Samsung LTE USB modem winds up in FCC database

By Ross Miller

Samsung's made some lofty boasts regarding its LTE support before, and here we go with some official documentation of US-bound products care of the FCC. The agency's database lists device A3LSLCU100 (catchy name, eh?) as a pre-production LTE USB modem from the company -- and that's about it. As for the usual fun of looking at over-saturated internal / external photos, good ol' Sammy's got a window of 180 days of confidentiality that started September 24th, so by our count, we've got potentially quite a while before we see something. The best we get now is this label outline above -- one more, equally nondescript shot after the break, if you're curious.

WiFi-only Nook gets FCC approval?

If you'll allow us to do a little dot-connecting and hand-waving here, we think we may have just stumbled across a new version of Barnes and Noble's Nook that drops the GSM connection and soldiers on with WiFi alone, matching up nicely with a rumor that spread across the webs not long ago. You see, the Nook's FCC ID is BNRZ100, and this thing that we just found in the FCC's filing system under Barnes and Noble's name has an ID of BNRV100 -- and the test reports are very explicit about the fact that this is for "EBOOK, WLAN, AND USB PORTS WITHOUT WWAN." WWAN, of course, is a fancy way of referring to a cellular connection, so that's that. If this thing can sell for, say, $100 less than the Nook's $260 -- a price that puts it out of reach of the average person's impulse purchase limit -- we could see some significant new uptake of the platform, we'd wager. No word on a release, but we'll keep our ears to the ground.

FCC

So Long, Unlimited Data: Verizon Wants Tiered 4G Plans

Yesterday, Verizon Wireless big boss Lowell McAdam told investors that when 4G hits, unlimited data plans won't make sense anymore. Instead, buying "buckets" of data—where you'd purchase a set number of monthly megabytes—is the model of the future.

Just to be clear: segmented data plans like that might be ideal for Verizon Wireless, but they're the opposite for consumers who'll have to shell out overage fees. Especially when McAdam also conceded that the cost of carrying 1MB of data over LTE will be half to a third that of 3G data transfer.

Some brighter news came out of the talk: Verizon's expecting three to five 4G handsets on their network in the first half of 2011, with calls originating from LTE phones being carried over VoIP by 2012.

But the main message: a shift in networks means a shift in billing policy. I guess tiered data plans have been inevitable for some time now. I just didn't know it would be quite this depressing to see them looming on the near horizon. [Financial Times via Engadget]

HTC EVO 4G will have a HDMI dock, sold through Best Buy

One of the things we bemoaned in our EVO 4G review was the lack of an included Micro HDMI cable in the box, mostly because they're still somewhat hard to find, but that worry can now be allayed thanks to this newly uncovered HDMI dock from HTC. It will work with the Micro-USB port at the bottom of your EVO for data and power transfers, but the main attraction will obviously be its compatibility with the phone's Type D connector and HDMI 1.4 connectivity. Before you rush to your nearest Best Buy to get one, though, there are a couple of caveats. PC Mag's testing of the HDMI output found some TVs only recognized a 480p signal when the EVO was sending out 1080p, and a number of apps, including Sprint TV, refused to send their goods out over the High-Definition Multimedia Interface at all. Might be worth trying before buying in this case, as in most others.

Android Community, pocketnow

Android and Me

Comcast to offer Extreme 105Mbps broadband package starting in June?

We've had the megahertz and megapixels races, now how about a megabits per second contest? A Comcast customer has posted a note from his latest bill online, showing a new Extreme 105 service that will purportedly be launching on June 1. You'll need to obtain an Arris WBM760 cable modem to make it work, while also ponying up $249 for installation and $200 each month thereafter, but such is the price for sailing in the mostly unexplored 105Mbps downstream and 10Mbps upstream currents. Guess that will have to do until Google rolls out that gigabit fiber network later this year.

Electronista

DSLReports

2011 Audi A8 gets factory-installed wireless hotspot option

We'd heard that the 2011 Audi A8 would be getting a UMTS modem in mid-2010 to help with things like Google Earth, and it looks like Audi has now delivered that and more -- it's just announced that the car is the first anywhere to be available with a factory-installed WLAN hotspot option. That will apparently let you either drop your SIM card into the car's on-board system or pair your phone with it via Bluetooth, and then share wireless internet access with up to eight WiFi-enabled devices at speeds up to 7.2 mbps -- assuming you actually need any more devices than the two dozen or so that are already built into the car, that is.

AT&T making tourists even more annoying with free Times Square WiFi

AT&T's master plan to relieve 3G data congestion in New York City? Give the crush of upward-facing tourists in Times Square free WiFi. AT&T will announce its first ever free outdoor WiFi hotspot later today located at the north central part of Times Square, near 7th Avenue between 45th and 47th Street. Qualifying AT&T customers with smartphones like the iPhone will automatically switch from 3G data to WiFi when in range. Great, just what Times Square needs: smartphone wielding pedestrians enticed by fast data to be even more oblivious to the pace of busy New Yorkers. If successful, AT&T will add WiFi hotspots to other high-traffic areas... and hopefully help push through tourist-lane legislation that could solve NYC's real congestion problems.

[Photo courtesy of MarkArms]

AT&T cries foul over T-Mobile's 'HSPA+ is 4G' talk

By Ross Miller

No matter how much T-Mobile wants to pretend, HSPA+ is not on the same upload / download pay grade as LTE and WiMAX. Still, that isn't stopping the company from calling its new technology rollout "4G speeds," much to the dismay of another major HSPA+ supporter, AT&T. Cue Ma Bell spokesman Seth Bloom, who recently told Fierce Wireless, "I think that companies need to be careful that they're not misleading customers by labeling HSPA+ as a 4G technology." Of course, AT&T itself is rolling out that technology as an intermediate step between current 3G and LTE, and we know they want to reserve the 4G nomenclature for the latter's unveiling. Hey guys, can we just label it 3.95G and call it day?

