>
New Topic
>
Reply<
Esato Forum Index
>
Regional >
Americas
> The United States of America Forum
Bookmark topic
The mobile phone situation here is deplorable. Those of us who want the latest and greatest must find them overseas or at a dodgy import shop, unlock (and maybe unbrand), and then put up with missing or incomplete features due to our stone age cellular situation. Yeah, it's improving, but it sure seems to take forever. We don't even have full rollout of 3G here yet. The carriers are testing it in some of the major cities and promise to complete the rollouts Any Day Now™. So for now we GSM users make due with EDGE in most areas. And if we are lucky enough to be in an area deemed worthy of a 3G trial then we pay through the nose for it. The carriers here are a bunch of complete and utter tossers.
I feel better now that I've gotten that out of my system.
--
Posted: 2007-05-10 03:06:36
Edit :
Quote
Knight where you living now then?
lol has anyone went into a cell store over there and went mad with the sales advisors? about the latest phones that they don't seem to be able to get
btw all this is like the movies you guys get them before they hit anywhere else first so it's just abit of luck that we have the latest Mobiles here in the UK and rest of Europe
--
Posted: 2007-05-10 15:03:57
Edit :
Quote
Residentevil Posts: > 500
As high tech as it gets for SE here in the Store is a W810 from Cingular.
--
Posted: 2007-05-10 22:11:57
Edit :
Quote
if thats the only high-tech
then id like to see what the other high tech brands are over there in terms of phone sales
--
Posted: 2007-05-10 23:49:28
Edit :
Quote
On 2007-05-10 15:03:57, miss uk wrote:
btw all this is like the movies you guys get them before they hit anywhere else first so it's just abit of luck that we have the latest Mobiles here in the UK and rest of Europe
True, that. We have the entertainment capital of the world on our left coast. But try to find decent coverage of Tri-Nations Rugby over here! Looks like I'll just have to keep playing club rugby and dream of making the All Blacks.
--
Posted: 2007-05-11 04:13:25
Edit :
Quote
Hmm stop changing the subject
--
Posted: 2007-05-12 00:15:13
Edit :
Quote
@miss uk, I live in El Salvador for the time being. I'll be here until roughly July or August 2008.
@rambo, stop complaining about the deplorable phone situation in the US. I agree as a developed nation we should have a better phone system, but it has as much to do with the FCC as it does with the carriers. The FCC rarely opens up phone bands and restricts what bands are in use. That is what caused our problems with different bands. Carriers carry what they assume will make them money and most manufacturers are not in any rush to build lots of advanced phone for a small market dominated by two GSM carriers with alternate bands and looking for competitive distribution deals.
Still the situation there in the US is way better than 75% of the world. Here cell phone technology has usurped traditional phones because the cost of development is much cheaper and to an extent the costs can be dished off on the consumer. With cell towers you put it up and thats it, lots of customers now have access if they choose to buy a handset. However here few parts even have GPRS let alone EDGE and 3G is just unthinkable since most areas have spotty reception. Price gouging is huge here since El Salvador adopted the dollar as the official currency. And even though I am not quite paying US prices for my minutes, it comes close. All this in a country woefully underemployed and under payed.
So I say count your blessings. Right now I'm getting by with my old T616 because for some reason El Sal has the 850 band. And still my phone seems like a technological monster compared to all the nokia 1100s floating around.
--
Posted: 2007-05-14 19:59:38
Edit :
Quote
It's not all the FCC's fault. The 900, 1800, and 2100 MHz bands were already occupied by other users in the US before mobile telephony came along. They did the best they could with what little they had.
I blame the world GSM Association. I bet they deliberately picked GSM frequencies know to be available everywhere except the US. And now we're particularly screwed when it comes to 3G. Even more so since each of our 2 (!) carriers purchased completely different spectra
--
Posted: 2007-05-16 22:59:49
Edit :
Quote
Residentevil Posts: > 500
Well we have to see which 3G band tmob is deploying this year.
850band in El Salvador. They probably bougth old, used towers from Cingular, now the new AT&T (again)
--
Posted: 2007-05-17 22:16:39
Edit :
Quote
@ Hlcn
I agree with you, its not all the FCC’s fault on the North America UMTS spectrum. When the GSM world decided to operate on 2100 MHz, that spectrum is already been allocated to military & commercial satellite band.
Were not (particularly) screwed when it comes to 3G we have HSDPA at the speed of 1.8, 3.6, 7.2 and 14.4 Mbit/s downlink, we’re just not compatible with the European units.
@ Resident
I don’t think T-mobile will buy any Cingular old and use towers because they are operating at (UMTS/HSDPA) 850/1900 MHz band. According to eWeek article "T-Mobile will announce UMTS on 1700 MHz and 2100 MHz," said analyst Roger Entner, vice president of the London-based research and consulting company Ovum.
Entner said that the U.S. frequencies are different from those in Europe and elsewhere, and for that reason, T-Mobile's UMTS solution will work only in the United States until new devices with multiple frequency support are developed, despite the fact that UMTS is a global standard.
--
Posted: 2007-05-18 20:53:57
Edit :
Quote
New Topic
Reply
