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I found myself thinking of many issues about the US telecommunication progress, and mostly comparing to London or Europe. How come everything there (US) takes so long ? How come there are no 3G plans for the near future ? how come the networks there are still CDMA and TDMA ??? and only recently they've discovered the GSM? (T-mobile, etc). How come they've never heard of plans such as the "Virgin" plan in the UK, or the "Orange" plan in Israel, (u dont pay if u dont talk, but its not a PrePaid and the tariffs are great). How come the P900 is not yet officially out there, only by private retailers? (except for expansys.us which is a UK company and they sell UK units in the US) and thats after it's been officially out in Europe for few monthes now.
And how come they pay for INCOMING calls on their mobiles???
Correct me if I'm wrong- is the US far behind Europe by far? And are they gonna close the gaps some day ?
GSM 1900.. ye right
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Posted: 2004-01-19 04:30:15
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The US has allways been a bit behind on these mobile telecom issues.
Unfortenatly
US has been well behind the rest of the world as well.
I don't know the reason for this but it seems to be the sad fackt that this is noe a prioritised area for neigther manufacturers or network suppliers.
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Posted: 2004-01-19 20:24:12
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GSM 1900 was an unfortunate necessity as 1800 simply is
not available in the US.
As for being behind, I agree. However as far as 3G is concerned and some WCMDA based services, I think it's not impossible USA may catch up
Check out what Qualcomm is doing, hve a look at how many asian mobiles are said to be coming to the US.
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Posted: 2004-01-19 21:03:28
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But what do you think about the quality ? Asian imports- Yes. but P900 not yet officially imported ?
WCMDA is very advanced, but why do they have to ignore the largest network in the world - GSM?? (I know they have it by now, but still far behind EU). Finally - INCOMING CALLS CHARGES ? the system is totally behind Europe and even Israel where I live
which I thought wasnt advanced enough until I realized the situation in the US.
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Posted: 2004-01-20 13:02:03
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Quote:
On 2004-01-19 04:30:15, SonyBoy wrote:
I found myself thinking of many issues about the US telecommunication progress, and mostly comparing to London or Europe. How come everything there (US) takes so long ? How come there are no 3G plans for the near future ? how come the networks there are still CDMA and TDMA ??? and only recently they've discovered the GSM? (T-mobile, etc). How come they've never heard of plans such as the "Virgin" plan in the UK, or the "Orange" plan in Israel, (u dont pay if u dont talk, but its not a PrePaid and the tariffs are great). How come the P900 is not yet officially out there, only by private retailers? (except for expansys.us which is a UK company and they sell UK units in the US) and thats after it's been officially out in Europe for few monthes now.
And how come they pay for INCOMING calls on their mobiles???
Correct me if I'm wrong- is the US far behind Europe by far? And are they gonna close the gaps some day ?
GSM 1900.. ye right
I will try to answer your questions.
Virgin is on the market here in the US, for about 2 years now, having an agreement using the Sprint network. Unfortunately, Spring uses the CDMA technology.
3G is actually alive and kicking for the last 2 years but again, unfortunately it is on the CDMA networks.
The GSM providers are very slow with implementing the WCDMA technology because of the costs but they are working on it. At the moment, they have instead rolled out the EDGE technology which is somewhere inbetween 2.5G and 3G. My personal opinion is that EDGE works pretty good, faster than GPRS I've been using before.
The reason we pay for incoming calls (actually it is deducted from the tons of free minutes you get from you provider) is because there is now difference between landline and cellular numbers here and local landline phone calls are FREE so they had to get their revenue from somewhere.
The reason the providers are slow with getting new phones to the market is that they promise their customers 100% support on the phones they sell. Therefore, they first need to educate their reps about the new phones and customize them to their own needs.
Hope this answered most of your questions.
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Posted: 2004-02-05 06:26:48
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Big reason is that the vast majority of customers want coverage. You will never see them in this forum or any forum like it. Without being to derogatory towards them, sms is usually beyond what they want. Those of us here use the stuff. Sms, mms, GPRS, etc. I just got my AOL chat set up (course it is free for me, sorry). I am a technology type person, but not sure if I would want to pay for these things, or use them, if didn't work in the wireless industry.
The US wireless industry is based on mobility: coverage goes to roads first, then spreads. I answer questions almost every day about why a person has crap for coverage at home. This is slowly changing. Many of the towers that my company has put up have filled in gaps in residential areas. But most have been along more rural, but used, roads. The more people who use a tower, the more money it generates. Why put up a tower that is going to lose money? Heck, the FCC ruled that analog towers could be turned off in, I believe it is July 2006. Trust me, those that do not make money will be cut off asap, reducing some very rural coverage.
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Posted: 2004-02-05 12:59:47
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I agree, the US is a big country and it is expensive for the providers to cover it all. That is why countries like Japan, Korea, and smaller European countries were so far ahead with their mobility because they didn't need to put up many towers to cover an area.
Sweden has the same problem with the analog system. Scandinavia were the first one's implementing the analog system NMT and is still used in the northern rural areas. A few years ago the providers gave them GSM phones for FREE and offered them free calling but that didn't help them a bit because the coverage sucked. They still use their NMT phones even though they have to pay for it.
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Posted: 2004-02-07 09:39:17
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The wireless carriers in the US have this problem of give away low end handsets to new subscribers. This has created subscribers that care only what free phones they can get from a company. Also what to charge for services American users have be come thrifty in all the wrong places if you know what I mean.That translate lower income for the carriers and slow growth.
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Posted: 2004-02-15 06:14:36
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how come a country like Norway with a population of 4.5 milion people have coverage on deserted mountains and practicaly anywere in the country. Wile in NewYork the reception dissapeer after 4 steps down the stairs to the subway????
That a country is big and have few people living init still makes it in the gsm world.
So why cant like the city NYC that have more citizeens than the entire Norway. Manage to build a superb gsm coverage?
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Posted: 2004-02-15 07:13:20
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why all the complaining about america? be happy and content that your respective countries are ahead of them. then again, if your countries are as big or bigger than the USA i think your telcos would have the same dilemma the USA is having. most americans are content with free low end phones that makes and recieves calls, that's it. they favor practicality most do not need the over stuff that high end phones can do. practicality is one of the reasons america is prospherous and still people from your countries come here to search for a better life.
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Posted: 2004-02-15 07:29:43
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