AT&T Can Save Their Network... With Wi-Fi?

AT&T's latest idea is actually kind of brilliant on multiple levels: totally free Wi-Fi in Times Square. And it could be how they save their network.

It's no coincidence that AT&T already runs the largest Wi-Fi network in the country—20,000 hotspots in all—providing free Wi-Fi (to AT&T customers) in the kinds of places that people like to hang out and gobble data on their phones: Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, and McDonald's. The Times Square Wi-Fi project is a pilot program, and depending on the results, possibly the first of many dense, high-traffic urban areas AT&T blankets in Wi-Fi.

Upfront, it's good publicity, with AT&T scoring major brownie points from folks for providing a legitimately useful service for free in a perfect location: Times Square is highly visible, a perpetually throbbing, pulsing throng of humanity, largely wafting through like a concrete lazy river. And it's largely tourists, who you can imagine exclaiming "ooooooOOO! free internet!" as they glisten, unaccustomed to walking distances greater than the length of a parking lot, upon discovering AT&T's open Wi-Fi network in the north central section of Times Square, near 7th Avenue between 45th and 47th Street.

A huge mass of people. Well known landmark. Oh yes, and the AT&T service there is crap, as it is in many highly trafficked areas of New York.

Which brings us to the why: Because, instead of thousands and thousands of people simultaneously uploading their awesome photos or videos to Facebook or YouTube or wherever to share—gigs and gigs of data—over AT&T's bruised, congested cellular network, they can use free Wi-Fi, offloading traffic and reducing the strain on the network thousands of other people are trying to make phone calls over.

AT&T would be missing a huge opportunity if they failed to leverage Wi-Fi in a significant way, building their Wi-Fi network out to every huge, congested public space they can find. In New York, half of my calls fail in Union Square. Offloading traffic to a separate Wi-Fi network wouldn't completely solve the cell network crush in these superpacked areas, but it would seriously help, if these networks were promoted and maintained correctly. That is, people knew about them, and they were speedier than using the 3G network (since speed would be the incentive to use them). Their own numbers bear this out: AT&T served up 53.1 million Wi-Fi connections in the first three months of this year, over 500 percent growth from a year ago. Where would they rather have all that traffic? On the cell network, or on Wi-Fi?

True, Wi-Fi networks would introduce their own maintenance issues, but they would be cheaper and easier than constructing and tuning new cell towers, particularly in places that might already be stacked to the brim with towers, as many of these areas likely are. (The success of muni Wi-Fi in a few places suggests the economy of the idea.)

It's a pair of fabulous, depressing ironies: The way to save AT&T's network is by keeping us off of it. And the technology to save it is not some new R&D breakthrough, but a technology that even Grandma's got. [AT&T, Image via jliba/Flickr]

Nexaira Wireless 3G/4G SOHO router

Having a wireless router is something that most homes and offices take for granted these days – you are considered to be archaic if you still need to tether your machine to a router or modem, no? Nice to see that most folks have already taken the plunge when it comes to wireless connectivity in their devices, and Nexaira Wireless is well poised to ride on this wave with their latest product – the Nexaira Wireless 3G/4G SOHO router. Targeting a SOHO market (that’s small office/home office for the uninitiated), this SOHO router is not only fast but secure, offering instant Wi-Fi service to a home or office without having to run data cabling or subscribe to a wireline service. Wherever you are, as long as there is adequate cellular coverage by any wireless carrier in North America, you will be able to make that connection to the Internet to update your Facebook status and check email amongst a zillion other stuff.

Among the features of the Nexaira Wireless 3G/4G SOHO router would be an automated set-up with the intuitive user friendly i3 GUI and desktop gadget, multiple user access to the Internet, 300 Mbps speeds with 802.11n 2×2 MIMO Wi-Fi service and a superior 3G/4G connection than using a data card on a laptop computer. It will arrive in the market later this year for $99.95. Just to get a better idea on its connectivity capability, the Nexaira Wireless 3G/4G SOHO router is able to seamlessly hook up to HSPA and HSPA + networks from AT&T, Bell, Rogers, Telus and T-Mobile and EVDO RevA networks from Sprint and Verizon, as well 4G WiMAX from Clear. Now that’s a pretty comprehensive list, don’t you think?

You will no longer need to be a slave to the limitations of installation times, service area coverage or repair time of traditional wireline networks thanks to the new Nexaira Wireless 3G/4G SOHO router. After all, it is simple enough to use without requiring any technical support, especially when installation is a snap.

Newest iPhone 4.0 Beta Implies That AT&T Is Finally Ready For Tethering

Yes! Yes! Yes! Those sounds you heard moments ago are the horrified screams of your nearest AT&T towers. Why? Because iPhone OS 4.0 Beta 4 brings us a new option in the settings menu: Tethering.

Verizon Wireless announces LG Ally

Watched Iron Man 2 already? Well, you would probably have seen LG made an appearance early in the movie when Tony was facing off with Senator Stern, where he hijacked the rest of the video transmission system using his touchscreen, translucent LG handset from the future. Well, many of us won’t mind toting one of those, but too bad it is just a concept at this point in time – perhaps in a decade, we could see an equivalent hit the market. After all, we’re pretty sure that many of us were amazed at the multi-touch interface seen in Minority Report a few years back, and it is nice to know that technology has caught on recently, with a plethora of devices going the multi-touch way. Back to the topic at hand, the LG Ally will arrive at Verizon Wireless Communications Stores from May 20th onwards, making it the first Android device from LG in the US. For those who can’t wait, pre-orders can be placed from today onwards.

