What Do Carriers Need to Do to Get 3G Mainstream?
Verizon MiFi- 3G router
I had a good holiday this weekend past and participated in a great conversation about 3G in the U.S. There were a bunch of people over to the house and the conversation started out about the various phone carriers and 3G. A number of my friends are beginning to become aware of 3G and have been thinking a lot about what it could do for them. This is a recent change, as most folks not involved in the tech industry don’t think much about 3G in my experience. This is changing, if the chat with my friends is any indication.
What I found particularly interesting about this 3G conversation was that it had nothing to do with smartphones. No one was asking which phone had good 3G capability, or even which carrier network was good for smartphones. No, the question floating around was if 3G could be used to replace home Internet connectivity. This set me back, I must admit, as I never would have guessed that folks were thinking of 3G along these lines.
As the discussion unfolded, I realized that many now understand that laptops can be outfitted with integrated 3G. Everyone seemed to be aware of this, a new finding for me. What was a bit surprising was how no one wanted integrated 3G in their laptop, or even in their phone; instead they wanted 3G to blanket their home so that all of their laptops could use it. They weren’t even concerned about connectivity outside the home, just at home, as that’s where they all stated they used the web.
I was amazed to hear that folks are looking at 3G to use strictly at home and to replace their expensive home Internet service. That was the main reason given for the questioning: price. They also could see a benefit in having a service that did not require a wire to come into the home. So given this change of attitude towards 3G, what do the carriers need to do to capitalize on it? Could WiMAX be the technology to push the wireless web into the mainstream? It’s good food for thought, that’s for sure.
thats easy.
make ONE FRICKIN 3G STANDARD/Frequency/Band!!
competition in the usa = epic fail for us consumers
look at europe/rest of the world.
Well, I find myself currently renting a houseboat for the summer on the Thames river (it’s a long story, to do with work)and it has no phone line. Yikes! However, using my 15Gb 3G plan, £15 per month, and an old nokia with Joikuspot installed I’m coping very well! Sure, I can’t do much video streaming or huge downloads but for general purposes it’s just fine!
3G is finally maturing in the UK, plans are cheap, data limits are rising and the hardware is ultra cheap, even pick up PAYG for £10 for a dongle and max £2 per day for data.
Now, if you can get internet in the home on adsl or cable that’s still the first choice, however, for light users who want the portabilty of 3G then it could well be all you need.
The biggest issue I see is not speed, but usage caps. 5GB is not much, especially when shared among multiple machines…
I agree, the 5GB caps are what is holding back the acceptance of 3G. When you advertise “unlimited” use, and then hit someone with hundreds of dollars in overage charges on their bill, that is not going to make you any long-term customers.
Honestly, I don’t even have a problem with the $60/mo. price, since it could replace a $30-50 home broadband bill for many users, plus give more flexibility.
I am grandfathered on a true unlimited, SERO, no 5 GB cap Sprint plan for $49/mo., and have had it for about three years. Just recently transferred it to my MiFi, and I have no plans of giving it up anytime soon.
yep.. I would totally go verizon mifi if they ditched the 5gb limitation. The speed is good enough, along with the flexibility it would offer, but…. 5gb doesnt get it done.
Well, for my home speed would be an issue, as I often have to use citrix/remote desktop to get into my computers at work. But the 5GB cap that all the US cellular companies have is also a big issue, as is coverage – I live in a “hole”. If I go up to the second floor of my house and aim the phone in one direction, I get 3g. Otherwise its edge.
Fortunately, I have a small cable company with excellent high speed for a very reasonable price.
What it all boils down to is we want to be able to take our SAME 3G with us no matter where we go. The Myfi is the BEST idea ever for 3g. The WORST part is the bandwidth caps. They aren’t fair for a single user. For a whole family, well, it’s totally inadequate.
I guess people simply do not travel enough to see the need…
And if they do, they make use of hotel, coffeehouse or other place providing wifi…
I guess what may be needed is a big shift in usage pattern of net services, from head down (keyboard, screen) to head up where one get a steady stream of additional info about ones surroundings.
This however would move the 3G connection to the background, being just a pipe to get the stream from.
think of it like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64_16K2e08
married with this:
http://www.vuzix.com/iwear/products_wrap920av.html
I think a large issue is what people consider the internet, and what carriers consider the internet.
I’ve taken to running netflix streaming videos to my TivoHD. It’s a nice service. It works on my 1.5Mb/s DSL, but I think it’s at the low end of acceptable speed.
IF I was using WiMax or 3G for my internet connectivity, would things work correctly, or would I not have the connectivity?
Wireless by it’s very nature is a shared medium. Wired internet can be individually segmented, monitored, or metered.
