Ben
11th August 2005, 07:21 PM
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/11/qualcomm_flarion/
Click for the full article, but this bit caught my eye:
Their problem was how to move into the internet. The next generation of cellphones was expected to be WCDMA, also Qualcomm-owned... but politics accidentally sabotaged the technology, by picking the 2.1 GHz frequency spectrum for 3G phones.
That technology, at 450 MHz, works very well indeed. As every technologist involved in setting the WCDMA standards for Europe warned, at 2.1 GHz, this isn't true. It works; it just doesn't work at all well inside buildings, and the economics of WCDMA 3G are consequently looking dodgy.
So... is 2.1GHz 3G, ie what we're using, doomed? Imagine the coverage quality 450MHz could offer! Currently doing as much as moving my handset a few inches can cause it to lose 3G signal while I'm indoors.
Click for the full article, but this bit caught my eye:
Their problem was how to move into the internet. The next generation of cellphones was expected to be WCDMA, also Qualcomm-owned... but politics accidentally sabotaged the technology, by picking the 2.1 GHz frequency spectrum for 3G phones.
That technology, at 450 MHz, works very well indeed. As every technologist involved in setting the WCDMA standards for Europe warned, at 2.1 GHz, this isn't true. It works; it just doesn't work at all well inside buildings, and the economics of WCDMA 3G are consequently looking dodgy.
So... is 2.1GHz 3G, ie what we're using, doomed? Imagine the coverage quality 450MHz could offer! Currently doing as much as moving my handset a few inches can cause it to lose 3G signal while I'm indoors.