Verizon Crippling Unlimited Data? - Thunderbolt General

Take a look at this article about Verizon crippling unlimited data plans. I know they are specifically targetting the iPhone with this proposed money grab by forcing people to drop their unlimited data plans, but it signals dark and terrible things. What happens when they expand this draconian rule to Skype, Tango, who knows? Not a good sign, IMO.
http://gizmodo.com/5825890/verizon-wants-3g-facetime-to-only-work-with-tiered-data-plans

It's not a "money grab," but a desire to ensure that all of their users get reasonable bandwidth. Especially on 3G (which is what this is all about), there's a limited amount of bandwidth available to all users on a tower. Introducing a high bandwidth app to a limited subset of users will only harm other users. Apple wants a uniform feature set, Verizon is trying to accommodate that by discouraging unlimited high bandwidth use on 3G. Do you really want to allow a few iPhone users to force everyone else's web browsing to a crawl?
Note that there's no mention of discouraging 4G use.

mike.s said:
It's not a "money grab," but a desire to ensure that all of their users get reasonable bandwidth. Especially on 3G (which is what this is all about), there's a limited amount of bandwidth available to all users on a tower. Introducing a high bandwidth app to a limited subset of users will only harm other users. Apple wants a uniform feature set, Verizon is trying to accommodate that by discouraging unlimited high bandwidth use on 3G. Do you really want to allow a few iPhone users to force everyone else's web browsing to a crawl?
Note that there's no mention of discouraging 4G use.
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I think they are blowing out of proportion the amount of people who will first of all be using 3G facetime and the amount of bandwidth it uses compared to their total capacity. The only time I have ever seen a tower hit capacity, or anywhere near capacity, was during a conference of 20,000 people where we were all asked to make calls at the same time to stress the towers. That is a crutch that the wireless carriers use to draw more money and implied limitations from customers. The wired internet industry does the exact same thing.

LOL. You're obviously unfamiliar with EV-DO (3G) limits. Sector/cell capacity for EV-DO rev A (1.25 MHz carrier), has a theoretical max of 3.1 Mbps, and is shared by all users in that sector. Real world is lower.
I did a quick look for how much bandwidth Facetime consumes, and came up with 667 kbps. Do you have a better number? If that's correct, two users in a 3G sector will consume over half the real world bandwidth available. Isn't Facetime currently limited to WiFi, due to 3G bandwidth concerns? Why would that change when it's allowed to be done on a 4G network?
Oh, and I call BS. You didn't make 20,000 calls through a single tower.

mike.s said:
LOL. You're obviously unfamiliar with EV-DO (3G) limits. Sector/cell capacity for EV-DO rev A (1.25 MHz carrier), has a theoretical max of 3.1 Mbps, and is shared by all users in that sector. Real world is lower.
I did a quick look for how much bandwidth Facetime consumes, and came up with 667 kbps. Do you have a better number? If that's correct, two users in a 3G sector will consume over half the real world bandwidth available. Isn't Facetime currently limited to WiFi, due to 3G bandwidth concerns? Why would that change when it's allowed to be done on a 4G network?
Oh, and I call BS. You didn't make 20,000 calls through a single tower.
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I never said the 20,000 calls were successful, just initiated. And I also never claimed to be an expert on 3G limitations. 3.1 Mbps sounds obscenely low though, can you link some reference documents? Everything I read is in reference to a radio receiving at a maximum of that speed, not a cellular tower being limited to that as a broadcast speed. The prospect of a single tower being limited to 3.1Mbps and possibly servicing hundreds of people sounds far fetched.

Here's some reference information I was able to find.
Amount of available backhaul bandwidth at the tower site
Cell tower backhaul bandwidth can be provided by various means including fiber, traditional telco connections (T1, DS-3, etc.), or wireless backhaul. Carriers will supply bandwidth to the cell tower based on anticipated bandwidth usage. If they're doing their jobs well, backhaul bandwidth will not be a limiting factor, but I would guess there are real world scenarios in which it is a limiting factor. Backhaul bandwidth available at each tower site can easily reach 1 Gbps if it is warranted or necessary.
Aggregate capacity of the spectrum and protocol
This depends heavily on the protocol being deployed and the sheer volume of spectrum being leveraged for a given site. One cell site can deploy multiple channels each using 5, 10, 20, or 40 Mhz of spectrum on each channel. Additionally, the frequency can vary from 900 MHz to 1800 MHz, etc. Also, different protocols, such as Edge, 3G, 4G, and LTE all use different methods to process signals. Some of these are more efficient than others and can squeeze more bandwidth out of a given amount of spectrum. In general, the higher the frequency, the larger the channel width, the higher the number of channels in use at the site, and the more efficient the protocol, the more bandwidth will be available.
If demand warranted, theoretically it should be possible to build a cell tower with multiple Gigabits of available bandwidth. But of course this depends on a number of highly variable factors. My guess is that today's highest capacity cell towers can provide aggregate bandwidth in the low hundreds of megabits.
Physical capacity of the network gear in use
The actual gear deployed at a cell tower site is limited by the processor speeds and other networking factors such as ethernet link speeds, etc. Some older gear is limited to 10 Mbps ethernet links to the radio devices, while newer gear is equipped with Gigabit or fiber links. Up to date gear in a properly designed cell tower should be able to support multiple Gigabits of bandwidth.
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akanatrix said:
I never said the 20,000 calls were successful, just initiated.
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No, but you implied ("or anywhere near capacity") that magnitude was what's required to saturate a sector.
3.1 Mbps sounds obscenely low though, can you link some reference documents?
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So, your claims were based on a guess, and not facts. Look at the answer from Qualcomm, dated August 23, 2010, 12:28 PM. And, it's not a "tower" limit, it's a sector limit. A tower may support multiple sectors using multiple antennas (sectors are pie slice shaped). That's done in areas of higher density to increase capacity. When done, there are usually 3 sectors supported by a tower.