If streaming movies works well over the air right now, but they sell the service to 1000 other people in my neighborhood, (I live in an urban area) will it stop working at the times I want to use it because so does everyone else?
I think the first big answer is actually right there in the article: price. If people are looking at 3G as a potentially cheaper alternative to cable or DSL, at present they are pretty much guaranteed to be disappointed. As a general rule, with 3G you currently pay more for service that is slower (with less bandwidth) and usually has stricter usage caps. If you don’t plan to use it on the road, 3G just isn’t a particularly good deal right now relative to its competitors.
I gave Clear WiMax a try as a replacement for cable modem service at home. The WiMax download speed of 5 to 6 Mbits/sec was every bit as fast as Cox Communications’ best cable service. Upload was limited by contract to 1Mbit/sec, which is OK for my use. WiMax is also $5 cheaper each month than Cox Internet access. Clear offers an unlimited bandwidth contract for home or business use.
I had a problem with the WiMax reception in my office. Connection speed was higher on the other side of the house. There is no provision for an external antenna with the Clear WiMax hardware, so I’d have to do some rewiring to get the highest throughput.
In short, WiMax could work as a substitute for cable modem service at my location.
James
Did your friends calculate the cost of 3g over DSL/FiOS/Cable or are they wealthy and price is not a deal breaker?
I’ve heard people in the UK talk about using a 3G mobile broadband connection and telephony for everything. There is potentially an economy as users free themselves from the cost of a land line. Mobile advertisers have given the impression that this is a practical proposition, by making exaggerated claims for the quality of service you get with 3G. Sadly mobile broadband is nearly always going to be inferior to a land line, and service indoors can be very poor. Plenty of people who’ve tried this approach report disappointment.
I think mobile broadband needs to be thought of as a supplement to a land line, and it needs to be priced in a way that doesn’t make it look like an extravagance for people already paying for fixed-line broadband. To a degree that’s happened in the UK, although a couple of operators are struggling, and it’s not clear that the market can support all the players.
LTE, if and when it happens here, will improve matters, but I don’t think it will transform the situation. The market for LTE looks better in the USA to me than in the UK. In the USA it could bring standardisation to a fragmented scene. In the UK, the operators have invested so heavily in 3G (including paying colossal amounts for spectrum) that the operators will have to do their utmost to get a return on their investment.
Funnily enough I’ve been using a MiFi for my everyday connection since last week, while waiting for my DSL to be repaired. It’s on Vodafone’s HSPA network here in the UK, and I’m finding that the biggest difference is that I’m far more cautious about watching things like videos, opening sites that I know are graphics-intensive, that sort of thing. It’s a little like watching the fuel-gage/mpg read-out on your car, and being continuously aware of how heavy your right foot is and how that impacts on economy.
As someone who regularly uploads video for reviews, etc, I can’t see myself solely using a MiFi at any point soon. For more typical users, I think the bandwidth caps need to be more flexible or, at least, better explained: no more “we might” throttle your connection or “we may” charge you overage fees, people need to know exactly what will happen if their usage expectations differ from those of the carriers.
Chris, Vodafone are doing MiFis?
Chris Davies above refers to his cautious approach when using mobile broadband, and compares it to watching dials in a car. I recognise this.
When using mobile broadband it seems you need to compartmentalise your activities. That big Windows update that keeps announcing itself, that big file you promised someone (or promised yourself), that Youtube clip you keep intending to view; all these are recorded on a ‘memo to self’ as things to deal with when you get back to a decent landline or wifi connection. I can’t see it ever being much different. The urban environment is such an unfriendly palce for wireless signals, particularly in the bands used for mobile broadband, that the service will always be worse or dearer than landlines – except in exceptional cases.
The fact that mobile telephony works well is not an indication that the technical problems have been licked. Instead, it’s an indication that telephony is on several counts less demanding than mobile data. You can get a decent telephone service under conditions where you don’t get a decent mobile broadband service. These days voice-data rates can be below 10 kbps and sound OK.
i do not see this as anything new. 3g data as an only inteernet subscription would have been big a very long time ago if it were not for the high price and the caps. speed is not even that much of an issue.
i sell used computer to very poor people. the two most popular ways for these people to get on the internet is either some type of free wifi(maybe provided by the building they live in or just a neighbors open connection) or mobile broadband(overwhelmingly cricket). very few of these people have a landline phone or cable TV; and many would never pass a credit check for long term subsciption service; but they can buy cricket month to month.
what makes it really interesting is that most of these mobile broadband devices are attached to desktops not laptops.
i think the tech world in general overstates peoples desire for high speeds on 3g. most people would much rather have a lower price and/or a larger cap.
i do aggree with some of the readers above that things like windows updates are a major issue for mobile broadband user as they tend to turn them off for faster surfing.