Fixed Wireless For Rural Retail

Retail businesses in small towns and rural locations often find it difficult or expensive to get the broadband connectivity they need. Many go with two-way satellite or T1 lines to get the point of sale and Internet access they need. Others have discovered that 3G wireless gets them a reliable and secure connection for credit card verification at half the cost of a T1 line.

We’re all familiar with 3G as the cellular broadband service for smartphones. It is also used with USB aircards to get Internet access for laptop and notebook computers. There’s a less well known service that leverages the availability of 3G wireless signals with the robustness of high performance multi-carrier equipment and a secure VPN network. This is what you need for serious business applications.

Conventional cellular service is fine for mobile applications and has the low cost advantage for personal use. The Accel Networks fixed wireless solution adds performance reliability, coverage and security for installation in business locations. The idea behind fixed wireless is that you set it up once and forget it. It’s always on and connecting you to the data center. You can safely turn your back and forget about tweaking antennas or charging batteries. This network is managed to ensure that it is always up and running. Think of this solution as a replacement for T1 line service or a satellite dish on the roof.

Accel Networks has addressed the issue of poor rural broadband availability by leveraging the broadband signals that are available. You know that you can get cellular phone service just about anywhere. The only question is whether the carrier you are contracted with has coverage everywhere you want to go. Accel gets around the limitations of carrier coverage by contracting with multiple cellular carriers to provide coverage to over 90% of business locations in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. They have a proprietary provisioning system that determines which carrier has the most robust signal for your particular location. That data is used to configure a unique modem, router and antenna equipment package that is sent to you in a couple of weeks, although it is possible to get expedited delivery in as little as a few business days.

Once you get your wireless equipment bundle, you simply plug it in and you are up and running. No need to wait for a service technician to install an outdoor dish or roof antenna or go through a complex configuration setup. None of that is needed with the Accel Network system. You’ll be ready to go in 15 minutes after you open the shipping box. The rental of the equipment is also bundled with your bandwidth lease so that you pay by the month, without having to buy any hardware. Even at that, the cost of a bandwidth service that is competitive with many T1 installations is about half the price.

What kind of performance can you expect? You’ll get 3G data rates bursting to 1 Mbps download and 512 Kbps upload on a 99.9% available network. That’s more than adequate for most small retail applications. This connectivity is on a PCI compliant private layer 2 network that gives it a big advantage for meeting credit card verification requirements. Use it with a single card terminal or hook up all your electronic cash registers and get fast response times, especially compared to dial-up telephone line solutions.

Accel’s fixed wireless package is perfect for retail POS, security, inventory polling, tank monitoring and digital signage. Oil and gas companies have found it works great for remote site management. Other applications include lottery machine and ATM support. Specialty retail stores, convenience stores, grocery stores, automotive retailers, restaurants, payday loan stores, and car dealerships have all found that fixed wireless meets their needs.

Is your business located in a rural or out of the way location where business broadband is either hard to come by or expensive? If so, check out fixed wireless business broadband service as a high performance low cost bandwidth solution for your business location.

DROID 2 Global is a World Phone

What would you call a smartphone with a 1.2 GHz processor that can make and receive calls from over 200 countries? You’d call it the DROID 2 Global.

Just a second. This is a phone for Verizon and yet it works worldwide? How to they do that?

Verizon has excellent coverage in the United States and is the preferred carrier for tens of millions of users. The one little hiccup is that most of the world operates on the GSM standard and Verizon works on CDMA. It’s pretty much a VHS/Betamax argument. The two standards are mutually incompatible. So how does a Verizon phone work overseas?

Ah, the trick is to make it two phones in one. The Motorola DROID 2 has built in support for multiple networks. It covers WCDMA 850/1900/2100, CDMA 800/1900, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 10.2 Mbps (Category 9/10), CDMA EV-DO Release A, EDGE Class 12, GPRS Class 12, and HSUPA 1.8 Mbps. That’s pretty much everything you can use for telephone calls, Internet access and messaging.