This is a direct quote from the CDMA Development group. The answer you are quoting is incomplete. He does not specify that the limitation is per channel, as the CDMA Development group clarifies.
Key features of Rev. A include:
Advanced Broadband Data: Supports peak data rates of up to 3.1 Mbps in the forward link and 1.8 Mbps in the reverse link within a 1.25 MHz FDD radio channel. In commercial networks, Rev. A achieves an average data throughput of 600-1400 kbps in the forward link and 500-800 kbps in the reverse link. It achieves an aggregate data throughput of 3840 kbps in the downlink and 1500 kbps in the uplink over a 5 MHz FDD channel.
Higher Spectral Efficiency: Rev. A’s increased rate quantization on both the forward and reverse links enables a more efficient use of the air link resources, better network utilization and a lower cost of delivery. It supports 1.2 times EV-DO Rel. 0’s forward link sector capacity and 3.4 times its reverse link sector capacity, achieving up to 0.768 bit/sec/MHz and 0.300 bit/sec/MHz in the forward and reverse links respectively over a 5 MHz channel.
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http://www.cdg.org/technology/1xevdoreva.asp

mike.s said:
Oh, and I call BS. You didn't make 20,000 calls through a single tower.
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And no one said a single tower. Hypothetically, let's break down those 20,000 people. At the time, Alltel was still a carrier. For the sake of simplicity, break down the 20,000 people to five different carriers; Verizon, Alltel, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T would give you 4,000 people per carrier. Now assume only 50% of the people actually humored the speaker and made a call on their cell phone. I know there were quite a few people around me who did not bother. That would leave you with 2,000 people per carrier. This conference was in the middle of the Dallas convention center, which is inside a major metropolitan area. I would be inclined to believe you would have overlapping cell sites to distribute the load, but that's an uneducated guess.

akanatrix said:
This is a direct quote from the CDMA Development group.
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Why don't you do a bit of study, before diving deeper into that hole? You keep quoting generic statements about cellular technology, without understanding how Verizon actually implements those technologies.
Do you even know what a 5 MHz FDD channel is? I didn't think so.

mike.s said:
Why don't you do a bit of study, before diving deeper into that hole? You keep quoting generic statements about cellular technology, without understanding how Verizon actually implements those technologies.
Do you even know what a 5 MHz FDD channel is? I didn't think so.
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I never claimed to be an expert. Just pointing out that the claim you made of all users in a sector sharing a total of 3.1 Mbps bandwidth seems very unlikely to me, especially after doing a bit of light reading.

"A study of the global network indicates that the average cell site currently consumes 15Mb-30Mb"
http://www.overturenetworks.com/sites/default/files/white_paper/10GigEMobileBackhaul_r3.pdf
Keep in mind this was most likely before the deployment of most of Vz's lte, but that average would be for both data and voice. Another thing to keep in mind is CDMA uses less bandwidth on VOICE, i emphasize voice before someone flames. So Vz can get away with less bandwidth than ATT without the call loss. Slightly off topic. But looking at this, Mike.S's ~3mb per isn't too far fetched. Obviously this can go up or down based on if its a copper backend or fiber, equipment upgrades, etc. Metro cities have far more bandwidth than rural. Just throwing some more out there to the conversation.

does it say anything in our TOS/contract that we agreed upon when he started service that they can do this?...
if not, then i see a possible lawsuit coming a long.

I imagine new contracts do, but even without it, we have no stated "3g/4g will receive this much bandwidth" QOS clause, so i don't see that as being a legal issue (for Verizon, forgot to mention for who).

voxigenboy said:
does it say anything in our TOS/contract that we agreed upon when he started service that they can do this?...
if not, then i see a possible lawsuit coming a long.
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I doubt our contracts would protect us in any way, although it may violate the spirit of net neutrality.

lol, the contracts are designed to protect verizon, not you.

3.1Mbps is about 388KB/s. I highly doubt that is any sort of maximum as I've frequently hit 300KB/s or higher using my Verizon 3G phones. There is no way one person is going to about saturate the capacity of a cell site. If that was the case, they would have had major capacity issues over the years.
EDIT: And if they wouldn't need a 1Gbps or higher backhaul either.

Also, the easy way around a limitation on Facetime/Skype/Netflix/whatever is using a VPN.
Of course they could block VPN or limit that too, but then a lot of businesses would drop their service.

bogatyr said:
3.1Mbps is about 388KB/s. I highly doubt that is any sort of maximum as I've frequently hit 300KB/s or higher using my Verizon 3G phones. There is no way one person is going to about saturate the capacity of a cell site. If that was the case, they would have had major capacity issues over the years.
EDIT: And if they wouldn't need a 1Gbps or higher backhaul either.
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actually, 3.1mbps = over 3000 kbps....

Related

Att Network Up to par??

