Verizon High Speed Wireless

TheSync writes: "Wired News has an article about Verizon's surprise announcement of "Express Network," a wireless data service with a speed of 144 kbps. Handsets to support the service could be sold as early as next week, and Emblaze Systems is already testing wireless video on Verizon's Philadelphia network." I'm sure it will work just as well as Verizon's cell service does now.

Re:What about Bluetooth and 802.11

[tommck]

Well, you can bet that you won't need to have a NAP every 1500 yards or so :-)

This is definitely coming off of existing cell phone towers. Those are very far apart (less maintenance costs, etc.)

T

info

[mknapp905]

1X is the term that Verizon Wireless has been calling this service for the last few months (hmmm no g's????) February 1st is when it will be rolled out to the Washington Metro Area, with first sales being PCMCIA cards. This service is being promoted locally as having a 70kbps average connection. It should definitely help all the truely mobile users getting CDMA speeds of 14.4 to 19.2 kbps!!!

Re:Are you sure you want this?

[DeMorganLaw]

Verizon cannot change a persons mailing address. They kept sending it to my old address which the post-office was forwarded all my mail to my present address. So I would usually get my bill a week before it was due, I would call them up pay be credit card, then have them change my address. Finally the post office stopped doing address forwarding, my service was 3 days within being cut off because I hadn't paid my bill. So I called up yet again, paid by credit card and had them change my address. I am waiting with not so much expectation for my next billing statement.

First bit of "3G" cellular

[isdnip]

What VeriZontal Wireless is introducing is the so-called "1XRTT" form of CDMA2000, which is one of the flavors of "third generation" (3G) cellular telephony. While there has been a lot of noise about 3G around the world, and European carriers have shelled out tens of billions of licenses (dotcom-style investment) for new 3G spectrum (putting them deeply into debt), VeriZontal Wireless and Sprint PCS are instead taking the "just do it" approach.

There are two distinct technical flavors (air interfaces) to 3G, both based on CDMA. The GSM (most of world) and IS-136-TDMA (Cingular, ATT-W) carriers, with existing TDMA networks, are migrating to WCDMA. The CDMA carriers (Sprint, VZW, Korea) are migrating to CDMA2000. (Qualcomm favors CDMA2000, but makes patent royalties off of both. They really did invent it.) The CDMA2000 spec in turn has multiple variants. The "1XRTT" flavor is simply a software change to the way existing CDMAone carriers are allocated among calls. The peak speed is only 144 kbps (ten times what CDMA one gives you) but there's no forklift upgrade, and no new spectrum needed. Of course it needs new handsets to make use of the new features, but the base stations are backwards compatible. Very graceful, 3G on the cheap.

So VZW and Sprint are both rolling out 1XRTT this year. VZW announced faster, but they're both gated, in practice, by the availability of handsets and similar remote devices from the (mostly Korean) makers. The CDMA and GSM carriers are instead phasing in a "2 1/2G" technology, EDGE, as a sort of bridge to WCDMA. They'll need separate networks, or a forklift upgrade, to do 3G. Since WCDMA doesn't share spectrum with TDMA, they can't do the easy phase-in that CDMA gives you.

But don't think of 3G as a substitute for fast wireline. A 144 kbps call basically eats ten voice calls' worth of network bandwidth. So it will be expensive! Packetized data, by the byte, will be cheaper, but really aimed more at low-bandwidth things like email than high-bandwidth things like music or ordinary web browsing. (Look up EDGE pricing on the GSM networks to get an idea; it's in dollars/MB). This is a premium service for users who need it.

Credit where it's due

[Sierran]

I have to (ulp) defend Verizon just a bit. I'm in Boston, MA USA and I have to say that Verizon's network is far and away the best of the players in the area for cell coverage, esp. digital. While it's true their phones are usually 1-2 generations back, and they'e not as cheap as other providers, I kept their service for my work phone after comparing it to (as in using for a month) Voicestream (GSM), Sprint PCS, AT&T (miserable), Cingular and Nextel. I've never had a problem with their cell customer support, either. And no, I don't work for them.

Re:What about Bluetooth and 802.11

[malfunction54]

Well, 802.11x and "High-speed wireless" are different technologies with different goals. 802.11x targets users that aren't necessarily moving around that much, and is not that secure (image is of laptop at home, it's nice outside, so you wander out on the porch or backyard)

With "High-speed wireless" the idea is to use the existing cellular network and provide data access.

Oh, and the 144kbps? Don't count on it! They should say 144kbps aggregate bandwidth for the cell shared among all users on that cell. It's a typical marketing scam. Saw this at a trade show, and when I asked more detailed questions, the whole sales pitch fell apart.