Your DROID 2 comes with CDMA international roaming, but you’ll need to activate a pre-installed SIM card and a Global Service plan or feature to enable roaming outside of the US when using GSM and UTMS networks. You’ll want a global data plan so you can message and access the Web in those 200 countries, with 3G speeds in 125 countries. Why, it’s all the comfort of home!

Oh, by the way. The GSM feature doesn’t work on AT&T or T-Mobile networks here in the States. Verizon isn’t about to have any part of that.

Multiple network access may be the future of cell phones, at least in the near term. The idea of multiple incompatible networks is an idea who’s time has come and gone. Technology has advanced to the point where you can have both CDMA and GSM access designed into the same device. Look for this idea to spread to tablets and other 3G/4G devices.

The way things are going, it looks like most 4G wireless data networks are going to be LTE in a few years. Yet, WiMAX is enjoying popularity too. Next we need LTE/WiMAX dual-mode transceivers for smartphones and computing devices.

What other tricks does the DROID 2 Global have up its sleeve? A slide-out QWERTY keyboard for one. That makes high speed messaging and email a lot easier. The camera is a 5 Megapixel model with a dual LED flash and DVD-D1 video capture.

You also have the ability to make your DROID 2 Global a 3G mobile hotspot so you can share your data connection with up to 5 other devices.

This is truly a breakthrough smartphone design with a lot of advanced features for the Android user. Did you catch the 1.2 GHz processor? That should make your apps scream!

Are you interested in owning a cutting-edge phone with international capability? If so, learn more and order your Motorola DROID 2 Global for Verizon Wireless now. You can also browse the extensive selection of Android and other smartphones and feature phones, all at significant discounts and some even free.

HTC ThunderBolt Screams On LTE

Get your hands on this Android smartphone and it will hit you like lightning. This is the future of mobile connectivity. The HTC ThunderBolt doesn’t just run on Verizon’s LTE network. It screams.

Not so long ago you could turn a colleague’s eyes green with envy by showing off your cutting edge smartphone with amazingly fast 3G broadband. Remember those days? You couldn’t possibly be that young! It was only a few years ago. That’s how fast things have been moving in the world of mobile devices.

When 3G entered the marketplace it really did seem fast. Well, fast in the way that 56K modems seemed amazingly fast when you remembered poking along at 300 baud. There are all sorts of speeds quoted for 3G and 4G transmission, but let’s say that 3G comes in at about 1 Mbps and 4G takes that up to 10 Mbps. You know that you may get more than that or a mere fraction depending on how strong your signal is and how congested the tower is that you are connected to.

When they say that 4G is an order of magnitude times the speed of 3G, they're not kidding. All that extra speed lets you download apps faster and enjoy video experiences that might not be up to it with lower bandwidth. Also like all technology advancements, there seem to be two competitors trying to claim the market.

First out of the gate was WiMAX technology deployed by Sprint and Clearwire as CLEAR. You’ll find CLEAR capability on Sprint Android smartphones. So fast is this technology and so powerful is the signal that CLEAR is selling wireless service for both desktop and mobile applications. You still have a broadband modem on your desktop. There just aren’t any phone or cable wires running to it.

T-Mobile and Verizon have shunned WiMAX in favor of a competing technology called LTE. AT&T is also planning to deploy LTE and not WiMAX. Some pundits are predicting that LTE will be the universal standard in a few years, but WiMAX is also a worldwide standard and may be more resilient than anyone expects.

Is this the end of the line as far as speed enhancements are concerned? Not hardly. Both WiMAX and LTE are upgrading their standards to offer peak rates of at least 1 Gbps for fixed operation and 100 Mbps in mobile use. Nobody’s talking 5G yet, but those speeds suggest the order of magnitude increase that justifies a new descriptor.