dunno how many of you saw this but i am very disappointed and pissed off about this little news if its true
http://pocketpc-live.com/top-stories/bad-news-for-pocketpc-sling-users.html
Not only have ATT 3G network crashed nurmious times but the fact that they bragging about having the fastest 3G nationwide is a bit of a over hyped statement if they cant simply handle data streaming of Sling Media but they could allow they crappy knock off *CV TV*
allthatinny said:
Not only have ATT 3G network crashed nurmious times but the fact that they bragging about having the fastest 3G nationwide is a bit of a over hyped statement if they cant simply handle data streaming of Sling Media but they could allow they crappy knock off *CV TV*
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Not that I'm a fan of the policy by any stretch, but I can't help but want to agree with them in targeting Sling.
It reminds me of when I was in college (around 2000) and the network admin was debating a ban on counterstrike communicating outside of the dorms because it took just 20 players to slow something as simple as web browsing to the point pages frequently timed out. Note, at the time Counterstrike's network code was a joke and the college didn't have a very good internet connection to the dorms anyway (the campus was on a different connection).
The comparison is easy to make, as Sling isn't well optimized at all. For network management, it uses Windows Media Video 9 (VC-1) to handle network transmissions, which (I'm told, I can't claim expert knowledge) is only good within local networks or a very small number of hops over the internet, otherwise it becomes confused and tends to fire more data than it should. There's also the issue of I-Frame intervals, which appear to be set rather low by default (meaning higher I-Frames). I-Frames take more data and cause higher bandwidth. Searching didn't turn up many positive comments about sling's video scaling (which obviously should be done if it's played on a screen small enough to fit in your pocket). I admit, this information comes from some quick googling, so it may possibly lack in accuracy, but it does hint that Sling isn't well suited to efficient use on a cellular data network.
I realize some people use Sling for home security cameras or possibly some other useful scenario other than watching TV, but let's be honest....if it's just about watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy on your phone while at work...then it's pretty lame. Obviously technology CAN support this, but only as long as it's a few people doing it. If the idea caught on, it would bring down any cellular network.
I admit, I'm not a Sling user, so perhaps I'm a little biased...
does that mean they've blocked sling's connection completely?
and i think it's b.s...we all paid the hefty fee for data plan so we should all be entitled to the 5GB or so soft cap. cut off the connection after the user has reached that limit! they can't just censor certain applications to help the network run more smoothly. they were supposed to provide a network that CAN sustain such traffic in the first place. If AT&T can't hold up to that much, they deserve to be and will be sued (unless of course they lower our data plan fees)
oh, and I think sling brought it upon themselves when they came out with the iphone app. i get the feeling AT&T only started this now because iphone users are feeling cheated ("the winmo users can watch sling, so why can't we?") this should teach iphone app developers a lesson! =p
Slingplayer is still working fine.
AT&T may just end up forbidding sling from working on their network in further software releases.
baboola said:
and i think it's b.s...we all paid the hefty fee for data plan so we should all be entitled to the 5GB or so soft cap. cut off the connection after the user has reached that limit! they can't just censor certain applications to help the network run more smoothly. they were supposed to provide a network that CAN sustain such traffic in the first place. If AT&T can't hold up to that much, they deserve to be and will be sued (unless of course they lower our data plan fees)
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I'm not really arguing here, I just wanted to point out that if you replace every instance of 'AT&T' with 'COMCAST' you will have the argument that was made by Comcast customers in 2007 about bittorrent traffic being blocked. Comcast backed down due to bad press, and a number of legal issues (primary reasons being that they didn't publicly admit to the censorship, and because their method of censorship was fraudulent...they were faking network packets, not just blocking them). Comcast didn't fully back down, but just adjusted their policy and tightened their methods of handling heavy customers. Note, this is a full sized ISP working over high speed cable, not a wireless provider that ALSO offers internet.
AT&T might back down, but I have the feeling this isn't going to draw enough ire to build the large public outcry that's necessary. I certainly doubt that they would lose any legal case regarding this. Even a legal case built around anti-competitive practices would fail since there's other methods to get video onto a phone via wireless.
Sling might stand to get some trouble since a lot of people surely bought into the equipment and iPhone app at the same time, and now won't get much use from either.
Of course, Sling may also consider suing AT&T if this becomes a protocol block...They actually stand a chance of winning that fight.
reason why i said they not up to par is due to the fact that technology is changing, we are streaming almost everything over networks now, its like att said "Your world connected"
movies is being streamed over networks, communcations, video feeds, audio, data, near everything and another big factor, is HD (Hi-Def) everyone wants HD cuz the quality is awesome but some companies complain about heavy usage when in reality streaming a full size HD movie is not easy, can we be blame cuz they network cant handle the traffic, NO! not like we not paying our monthly service fees but putting softcaps and all these stupid things is just plan out stupid and its stopping use from evolving.
hell i had my ISP put a cap on me once for hosting a game server from my PS3 console, i was hosting a TF2 server i think, and they told me that i cant do it cuz its agaisnt policy yet the feature is in video games to use and to allow us to play, what if every ISP in the world were to enforce that rule then all servers will have to be run by software companies and we will be changed for it to maintain they servers.
i personally think att NEEDS to upgrade they network to meet with todays demand, cuz when Hi Def really settles, what will happen then, ATT will change they policy just to hold us back.
allthatinny said:
Movies is being streamed over networks, communcations, video feeds, audio, data, near everything and another big factor, is HD (Hi-Def) everyone wants HD cuz the quality is awesome but some companies complain about heavy usage when in reality streaming a full size HD movie is not easy, can we be blame cuz they network cant handle the traffic, NO! not like we not paying our monthly service fees but putting softcaps and all these stupid things is just plan out stupid and its stopping use from evolving.
...
i personally think att NEEDS to upgrade they network to meet with todays demand, cuz when Hi Def really settles, what will happen then, ATT will change they policy just to hold us back.
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I agree completely with your end-point that AT&T needs to upgrade and they are under-performing given the price point we pay.