What can you expect from the LG Ally when it arrives next week? For starters, how about a stunning ergonomic silver-and-black outer case that holds a large 3.2″ tempered glass touch screen display with touch vibration for tactile feedback? Apart from that, you might be more comfortable churning out that long awaited document by the boss while you’re on-the-go thanks to the full slide-out QWERTY keyboard that will work in tandem with touch screen capabilities at the same time. Need more storage space? Not a problem, since the microSD memory card slot can cater up to another 16GB of memory. Apart from that, you can also stay connected to the Internet thanks to its Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n) connectivity, while Bluetooth 2.1 capability lets you play nice with a bunch of devices and functions without missing a beat. You can also use the LG Ally as an MP3 player, while enjoying speaker-independent voice commands when the situation calls for it.

Apart from that, you can also access the Android Market and access up to 38,000 apps, while its luminous sensor was specially designed to adjust LCD backlight brightness depending on light conditions, helping you save battery power in the process. A proximity sensor will make sure the touch screen remains locked if it hasn’t done so already while talking on the phone, and A-GPS support will enhance location accuracy in addition to turn-by-turn directions from Google Maps. You can snap 3.2-megapixel photos with the Ally or shoot videos with it. Expect the LG Ally to retail for $99.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and agreeing to a 2-year contract.

Press Release

AT&T's Super-fast HSPA+ Network Will Cover 250 Million People By the End of the Year

We're told that AT&T President and CEO John Stankey announced in New York today that their next gen 3G network—HSPA+, not 4G LTE—should cover around 250m people by the end of the year, pending their software rollout. What does this mean? If you've got a compatible device (you probably don't, right now) AT&T says this'll double your 3G speeds as compared to their HSPA 7.2Mbps network, which is already fairly peppy.

T-Mobile's HSPA+ network, which the company says will cover around 185m people by the end of the year, is stupidly fast, so if AT&T's even comes close, well, this is awesome news.

Android on Beagleboard using GSM GPRS USB Modem

Use Your Android Phone as a Wireless Modem

You know you can surf the Net on your Android phone--but did you know that the same phone can also enable you to surf the Net from your PC?

We're talking about something called tethering. In a nutshell, tethering allows you to use your smartphone like a wireless modem: You connect it to your computer, then use its 3G connection to get online.

Carrier Considerations

Before you start thinking about tethering with your Android device, you should check with your carrier to learn about its policies and conditions. Some carriers offer their own fee-based tethering services for certain phones; others forbid the practice altogether or assess penalties if they discover you're d

As long as your carrier doesn't object, the only other consideration is data usage. While tethering, you'll be harnessing your phone's 3G connection to use the Internet from a computer, so you will be consuming a potentially sizable chunk of data. If your smartphone plan includes unlimited data, you should be fine; but if your plan allows only a certain amount of data per month, be sure to keep that restriction in mind.

First Steps to Tethering

Carrier-provided options aside, there are numerous ways to tether your phone to your laptop or desktop PC. Many of them require tinkering with advanced configurations on your Android device; we won't be getting into those here. The option we'll be explaining involves little more than installing a couple of programs and clicking on a couple of basic settings.

Let's begin with your mobile phone: Open up the Android Market and search for an app called PdaNet. Download and install it to your phone (it's currently available free of charge).

Once the app is installed, you'll need to download the companion program to your PC. Click over to June Fabrics (that's the name), and select the edition that's right for you. As of this writing, the program supports 32-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7; 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7; and versions 10.5 and 10.6 of Mac OS.

Before you move on to the next step, you need to adjust one setting on your Android phone. From the home screen, tap the Menu key and select Settings. From there, select Applications, and then Development. Now check the box that says USB debugging. When the confirmation dialog box appears, press OK.

This setting allows the PdaNet app to stream data directly from your phone to your PC. It is a setting frequently used by developers. In theory, however, as the confirmation box explains, it could be used maliciously. For your protection, you should go back into this menu and disable the USB debugging setting whenever you are not actively using the tethering function.

Starting Your Connection

Take a deep breath--you're almost done. Plug your Android phone into an open USB port on your PC. Run the PdaNet app on your phone and select the Enable USB Tether option. The app will confirm that you've downloaded and installed its PC-based cousin; click Already installed to continue.

After verifying the connection, the app will tell you that it's on and running as a background service on your phone. Now, go to your PC and look for the PdaNet icon in your system tray--it's a rectangular box that looks like a cell phone. Right-click the icon and select Connect from the pop-up menu that appears.

At this point, everything should be all set (woo-hoo!). The PdaNet PC program should pop up a confirmation that you're connected, and a notification should appear on your desktop informing you that the PdaNet modem is up and running. Your computer is now online through your phone's data connection; you can open a Web page, check e-mail, and do practically anything else you could normally do while connected to the Net.

One final note: You may have noticed that the PdaNet Android app has a second option on its main screen: Enable Bluetooth DUN. If you're using a computer that has Bluetooth functionality, you can connect your phone to your PC wirelessly using this option instead of the Enable USB Tether option discussed above.

For comprehensive tips about Android and reviews of the best apps and devices to help you get the most out of the mobile operating system, order PCWorld's Android Superguide, on CD-ROM or in a convenient, downloadable PDF file.

source=http://www.networkworld.com

How to use an Android cell phone as a modem to get internet on your computer

Is it possible to use your Droid cell phone as a modem to get internet on your computer? I mean, you're already paying for that unlimited data feature. What's hindering you from using that data on your computer?

Well, the secret is about to be revealed. It is completely possible to use your Droid cell phone, or any Android phone for that matter, as a modem and connect it to your computer for internet connection. Even better, it can be free!

1. Step 1

   You will need to visit the market on your Droid to find the right app so you can use your cell phone as a modem for your computer to connect to the internet. Use the data service on your phone to connect a computer to the internet is called tethering.
   