The ThunderBolt itself is a 4.3 inch full touch screen (800 x480 pixels) smartphone running Android 2.2 OS with HTC Sense 2.0. It uses the Snapdragon 1 GHZ processor with 8 GB of built-in memory that’s expandable up to 32 GB via plug-in microSD card. You have enough horsepower onboard to act as a WiFi hotspot for up to 8 other devices. You also have excellent photographic capability with an 8 Megapixel 2x LED flash camera that takes HD videos plus a 1.3 Megapixel front facing camera for video chatting.

Do you live in one of the 39 initial cities where Verizon LTE has been deployed or the 150 markets where it should be installed by the end of 2011? If so, you may have a hard time resisting the urge to move up 5x to 10x the download speed of your once-amazing 3G smartphone. If so, learn more and order your HTC ThunderBolt with Verizon Wireless Service and get a tremendous discount off the suggested retail price.

Broadband Business Internet Service Options

Nearly every business today is connected to the Internet or soon will be. Even those mom and pop operations that still use the mechanical credit card machines will soon use electronic card verification, email and at least a brochure website. Businesses that are already seasoned users of the Web are looking to upgrade their bandwidth to support a move to cloud services. Let’s compare and contrast the various options you have for a broadband Internet connection.

Business Internet broadband services generally fall into two categories. They are shared and dedicated connections. Shared connections are similar in design to residential broadband services. The fact that the bandwidth is divvied up among many users lowers the cost for all. Dedicated services allocate a certain bandwidth to your connection and it does not vary regardless of what other users are doing. These services also tend to come with SLAs or Service Level Agreements that spell out technical parameters and availability commitments.

Shared bandwidth services include Cable Broadband, DSL, 3G and 4G Wireless, and two-way Satellite Internet. What they all have in common is that the actual bandwidth you’ll see varies with the number of other users and what they are doing. These services are sold as speeds “up to” a certain number of Mbps. That means what it says. You may get the full speed the connection is capable of or you may get a tenth of that at any given time.

These variations may or may not bother you. If you are running enterprise VoIP or bandwidth sensitive business processes, your variable connection may not support the performance you have in mind. On the other hand, if you use the Internet at work the same way you use it at home for email, Web browsing, or accessing pre-recorded audio and video, you may be quite satisfied with the service and delighted with the cost savings. Some services, like 3G wireless and Satellite are often used to support electronic credit card machines in lieu of using a phone line.

Dedicated Internet access connections, such as T1 lines and Ethernet over Copper, have rock solid bandwidth and generally excellent latency, jitter and packet loss characteristics. These are the same lines that you would use to interconnect business connections on a private line service. As Internet connections, they have one termination at your location and the other at your Internet service providers location.

Dedicated Internet access supports Web and email servers. The also support multiple users accessing the Internet and VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). If you are going to stream content to Internet users, you’ll want a DIA (Dedicated Internet Access) connection from the server to the Internet.

Ethernet over Copper (EoC) has become very popular as both a private line and DIA connection. You can often get twice the bandwidth you could with a T1 line costing the same price. Like T1, EoC is provisioned over twisted pair copper telco wiring to keep construction costs down.

Larger companies and those with demanding applications such as video transport move up to fiber optic services, such as OC3 to OC768 SONET and Ethernet over Fiber (EoF) 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1 Gbps GigE and 10 Gbps 10GigE bandwidth services. All of these are dedicated services with service level agreements.

How do you decide which broadband service is right for your business? Perhaps the best way is to compare prices, availability and features for the range of Broadband Business Internet Service options available for your location. Most business grade broadband services are available only for business locations and not residences, despite similarities with consumer Internet services.

A Myriad of Business Broadband Options

Business class broadband comes in more flavors that ever before. Your options include DSL, 3G & 4G Wireless, Cable broadband, Satellite, T1 lines, and Ethernet over Copper. Those are just for small business locations. Fiber optic services expand the menu for medium and large scale business users. What is it that distinguishes these broadband options and how do you choose?