However, I think your reasoning is completely wrong. HD Video? If we had any phones that could REALLY handle HD video, it might be a different subject. You're talking about 2 things that are kind of absurd at this point, streaming HD over cellular wireless and actually being able to identify a measurable difference on a phone once you have it. Wired ISPs are having enough trouble with streaming HD, a wireless provider can't compete with them. Keep in mind, HSDPA's (not 3g) highest realistic transmission speed is only barely capable of meeting the lowest acceptable speed for streaming 720i video. Please also remember, the NEW cool toys for home theater is hardware capable of short range streaming of HD, you're talking about very long range. Second, what phone is going to display HD video substantially better than decently encoded standard def video? On screens this small, HD video is a waste of time. Once TV-Out is adopted and displays something other than a pure screen copy (which automatically displays only the phone's resolution), then the subject can be brought back up. Keep in mind, I'm talking about current phones, not those that are coming eventually with the Tegra chip or other future implementations. In a year, the technological realities could shift enough that a very small percentage of users could be talking about this stuff, but today it's not a part of the real use case scenarios.
In my opinion, here are the real reasons this news should be bad and we need to push AT&T to improve their network:
a) The point of forcing iPhone users to get a data plan was to fund improvement of the 3g and hsdpa capabilities of their network. We've suffered through the poor performance caused by the iPhone, now it's time to see the network improve beyond the point it was at BEFORE the evil phone came.
b) The solution to the problem should never be banning a protocol/service/feature. Raising cost or putting limits on it would be reasonable, but completely blocking something is absurd and unreasonable.
c) I know I had another reason, but I forgot it while typing....
speed_pour said:
I agree completely with your end-point that AT&T needs to upgrade and they are under-performing given the price point we pay.
However, I think your reasoning is completely wrong. HD Video? If we had any phones that could REALLY handle HD video, it might be a different subject. You're talking about 2 things that are kind of absurd at this point, streaming HD over cellular wireless and actually being able to identify a measurable difference on a phone once you have it. Wired ISPs are having enough trouble with streaming HD, a wireless provider can't compete with them. Keep in mind, HSDPA's (not 3g) highest realistic transmission speed is only barely capable of meeting the lowest acceptable speed for streaming 720i video. Please also remember, the NEW cool toys for home theater is hardware capable of short range streaming of HD, you're talking about very long range. Second, what phone is going to display HD video substantially better than decently encoded standard def video? On screens this small, HD video is a waste of time. Once TV-Out is adopted and displays something other than a pure screen copy (which automatically displays only the phone's resolution), then the subject can be brought back up. Keep in mind, I'm talking about current phones, not those that are coming eventually with the Tegra chip or other future implementations. In a year, the technological realities could shift enough that a very small percentage of users could be talking about this stuff, but today it's not a part of the real use case scenarios.
In my opinion, here are the real reasons this news should be bad and we need to push AT&T to improve their network:
a) The point of forcing iPhone users to get a data plan was to fund improvement of the 3g and hsdpa capabilities of their network. We've suffered through the poor performance caused by the iPhone, now it's time to see the network improve beyond the point it was at BEFORE the evil phone came.
b) The solution to the problem should never be banning a protocol/service/feature. Raising cost or putting limits on it would be reasonable, but completely blocking something is absurd and unreasonable.
c) I know I had another reason, but I forgot it while typing....
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ok lets take HD out of the pic even though its not to far away, but lets say a netflix video streaming software for windows mobile.
if i pay my monthly service charge on att end and netflix, they put a 5G softcap, one movie alone will eat up alot of that 5GB of bandwidth
i moved from the iphone and i could tell u that iphone 3G has awesome streaming compatiblity there was this one site called PublicPost that had movies on there for free with limited about of user, got closed down due to legal reason but i use to be at work watching really hot movies at great audio and sound with no hiccup problem but the fact that att wanting to ban tv streaming is a bit over the edge
"Up to Par??" Never has been
I worked for Cingular right after AT&T bought them until the week they started rebranding their phones as AT&T.
Warning on my bias
As much as I appreciate their innovations as a company, like being the first company to offer simultaneous use of Voice & Data by way of 3G and having the most popular and innovative phone on their network... I was horribly dissappointed at a bunch of their choices.
-They transitioned too fast and incompletely. ie. They were still removing/upgrading old AT&T Wireless components on their towers as they began rolling out 3G in other areas.
-Many people I know, including myself, lost signal almost completely as they transitioned voice to higher frequencies (1900mHz) and WCDMA/3G to replace them on the lower freqs. (Lower frequencies, 850 & 900mHz, offer better penetration through solids like trees & buildings. T-mobile is still the only carrier I get 1-2 bars in my basement...underground). What a waste! Especially since there are already so many 3G phones overseas that only use the 2100mHz WCDMA.
-Infrastructure. Infrastructure. Infrastructure.
How does a telecommunication company not give itself the Infrastructure to support the demand that they knew the iPhone would bring.
I'm glad I'm not helping them deal with the nightmare they made for themselves. Someone would have to pay me to give up my Sprint TouchPro. Who, btw, had the first 3G ntwork and still has the fastest. I'm happy to see people leave Sprint to get an iPhone cause it makes the network even faster lol.
sc00basteve said:
I worked for Cingular right after AT&T bought them until the week they started rebranding their phones as AT&T.
Warning on my bias
As much as I appreciate their innovations as a company, like being the first company to offer simultaneous use of Voice & Data by way of 3G and having the most popular and innovative phone on their network... I was horribly dissappointed at a bunch of their choices.
-They transitioned too fast and incompletely. ie. They were still removing/upgrading old AT&T Wireless components on their towers as they began rolling out 3G in other areas.
-Many people I know, including myself, lost signal almost completely as they transitioned voice to higher frequencies (1900mHz) and WCDMA/3G to replace them on the lower freqs. (Lower frequencies, 850 & 900mHz, offer better penetration through solids like trees & buildings. T-mobile is still the only carrier I get 1-2 bars in my basement...underground). What a waste! Especially since there are already so many 3G phones overseas that only use the 2100mHz WCDMA.
-Infrastructure. Infrastructure. Infrastructure.
How does a telecommunication company not give itself the Infrastructure to support the demand that they knew the iPhone would bring.
I'm glad I'm not helping them deal with the nightmare they made for themselves. Someone would have to pay me to give up my Sprint TouchPro. Who, btw, had the first 3G ntwork and still has the fastest. I'm happy to see people leave Sprint to get an iPhone cause it makes the network even faster lol.
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What are you talking about? Really? You're wrong on a half a dozen counts.
AT&T bought absolutely nothing, in any part of their weird buyout ridden last 5 years. From Wikipedia: "Formerly a joint venture between SBC Communications and BellSouth, Cingular Wireless soon acquired the old AT&T Wireless; SBC later acquired the original AT&T and re-branded as "the new AT&T". Cingular became wholly-owned by the new AT&T in December 2006 as a result of AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth." The 3G rollout was already underway before anyone bought anything, I remember hearing about it when I signed up for AT&T Wireless in 2004. They didn't transition incompletely or anything, they've got the "world's fastest 3G network" running on a backbone barely fit for an MMORPG player.
T-Mobile is 1900 MHz ONLY, and uses 1700 MHz for 3G; you just get good signal in your basement because the tower is nearby.