   So, go the market on your cell phone. Then use the search function and enter the following search: "pdanet". This search should elicit several results. One of the results should be the app called "pdaNET". It is a free app to download. Download and install this app.

2. Step 2

   Following installation, your Droid cell phone will show the pdaNET app home screen. If it does not, then go to your pull up menu with all your applications and you click on the pdaNET app to open it up.
   
   On the home screen of the pdaNET app you will have two options. Choose "Enable USB Tether". This enables your Droid cell phone to act as a modem for your computer.

3. Step 3
   
   The icon will appear in your tray.

   To actually connect your computer to your Droid cell phone and use it as a modem, you will also need to install the pdaNET program on your PC or Mac. You can download the program for free at http://www.junefabrics.com/android/index.php.
   
   Installation of the program will require that your computer be restarted. Once it restarts you will notice a pdaNET icon in the tray on your computer.

4. Step 4

   Click the icon and choose "Connect". This will connect your PC to the internet via your cell phone. The icon will blink for a few seconds and the turn blue. You are now connected to the internet!
   
   Your computer will only use your phone as a modem when there are no other internet connections available.

Tips & Warnings

• Your internet speeds will depend on how good your service is, and what cell phone provider you are using.
• Most Android phones require the unlimited data plan with your cell phone carrier. Make sure your data is unlimited, or beware of how much you are using your phone as a modem or you might run up a huge bill with data overages.

How-To: Use Your iPhone as a Wireless Laptop Modem

I travel a lot. And if you’re a geek like me, you can’t go a full day sans internet access without experiencing some severe withdrawal symptoms. Luckily, my iPhone, with all its WiFi and 3G goodness, has been instrumental in feeding my addiction while on the road. But though Apple’s smartphone provides the best mobile browsing experience out there, the small screen and touch controls still don’t compare to the pixel real estate and tactile qwerty speed of a laptop. Not to mention such luxuries as Flash compatibility, page caching, and tabbed browsing.

So the next time you’re stranded without an open WiFi network (but your 3G signal is going strong), you’ll be glad you installed Addition’s iPhoneModem 2 (free to try, full license is $9.99). Unfortunately, Apple has apparently deemed the app to be in conflict with its App Store Terms and Conditions, so it is only available for jailbroken phones via Cydia. Here’s a quick guide:

1) Jailbreak your iPhone.
Download and install QuickPwn, an easy-to-use jailbreaking application for Windows and Mac (the latest version works with iPhone OS 2.2.1). Run the software and follow the onscreen instruction very carefully!

2) Install iPhoneModem by Addition.
QuickPwn installs an app on your phone called Cydia, which is essentially the App Store for apps that were rejected from the official App Store (or, for whatever reason, the developer chose not to release through Apple). Run Cydia, search for iPhoneModem by Addition and install it. Keep in mind you can only delete Cydia installed apps via Cydia’s Manage-Sources function. Now download and install the helper app on your laptop and you’re almost ready to go.

3)Set up the network.
Run the helper app and hit Connect. The helper app sets up an ad hoc wireless network that can be accessed via iPhone. The default network it creates is called “iPhoneModem” and does not have a password (you can change this in the Preferences of the helper app). Now open up your iPhone’s Settings and tap WiFi. Make sure WiFi is turned on and select the network “iPhoneModem” (or whatever you called it). Type the password if you assigned one. Open up the Modem iPhone app and everything else will configure automatically. After a few moments the helper app and the iPhone app will confirm that a connection has been established and you can browse away with all the comforts of your laptop!

Shortcomings:
While 3G seems plenty fast on a phone, it feels a little slow on a laptop. Also, most major web browsers work but not all are supported. In addition, a lot of other internet applications aren’t supported, but for all intents and purposes, you should be able to browse just fine.

*Note: If you haven’t already discovered, jailbreaking your iPhone opens up a world of possibilities, including themes and apps that aren’t allowed in the App Store. While it technically voids the warranty, you can easily return your device to its original state with the “Restore” feature in iTunes, wiping all traces of the jailbreak hack.

Jailbreak App Turns iPhone Into 3G Modem for iPad

Data-hungry iPhone owners eager to grab iPads can forgo paying for a 3G model altogether and save a good buck. That is, so long as they’re willing to take a risk.

MyWi, an app available for hacked (i.e., jailbroken) iPhones, turns the handset into a wireless 3G modem that can be tethered to an iPad. That means you can skip paying the extra $130 on a 3G-only model, along with the $15 or $30 fee for data, and get internet access for free from your iPhone’s unlimited data plan, instead.

The process of turning your iPhone into a wireless modem for the iPad looks quite simple. According to AppAdvice, which originally reported on MyWi, all you have to is launch the app and flip the “WiFi Tethering” option to “On.” Then, your iPhone will create a Wi-Fi network that you can choose with your iPad.

There is a drawback, of course: Jailbreaking comes with risks. Apple recently issued a support bulletin stating that hacking your iPhone can result in application instability, unreliable voice and data service and other issues. And of course, turning your iPhone into a modem drains its battery pretty fast.

Nonetheless, the jailbreak community has come a long way. The MyWi app looks less cumbersome to set up than an official tethering app we reported on in 2008 called NetShare, which actually made it into the App Store briefly — it was almost immediately pulled and banned by Apple.

The MyWi app can be downloaded through the Rock app store available for jailbroken iPhones. It costs $10, and it comes with a free 10-day trial. For information on jailbreaking an iPhone, visit the Dev-Team Blog.

1Gbps Internet Speed, Only U.S. $ 149 Only

ShawCom internet provider company will conduct testing Internet connection Ultra-Fast Broadband Connection class in Canada.

