At 04 May 2008 10:29:57 +0000 Ron wrote:

> WiFi is usually free, and is widely available, as those of us who use
> it know.


Um, WiFi users are hardly a secret club. I, too, use WiFi, on my laptops,
my WinMo phone, and various PDAs. If it was as ubiquitous as you seem to
believe, I wouldn't need a data plan, but I do. Yes, WiFi is available in
many places, but not enought to be relied upon for use on demand, unless I
pre-select my itinerary to favor hotspots (i.e. Starbucks for coffee,
followed by a trip to the library, then Panera Bread for lunch, etc.) As a
T-Mo cusomer, I'm stuck with EDGE wireless data, just like an iPhone
customer is, so I too will happily take advantage of WiFi when/where
available.

> EDGE/GPRS is not free, and it remains to be seen what AT&T will
> charge for data plans for 3G iPhones, it typically charges $40/month
> for 3G Smart Phone data planes, and the Edge iPhone has already
> demonstrated the burden it puts on data infrastructure.

Historically AT&T doesn't price plans based on speed. Data for PDAs and
smartphones is what it is regardless of whether the phone is 2G or 3G.
Whether that will hold true for the iPhone remains to be seen, But someone
pointed out (Dennis Ferguson, IIRC) one advantage of 3G speed is it uses
less "time" on the network for the same amount of data- i.e. assuming you
follow the same usage pattern on 3G- unattended e-mail retrieval and the
same web lookups (weather, movies, the news, Google Maps directions, etc.)
you still transfer the same amount of data, but in a quarter of the time,
leaving the network idle for more users. Other than infrastructure build-
out costs, higher speed data is usually cheaper for the carrier- as the
switch from 1G (which used a full voice channel during the connection
whether data was being actively transferred or not!) to 2G (that sent data
packets "around" voice calls during active transfers) demonstrated. (I
always appreciated the irony that my 1G data on T-Mo was "free"- using my
plan minutes, while they charged me monthly for the 2G data which saved
them network usage! Obviously, though the same could said of texting,
which consumes less sytem resources than a voice call, but is sold as a
premium service.)


> You can't have it both ways. Bitch about iPhone having to use Edge,
> and then brag how Edge is UBIQUITUOUS.

This is a long thread with twists and turns- I wasn't "bitching" about the
iPhone using EDGE. I was (at first) suggesting that the free AT&T Wireless
access for iPhones was a sort of "apology" for EDGE (perhaps "compensation"
is a better word,) the same way T-Mo includes WiFi hotspot for their their
EDGE customers, (since they're the only national carrier with NO 3G yet),
and then the discussion morphed to whether AT&T DSL customers' free hotspot
access would prevent AT&T wireless customers from buying wireless data. I
don't believe hotspots are any substitute for cellular data, so I don't
think AT&T's generous offer will impact their wireless data sales. WiFi is
certainly a nice augmentation or cell data, but it's no replacement!

> And even Edge, like
> other cellular services will have dead zones, or times and places
> where it wont work from over use. Try it 5 PM on a rainy night for
> instance. Or anyplace more than 1/2 mile from the nearest Cell tower.
> The "ubiquitous" cell service or data of 1900 MHz providers is even
> more less so, with myriad complaints about indoor penetration.


Perhaps, but what percentage of "downtime" in a typical day would you have
with cellular data vs. WiFi? I'm a happy T-Mo EDGE user. My web and e-
mail work fine on rainy days, in weak signal areas, etc. If I'm able to
make a voice call, I'm able to use EDGE or GPRS. Perhaps T-Mo's typical
demographic (low-end, teeny-bopping text generation) doesn't lend itself to
data congestion or perhaps I've just been lucky...