You should know that there are two different types of Internet broadband access regardless of the medium used. The medium might be wireless, twisted pair copper, coaxial cable, or fiber optic strand. That’s just the physical layer. What makes even more difference is whether you are on a dedicated or shared broadband connection.

Your lowest cost options fall into the shared bandwidth category. These include DSL, Cable, 3G & 4G Wireless and Satellite. What these all have in common is that the bandwidth is shared among multiple users. A tip-off to shared bandwidth is a statement that your service speed is “up to” so many Mbps. The upper limit, be it 2 or 20 Mbps, is the maximum you’ll experience. How much you get in practice depends on how many other people are trying to use the connection at the same time.

Shared bandwidth services don’t have to be asymmetrical, but they often are. What that means is that the upload and download speed differ, often by a large amount. You might get 5 Mbps in the download direction, but only 1 Mbps in the upload direction. Why is it done this way? It’s because these services are most often used for email and Web access. When using a Web browser, you typically type in an address and then download a page of text and graphics. The upload to request the page is a very few packets. The download of everything from the page is a much larger collection of packets.

The same is true of accessing audio and video content or downloading software. It’s primarily a one-way transmission with the speed of the download much more important than the speed of the uploaded requests.

Another characteristic of shared bandwidth services is that they are promoted as “information” rather than “telecom” services. By using the information category, these services avoid regulatory constraints. What you get for your money in the way of bandwidth levels, availability, time to repair, latency, jitter, packet loss is completely up to the service provider.

Dedicated Internet Access or DIA services allocate the full bandwidth of the connection for your usage. A T1 line, for instance, has a speed of 1.5 Mbps at all times. If you aren’t using it, the line simply idles until needed. You can elect to access the Internet via your T1 line as needed, or you can keep the line busy uploading and downloading data files 100% of the time. There’s no such thing as user limits. You’ve got a pipe with a capacity of 1.5 Mbps and you can transport as many packets through it as it will carry.

T1 lines are symmetrical, also called full duplex. The bandwidth is the same in both the upload and download directions. In this case, it’s 1.5 Mbps. Ethernet over Copper, a newer competing service to T1 lines, is similar but offers more bandwidth options. You can often get 2, 3, 5, 10 and even 20 Mbps EoC service. It’s often stated in the form 10 x 10 Mbps Ethernet to show that you get 10 Mbps in the upload and 10 Mbps in the download direction.

T1 and Ethernet services are not information services. They are network telecom services, often with SLAs or Service Level Agreements. These agreements spell out what you can expect in the way of availability, time to repair, bandwidth, jitter and latency. Because these services are more costly to engineer and provide, they have higher pricing than shared bandwidth information services.

So does that mean that you always need a T1 line or Ethernet connection? Not necessarily. If your primary reason to have an Internet connection is to access information on the Web or maintain a Website and email on a remote hosting service, you may find that DSL, Cable, Satellite or Wireless service works just fine and costs half as much. Satellite and Wireless are especially useful for remote locations that aren’t within the service areas of DSL or Cable. You can use 3G and 4G cellular wireless for point of sale terminals, even at temporary locations.

On the other hand, if you want to run your own servers in-house or connect multiple business locations with a converged voice and data network, you’ll probably find that you absolutely need the more robust bandwidth services. The same is true if you are providing rather than consuming content or can’t stand having employee productivity impacted by bandwidth that varies up and down throughout the day. Would a multi-day outage put you out of business? It probably makes sense to either have a backup bandwidth service or pay up for a Service Level Agreement.

What Internet access options make the most sense for your particular business situation? Why not have a bandwidth expert call you with prices and availability for a wide range of bandwidth solutions? Then you can weigh the costs and benefits and make an better informed decision.

Internet Bandwidth Connections For Business

Internet access can be divided into three categories. Consumer residential broadband, dedicated business bandwidth, and 3G/4G mobile. Mobile broadband serves both individuals and business users. But fixed wireline is either business or consumer, but not truly both.

