Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cell-Phone Internet Service Gets Up to Speed but Remains Pricey

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 12:51:56 -0400

Cell-Phone Internet Service Gets Up to Speed but Remains Pricey

By John Breeden II
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, September 28, 2003; Page F08

Cell phones have long allowed you to get on the Internet, but only in the most
minimal, Morse-code sort of way: The
connections were just too pokey to get anything done. Over the past two years,
however, several wireless carriers have
launched upgraded data services that approach or exceed the speed of a 56-kbps
dial-up modem.

That might not seem like much to brag about, but it is real progress in the
wireless business. We tried the new data offerings of
AT&T Wireless, Sprint PCS, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. In each case, we used
either a regular cell phone and a
connection cable or a PC Card modem to get a laptop online.

(Nextel and Cingular offer the older form of cellular data, which tops out at
roughly 19 kilobits per second. To confuse matters
further, Sprint, T-Mobile and others also sell much faster WiFi Internet access,
but this technology has no relation to cell
phones.)

Verizon Wireless's Express Network provided the fastest but most awkward
connection of the six. Its PC Card modem
required installing five different programs. But one of those applications, a
Web-acceleration utility, offered a reward for that
effort, getting our test page (The Post's washingtonpost.com home page) to display
in six seconds, comparable to
cable-modem or digital-subscriber-line speed.

Actual connection speeds fluctuated wildly but averaged around 60 kbps, below the
theoretical peak of 144 kbps.

Sprint PCS's Vision service uses the same basic 1xRTT (1x radio transmission
technology) as Verizon's Express Network, but
performed both more consistently and slightly slower than Verizon. The Post's page
downloaded in eight seconds, and the
average speed was a steady 55 kbps.

AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile employ a different technology called GPRS (general
packet radio service). AT&T's
implementation performed almost as fast as its 1xRTT-based competitors. Its PC
Card modem downloaded the test page in
nine seconds and averaged a consistent 57 kbps.

T-Mobile not only uses the same wireless technology, it also sells the same model
of PC Card modem. But its service worked
much worse: The Post's page took a leisurely 20 seconds to load, and our
connection speeds averaged only 25 kbps.

All of these faster services suffer two quirks. One is use while moving -- it's
possible to get online from a bus or train, but
connection speeds tend to drop (especially with GPRS) as land speeds pick up.

The other is cost. These services are still being marketed to businesses with
generous expense accounts; unlimited data service
can easily add $70 or more to your monthly phone bill. So if you've managed to
survive this long without wireless Web access
on your laptop, you'll do well to live without for a little longer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8336-2003Sep27?language=printer

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