Achieve 1Gbps, 10 times faster than the highest speed offering ever. 100x faster than the speed commonly used in Canadian society.

ShawCom currently has a download speed of 100Mbps internet connection with a limit of 5Mbps for uploads as well as in Cap / limited to 400GB of data transfer. It costs $ 149 per month.

While Japan with 160Mbps only $ 60 per month. Europe offers a speed of 120Mbps, only $ 100 per month.

Company ShawCom will offer Internet speeds with the price tariff as neighboring countries the United States. Despite much criticism that the United States and Canada began to drop behind in the field of broadband technology.

European and Asian countries prefer the policy of open, because any Internet providers are able to share infrastructure. United States ranked only 13th of 30 countries that have super fast broadband. Canada is still at number 22.

How to Make a DIY Micro SIM to SIM Adapter

We've shown you how to turn a regular SIM into a Micro SIM, but what if you want to do things the other way around? Here's how to turn a Micro SIM into a regular-sized SIM card.

You'll simply take a regular SIM card and trace it onto an old gift card, credit card, or other piece of hard plastic. After you cut out the shape, you'll need to figure out where your Micro SIM would have to sit inside that in order for its contacts to be in the same spot on those of the regular SIM.

Then you'll cut and trace a hole, slip in your Micro SIM, slap some tape onto the back so that it doesn't fall out, and tada! You've made yourself a Micro-SIM-to-SIM adapter.

If you want to use this adapter in order to turn your iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS into a data-only device by using your iPad 3G's Micro SIM, you'll have to change some carrier settings, but that'll only take you a few taps. [Hijinks Inc—Thanks, Aaron!]

Important Tin Foil Hat Testing, For Crazies

First of all, it's not a tin foil hat. It's a tin foil safety tuque. Second of all, it's finally been scientifically proven that it guards your brain from a wireless modem's signals. The jury's still out on mind control.

Actually, making a little Faraday cage for your head is a fun experiment, although I'm not sure about the ultimate benefits. But I'm sure I'll find out when we're all subjugated by the new world order, with only our tuque-headed brethren left to mount a resistance. [YouTube via Make]

Why Streaming Video Over 3G Sucks

The thing about wirelessly streaming video to millions and millions of phones is that it's, like, hard.

Wireless vs. Wired

Why is it, you might be wondering, that wireless speeds can't just zoom zoom, faster faster, the way that Verizon or Comcast seem to press a button and magically, new, faster internet speeds appear. Well, for one, it's not that magical—even cable and fiber optic "wired" broadband costs billions of dollars per year for new internet pipe, with plenty of griping from carriers about videos and torrents and other bandwidth hoggery, hence all the buzz about net neutrality.

But there are more demanding constraints when it comes to wireless broadband:

• Speed: No matter what happens, wired technologies will be faster than wireless, because electrical impulses guided upon a wire, or optical impulses running through fiber, are more efficient than radio waves scattering themselves into the air in the hope of getting picked up.

• Reliability: Even when you can consistently pick up wireless signal, its strength may vary, not just because of how close you are to the cell tower or Wi-Fi hotspot, but because radio is blocked by the foliage on the trees, or the water in an aquarium.

• Cost: Delivering the same bandwidth wirelessly will always be more expensive, because radio waves—due to the above constraints—require massive amounts of power to work well. As we'll see, there's also a matter of paying for the right to use radio waves, a privilege that is only granted after payouts in the billions of dollars.

If that sounds a bit remedial, it's supposed to: Wireless always, always lags behind wired. Think of how much faster gigabit ethernet is compared to Wireless N. It's just how the world works. But people want wireless connections, in their pockets, for obvious reasons. What we're talking about is why it's so hard to pull off well.

What's Coming

See that chart up above? That's the growth of data traffic on AT&T's network over the past four years. Despite all the email, photos, music, tweets, apps and voice data traveling across the network, the single largest type of traffic is video. Funny thing is, the true video explosion hasn't happened yet.

What do I mean by that? Well, take Netflix's Watch Instantly streaming video service, for example. Right now, the only mobile device it's available on is the iPad, with an iPhone app promised by the end of the year. But Netflix's vision is to be on basically every device with a screen. Imagine a world where every phone, millions and millions of them, can stream nearly any movie over the air. Where phones with bigger, better, higher res screens demand serious quality video to take advantage of the extra pixels. Multiply that by apps current or future apps for Hulu, SlingPlayer, ABC, CBS, NBC, HBO, Vimeo, and oh yeah, YouTube.

Not to mention streaming video from phones, which are on the verge of universally breaching HD quality recording. Today, Microsoft's Kin phones—running on Verizon's 3G network—automatically upload every 5- and 8-megapixel photo, every 720p video you record, to the cloud. They're just the first, to be sure.

Two years from now, that bar at the far right of the chart may appear as tiny as the one at the beginning, compared to the traffic that's coming.

There are three major constraints on streaming video to a mobile device over the air: wireless spectrum, backhaul, and the device itself.

Need More Spectrum, Dude

Wireless spectrum, while invisible, is not an infinite resource. In fact, it's pretty damn constricted, at least in crowded urban areas.

To radically simplify it, an easy way to think about spectrum is kind of like a highway, divided into lanes. In the US, the FCC designates who and what's allowed to travel in each lane. (Check out the FCC's spectrum dashboard to see who owns what spectrum where.) The FCC typically divides the spectrum into "blocks" (stick with the mixed metaphor here) that are 10- or 20-MHz wide (so a carrier would get, say, a slice from 700MHZ to 710MHz). A standard configuration is for a carrier is to use half of each block to send a signal, and half to receive (outbound and inbound traffic). Each lane/block can only carry so much traffic. So when you get a ton of people pumping a ton of stuff over the airwaves in a small area, you run into issues.