Why is that? There’s as cost vs performance decision that separates the two. Consumer services, and that includes home based businesses, are not even classified as telecom services. They have a designation as “information services.” What that does is keep them relatively unregulated with few commitments to the customer. In return, costs are kept low so that they are affordable by most households.

Business bandwidth is a regulated telecom service with high performance expectations. Unlike consumer connections, your business line services have a dedicated bandwidth level that is available 100% of the time. You can use that line up to its full capacity without bandwidth caps.

Business bandwidth also tends to be symmetrical. That is, you get the same bandwidth in both directions. An example is 10 x 10 Mbps Ethernet. What that means is that you get 10 Mbps in both the upload and download directions. Contrast that with consumer DSL, Cable and wireless services that favor the download direction by a large margin. That’s because most consumers download far more data than they upload. Business use tends to be more balanced.

Business bandwidth services are designed to be highly reliable. After all, the telecom companies and network carriers use the same line services themselves. Many come with an SLA or Service Level Agreement. That document defines the performance and availability of the line. If it goes down, it gets fast attention from the service provider. Most outages are restored in a matter of hours or less. There is no such commitment for consumer services. It’s a “best effort” arrangement with multi-day outages undesirable but not unknown.

Business Internet bandwidth is also called “dedicated” access. The dedicated term means that you and you alone have use of that much bandwidth. That may seem obvious, but do you realize that consumer broadband services are called “shared” and not dedicated? What the service provider does is purchase a large dedicated line service and then share that bandwidth among the user base. How much bandwidth you have at any given time is a function of how much your neighbors are also using. Bandwidth slowdowns during peak usage times are to be expected. This is why consumer bandwidth is sold as “up to” a certain Mbps.

Popular Internet bandwidth connections for business are T-Carrier, SONET and Ethernet. T-Carrier includes the popular T1 lines that offer 1.5 Mbps bandwidth and are available just about anywhere you can get telephone service. SONET is the big brother of T-Carrier. It is a fiber optic service with designations such as OC-3, OC-12, and OC-48. Ethernet can be provided on either copper or fiber. Ethernet over Copper is available in metropolitan areas at bandwidths up to 45 Mbps. Most popular are 3 Mbps and 10 Mbps Ethernet over Copper. They typically offer more Mbps for your bandwidth dollar, where available. Ethernet over Fiber offers near limitless bandwidth, although 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gbps Ethernet are popular standard line speeds.

Are you frustrated by a poorly performing Internet connection or just want to compare pricing to ensure that you are getting the most for your money? If so, get competitive pricing and availability for business Internet bandwidth services now.

Why Ethernet Broadband For Business?

When we think of broadband, what generally comes to mind is DSL, Cable Internet or cellular wireless services. But these are light duty or consumer-grade bandwidth services. Why might you become frustrated with such broadband services in business and is there an attractive alternative?

First, let’s take cellular wireless. It goes by the name 3G and, increasingly, 4G. The problem with both 3G and 4G coming from cell towers is that there is a very limited amount of bandwidth available and it has to be fairly apportioned to all the users who want it.

Smartphones gobble up bandwidth at an eye-popping rate. Get enough smartphones or netbook aircards in a particular area and the whole network can be brought to its knees. That’s why most carriers now have monthly bandwidth limits with steep overage penalties. Satellite and some 4G carriers take a different approach. Instead of charging for overage, they throttle down bandwidth for heavy users. If you use too much in a given period, they slow down your access to give others a chance.

While out and about, cellular broadband may be your best bet simply because service is so readily available compared to everything else. If the cells are too congested, you can find a WiFi hotspot and likely get better throughput there.

If you want or need wireless broadband service for an office with multiple users, consider a fixed wireless option designed for business. They’re mostly available in large metropolitan areas. If you can get this service, you’ll be hooked up quickly and have generous amounts of bandwidth at your disposal. An outdoor antenna is installed on your building to a strong signal for reliable service.

