gone by while the bulk of mainland Europe happily whizzes along on the 3G-blessed 2100MHz spectrum up above it. Not all is lost, though -- the Council of Ministers has finally approved a plan to allow 3G and 4G services on 900MHz, which it believes will end up saving operators around €1.6 billion ($2.28 billion), ostensibly because lower frequencies allow towers to be spaced further apart from one another. Normally we'd be opposed to adding yet another band into the worldwide hodgepodge of GSM bands, but in this case, we feel like we're welcoming an old friend back into the club, you know?

[Via the::unwired]

HTC Hero approved by Global Certification Forum, rocking GSM and HSPA

by Ross Miller posted Jun 21st 2009 @ 3:28PM

We're unfortunately light on details here, but The Unwired is reporting that HTC's Hero has been approved by the Global Certification Forum, listed here as "HERO100," with support for quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE and dualband UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA at 1800/2100 MHz. With the company's touted London event just around the corner -- this Wednesday, to be exact -- we wouldn't be surprised to see the phone and its oft-rumored "Rosie" Android UI take center stage, in possibly two variations. Other than frequency bands and the associative name, the GCF isn't giving us anything else to work with, so for now just sit back and hope this uncertainty is cleared up sooner rather than later.

China Unicom gets rolling with 3G trials

by Chris Ziegler posted May 22nd 2009 @ 9:53AM

Following China Telecom and China Mobile, China Unicom has now become the last of the big three Chinese operators to begin trials of its 3G network -- christened "Wo" -- with some 55 test markets lighting up this week. Happily, the trials are purely UMTS / HSPA, which means you won't need a pesky, proprietary TD-SCDMA handset to take advantage; unfortunately, though, regular commercial service won't begin until the end of the year. In the meantime, Unicom is expecting an expansion in the September time frame that would see the high-speed service expand to some 284 cities.

Man charged $28,000 for using data card, Slingbox to watch football game

by Ross Miller posted Feb 24th 2009 @ 7:31AM

While waiting for a Caribbean cruise liner to set sail from the Port of Miami last November, a Chicago native with an AT&T wireless card and Slingbox decided to catch the Bears vs. Lions football game on his laptop. The end result? A $28,067.31 bill from for international data charges, despite the ship never leaving the harbor. Apparently the card was picking up a signal it shouldn't have, and while the bill was eventually dropped to $290.65 after a considerable number of calls to customer service, let that be a warning to mobile users traveling on the fringe of international roaming areas -- and in case you were wondering, the Bears ended up winning 27 to 23.

[Via The Register]

T-Mobile says it'll cover 200M pops in 3G by end of year

by Chris Ziegler posted Feb 17th 2009 @ 7:40AM

Shoehorned in with its Samsung Memoir announcement today, T-Mobile has announced that it plans on covering 200 million Americans with its AWS 3G network by the end of 2009. That's up from "more than 100 million people" at the end of 2008, so even if you consider "more than 100 million" to be as high as 150 million, that's still a nice boost in HSPA coverage year over year. And considering that we're expecting a barrage of new G series (or at least one or two of 'em) to launch on T-Mob in '09, we'll take just as much 3G as we can get.

Sierra Wireless intros 'ruggedified' AirCard 501 and 502 modems

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Dec 17th 2008 @ 1:07PM

Sierra Wireless has just announced two new ExpressCard modems for HSUPA wireless users. Sporting download speeds up tp 7.2Mbps and upload speeds up to 5.76Mbps, the AirCard 501 supports 850 / 1900 / 2100 MHz bands, while the AirCard 502 covers 900 / 1900 / 2100 MHz. Both are backward compatible with UMTS, EDGE and GSM networks world 'round, and they're being touted as "durable," meaning there are no little antennas or plastic pieces to break on you. That last part should be good news to all of you post-apocalyptic Road Warriors out there (or not -- they're still just regular ExpressCards, as far as we can tell). The AirCard 501 is slated for release later this month, while those of you interested in the AirCard 502 will have to wait until the first part of 2009.

[Via Slash Phone]

Small carriers, spectrum owners band together for 3G and beyond

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 7th 2008 @ 3:43PM

In the wireless biz, simple economics ensure that the little guys have a harder time of everything, including the all-important matter of getting decent handset selections from manufacturers. That's just the tip of the iceberg, though -- beyond the lack of hot hardware, rural carriers are struggling to find a way to pay for network upgrades that'll get them in line with what the rest of the world's up to. Some 28 companies so far have banded together as NextGen Mobile, a consortium designed to share the cost of network upgrades and give smaller operators a unified voice for approaching manufacturers and demanding what it calls the "next 'it' handset." Though members haven't yet been identified, everyone involved in NextGen is GSM-based and either has or intends to deploy UMTS -- and down the road, LTE. We're probably not looking at a team that's going to be challenging Verizon or AT&T for market dominance here, but if it means more people are going to have access to high-speed data faster, we're down.

[Via Phone Scoop]