AT&T: 2.5G upgrades won't make iPhone Web surfing faster
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Blog: AT&T has been upgrading its 2.5G EDGE network, but it won't likely change the speed at which new iPhone users can surf the mobile Net.
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Samsung held a forum in South Korea this past week showing off fourth-generation wireless technology. However, with the uptake of 3G not as quick as planned, do consumers need faster wireless data just yet?
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AT&T won't officially say whether improvements to its EDGE network are being done to meet anticipated network demands of the Apple iPhone, which debuts on June 29.
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Complaints about the speed of the network that Apple Inc.&#39;s new iPhone connects to points to the need for a new broadband wireless network in the U.S., said a businessman proposing one.
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AT&amp;T's second-quarter results don't tell much about sales of the new Apple gizmo, but investors decided not to hang around.
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According to Saul Hansell at the NY Times, Apple intends to break phones that have been unlocked.  But Francine Hardaway and Patrick Scoble both updated this afternoon, and bad things happened. Hardaway's phone was "fried," she needed a new phone, and Scoble lost all his data. Hardaway: "Trust me, I didn't hack it." Jeff Clavier: "This effing piece of s..t is bricked." Robert Scoble, Patrick's dad, updated successfully, and got the new features. Spaley's iPhone is "a useless piece of crap." Looks like Josh Bancroft's iPhone was hosed too. I would hold off on the update until we find out what's going wrong.  Sugar Attack: "It wasn't until I saw a friend tweet about the new iPhone firmware upgrade that I realized I could now access the iTunes WiFi store."
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AT&amp;T Inc. and Apple Inc. on Tuesday said wireless service for the iPhone will range from $59.99 per month to $99.99 per month.
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All it takes is a decent browser Opera has launched a beta of its mobile browser, Opera Mini: version 4 supports smooth zooming around web pages and server-based page optimisation, giving Opera claim to deliver the whole internet ahead of Apple's much-anticipated iPhone.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Complaints about the speed of the network thatÂ Apple's new iPhoneÂ connects to points to the need for a new broadband wireless network in the U.S., said a businessman proposing one. The iPhone uses AT&T's EDGE network, which AT&T says averages speeds of 100 kilobits to 150 kilobits per second. But one review in the Wall Street Journal called the network "pokey," and a review in the New York Times called the network "excruciatingly slow," saying users may "almost ache for a dial-up modem." With new wireless spectrum scheduled to be auctioned by early next year, the launch of the iPhone demonstrates the need for a faster new network, said Reed Hundt, a former chairman at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and vice chairman of Frontline Wireless. Frontline has asked the FCC to set aside 22MHz of spectrum out of 84MHz available for a national wireless broadband network, to be built by the highest bidder for the spectrum. "The connection service is a bridge back to the 20th century," Hundt said Monday. "The iPhone is like the guy who invented the Ferrari and found out he was selling into a country of dirt roads." Apple selected the AT&T network in part because it covers 90 percent of the U.S. AT&T has been pleased with the iPhone launch, said spokesman Todd Smith. There are faster networks in the U.S., but they do not have the geographic coverage that EDGE provides. "We believe the EDGE network was designed for a product like the iPhone," Smith added. "We're confident with its ability to support the device." Hundt doesn't blame AT&T for the network speeds, he said. Instead, the U.S. government has so far failed to provide spectrum available for faster new networks, he said. "It's not AT&T, its not Apple, it's the government that arranged things so there'd be only one national network," he said. The FCC has a chance to change that when it sets the rules for the auctions in the 700MHz band being abandoned by U.S. television stations, Hundt said. "There's one last chance for the government to take a new course, and create an open, truly national ... wireless broadband network," he said. Frontline and other supporters of an open-access broadband network say the 700MHz spectrum auctions represent the last chance for the U.S. to create a new broadband network to compete with cable modem and DSL (digital subscriber line) providers. In late 2005, the U.S. Congress passed legislation that requires U.S. television stations to move to digital broadcasts and abandon spectrum in the 700MHz band by February 2009. That spectrum allows broadband signals to travel three to four times farther than signals transmitted in higher bands. The Frontline plan would require the winning bidder of one chunk of spectrum to build a dual-use commercial and emergency response network, with priority network use for police and fire departments. Frontline is asking the FCC to require "open access" rules, allowing wireless and broadband providers across the country to buy wholesale access to the network. CTIA, a trade group representing wireless phone providers, and the Hands Off the Internet coalition, representing AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent,Â and other groups, have opposed open-access rules, saying consumers already have many choices in the wireless market. FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group, said in a paper released last week that too many questions about the Frontline proposal still exist, such as who will finance the network and how much public safety agencies will have to pay for access. "Frontline asks both U.S. taxpayers and public safety agencies to become its business partners, its first and largest investors," wrote study author Jeffrey Eisenach.
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Apple Inc.'s flashy new iPhones may be jamming parts of the wireless network at Duke University, where technology officials worked with the company Wednesday to fix problems before classes begin next month.
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Blog: The good news is that my iPhone is finally activated and it's definitely worth the money. The bad news is that it took AT&T 39 hours to get it done.