DSL and Cable broadband were designed for consumers. The carriers bend over backwards to keep the price low so that most consumers can afford the service. But they achieve that by having everyone share the available bandwidth. Your service might offer “up to 10 Mbps” of download bandwidth. Whether or not you get anywhere near that depends on what your neighbors are doing online. When everybody starts heavily accessing the Internet, the line speed for each user slows and sometimes slows to a crawl.

Businesses that need reliable, dependable and fast Internet service often find themselves frustrated at keeping up productivity on services that cater to people downloading music and videos at home. The classic solution is the T1 line. T1 lines are dedicated, in the sense that you have full use of the available 1.5 Mbps bandwidth. T1 is highly reliable, gets fast repair service if anything ever does go wrong and is “unlimited” in that you can run it full speed 24/7 all month. If you need more bandwidth, you can “bond” more T1 lines up to about 10 Mbps both upload and download.

The one thing that makes businesses sometimes hesitate at installing one or more T1 lines is that the cost is several times what you pay for those consumer services. Even though the cost is well worth it when you consider the lost business or productivity that results from flaky Internet service, there is now an even better option for business use. That service is Ethernet broadband.

Ethernet broadband is a high speed dedicated wireline service that can be provided to your business location on either copper wiring or fiber optic cable, depending on bandwidth. Popular speed options are 3 and 10 Mbps for smaller businesses, 100 to 1000 Mbps for medium size operations, and 1 Gbps and up for large corporations. Your line speed is scalable, so you can generally have it increased up to the full capacity of the installed port with only a phone call to your provider.

Best of all, Ethernet is often the best value for your broadband dollar. A 3 Mbps Ethernet connection is often about the same price as a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. A 10 Mbps Ethernet service is easily affordable by most businesses.

Would you be interested in switching to highly reliable, high speed Ethernet services if the price were attractive? Why not check out Ethernet broadband service prices right now? See how much bandwidth you can get for your budget.

MiFi Points The Way to Wireless Transition

Verizon Wireless just made an amazing announcement. They will be selling the Apple iPad in their stores. But aren’t Apple and AT&T exclusive partners? Indeed. So, why is Verizon selling a product that won’t work on their network? ...Or will it?

Yes, it will. How Verizon accomplished this clever feat of engineering points the way to the future of wireless broadband. Actually, not the future future. Just the immediate future. Call it the era of wireless transition.

Wireless technology has pretty much developed along two lines. One is the telecom carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. There are other players in the cellular wireless game, but they are simply private branded versions of the big four within the US. What characterizes the major carriers is that their offerings are proprietary. What works on AT&T won’t work on Verizon Wireless, and vice versa.

The other wireless path is an industry standard known a WiFi. It comes in flavors such as a, b, g, and n. But unlike telecom carrier services there is enough commonality and backwards compatibility that pretty much any WiFi device will work on pretty much any wireless router, hotspot or access point.

What Verizon has cleverly done is marry the two lines. They can’t get into the iPad through the front door, so the come in the back door. How? Very simple. They use an interface device to convert cellular to WiFi. That device is the MiFi. The Verizon MiFi is a little box about the size of a pack of cards. Inside is a cellular radio, a WiFi radio, a battery and some circuitry to make it all work. All you do is push a button to turn it on and the converter works automatically. It allows up to 5 wireless devices to gain access to the Verizon 3G wireless network as if they were Verizon-enabled to begin with.

The Verizon iPad will consist of an Apple iPad and a Verizon MiFi bundled together. They are separate pieces of equipment, but the MiFi will slip into your pocket or bag so it isn’t intrusive. At first blush, it may seem like having to carry around two pieces of equipment instead of just one is a big disadvantage for Verizon compared to AT&T. But Verizon may get the last laugh after all. The MiFi provides 3G connectivity for your iPad, but it also provides 3G connectivity for your other devices that don’t have their own 3G service built-in. That includes your laptop computer, netbook, games, and even your Apple iPod. If you had to buy separate 3G service for each device, you’d go broke. But one MiFi can serve whatever gadgets need connectivity, as long as they are WiFi enabled.