Sounds like Sprint needs to pay you a little bit more to plug them like a salesman.
To the OP: Yes, AT&T sucks. I hate them for that too, blocking Sling because they know their network would crumble like a stack of cards if even 10% of us started seriously using our 3G.
sheik124 said:
To the OP: Yes, AT&T sucks. I hate them for that too, blocking Sling because they know their network would crumble like a stack of cards if even 10% of us started seriously using our 3G.
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Sorry, just asking for a bit of a quantification of this statement. It's true AT&T would flop and die like a fish out of water, but what carrier wouldn't?
In the interest of staying on topic, and reissuing my question more contextually; since Verizon is possibly going to gain sales rights to the iPhone, does anybody think that with a mass purchasing of the iPhone under Verizon that they may also suffer serious network degradation with regular uptake of the Sling app? Would they have a different response? Given Verizon's history, I think they would likely demand to filter appStore apps, which almost certainly includes the Sling app.
It's not that I disagree on the problems with AT&T, and I'm not trying to be an apologist for them (I swear, I really don't mean to be), but I see a lot of negative comments which seem to ignore that all of the other carriers are just as bad/incapable/inadequate/incompetent. Normally I ignore all of it, but today seems to have brought it out of me.
gee i think they should work on the cell sites handling handoffs' before they go worrying about much else. Constantly losing calls/data when i hit a new cell site outside of boston. Its getting old.
At&t sucks
same thing happens to me when am entering and leaving staten island, happens on both the ferry and on the bridge
Not sure if those who are interested have seen this, but over the in the Kaiser forum the same subject was brought up (albeit, more relevant subject line). A possible work-around is described for interested parties (assuming AT&T actually does any filtering on the protocol). Here's the thread: Slingbox users beware...At&t limiting 3g access
speed_pour said:
Sorry, just asking for a bit of a quantification of this statement. It's true AT&T would flop and die like a fish out of water, but what carrier wouldn't?
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Umm. Definitely Sprint.
I'm on a Sprint SERO plan and they have never complained about my data usage. That probably why they haven't said anything, but seriously. I will repeat: I'm happy to see people leave Sprint to get an iPhone cause it makes the network even faster lol.
I did 2.7+ gigs of data last month and 6+ the month before that.
Last night I tested this:
'nuff said
sc00basteve said:
Umm. Definitely Sprint.
I'm on a Sprint SERO plan and they have never complained about my data usage. That probably why they haven't said anything, but seriously. I will repeat: I'm happy to see people leave Sprint to get an iPhone cause it makes the network even faster lol.
I did 2.7+ gigs of data last month and 6+ the month before that.
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Somehow I suspect you live on the East Coast. My whole time growing up and living on the West Coast, there's only a few people I know that didn't complain about Sprint. Actually, Sprint is the only carrier that people around here have a serious problem with. I worked for a company for a short time that had a lot of people travel from Tennessee to here and each of them used Sprint, they all said that they had the best experience with it until they came here, then it was nearly unusable. Obviously, it's just like radio versions, quality depends entirely on the circumstances.
I do have to say, several months ago I drove from southern California most of the way up the west coast, downloaded a few movies and tv shows, then did the same on the trip back 2 weeks later. While I didn't count total amounts, the video alone had to be at least 4 gigs. That didn't count any of my data usage with web browsing or any time between trips. I also only had 3 dropped signals in more than 1000 miles (once in the desert, once at shasta mountain, and once in a mountain pass in southern oregon). On this coast, in my experience, AT&T is pretty rock solid and Sprint is difficult to use. Not sure about Verizon or TMo though, not many friends on either of those.
That makes sense
It does make sense. I was out in San Francisco a couple of years ago, when I had ATT, and it was really solid.
But Sprint users, fear not. I was talking to a teir2 tech a couple month ago and he was part of the citywide testing for WiMax in Seattle. I think it was Seattle, at least. Anyway, Baltimore rollout is functional and rollout + testing in many cities is an awesome sign.
ahhahaha sprint. Yea go for sprint, if you want a network that will be bought up soon. I cannot tell you how many sprint people have been laid off in the past 5 months. (cell techs+) They are almost ready to go belly up. And the 4g is a joke.
First they plopped all the 4g's on teh ground and started hooking them up. Then they went out and pulled them all and now they are beginning to put them back.. (my guess is so whoever buys them will see the numbers)
bottom line.... i wouldnt touch sprint w/ a 10foot pole right now.
At least MetroPCS is transparent. They are basically building verizon's new sites. hahahah Cdma2000 and 4g ready. lolz
well this is a bit off topic but here we go again, att practically embrass themself at the apple WWDC, no MMS support of iPhone, NO TETHERING,
and if ur a existing att customer and want to buy the new iphone u gotta pay any where from 299-399 with a new 2 YEAR CONTRACT, pfft not going through that again if i cant even stream sling media over they network, att can kiss my a$$
allthatinny said:
well this is a bit off topic but here we go again, att practically embrass themself at the apple WWDC, no MMS support of iPhone, NO TETHERING,
and if ur a existing att customer and want to buy the new iphone u gotta pay any where from 299-399 with a new 2 YEAR CONTRACT, pfft not going through that again if i cant even stream sling media over they network, att can kiss my a$$
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I kinda hoped to be done with this thread, but I was already reading the WWDC coverage and got a huge laugh and the coverage (the fact that they described the entire hall laughing at the tethering support issue). In point of fact, Apple is lying...a LOT.
MMS support is missing because Apple implemented the MMS protocol differently than virtually every handset maker in the world. The "upgrades" aren't performance upgrades, they are functional upgrades to support the alternate implementation. The story I heard from one of the techs is that AT&T wasn't made aware of this until just a few months ago and they weren't given time to implement software upgrades.
Tethering support has nothing to do with performance (though that's obviously going to be an issue). It's all about Apple and AT&T STILL discussing the pricing for the tethering plan. My theory, worth little more than a grain of salt, is that apple is trying to take a cut of tethering on top of the profits they already get from each plan...why else does apple need to negotiate when at&t already has set prices for this feature.
As to pricing...I don't see why everybody is throwing a huge fuss...Does every iphone user think they are god's children? If they want to upgrade their phone every year, they need to either be ready to pay a high price or have an upgrade coming. If Apple expects people to do this, then they should either create an trade-in plan, or some special mail-in rebate offer to existing iphone owners. That's not a carrier's job, not when the handsets are already subsidized so heavily.
The hardware upgrades for apple are laughable anyway. The new handset only comes with an upgraded camera and they finally flipped the switch on video recording that every jailbroken phone already had. Apple is just soaking their fanboys for money. I'm expecting 3G owners are going to see a tutorial in 2 months on how to replace the existing camera with the 3 megapixel one from the 3gs. Combined with jailbreaking, 3g owners will be able to have a 3gs at the cost of throwing out their warranty and buying a $30 replacement camera component.

