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Tag: 3G

AT&T CEO: iPad will be mostly used on WiFi, won’t drive many new 3G subscriptions

We all know by now that AT&T has secured the rights to furnish US iPad owners with 3G connectivity, but apparently the market desire for that service won’t be quite as big as we might have expected. That comes straight from Randall Stephenson himself, AT&T CEO and eternal believer in the power of i-branded devices, so it may have some legitimacy to it. Surely Randall’s dearest wish would be to announce his network is about to be overwhelmed by new subscribers, and the rather cooler news has already caused a small dint in AT&T’s stock price. Then again, this is hardly shocking news given that 3G on the iPad can be had on a month-by-month basis without contract, and in truth any subscriptions related to it would have to be achieved by AT&T’s own ingenuity — which, judging by its CEO’s comments, won’t be suffering any undue exertions any time soon. Not only that, Randall’s also taken the opportunity to advise us that higher data rates are likely for intensive users of unlimited 3G data plans — whether on the iPad or on smartphones. Way to endear yourself to the masses, dude.

AT&T CEO: iPad will be mostly used on WiFi, won’t drive many new 3G subscriptions originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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by Vladislav Savov on March 3, 2010
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Nokia adds Skype to Ovi Store, foreshadows death of regular phone calls

Skype for Symbian. A freely downloadable application that allows you to converse with your Skype-equipped friends over a WiFi or 3G connection. Seriously, why would you ever make another cellular call again? Nokia’s just announced the addition of the online communications client to its Ovi Store, meaning that now more than 200 million users worldwide have access to essentially free calls over their beloved Symbian S60 5th handsets. You knew there was a reason to stay loyal to that stale user experience and here it is. There’s not much else to say here, we’re off to sell whatever stock we have in mobile network operators while you should click the source links for the full list of compatible handsets. High fives all around.

Nokia adds Skype to Ovi Store, foreshadows death of regular phone calls originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 03:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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by Vladislav Savov on March 3, 2010
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AT&T announces expanded availability of 3G MicroCell

It may not be the news that folks in some particularly problematic areas have been waiting for, but AT&T has now announced that it’s finally expanded availability of its 3G MicroCell beyond its initial testbed cities like Raleigh and Charlotte. The new markets apparently include some additional areas of North Carolina, along with new parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and San Diego, plus the addition of Las Vegas — the only entirely-new market of the bunch. Hit up the link below to punch in your zipcode for exact availability, and all the necessary details to get “five bars in your own home.” And if you’re curious about exactly what this whole femtocell thing is about, be sure to check out our impressions of the device.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

AT&T announces expanded availability of 3G MicroCell originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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by Donald Melanson on February 25, 2010
filed in Laptops
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Telava 3G Broadband Bullet kills mobile broadband contracts dead

Telava 3G Broadband Bullet kills mobile broadband contracts dead3G anywhere is great, but locking yourself into a two (plus) year contract to get access to it is decidedly less-so. Enter Telava, a prepaid wireless company that is launching its so-called Broadband Bullet. It’s a simple USB modem that you can pop into your port-having device and get online at typical 3G speeds, the interesting thing being here that your $50 a month for 5GB ($60 for unlimited) comes without a contract. You can pay for one month, take a month off, then pay for the next two, switch between 5GB and unlimited, and generally do whatever you like without getting hit with an ETF. What you will get hit with is a $100 up-front security deposit, or you can pay $200 if for some crazy reason you want to keep the thing. Telava promises “nationwide coverage everywhere,” and while we’re not sure which network it’s piggy-backing on the coverage map looks reasonably comprehensive, so go get some, infrequent travelers.

Update: As a few of you have pointed out in comments, this appears to be T-Mo’s network it’s piggy-backing on.

Telava 3G Broadband Bullet kills mobile broadband contracts dead originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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by Tim Stevens on February 25, 2010
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PCWorld ranks AT&T tops in 3G performance test

PCWorld ranks AT&T tops in 3G performance test

We all have something of a need, a need for speed, and while most won’t have an opportunity to go all Maverick on some MIG-28s somewhere over the Indian Ocean, we can do our best to get the quickest wireless on offer. Last summer, when we stacked the top four mobile broadband cards against each other, we found that AT&T came out on tops for peak performance, and now nearly a year on PCWorld has come to the same conclusion, finding that Ma Bell offers upload and download speeds that are twice some of the competition. The seven page test splits everything out by city and goes into more details than we’ll tire you with here, but do note that all this testing was done in urban areas, so don’t forget to double-check the coverage map before you sign the next 24 months of your life away.