Verizon isn’t the only one with a MiFi. Novatel, maker of the MiFi, offers an unlocked version for GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile. There’s a MiFi specifically for Virgin Mobile. Sprint goes one further with their Sierra Wireless Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot. It works on both the Sprint 3G Mobile Broadband network and its 4G WiMAX network. CLEAR offers a similar 3G/4G converter called Clear Spot.

Even these converters are transitional technology. Smartphones, starting with the Droid X by Motorola and Samsung Epic, have the cellular to WiFi hotspot capability built-in. This is likely to become a standard feature on smartphone designs, as WiFi and Bluetooth are the industry standard wireless technologies. WiFi has the greater transmission range.

Down the road a few years, the tide of wireless seems to be going in the direction of standardizing on LTE as a 4G standard. Cellular phone may give way to VoIP over LTE. At that point it will be hard to tell the difference between a mobile phone, a smartphone and a digital device like a tablet computer. Perhaps a single smart radio chip will provide universal wireless connectivity. Just pick your carrier and sign up for a service plan after you buy the device. The wireless transition era will be complete.

T-Mobile 4G in the Puget Sound!

After installing Android 2.1 on my HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1 (Thank you Cyanogen) I noticed that I now sometimes have an H where it shows my data connection type in the Android notification bar. The H data connection symbol seems to only appear when I'm in a 3G data location and using a data intensive application.

The H data symbol = 4G data speeds! (aka HSDPA on T-Mobile)

Upon closer inspection it looks like T-Mobile quietly finished rolling out it's 3G data connection late last year, which means it's time to start working on 4G!   See this DailyTech article on the 3g roll out.

So what does all this mean for us?  3G got us all to 3.6 Mbps downlink rates.  4G data speeds will double that of 3G and will hit up to 7.2 Mbps.  The next step will then be 4G+ or HSDPA+ and apparently is currently in best testing only in Philadelphia.  HSPA+ will bring download speeds of up to 56 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 22 Mbps!

In Jan, 2010 people in the Seattle / Puget Sound area have been noticing the H data connection symbols and have reported faster data speeds as seen here at the XDA Forums.

I've read in the past that any and all Android phones will be able to use T-Mobiles brand of 4G because these increased speeds are really an improvement on older technology. This goes for the phones and the equipment that used on the cellular towers that currently run the 3G network.

With just a flip of a switch T-Mobile can "magically" make every 3G tower a 4G connection!

If you're in a location where you currently get 3G speeds and have an Android phone get to work upgrading your OS you might just have access to 4G speeds and not even know it!

According to Wikipedia T-Mobile has announced that it will begin to roll out 4G+ in their top tier markets sometime in 2010.  It looks like this is already happening but it appears that the Nexus One would be the only phone that T-Mobile has officially given access to the 4G network seeing as it runs Android 2.1.

At launch next month the HTC EVO will only have 4G speeds in under 20 cities total.  The closest cites to me would be Tacoma and Seattle.  Hopefully at work in Renton I'll be able access the 4G network from Sprint.

So there you go kids, a free 4G data speed upgrade for Android phones on T-Mobile that's available RIGHT NOW!  Who says that the Sprint EVO is the only phone that gets to have all the 4G fun?  It looks like if you have Android 2.1 and a T-Mobile phone you get 4G before before the 1st official 4G phone ever comes out in the U.S.!

On that note I'll get back to you all next month when I have a Sprint EVO in hand and can give everyone more feed back.

3G 4G Mobile Bandwidth

The Internet long escaped the desktop and moved onto the mobile phone. The problem is that it has been following a similar learning curve that took us from 300 baud telephone modems to DSL & Cable broadband and now to high speed wireless and fiber optic service. Mobile bandwidth is undergoing a steady evolution, with the demand for higher and higher speeds pushing the technology. Let’s have a look at what’s available and what’s coming soon.

