2-Megabit Bandwidth for Your Cell Phone

A reader wrote to us with the latest wireless advance from Qualcomm: 2.4 megabit bandwidth for cell phones. They call it high data rate and are hoping to compete with cable modems and other personal high-bandwidth subscription methods. Me, I just want to have a usable cell modem.

Does it really matter for the United States?

I have heard that Nippen Telephone and Telegraph of Japan has gotten the contract for their "G3" technology to be deployed as the next standard in Europe. Their technology seems to have the exact same amount of wireless data capability. So what does this do for the U.S? We have always been one step behind the Europeans in cell phone technology because we failed to adopt the standard, instead creating our own version(s). For example, now we have CDMA, TDMA, Analog, and whatever nextel uses as the main forms of communication. Europe on the other hand has GSM, and only GSM. Hence making it easier for wireless giants to develop better phones for the network, since they are not stuck making several versions of one phone to work on all the different mediums. Regardless if qualcomm has the technology, we will end up having issues as the past has shown.