Saturday, June 28, 2003
CDMA and Bluetooth?
Posted by Janak Parekh in "ARTICLE" @ 01:25 PM
David Berlind writes an article about upcoming converged devices, and how he'd rather prefer a Bluetooth solution, except for the fact none are available for CDMA. A quote:
"Today, virtually all SprintPCS voice plans come packaged with an all-you-can-eat data plan. These plans are designed to encourage the sales of data-capable phones such as the $99 Sanyo 8100 camera phone, which makes it easy to take low resolution pictures and transmit them to friends and family. But the reason SprintPCS can offer these all-you-can-eat data plans to business users and consumers alike without overwhelming its 2.5G network is that the company never envisioned any of the wireless devices in its lineup as loquacious generators of data. When used as intended, even the most sophisticated of the PDA/phones that SprintPCS resells (such as the Treo 300) can only generate modest amounts of data."
Unfortunately, it's no longer clear whether the CDMA phone he refers to in the article will even exist. The SE T608, which David refers to, may never be offered -- Sony Ericsson just pulled out of the CDMA market.
It seems that Verizon and Sprint are very afraid of the implications of a BT phone on their network -- since 1xRTT allows greater bandwidth than GPRS (at least in most commercial implementations in the US), they seem reluctant to release one until they figure out the cost structures. Compare that to T-Mobile, who's willing to offer $19.99 unlimited data (assuming you have a voice plan), whether it's over a PC card, a Bluetooth phone, a smartphone, etc. However, it's very frustrating for customers, myself included.
"Today, virtually all SprintPCS voice plans come packaged with an all-you-can-eat data plan. These plans are designed to encourage the sales of data-capable phones such as the $99 Sanyo 8100 camera phone, which makes it easy to take low resolution pictures and transmit them to friends and family. But the reason SprintPCS can offer these all-you-can-eat data plans to business users and consumers alike without overwhelming its 2.5G network is that the company never envisioned any of the wireless devices in its lineup as loquacious generators of data. When used as intended, even the most sophisticated of the PDA/phones that SprintPCS resells (such as the Treo 300) can only generate modest amounts of data."
Unfortunately, it's no longer clear whether the CDMA phone he refers to in the article will even exist. The SE T608, which David refers to, may never be offered -- Sony Ericsson just pulled out of the CDMA market.
It seems that Verizon and Sprint are very afraid of the implications of a BT phone on their network -- since 1xRTT allows greater bandwidth than GPRS (at least in most commercial implementations in the US), they seem reluctant to release one until they figure out the cost structures. Compare that to T-Mobile, who's willing to offer $19.99 unlimited data (assuming you have a voice plan), whether it's over a PC card, a Bluetooth phone, a smartphone, etc. However, it's very frustrating for customers, myself included.
