Not getting the cell phone reception that you need?  Maybe you should bring your own femtocell repeater on your next trip.  Sprint has been selling them under the Airave brand name since late last year.  Now Verizon Wireless is joining the fray, offering their Verizon Wireless Network Extender for a one-time charge of $250.

You’ll need to hook it up to a broadband connection in your home (or hotel) and the ability to get a GPS fix on the device but once connected the Network Extender will provide both voice and 1xRTT data speeds to mobile devices in the vicinity.  Verizon claims coverage of up to 5000 square feet, which should cover a pretty decent sized house, or most of my apartment building here in NYC. 

Verizon claims that it uses about 40Kbps of bandwidth per call, which isn’t too bad.  You can even lock it down so only you and your friends can use the device.

AT&T has their own femtocell product in development with an expected release later this year.  Theirs will support 3G data services, though I’d imagine that will put a much bigger hit on the bandwidth requirements.

So if your travels find you on the road in locations where your Verizon Wireless phone isn’t working so well, just bring your own cell tower with you.

• 0 Comments

I’m a huge fan of the cellular WAN cards and the connectivity options that they provide.  Extending that access to a group of people was always a bit of work, but made it real easy to set up an office on the go or otherwise share the joy of being online. 

Novatel is addressing the complexities of the sharing with their new line of EvDO routers.  The device is a combination of a cellular WAN card and wireless router.  A single device to handle both the LAN and WAN halves of the connection.  Plus, it looks good.  It even runs on a battery rather than requiring a plug, so you can set up your own personal hotspot on the train.  I’m officially in lust.

• 1 Comment

OK, so T-mobile suddenly went from zero to hero with their 3G network. I’m amazed at how stable their 3G coverage has been in my area, and how far the 3G coverage reaches. They have several 3G phones in their lineup, but not a single modem card.

To make matters worse, none of the major wireless manufacturers have even announced a 3G 1700 (AWS) modem card or USB adapter either.

I’m hoping someone has a tethering app really soon, or I’ll be stuck using Sprint for my wireless broadband service.

• 3 Comments

Tomorrow is a big day for Google and T-mobile. The long awaited Android OS  has found its first phone in the HTC developed “G1/Dream” handset. 

This new phone and OS is important for several reasons;

- It will be the first non Windows/Blackberry/Danger powered smartphone to be launched on T-mobile. Up till now, they have always stayed clear of Symbian powered phones, and they don’t have the iPhone

- It will also be their first 3G enabled smartphone, with the rumored specifications in the G1, it would not have been possible to take full advantage of all the features without access to 3G.

- It will finally provide a serious alternative to the iPhone; Verizon and Sprint already launched fairly successful touch screen phones on their networks, so T-mobile was clearly lagging a little.

And finally; with T-mobile acting as the launch partner for Google, the world will be watching, AT&T already had their party with the iPhone and now T-mobile gets to have some fun.

Check in tomorrow for updates on the new G1.

• 0 Comments

Engadget is reporting that T-mobile will (finally) have 3G in most major US cities by the middle of next month. The cities lined up are:

Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Orlando, Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Francisco and Seattle

Of course, this is all perfectly timed to be done along with the new Google Android phone that’ll be launched on T-mobile. I’m admittedly excited about this new phone, as it means we’ll have another OS to help force Microsoft to get Windows Mobile 7 released sooner.

• 0 Comments

There is no turning back for T-mobile now. They have finally turned on a second city where they’ll be offering their 3G service. After paying billions for the licence’s, and subjecting customers to hopelessly slow EDGE data for years, Las Vegas has become the second official city where 3G is offered. 

This means residents and visitors to Las Vegas and New York can benefit from faster speeds on their devices. Of course, since T-mobile barely has any compatible 3G devices in their lineup, it might be some time till anyone actually gets to enjoy it.

By the end of the year there should be 20 major cities with 3G coverage, so expect more of these announcements as more cities are “turned on”.

The rollout of 3G in Las Vegas apparently cost them $28 Million. Assuming most other cities will need twice as much infrastructure, T-mobile has close to $1 Billion in investments lined up.

• 0 Comments

Tmonews has become a pretty reliable source of T-mobile news, so when they report on the upcoming official launch of 3G I’m going to assume they are correct. 3G on T-mobile already launched in New York City, where it is being tested with several “unnamed” 3G phones.

The October 1st launch should coincide with the launch of 3 or 4 new 3G enabled phones, including one 3G smartphone and a 3G enabled Blackberry.

All I can say is “it’s about frikkin time”.

Source: Tmonews.com

• 0 Comments

Sure, it isn’t as exciting as that “other phone” released today, but it’s still a decent release for Sprint. The Treo 800w is a Windows Mobile powered EVDO Rev.A (=fast) device with GPS.

It comes with the usual Sprint applications (TV, music store and navigation) and has a list price of $349; but reports from people who actually purchased one say that Sprint is quite aware of the iPhone and is matching the price.

Oh, and ignore the screen shot if the 800w with PalmOS; the new owner thought it would be funny to use Styletap and see how well it runs Palm applications!

Source: Treocentral.com

• 0 Comments

Gizmodo posted a trollish article this afternoon where chief Apple fan Jesus Diaz claims the newest and greatest from Apple will “kill the Blackberry”.

First of all, I don’t usually take anything from them that serious, they are after all pretty rabid Apple fans. But looking at things from a technical perspective, I still can’t find any logic in the post.

According to Diaz:

Until now, the only thing that separated the BlackBerry from the iPhone-apart from the iPhone’s better, faster and more powerful operating system-was the push email on the BlackBerry

Wow, that’s just silly in so many ways. Lets look at a couple of reasons why I think he’s incorrect:

Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

By now you are probably tired of me warning people about the risk of international roaming data on their mobile phone.

But there isn’t a day that goes by without me reading about some poor traveler who went to Farawayistan, turned on his mobile phone and was amazed he was able to get "a signal".

But here is why I’m warning you AGAIN: with the new 3G iPhone (in fact, ANY 3G phone), you won’t only get 5x the speed, you’ll also be on your way to a massive bill 5x faster.

Example: AT&T charge an insane 1.95 cents per kilobyte ($19.50 per Megabyte) when abroad. Since your new shiny 3G iPhone can download on almost any foreign 3G HSDPA network, you’ll reach speeds well over 1 Megabyte per minute, which means you could be charged almost $20 per minute if you have a lot to download. I’m pretty sure most brothels would be jealous of rates like that.

(Image showing 253Mb of data transfer in the UK using an iPhone) 

Once you land, and figure you’ll just turn your phone on "for a few minutes" to see if you missed any calls, or whether you have voicemail, your phone could be downloading all 450 email messages in your inbox. By the time you reach the immigration desk you’ll have run up a $390 roaming bill (20MB of transfers isn’t that much nowadays).

So: turn OFF international data roaming BEFORE you leave the country.

Read the rest of this entry »

• 2 Comments