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Pah - we sneer at your global economies of scale! More dismal news for the US consumer. After the simultaneous failure of Municipal Wi-Fi projects in three major US cities - something we predicted four years ago - faster, cheaper mobile data looks further away than ever.â¦
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Owners of Apple's iPhone are beginning to receive their first monthly bill from AT&T since the new purchase and are discovering a number of mistakes on the wireless carrier's part. Most notably, AT&T is not removing prior data plans, charging users $20 for the iPhone data, as well as up to $50 for their previous package.
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Unlocked and loaded Efforts to open up the functionality of Apple's iPhone to users disinclined to sign up to expensive two year contracts with AT&amp;T are growing.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Efforts to unlock Apple's iPhoneÂ continued on Monday, with hackers claiming "very significant progress." The locked iPhone only works with AT&T's EDGE network, and cannot be used with cellular service from other providers. Locked phones are generally used to help operators recoup the cost of subsidizing handsets for their customers, but AT&T is not subsidizing the iPhone, which is priced at either $499 or $599, depending on the model. Instead, the phone is locked because AT&T has a five-year agreement with Apple to be the sole iPhone provider in the U.S. Unlocking the iPhoneÂ would be a boon for users locked into a contract with another U.S. carrier, or for users outside the U.S. who want an iPhone. While initial signs indicate an unlocked iPhone is possible, hackers must first overcome several challenges. One of those involves circumventing the authentication process in iTunes that both lets users register for an AT&T service plan and turn on the phone's features, including its camera and music player. By Monday evening, U.S. time, hackers had made headway towards circumventing the activation process. But the phone remained locked at the time of writing. "We have been fairly successful in spoofing iTunes activation processes. This should allow us to activate the phone," poster gj wrote on the iPhone Dev Wiki, one of several Web sites tracking efforts to unlock the phone. "It may in fact also prevent the SIM locking from occurring in the first place ... though we haven't verified this yet." These advances allowed hackers to set and read data on the iPhone, including the ability to query whether a phone has been activated. "The rest of our work is legwork really, in understanding how certain functions operate with the rest of the phone," the site said, adding hackers are close to the ability to browse system files on the iPhone, a key step toward unlocking the handset. Once the activation problem has been overcome, hackers will be faced with other questions. For instance, does iTunes have the ability to recognize a phone that was not activated for use with the AT&T network? If so, how will iTunes react? After these questions are resolved, hackers can focus on unlocking the handset itself. That task is made easier by the iPhone's use of a removable SIM (Subscriber Identity Module), a smart card that contains a user's phone number as well as storage space for contacts and messages, instead of one that was hardwired into the phone. The use of a removable SIM card means the iPhone is locked using its firmware, which can likely be cracked. While hackers race ahead to unlock the iPhone as quickly as possible, iPhone Dev Wiki poster gj criticized those hackers competing against each other to unlock the phone, saying the lack of cooperation had slowed progress. "I can't emphasize enough how much this s*** stinks. Trust me, your ego is not as important as you think it is. If everyone worked together we would have been done by now, but instead we have a******* all over the world trying to 'beat us to the punch,'" the poster wrote. Â
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The first generation of High Speed Packet Access mobile services increased download speeds to mobile phones. Now carriers are also launching HSPA services, also known as Turbo-3G, with faster upload speeds, making the mobile office even more of a reality.On Thursday, AT&amp;T Wireless unveiled two new LaptopConnected HSUPA (High-Speed Uplink Packet Access) data cards for its wireless broadband customers.Another carrier that has upgraded its network and recently launched a service is 3 Sweden.&quot;We are mainly talking to professional users. It&#39;s a really good service for people that need to send large files,&quot; said Camilla B&#252;low.It charges a flat monthly fee of 299 Swedish kronor ($46) for the service, aptly named Pro.AT&amp;T Wireless and 3 Sweden are not the only operators speeding up their networks. Around 50 carriers currently support HSUPA, according to the latest figures from GSM Association, a group representing network operators.&quot;Moving to HSUPA is a logical progression, and it doesn&#39;t take a substantial investment to upgrade,&quot; said David Pringle, spokesman for the GSM Association.Heavy e-mail users aren&#39;t the only ones who have a lot to gain from faster upload speeds. In a world where consumers create more of their own content and make phone calls from the PC, and where the move to delivering software as a service is gaining momentum, faster upload speeds are becoming increasingly important.&quot;We are doing a lot of work around virtual desktops, and faster network speeds in both directions would improve the mobile user experience,&quot; said Peter S&#246;derholm, field systems engineering manager at Citrix Systems Nordic.The first iteration of HSUPA supports theoretical data rates of up to 1.4Mbps. In the real world that means around 1Mbps -- three to four times faster than existing networks. Next year the speed will increase to up to 5.76Mbps, and carriers are getting ready for that too.&quot;Our network is ready for that speed, but we haven&#39;t said when we are going to upgrade,&quot; said B&#252;low.For the technology to become useful, users must have compatible modems and phones. Modems are becoming more common, but mobile phones are still scarce. HSUPA products launched at last week&#39;s Mobile World Congress included Sony Ericsson&#39;s Xperia X1 and Toshiba&#39;s Port&#233;g&#233; G810.&quot;The phones are a bit behind,&quot; B&#252;low concluded.
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Taking a page â albeit a tinier one â from the iPhoneâs design is a new test version of the Opera Mini browser for cellphones.