The benchmark today is 3G wireless. This service offers somewhere between 500 Kbps and 1.5 Mbps and is owned and operated by the cellular carriers. The same company that sells you your cell phone minutes also sells you 3G wireless Internet access. The signals come from the same towers, so if you are in a dead spot for phone reception you won’t be surfing the Web or watching videos either.

The 3G build-out has been proceeding at something of a panic level, especially since the introduction of the Apple iPhone. The first iPhone used the AT&T EDGE network, which is actually called a 2.5G network. That means it has considerably less bandwidth than the newer HSPA or High Speed Packet Access 3G network, perhaps as little as a tenth as much. HSPA is offered by GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile and is also known as HSUPA.

A competing 3G service is offered by CDMA carriers Verizon and Sprint using a different technology. Theirs is known as EV-DO and EV-DO Rev A. Download bandwidths are in the range of 1 to 2 Mbps, depending on signal conditions.

Note that 2.5G and 3G cellular broadband not only gives cell phones the ability to download videos and surf the Web but also gives you the option of adding 3G to your laptop computer. The functionality is added using a plug-in wireless modem aircard. These are sold with data-only service plans, since they don’t work as telephones. The aircard and wireless service has been a boon to field sales people who don’t always have the ability to set up shop within a WiFi hotspot.

The newest service on the market is called 4G mobile bandwidth. Right now the run away leader is the WiMAX service offered by Clearwire and Sprint under the CLEAR trademark. WiMAX is yet another wireless standard, albeit a global one not associated with the cellular phone system. WiMAX offers a powerful signal that covers an entire city. It’s strong enough to penetrate buildings so that you can have the same WiMAX broadband on your desktop and laptop computers. Download bandwidth typically ranges between 3 and 6 Mbps, considerably faster than 3G networks.

The cellular companies aren’t sitting still, though. Both AT&T and Verizon plan to deploy another standard called LTE to compete with WiMAX. It will likely be a year or two before these two 4G technologies are competing head to head in most populated areas. For now, WiMAX gives you the most mobile bandwidth at the lowest cost in the cities and states where it is available.

Houston, We’ve Got A 4G Solution

How’s your broadband experience? Lovin’ it or... You know. The speed really drags. It’s dead half the time. Even when it works, it seems to cost a lot more than it should. Worst of all, there are lots of places, even in town, where you can’t even get connected.

Well, you won’t have to put up with that treatment anymore if you happen to be living in Houston, Texas and nearby locations such as The Woodlands, Pasadena, Baytown, Mission Bend, Missouri City, Lake Jackson, Alvin, Conroe, or League City. CLEAR, the new 4G wireless broadband service being deployed by Sprint and Clearwire, has installed their WiMAX Internet service and it’s up and running right now. Can you get it? Enter your zip code and see if you’ve got coverage.



So, is it only the lucky residents of Houston that can get 4G wireless broadband service? No, not by a long shot. There are 10 states and 30 cities that are already on the air with WiMAX service. Others are in the works right now. That’s millions and millions of users who have the opportunity to cut the cord and get away from DSL and Cable if they aren’t satisfied.

One of the unique features of this service is that you can get both fixed and mobile service on the same account. Remember -- this is wireless broadband. That gives you the opportunity to be working on a project at your desk and then take it on the road using the same broadband service. You don’t need to pay twice to get desktop and mobile WiMAX service from different providers. CLEAR will give you both at an attractive price.

What kind of bandwidth is available? The service runs at 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps for downloads and up to 1 Mbps for uploads. That compares favorably with the better DSL and Cable services and completely blows away 3G cellular broadband.

Do you live in the Houston area? If not, are you curious to see if 4G wireless broadband is available for your location? If so, simply Enter your zip code and see if you’ve got coverage.