The solution, though, is not simply to build more cell towers for a given frequency ad infinitum—it doesn't actually create more wireless spectrum in the universe for signals to travel on, and in fact, if you crowd too many towers too close together, you get bunch of noise and interference. Basically, you don't paint extra lines on a freeway in order to make way for more cars.

The best solution, from a carrier perspective, is to get more spectrum allotted from the FCC. Typically the rights have to be purchased for billions of dollars, as you might've noticed during the frenzied devouring of the 700MHz block by AT&T and Verizon for their upcoming 4G LTE networks. The thing about 4G is that is uses really fat channels—really wide lanes—which is why they can transfer data really fast.

As a side note, not all spectrum is the same: If you remember your high-school physics, lower frequencies travel farther with less energy, and penetrate buildings better too. As such, they are better suited for sharing massive amounts of wireless data, hence the popularity of the 700MHz block, for carriers who generally deal with spectrum from 1700MHz to 2100MHz.

No matter how many FCC auctions, limited spectrum availability for carriers dealing with a data tsunami is going to continue to be an issue—Clearwire says a 120MHz-wide slice of contiguous spectrum is what's needed for legit mobile broadband. The wireless industry association CTIA says the whole industry needs about 800MHz of spectrum total, as opposed to around 400MHz currently allotted. That's why part of the FCC's national broadband plan is to reallocate 300MHz more for mobile broadband in the next five years.

Need More Backhaul, Dude

Next up is backhaul, which is basically the connection between cell towers and the rest of the network. Even if a carrier had a virtually infinite amount of spectrum to carry all of that data back and forth between phones and towers in a fantasy world with exceptional signal strength and no interference, they'd still need fat pipes running from each and every cell tower.

Without decent backhaul, cell towers will run into the same kind of congestion problems you run into at home when you're trying to torrent more than your internet connection can handle. Everything slows down, and it sucks. The problem is that a huge portion of the cell towers in the country are still connected using slow copper lines, and running fiber backhaul to them is expensive. (No carrier will reveal how much of their backhaul is actually fiber for competitive reasons.)

There is also the option of a wireless microwave backhaul, but it requires cell towers that are in the same line of sight, and at some point the data still has to go wired.

The Phones, They Are Puny

The final constraint on delivering streaming video over the air? The phones themselves. Sure, the chips inside of them may technically support wireless broadband speeds of 3.6 or 7.2Mbps, or even faster, but actual speeds tend to be about half of their theoretical maximum, in part because running full blaze would kill their batteries that much faster. And remember those phones with the antennas you had to yank out? Tech may have gotten better, but those antennas went away for mostly cosmetic reasons—we'd be better off with big old metal wands sticking up out of our Droids and iPhones.

Let's Talk About the Video

Okay, so let's talk a bit about the actual video, and the ways it gets it to you. As it turns out, there are actually special standards in place for mobile video that are a bit different from the more familiar standards for the general internet, since they're designed specifically for phones. But, with phones getting better and better at handling the real web—since they're just very personal computers—a shift is happening, so that mobile standards are more like the real internet.

Some of the most standard, um, standards are defined by the 3GPP and 3GPP2—the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (roughly, GSM stuff, so in the USA, T-Mobile and AT&T) and 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (roughly, CDMA stuff, concerning Verizon and Sprint)—which lays out standards and specifications for telecommunications things, including mobile phone multimedia. In fact, they even have specified container formats for audio and video (the file candy coatings around the codec center, like h.264 or MPEG-4 or MP3) called 3GP (defined by the 3GPP for GSM phones) and 3G2 (designed by the 3GPP2 for CDMA phones) that most 3G phones can play.

More importantly, though, is the 3GPP's specification for a packet-switched streaming service—explained in great detail here (PDF)—and its protocols like Real Time Streaming Protocol and the Real Time Transfer Protocol (RTSP and RTP), which define one of the major frameworks used to stream video to mobile phones. The main thing to know about is that they're designed to be global standards, and they're built to adapt to wildly varying network conditions, adjusting bitrates on the fly. And if a carrier or service is serving 3GPP video to mobile phones, they need special servers to do it.

But because of wirelessly connected netbooks and devices like the iPad, more and more video comes over mobile networks in the form of good ol' HTTP. The hyper-text transfer protocol—the basis of all web browsers—comes in two general flavors. There's non-adaptive HTTP streaming, which is incredibly simple, just a stream pumped out at a given bitrate, no matter what the network conditions. Trouble is, it's so simple, you're apt to see plenty of stutters and freeze-ups if your network connection suddenly goes south.

HTTP adaptive streaming is what it sounds like, a smarter take on HTTP streaming that it adapts in real time to network conditions, switching to different bitrates depending on what the current bandwidth situation is like. It doesn't require a special server, either. It's actually what Apple uses as its standard for streaming video over-the-air to the iPhone and iPad. (They call it HTTP live streaming.) Microsoft has its own spin, called smooth streaming.

A quick word on codecs. Just like much of the internet has anointed h.264 as the standard for internet video, so goes mobile video. Verizon and SlingPlayer, for instance, both currently use WMV for their streams, but without promising anything, Verizon says "h.264 looks like it's got a lot of promise," while Sling says they're definitely moving to h.264 (as they already have on the iPhone), since it's a "tighter codec" that'll help them use a little bit less bandwidth and support hardware accelerated decoding. Of course, Apple's HTTP live streaming only supports h.264, so if you use an app that streams video over 3G, it's coming via HTTP live streaming, and it's encoded in h.264.

(In case you were curious, most of the 3GPP video is encoded in h.263 MPEG-4, with AMR audio, but it's gradually shifting to h.264, too.)

