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| An LTE iPhone could disrupt the UK mobile market |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-08-21 15:27:59 |
| Vlad Savov at The Verge: "Today's been rather a momentous day in the UK mobile arena, following local regulator Ofcom's approval of Everything Everywhere's plans to use existing spectrum to roll out LTE service early. Vodafone, O2 and Three have complained in unison against the market distortions that would result from one carrier having 4G while everyone else waits for an oft-delayed auction, but their biggest fear may yet remain unspoken: a de facto exclusive on the next iPhone." |
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| RE[2]: Comment by MOS6510 |
| By MOS6510 on 2012-08-22 10:48:40 |
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Luxury. Before I had an iPhone I used an iPod touch on the train. The stations had free WiFi, but often before I managed to make a working connection the train would start moving again. Around this time I started to dislike web apps a lot. Recently I spend 4 days in Belgium in a resort. I found an open WiFi, but I never got an IP address. Tried it every day (while waiting in the snack bar queue). I assumed it was not for visitor use, but part of some system. When we left we could fill out a form grading all the resort services, this included use of the free WiFi(!). |
 - Score: 2 |
| RE[3]: Comment by MOS6510 |
| By henderson101 on 2012-08-22 13:44:31 |
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Not really luxury - none of that stations on that line have WiFi to attach to. Even Waterloo has pretty crappy Cloud and BT Openzone that is slower than 2G most of the time. I used to pair my N800 with an old SE phone (can't remember the model, probably a K800) and get gprs speeds. That was class. It also cost me a bomb. As for your router issues - either it wasn't giving out IP addresses (and you might have been able to fake a real address and connect) or it might just have been broken. One of my neighbours has the only open access point around my home address. No idea who, but it is open... just not connected to the internet. It'll happily allow you to connect, but there's no network behind it. I port scanned it once and I don't think there's even any hardware attached. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[4]: Comment by MOS6510 |
| By MOS6510 on 2012-08-22 13:49:51 |
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Maybe your neighbor likes the flashing LEDs. I have come across a few people who thought WiFi is something like 3G, it's everywhere but you don't have to pay for it. My sister in-law is one of them. She has no WiFi at home, but still wanted to use it because she was told it was cheaper. Not as weird though as the person who was happy to be getting an iPad and the first thing she would do is put all her (paper) books on it. After explaining what I meant with my "How?" question she became less happy realizing you just can't put paper books on a digital device just like that. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[5]: Comment by MOS6510 |
| By zima on 2012-08-22 17:43:19 |
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> I have come across a few people who thought WiFi is something like 3G, it's everywhere but you don't have to pay for it. It's probably not too far from the truth in the UK, considering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FON... (and compare on http://maps.fon.com/ ). Of course, it doesn't really work out if you don't also have a home connection. Belgium is comparable. Netherlands not that bad, too... not sure what happened with DE, a few years ago it looked somewhat between NL and BE. Overall, not sure how such outcome is possible, but it almost seems like mobile reception in PL is generally one of the least problematic ones, hm... it's almost as if somebody put some thought & real resources into it, cares even O_o (plus some nice perks recently, like free basic 3G & LTE internet access throughout much of the country, or reusing of NMT450 spectrum for CDMA450 "broadband" for the countryside). I don't even remember when was the last time I noticed signal loss, trains/mountains and whatnot (except places purposefully chosen sort of for that - say, the pub-club in the ~dungeon of one castle, few-metre walls, thick enough so that mini-concerts are barely audible outside & don't seem to bother people in residential buildings right across the street) - but then, maybe that's also me not being constantly glued to the phone. Edited 2012-08-22 17:46 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[6]: Comment by MOS6510 |
| By MOS6510 on 2012-08-22 17:54:47 |
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If I go to the nearby city of Arnhem 3G is good everywhere, until you enter a shop. But in general 3G is good in most populated places in The Netherlands, it's just that there are a number of black holes. They are here today, but they were also there yesterday and 5 years ago. So if coverage is bad somewhere I don't expect it to change. If Apple came with a 4G iPhone with a bigger screen and one with 3G only, the current 3.5" screen and longer battery life than the 4G I would go for the 3G version with longer battery life. For a phone 3G is fast enough IF it's available. My iPhone 4 gets me through the day, but only if I use it normally. If I go on a gaming session it won't make it. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[3]: Comment by MOS6510 |
| By zima on 2012-08-22 18:05:43 |
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> Any change is always bound to increase prices for us. LTE has a theoretical speed most if not all people will never get anyway. It's not so simple ...I mean, the primary change is that people are using mobile data more and more. Hence, we demand for networks to be upgraded anyway - and it would be quite possibly more pricey when sticking to older tech (if there would even be enough spectrum for the required capacity). You could probably give quite comfortable experience to everybody using just EDGE, but it'd likely take at least an order of magnitude more spectrum allocations than we use for mobile phones now (hence requiring new equipment, anyway; NVM blocking other usages, that could be costly too) Spectrum is just an inherently scarce resource, new communication standards are our way around that... |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[7]: Comment by MOS6510 |
| By zima on 2012-08-22 18:09:40 |
| Wait, you can't just force 3G off in Apple phones? :P (hence seemingly not considering it as a viable option for a possible 4G iPhone) |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[8]: Comment by MOS6510 |
| By MOS6510 on 2012-08-22 18:11:48 |
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Well, I can turn 3G off and on, but without 3G I might as well turn off the entire data connection. Maybe a 4G iPhone will allow you to limit it to 3But If Neolander is right 4G may use less power than 3G. I guess we'll soon know. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[4]: Comment by MOS6510 |
| By zima on 2012-08-22 18:39:56 |
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> I believe that from a theoretical point of view, 4G chips should be able to eat up less battery than 3G chips when offering equivalent performance. That's because to qualify as "4G" under the requirements of the UIT, tech like LTE Advance is supposed to use an all-IP network, in which even voice and texts go through the data connection of the phone, unlike 3G tech which has to maintain two simultaneous cellular connexions, one for voice and texts and one for data. I imagine the distinction is mostly logical on the handset level & not making much of a difference for the radio modem (work of which uses most power, I guess); relevant mostly for backbone-level (and there already are networks, among more recently deployed 3G ones, using an all-IP architecture on that level - at least some from Huawei, with the benefit of straightforward upgrade to LTE). Either way, using a mobile phone with data-only SIM card doesn't seem to make a difference... (OK, so maybe the control/SMS channel is still active; but, it's active all the time, even when idle - and in that state, even the most advanced mobile phones can last quite a while, so I'd guess its share of battery use is marginal) |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[5]: Comment by MOS6510 |
| By zima on 2012-08-22 18:52:59 |
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So you don't consider even iOS devices to be (your) in-laws-proof? Hm, to what degree any possible phishing could be solved by any parental controls in them? (I see a new meaning of the term ;p ) And/or not setting them up with an email. Unless you're also disturbed by the prospect of constant ~skyping... :P (I can certainly see how that might not be worth having an access point at their place) Edited 2012-08-22 18:54 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
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