Drone that Hacks T-Mobile and ATT Devices

Not a single regulation violated, pretty cool if you ask me:
Built by Mike Tassey and Richard Perkins, the Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform (otherwise known as the WASP) is a flying drone that has a 6-foot wingspan, a 6-foot length and weighs in at 14 pounds. The small form factor of the unmanned aerial vehicle allows it to drop under radar and is often mistaken for a large bird. It was built from an Army target drone and converted to run on electric batteries rather than gasoline. It can also be loaded with GPS information and fly a predetermined course without need for an operator. Taking off and landing have to be done manually with the help of a mounted HD camera. However, the most interesting aspect of the drone is that it can crack Wi-Fi networks and GSM networks as well as collect the data from them.
It can accomplish this feat with a Linux computer on-board that’s no bigger than a deck of cards. The computer accesses 32GB of storage to house all that stolen data. It uses a variety of networking hacking tools including the BackTrack toolset as well as a 340 million word dictionary to guess passwords. In order to access cell phone data, the WASP impersonates AT&T and T-Mobile cell phone towers and fools phones into connecting to one of the eleven antenna on-board. The drone can then record conversations to the storage card and avoids dropping the call due to the 4G T-mobile card routing communications through VOIP.
Amazingly, this was accomplished with breaking a single FCC regulation. The drone relies on the frequency band used for Ham radios to operate. Not wanting to get into legal trouble with AT&T and T-Mobile, they tested the technology in isolated areas to avoid recording phone conversations other than their own. The duo play to discuss how to build the WASP at the DEFCON 19 hacking conference.
http://news.yahoo.com/men-build-small-flying-spy-drone-cracks-wi-172803720.html
Let it hack my g2x, my phoe will probably knock it down when it reboots, or gps will take so long to lock up the drone will run out of juice.
That thing is a felony arrest waiting to happen.
G2X CM7
Wow. I'm more frightened of the gov't using it than hackers. Pretty incredible innovation, though. Thx for the link!
Also, I think it'd be nice to have one thread that doesn't have a bitter G2X user segue any topic into how much they hate their phone. FFS!!
Nice! I want one!
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
Probably not breaking any laws as long as they are given permission to record the conversations (which are their own so far).
I have a swiper drone at work for testing our surveillance equipment. Never really thought about this application though.
Thanks for posting an interesting story. I rarely even open the general forums these days because it seems like every thread is "hate my phone," "should i trade," or "gb update brick." Nice change of scenery.
1984 Big brother comming our way

[DISCUSSION] Unlimited data or lack thereof

The way I understand things is that with "4G" aka hspa+ and LTE id that the towers are now glorified wireless routers with a hard line (fiber or something ) routing all Internet access from your phone (which has its own unique Mac address) through your carriers servers. So why does it cost $50/3GB of data when if you have Internet access through an isp at your home you're paying the same for pretty much unlimited usage? Greed? All the carriers talk about people straining the network with all the band with usage, it's like how they charge for texting when it doesn't cost anything extra since it's sending your text through the towers pinging between themselves and your phone? Any thoughts or do you think I'm just rambling and don't have my information correct?
Sent from my PantechP9070 using xda app-developers app
It's not that simple.
Obviously all this wonderful technology costs a bunch... if it was as cheap as you make it sound, either one of two things would be true:
1. The phone companies would be insanely wealthy.
or
2. Someone would start a phone company that undercut the others, since everyone else is 'overcharging'.
Neither of which has happened.
The infrastructure to carry all that data costs BILLIONS, and then you can tack on all the money it costs to actually run it, and make sure that it stays running.
Frankly, you should be happy that they can get it to you for the reasonable value they do.
FearTheCowboy said:
It's not that simple.
Obviously all this wonderful technology costs a bunch... if it was as cheap as you make it sound, either one of two things would be true:
1. The phone companies would be insanely wealthy.
or
2. Someone would start a phone company that undercut the others, since everyone else is 'overcharging'.
Neither of which has happened.
The infrastructure to carry all that data costs BILLIONS, and then you can tack on all the money it costs to actually run it, and make sure that it stays running.
Frankly, you should be happy that they can get it to you for the reasonable value they do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good points, 1 the telcos are wealthy pulling in billions in profits every quarter
2 they've effectively made it so you can't make your own upstart to undercut them, as far as isps go
With all this money being spent on technology and the fact that as technology gets more advanced it becomes cheaper to produce. I do understand needing revenue to use towards R&D and updating and maintaining equipment, but if you lived in a city that's blanketed in "free" wifi you could effectively use it for voip and all your data needs.
I get you'd be paying more from an isp to be getting lte speeds per month, rather from the carrier of your choice, but it's a flat rate, you don't get X GBs of data and they charge you more if you go over, even with the billions the isps use to maintain and update their equipment, but what about the existing infrastructure, it's not like it was built over the past few years. Mobile data just tunnels through the Internet, like I said it really is just specialized 802.xx wireless equipment essentially. It's not like every time I access the Internet on my phone that it has to chain between 30+ towers to get to me. How is it that the price of mobile data has gone up but to have high speed at home its gone down?
Sorry now I'm just rambling lol
Sent from my PantechP9070 using xda app-developers app