[Thanks, A. Dewan]

PCWorld ranks AT&T tops in 3G performance test originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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by Tim Stevens on February 23, 2010
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Dell Mini 5 prototype impressions

Dell’s puzzled the world for quite some time with its outlandish Mini 5 — at first glance it’s just another Android-based MID, but a quick fiddle with it reveals the full-fledged 3G phone inside. So will it fit in a pocket? Can we carry it around like a normal phone? Is this the future form factor that will bring the ultimate balance between portability and practicality? With such heavy dose of curiosity, we eventually traveled all the way to Shenzhen literally just to grab this prototype. Now, before you read on, do bear in mind that some of its features — especially the OS — may not make it to the final design when it comes out later this year, nor do we know what stage this prototype was at. We good? OK.

Let’s start with the basics: the main specs on our unit include Android 1.6 (which will definitely be obsolete for the final product), five-inch 800 x 480 capacitive touchscreen, Snapdragon QSD8250 chipset (with CPU clocked at 1GHz), Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS and WCDMA radio. Sadly, we have no info on whether the Mini 5 will have other cellular radio options, but it wouldn’t hurt to send Dell a petition regarding this matter. For those who want the dimensions and weight in numbers, it’s about 152mm x 78mm x 10mm at 8 ounces (including the battery, which lasts for almost a day for normal usage on 3G). Memory-wise there’s 405MB RAM and 1.63GB of internal storage — a slight let-down for the latter, so let’s hope the retail unit will be given a more generous dose of silicon. You can add a microSD card next to the battery on the back, but it appears that the mysterious second card slot we saw in the earlier teardown only gave us false hope — we couldn’t find a way to get to it without prying open the housing. Connection to your computer relies on a proprietary port — similar but slightly larger than the iPod’s — to USB cable, which may suggest that we will see some more peripherals made for the Mini 5 and its future siblings.

Gallery: Dell Mini 5 prototype impressions

Continue reading Dell Mini 5 prototype impressions

Dell Mini 5 prototype impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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by Richard Lai on February 19, 2010
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Fonera SIMPL aims to ease 3G overload, give smartphones a better way to upload

If you’ve never heard of Fon, its mission is pretty simple: to equip the world with Fonera routers, and thus blanket the planet in WiFi that no one is scared to share. Over at Mobile World Congress this week, the company unveiled a new device that exploits the impending bandwidth crisis that operators all over the globe are attempting to deal with. The all-new SIMPL is a palm-sized router that has just two Ethernet ports and could be doled out by carriers in order to provide a city-wide WiFi network that can be accessed by any WiFi-enabled phone, thereby easing the demand on its 3G network. Equipped with 802.11n, a faster CPU than the Fonera 2.0 and a shiny white shell, we’re told that an order has already been placed by an undisclosed customer for 400,000 of ‘em, though it’s unclear when these will be be made available to the general public and for how much. Hop on past the break for a five minute showcase video.

Continue reading Fonera SIMPL aims to ease 3G overload, give smartphones a better way to upload

Fonera SIMPL aims to ease 3G overload, give smartphones a better way to upload originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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by Darren Murph on February 19, 2010
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Novatel shows off next-gen GPS-enabled MiFi, integrated ‘apps’ (video)

Novatel shows off next-gen GPS-enabled MiFi, integrated 'apps' (video)

If you haven’t freaked out and given up on MiFi after they were shown to be, well, a little bit vulnerable, good for you, because there’s good things in store. Novatel is working on a new revision of its routers with integrated GPS, USB charging, and what’s pledged to be better battery life. Perhaps most interesting among the revisions is firmware able to run Linux “apps” that display content within the MiFi’s admin webpage. Current apps are things like data usage and weather but the possibilities are endless — or slightly broader than weather and usage, at least. It’s unclear which (if any) of the current MiFi models will be also be blessed with this firmware update and its resplendent selection of homebrew widgets, but we do know that the new MiFi model will be hitting carriers sometime toward the middle of 2010 and will be selling unlocked around the end of the year.

Continue reading Novatel shows off next-gen GPS-enabled MiFi, integrated ‘apps’ (video)

Novatel shows off next-gen GPS-enabled MiFi, integrated ‘apps’ (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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by Tim Stevens on February 19, 2010
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AIS’ ultra-rugged PDA is so ugly it’s beautiful

Windows Phone what? Dell Mini who? Forget all that fancy nonsense, this is a proper mobile device. Running Windows Mobile 6.1, the AIS ultra-rugged PDA comes with a 3.7-inch QVGA (that’s a whopping 240 x 320 resolution, folks!) screen, a Marvell chip that might have been around when the wheel was invented, and the surprisingly robust WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and 3G connectivity combo. Sidetalking has never looked this badass… or involved so many rubberized components.

AIS’ ultra-rugged PDA is so ugly it’s beautiful originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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by Vladislav Savov on February 18, 2010
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