An Alternative Approach to Streaming

So, there are two broad approaches to get video to you—unicasting and multicasting. Unicasting is what I mostly described above, and what you're probably most familiar with, actually. When you look at a YouTube video, pull up a Netflix stream, watch a video on a site, or any kind of standard internet video, it's probably unicast—it's going to you on demand, from start to finish. Multicast, on the other hand, is basically broadcasting—it's being pumped out there continuously for any number of people to pick up. It works best for live events, like news or sports, but if you don't jump in at the start of an event, you'll miss something.

The most prolific of the multicasters in the US is Qualcomm's MediaFLO, which exists as a separate service, and is offered through Verizon's VCAST and AT&T's Mobile TV. It requires specific phones with MediaFLO-support, since they need the MediaFLO receiver and decoder chipset. The basic flow, if you will, is that Qualcomm takes content from a broadcaster, sends it out to its own national network of broadcast towers, and phones can tune in—just like broadcast TV, but beamed using the FLO protocol.

The advantage of multicasting is that it's extremely scalable: For crazy live events—say, the Super Bowl or World Cup—it's no more demanding to serve video to a million phones than it is to ten thousand phones. And since MediaFLO uses Qualcomm's own setup, it takes strain off of the main cell network for the carriers. That's why Qualcomm sees MediaFLO as complementary to the growing availability of streaming on-demand internet video.

The Current State of Video

What kind of video are we actually getting today, anyway? Does it actually look decent? Well, here's a brief assessment.

Verizon's VCAST service adapts to the device—meaning they have to encode a single video several times at varying quality levels—so at the top end, a phone like the HTC Incredible would get a stream at around 256kbps and 15fps and Verizon is exploring going higher, up to 400kbps with 30fps. AT&T still prefers 3GPP video, since most of its phones support it, streamed at bitrates between 64-200kbps. Qualcomm's MediaFLO broadcasts a single stream of 320x240 stream. And Apple's HTTP live streaming specs for cell networks—which every video streaming app for iPhone and iPad has to use, from Netflix to Sling—run from 64kbps to 240kbps. All of them are a long, long way from HD.

Netflix over 3G is actually impressively watchable today. But with 4G networks—LTE and WiMax—and new devices with faster, more energy efficient processors, a near-future where we're all streaming near-HD video anywhere and everywhere isn't so far away, if you squint hard enough.

You know, unless we really do explode the internet.

Still something you wanna know? Send questions about streaming video, sprinkling, or squirting here, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

Wi-Fi Alliance and WiGig Join Up For 60GHz Wi-Fi Products

Now that the Wi-Fi Alliance will be sharing technology specifications with the Wireless Gigabit Alliance's proposed 60GHz wireless spectrum, we all just got a lot closer to 7Gbps wireless downloads. That's wonderful.

WiGig, as it's more commonly called, has been pushing for the next major wireless specification to be on its empty 60GHz spectrum for months. Today's announcement greatly increases the likelihood that we'll be seeing multi-gigabit in-room downloads in the not too distant future. It's terribly surprising, given the amount of overlap between WiGig and Wi-Fi Alliance's member companies. And WiGig had already written procedures for handing off to 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi bands into its spec, pre-empting most compatibility concerns. But it's still an encouraging look at the future of wireless networking.

Wi-Fi Alliance(R) and WiGig(TM) Alliance to Cooperate on Expansion of Wi-Fi Technologies

Liaison agreement will enable technology sharing for program development

AUSTIN, Texas and TOKYO, May 10 /PRNewswire/ — The Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig Alliance) today announced a cooperation agreement for multi-gigabit wireless networking. The Wi-Fi Alliance and the WiGig Alliance will share technology specifications for the development of a next-generation Wi-Fi Alliance certification program supporting Wi-Fi® operation in the 60 GHz frequency band. This agreement further encourages the development of products supporting 60 GHz technology to expand existing Wi-Fi capabilities.

Device connectivity in the 60 GHz band will complement the current family of Wi-Fi technologies. Targeted primarily for applications that require gigabit speeds, 60 GHz products are expected to be used in a wide range of high-performance devices. A significant portion, if not all, of these devices are expected to also support traditional Wi-Fi networking in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands.

"60 GHz device connectivity will be an exciting enhancement to the capabilities of today's Wi-Fi technologies. It will expand the utility of Wi-Fi, used by hundreds of millions of people every day," said Wi-Fi Alliance chief executive officer Edgar Figueroa. "From its inception, the WiGig specification was designed to work on a wide variety of devices, making it a compelling input as we begin to define our certification program for 60 GHz wireless."

"Now that our specification is complete and published, it's time to set our sights on driving a great user experience through interoperability and certification," said Dr. Ali Sadri, president and chairman of the WiGig Alliance. "We are happy to work with the Wi-Fi Alliance to extend multi-gigabit capabilities to the Wi-Fi technology portfolio."

The WiGig Alliance, which shares many member companies in common with the Wi-Fi Alliance, was formed to unify the next generation of multi-gigabit wireless products by encouraging the adoption and widespread use of 60 GHz wireless technology worldwide.

The WiGig specification defines protocols to deliver data transfer rates measured in gigabits rather than megabits and supports a new range of applications and usages. The specification also defines procedures to enable WiGig compliant devices to hand over sessions to operate in the 2.4 or 5 GHz band. It is expected that a new class of tri-band Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ devices will offer multi-gigabit wireless speeds while helping to ensure backward compatibility.

"There is no question that this agreement will enable 60 GHz technology to form an important part of the high-performance future for wireless networking," said Phil Solis, practice director for Wireless Connectivity at ABI Research. "By cooperating, the groups have set a course for interoperability and backward compatibility that will accelerate the adoption and usefulness of multi-gigabit wireless networking."

For more information, visit www.wi-fi.org and www.wigig.org.