[Q] PHONE SIM banned from TABLET use

Why do mobile companies restrict the use of SIM cards from phones from being used in tablets?
While phones were mostly less powerful than the new tablet devices and the larger screens meant there was a greater data demand by tablet devices, this is certainly no longer the case.
Phones are now more powerful than most tablets and the rest are simply equal. Processors are quad core clocked at similar speeds, if not not higher speeds, the working memory is again the latest 1-2Gb configuration with 16-32GB internal NAND flash memory. With phones having the latest 128GB external SDXC memory support to compliment the superior camera resolutions of 22 Mega pixels. Cloud services are now just beginning to gear thewmselves up to cope with this data interchange whereas tablets still have only modest cameras. Phones do now have front and back facing cameras and the similarities continue to converge.
But crucially the screen resolution has become irrelavent because of technical innovation and it is commonsense the data is sent highly compressed through the Internet where it is decompressed and interpolated to match the local screen resolution by the local graphics processing unit, GPU. This item is again of superior design, as a matched technology to the central processing unit, CPU where the mobile phone market is concerned. Both CPU and GPU are expected to have multiple cores to improve performance and the designs are optimised to consume as little power as possible. A great advantage for a mobile phone. The competition leads to great performance in wider world applications and this is the reason for the extreme competition that has been encouraged in the mobile phone marketplace. But of course we, the public, are paying for this R&D whereas it used to be hideously expensive top secret military R&D budgets. The senate was worried about the cost of a hammer and a handfull of screws at one stage.
There has been a complete change in the definition of mobile phone and tablet where the OS is now exactly the same for each, being Android 4.x.x.
So why are telcos forcing people to purchase a separate SIM for each device? I am disabled. I need specialist communication software to assist me in communicating when I am travelling. For this the tablet is better. But while at home or when meeting friends during the evening the mobile phone is the better option. But the telcos refuse to let me use the same SIM in both devices. I cannot use both devices at the same time so I don't see the logic behind this situation.
The situation continues because the telcos think we cannot see they are continuing to enforce this barrier so that they can make a greater profit from users. Please help get people to recognise the false pretence that prevents us all from exercising a freedon of choice to use either device according to our intended purpose without the need to purchase separate SIMS. Afterall, because I can only use one device at a time why am I forced to pay for two 3G or 4G contracts with separate data components?
I don't see any common sense in this situation and I do think we are all being ripped off by this legacy programmed system restriction.
And I did install the phone SIM in my tablet after being told by the telco staff it was OK, where it worked happily for approx 12 hours. Later when I enquired how I could set up the voicemail and SMS services an arrogant technician then told me I could not install this SIM into a tablet, followed rather weakly by, it will stop working after a time.
Given the conflicting statements and the fact the SIM was working when I was being told it would not work I question the reality of the reason for it not working. It may be recognised by a systematic ID check. But the blocking of the data services after an arbitrary period of time raises the question, "Why shouldn't a SIM now work regardless of whether it is a Phone SIMor a tablet SIM.
The legacy rationale a history of tablets as they were originally a platform for advanced circuitry and software to be released and the resulting extra data demand to their internet connection lasted only as long as the phone market had not become so competitive that their technical facilities raced ahead of tablets. In fact the technological improvements in hardware and saftware have brought both devices to an equal status where users can choose the device according to the context of their intended purpose.. So much so that having more than one device to suit practical applications in varied social settings with no impact on the data portion of their respective uses. Example, you can now watch films or TV series while commuting.. Preferable to use a smartphone here. But you can continue exactly where you left off on a tablet or even a smart TV! The data compression and local pixel mapping to suit the resolution of the device is done locally and absolutely without any impact upon the data demand or stream.
There is no reasonable argument to continue differentiating between Phones and Tablets other than to enforce an obsolete regimen and to unfairly extract money from phone and tablet users who unwittingly pay twice for the same telephone and data services! Copyright(CC) Arclite 13-03-2015
I swap my SIM between my phone and my tablet several times a day. Never had a problem with it...

