On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 at 10.31.12 -0600, Mike Miller wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Oct 2006, Sidney Cammeresi wrote:
> >On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 at 08.25.33 -0600, Mike Miller wrote:
> >>Treo 650 came out two years ago with Bluetooth (10/24/2004).  Of 
> >>course, 700p and 700w also have Bluetooth.  If they'll just add WiFi, 
> >>I'll buy one!  Cellular service that includes a WiFi option is the 
> >>latest craze (see snippet of NY Times article about T-Mobile below).
> >
> >Are not T-Mobile in the business of maintaining their own network?
> >
> >Count me out.  I'm not subleasing my network to T-Mobile unless they're 
> >going to pay me for providing Internet service to their company.
> 
> Can you explain this?  I don't know what you mean.  The WiFi phone is 
> supposed to work in Starbucks, some other places, and on your home WiFi 
> network.

Well there are two parts you get from a cellular operator:  network
access and PSTN origination/termination.  If I'm providing my own network
connection into T-Mobile and am not using T-Mobile's expensive GSM
network to carry my phone calls (of course, coming in over the Internet
has a non-zero cost), I should get a discount.

There is a reason why T-Mobile charge me $50/mo or whatever for 1000
minutes, but Vonage charge me $25/mo for unlimited usage:  Vonage have
lower costs.  T-Mobile want me to reduce their costs, but they don't
pass the savings along?  That's not fair.

> >T-Mobile subscriber (again) even though GPRS sucks
> 
> What problems do you have with GPRS?

Low bandwidth[1] (c 60 Kbps), high latency[2] (c 500-1000 ms) compared
to other technologies like EV-DO.

The main good thing about GPRS is that T-Mobile are not totally and
utterly brain damaged when it comes to selling data services.  I went
back to T-Mobile because they have `unlimited T-Mobile Web' for $6/mo.
What that actually means is for $6/mo, I can get unlimited, semi-crappy,
filtered Internet access from my phone via a cable or Bluetooth.  They do
unfiltered Internet for $20/mo, but that was too pricey for me.

Sprint, Verizon, et al want you to move in for like $40-80/mo for the
privilege of hitting the Internet from one computer, which is just
kooky talk because it's not cable or DSL, and I'm not going to use it
the same way.  I might go back to one of them when they grow a brain re
selling data.


[1] `slow'
[2] `laggy'
[3] most ports filtered, web works via their proxy, ssh works on alternate
    ports

-- 
Sidney CAMMERESI
http://www.cheesecake.org/sac/