Re:info

[Smitty825]

Although I don't live in that area, it doesn't suprise me that they are using the term "1x" What they are actually referring to is "CDMA 2000-1XEV". The "EV" stands for "Enhanced Voice". It has a maximum data capability of 144kbps.

For all of the posters that have requested higher data-rates; don't worry, it's coming:

WCDMA: Wideband CDMA. It wil start to appear in Europe and some US networks later this year (IIRC). It will have a maximum data rate of 384Kbps (IIRC). However, it uses almost 5MHz of the spectrum (~2.5 forward link + ~2.5 on the reverse link)

1X-EV+DO: The add-on to the CDMA standard should allow data rates of between 1 & 2 Mbps. It's commonly reffered to as High Data Rate (HDR) and could appear late this year or sometime next year.

1xDV: This probably won't be out until 2003-2004 timeframe, but it should offer enhanced voice and data speeds. I don't think that the spec is totally finalized, but it could provide data speeds up to 10Mbps.

Re:First bit of "3G" cellular

[Anonymous Coward]

``The "1XRTT" flavor is simply a software change to the way existing CDMAone carriers are allocated among calls''

ACtually, 1X-RTT requires board-level upgrades to the cell. You swap out 2G boards with boards with new ASICS, and voila! You also get more voice capacity (the real win), but judicious rollout will be necessary to avoid overtaxing the network.

Oh, and the upgrades after that are, as you say, forklift upgrades. the newer network (1X-EVXX) is a completely different technology (but still spread-spectrum)

Re:info

[Anonymous Coward]

``What they are actually referring to is "CDMA 2000-1XEV"''

Actually, it's 1X-RTT. 1X-EV is further off and is a different technology, but very cool :)

Re:Bad cell service?

[Manpage]

VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS AND VERIZON WIRELESS ARE SEPARATE COMPANIES!

Verizon Wireless is a business unit inside of Verizon communications, but it is not a separate company. Look at the Verizon Company Profile [verizon.com] for more information.

Re:Fix stuff first

[zuvembi]

Excuse me?

You will never be on hold for two hours calling Verizon Wireless {1}, generally your hold time is under 90 seconds.

As to the network, we have the best network in the US (this is using our own testing and independent nationwide testing). And we are constantly working on improving it.

And remember, we have nothing to do with Verizon Landline (totally different companies, not a single worker or executive in common as far as I know).

{1} I work for Verizon Wireless.

OK

[Wesley Felter]

How about two?

Merlin C201 [novatelwireless.com]

AirCard 550/555 [sierrawireless.com]

Re:First bit of "3G" cellular

[dieman]

144kbps is not 3g, try again. The Reg has had a few articles on how GSM networks will be beating the crap out of CDMA in this soon enough.

Anyhow, on GSM we have GPRS. Not EDGE. And its not that expensive. $40/10mb afaik. And its packetized. $4 per additional MB. Its not cheap, but its not insane.

And, its allways on at least.

3g services will be better than this 2.5g stuff.

A little more info

[rdfager]

I work for Lucent and have been deploying this technology for companies such as Verizon and Sprint for the last few months. The technology Verizon is announcing is known as 3G-1XRTT. There is another 3G technology, 3G-1XEV-DO, which will be available soon. 3G-1XRTT supports speeds up to 144kbps. 3G-1XEV increases this to 2.4gig. The way that 1XRTT actually works is that each user gets one 9.6kbps channel when they connect. Then, when the user is transfering data, the cell site or the handset can request to "burst." The speed at which you burst depends on how much data you're transferring and how many resources are available on the cell. This burst speed can be any multiple of 9.6 up to 144kbps. Bursts only last for a few seconds (typically 5 or less). After that the cell/handset have to negotiate another burst. This is because as you might imagine, this can use a lot of resources on the cell/switch. For this reason, if you are not transfering any data for a few seconds, your call will go into a dormancy state. This means that all of the resources on the cell are released and your airlink is dropped. However, the call is still registered on the switch. So, when you go to transfer more data, the call comes back up and you don't have to be authenticated again or reregistered on the switch. It's a very cool system that can use a lot of resources but only when it really needs them.
I'm sure you're all wondering what kind of throughput you can really expect to see from this. In my tests I typically see rates of about 11-12KBps. You may not see speeds quite that good in an area where a lot of people are using wireless services but I'd expect most people to see speeds about that fast. It's not as fast as cable or DSL but it's at least twice the speed of a 56K dailup - pretty darn fast for a wireless phone.
I speak for myself and not for Lucent.