Worrying: A relatively high SAR value

So I am keen to read opinions about the relatively high SAR value of the Alcatel Idol 3 and its possible negative
effect on the human head and body. I remember owning phones having significantly lower SAR values, such as the
Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy Note II, clocking in around 0.2 W/Kg, instead of the idol 3's 1.42 W/Kg.
Should we be worried with every day use? The maximum allowed SAR value is set at 1.6 W/Kg. Below is the official report
of the Idol 3 regarding SAR ratings:
THIS MOBILE PHONE MEETS THE GOVERNMENT’S REQUIREMENTS FOR
EXPOSURE TO RADIO WAVES.
Your mobile phone is a radio transmitter and receiver. It is designed and manufactured
not to exceed the emission limits for exposure to radio-frequency (RF) energy. These
limits are part of comprehensive guidelines and establish permitted levels of RF
energy for the general population. The guidelines are based on standards that were
developed by independent scientific organizations through periodic and thorough
evaluation of scientific studies. These guidelines include a substantial safety margin
designed to ensure the safety of all persons, regardless of age and health.
The exposure standard for mobile phones employs a unit of measurement known
as the Specific Absorption Rate, or SAR. The SAR limit set by public authorities such
as the Federal Communications Commission of the US Government (FCC), or by
Industry Canada, is 1.6 W/kg averaged over 1 gram of body tissue. Tests for SAR are
conducted using standard operating positions with the mobile phone transmitting at
its highest certified power level in all tested frequency bands.
9 10
Although the SAR is determined at the highest certified power level, the actual SAR
level of the mobile phone while operating can be well below the maximum value. This
is because the mobile phone is designed to operate at multiple power levels so as to
use only the power required to reach the network. In general, the closer you are to
a wireless base station antenna, the lower the power output of the mobile phone.
Before a mobile phone model is available for sale to the public, compliance with
national regulations and standards must be shown.
The highest SAR value for this model mobile phone when tested is 1.39W/Kg for use
at the ear and 1.42W/Kg for use close to the body.
Source: http://support.bell.ca/_web/Guides/...tel-EN/Alcatel-OneTouch-Idol-3-User-Guide.pdf
SAR is a really useless measure.
http://www.electricsense.com/1133/cell-phone-sar-totally-misleading/
"even the FCC now casts doubt on the usefulness of comparing maximum SAR values for determining the potential health risks of cell phones."
flopticalcube said:
SAR is a really useless measure.
http://www.electricsense.com/1133/cell-phone-sar-totally-misleading/
"even the FCC now casts doubt on the usefulness of comparing maximum SAR values for determining the potential health risks of cell phones."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So it's basically about locations where there is bad reception and the cellphone trying hard to get a connection, increasing the SAR value. It's still
relatively high, the peaks. Anyone else input?
Peaks don't mean anything by themselves, its the average power put out over a long period of time that matters. Think marathon runner vs sprinter.
flopticalcube said:
Peaks don't mean anything by themselves, its the average power put out over a long period of time that matters. Think marathon runner vs sprinter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess you're right. However, many people advise to wear/carry a cellphone (our Idol 3 in this case) away from the body. How does that even work for men? I've always carried my cellphone in my pocket. How dangerous are we talking??
make my day.
gideonMorrison said:
I guess you're right. However, many people advise to wear/carry a cellphone (our Idol 3 in this case) away from the body. How does that even work for men? I've always carried my cellphone in my pocket. How dangerous are we talking??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Put it this way, you are FAR more likely to be killed by reading a facebook post on your phone rather than paying attention to traffic than you are by the minimal radiation put out by the phone in your pocket.
DallasCZ said:
make my day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct thread?
Put it this way, you are FAR more likely to be killed by reading a facebook post on your phone rather than paying attention to traffic than you are by the minimal radiation put out by the phone in your pocket.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess you're right, but I don't like tumors etc There's always a risk of course, just wondering how large that risk truly is...
nobody likes tumors and cancer and so on...but the thing is, that you more likely got cancer from stress and ubhealthy living style than from mobile device radiation (my opinion). But anyway if you want to avoid SAR radiation to your body buy a device with lowes SAR HERE Is link to one article in Czech (because iam from Czech republic) and if you use google translation you will notice, that lowest radiations has for example LG G3, so go for this device and you will be happy (more likely untill you got tumor from something else than SAR radiation ). I myself dont take this things so seriously because there are no proper research and no straight proven consequences between tumors, cancer and magnetic field radiation. It simply stands on more things than a device you use (genetic predisposition, living style, stress...). Thatswhy i put the post above
edit: just for the end..there was a research that prooves that when you ejaculate often (at least once a day), that lowers significantly the chance to get prostatic cancer. so turn of the computer and go for it.
DallasCZ said:
nobody likes tumors and cancer and so on...but the thing is, that you more likely got cancer from stress and ubhealthy living style than from mobile device radiation (my opinion). But anyway if you want to avoid SAR radiation to your body buy a device with lowes SAR HERE Is link to one article in Czech (because iam from Czech republic) and if you use google translation you will notice, that lowest radiations has for example LG G3, so go for this device and you will be happy (more likely untill you got tumor from something else than SAR radiation ). I myself dont take this things so seriously because there are no proper research and no straight proven consequences between tumors, cancer and magnetic field radiation. It simply stands on more things than a device you use (genetic predisposition, living style, stress...). Thatswhy i put the post above
edit: just for the end..there was a research that prooves that when you ejaculate often (at least once a day), that lowers significantly the chance to get prostatic cancer. so turn of the computer and go for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Although your post made me chuckle a couple of times I do feel it could be a serious matter, as I think we all would prefer a SAR value as low as possible. I reckon we can safely use our i3's however.
gideonMorrison said:
Although your post made me chuckle a couple of times I do feel it could be a serious matter, as I think we all would prefer a SAR value as low as possible. I reckon we can safely use our i3's however.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would prefer to see a better way of rating a phone's total RF power output over a period of time. For all we know, the Idol 3 may be much safer than a Galaxy S6 over a typical day even if it does have a higher SAR peak. The likelihood is that both are amongst the least of your worries in life.
flopticalcube said:
I would prefer to see a better way of rating a phone's total RF power output over a period of time. For all we know, the Idol 3 may be much safer than a Galaxy S6 over a typical day even if it does have a higher SAR peak. The likelihood is that both are amongst the least of your worries in life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well put and I agree. I will still be wearing the i3 5.5 in my pocket as I've always done. Is there an app for making my balls radiation-free?
gideonMorrison said:
Well put and I agree. I will still be wearing the i3 5.5 in my pocket as I've always done. Is there an app for making my balls radiation-free?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 xD

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