Sprint Won't Sell the Nexus One

First, Verizon changed their mind about the Google Phone after releasing the similar HTC Incredible. Now Sprint, weeks before the release of the Evo 4G, has done the same. And with that, the CDMA Nexus One is all but dead.

When Sprint's Michelle Leff Mermelstein told us that the company wouldn't be selling the Nexus One because of the "upcoming availability of the award-winning Evo 4G," it didn't change much for your average user. The Evo, like the Incredible, looks at least as enticing as the Nexus One, and even shares a lot of the same hardware. Where it diverges, Sprint says it's a "more robust, full-featured device," which, well, it is.

But what about the Google Phone? It wasn't just a handset, it was an idea. It was Google.com/phone. It was a brand, sort of. We were told to wait for other carriers to jump on board, and that's what a lot of us did. And now it seems that the Google Phone, only sold on contract with one major carrier, its launch partner T-Mobile, has suffered the same fate as so many of its fellow handsets: It has become just another Android phone.

The FCC's New Plan for Broadband (and Why Nobody's Happy About It)

The FCC was told fairly bluntly it doesn't have the power to mandate net neutrality. So! Time for a new plan.

The problem, as FCC Chairman Genachowski sees it, is that the FCC can keep trying to regulate stuff using indirect authority (which sucks because it doesn't go far enough, as the chairman sees it), or they could reclassify internet communications, so that the FCC has direct authority, but that would mean ISPs would have crazy new regulatory requirements (which sucks because it goes too far down the regulatory road).

Hence, the third way, which tries to neatly slip between the two extremes by breaking broadband up into different components, subject to different regulations, giving the FCC what the chairman says is "modest authority" over broadband, shoring up the shaky legal ground its internet powers sit on following the Comcast decision:

• Recognize the transmission component of broadband access service-and only this component-as a telecommunications service;
• Apply only a handful of provisions of Title II (Sections 201, 202, 208, 222, 254, and 255) that, prior to the Comcast decision, were widely believed to be within the Commission's purview for broadband;
• Simultaneously renounce-that is, forbear from-application of the many sections of the Communications Act that are unnecessary and inappropriate for broadband access service; and
• Put in place up-front forbearance and meaningful boundaries to guard against regulatory overreach.

The main point being that under this plan, "the transmission component" of broadband falls under the FCC's direct authority—not any of the actual content on the internet, or how much it costs—which the FCC says wouldn't change much for ISPs, since it's narrowly targeted (it "would not give the FCC greater authority than the Commission was understood to have pre-Comcast"), but at the same time, it would let the FCC move forward on the things it needs to do, like work on the national broadband plan. The upshot is that while broadband wouldn't be regulated as tightly as say, telephone service, the FCC is interested in applying a limited form of net neutrality, limiting the ability of ISPs to discriminate against particular services or applications or websites.

Broadband providers hate it, as the NYT and WSJ show, because they think it goes too far, with Verizon saying it's "legally unsupported," and Republicans apparently passing around proposed legislation from a year ago that would ban the FCC from regulating the internet. And so do the hardcore pro-net neutrality groups, thinking the FCC isn't grabbing the authority it really needs, like Public Knowedge. Well, you know, you can't make everybody happy.

Though re-watching this clip of Al Franken reaming Comcast's CEO is still pretty entertaining. [NYT, WSJ, Broadband.gov]

Rumor: HTC EVO 4G To Cost $200 On Contract, On Sale June 6th

June 6th has been pointed at again for Sprint's HTC EVO 4G launch, with a crafty customer at RadioShack grabbing some fliers from a branch and being told of the contract prices. $600 out of contract? Steep, but worth it.

According to the PreCentral forum poster, bnceo, who was told of the contract prices, RadioShack is planning a month-long promotion for the phone, which will be the first WiMax/4G phone Sprint will offer. [PreCentral via AndroidCentral]

Get the LaptopConnect Card from AT&T

The AT&T 3G LaptopConnect USB device is the easy way to get online fast. With easy plug-and-play USB installation for Windows OS and Mac OS, you get fast and easy access to email, the internet, and business applications while on the go, all on the nation's fastest 3G network. (3G not available in all areas.)

Thuraya DSL Satellite Modem 144kbs

ThurayaDSL satellite IP modem offers always on high-speed GPRS packet data communication via Thuraya satellite. ThurayaDSL satellite IP modem connects to a notebook or a desktop computer via an Ethernet port. Web based user interface provides details of the operational status of the connection. Once connected, you can enjoy access to the high-speed Internet and data communications world with its various applications. ThurayaDSL SIM Card is required to access the service.

Zinnet's Brite-View LinkE Streams Content to Four Devices Over Powerline Networks

Sometimes Wi-Fi just doesn't do the trick when streaming something to several devices. Zinnet's Brite-View LinkE system will cover you there by allowing you to stream things over a powerline network to four ethernet devices and at up to 200Mbps.

It's pretty simple: You plug an ethernet bridge into a wall outlet and connect it to a modem. Then you plug the four-port ethernet switch into another wall outlet and tada! You're able to stream content.

The kit's even a pretty decent deal at $90, especially compared to $150-$170 kits. [PR Newswire via Engadget]

AT&T Selling Micro SIM with Full SIM Adapter? (Update: Don't Think So)

The iPad 3G may require a micro SIM—a lilliputian SIM card incompatible with anything else you own—but AT&T will be selling each bundled with a full SIM card adapter—meaning you could potentially use your data plan elsewhere. UPDATE:

UPDATE: Actually, a better look from BGR shows us that this seems to be a punch out scenario in which you can't reuse the larger SIM casing once you choose to break away the Micro SIM. It's probably just going to make stocking at AT&T easier. Luckily, given that SIM and Micro SIM have the same contacts, adapters (even homemade ones) are likely to be available soon. [BGR and Engadget]