Verizon Wireless subscribers who have held onto their $30 a month unlimited data plans will soon be forced to upgrade to a new tiered offering, according to Fierce Wireless. Verizon’s data share plan is scheduled to launch in mid-summer but no pricing details have been announced.
Shammo said that LTE will be the anchor for the new plan and that as customers upgrade from 3G to LTE, they will have to be on a data share plan, allowing the company to sunset its unlimited 3G data plan. “A lot of our 3G base is on unlimited,” Shammo said. “When they migrate off 3G they will have to go to data share. That is beneficial to us.”
Any overage will result in throttling. This cap remains in place until the end of the billing cycle. You will still have unlimited data, but on AT&T’s terms.
Its domestic competitors China Unicom (GSM) and China Telecom (CDMA) now both offer iPhone handsets on their networks. China Mobile’s homegrown TD-SCDMA service left it unable to offer popular handsets, including Apple’s iPhone. Unlike most CDMA networks, it uses only a single frequency for uplink and downlink.
The carrier’s new chairman said China Mobile can’t predict if the two sides will come to an agreement this year. Chairman Xi Guohua said at a shareholder meeting in Hong Kong today that the carrier is counting on a shift to a fourth-generation wireless network to stem a decline in market share.
“China Mobile and Apple both have the will to strengthen cooperation,” Xi said. “When there is more specific news, we will disclose it.”
China Mobile will expand its TD-LTE network trial to nine cities, from six in 2011, and add 20,000 base stations to the 900 it tested last year, Chief Executive officer Li Yue told the meeting today, reiterating a plan announced in March. If the trial is a success, the total number of 4G base stations will climb to 200,000 next year, he said.
The Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI) is a virtual open platform to advocate cooperation among global operators to promote TD-LTE. China Mobile, Clearwire, Europe’s Vodafone, India’s Bharti Airtel and Japan’s Softbank are on the GTI steering committee and have established a joint test platform for TD-LTE devices.
The availability of the Quad-Band LTE 2.3-2.7 GHz handsets, in addition to certain other bands like 1.9GHz, may make Clearwire a good candidate for interoperability with the same gear used by China Mobile and Indian TD-LTE operators.
The Global TD-LTE Initiative labs will allow for the evaluation and qualification of commercial TD-LTE devices simultaneously in the U.S., China, and India, using common testing methodology and equipment. The only spectrum that’s (mostly) harmonized on a global basis for 4G LTE are the 2.3 and 2.6 GHz bands. The 2.6 GHz band has largely been set aside for 4G, world-wide, although auctions in some countries such as Britain, may not happen until later this year or early next year.
China Mobile had 667.2 million mobile-phone subscribers at the end of March, the company said last month. AT&T and Verizon Wireless are comparative bit players on the global stage.
Maritime VSAT services use powerful FSS (Fixed Satellite Service) C-, Ku-, and Ka-band satellites, rather than dedicated maritime satellites, such as Inmarsat, to provide two-way voice and data connectivity to ships at sea.
Prior to the introduction of VSAT into the maritime markets, vessels were limited to MSS (Mobile Satellite Service) L-band satellites, which used lower frequencies that could be received by relatively small and low-priced onboard terminals, but had prohibitively expensive airtime, that could cost customers $20 per megabyte.
KVH says their secret sauce is their CDMA modulation which allows smaller terminals without interfering with adjacent satellites. Over the past 4 years, KVH has taken advantage of new commercial satellite coverage over the oceans to create a seamless web of multimegabit service, leasing capacity on normally fixed service satellites. Fourteen Ku-band satellite transponders are already online, creating one of the widest Ku-band networks in the industry.
The company’s TracPhone V3, with a 37 cm antenna, and its enterprise-grade TracPhone V7, which uses a 60 cm antenna, provide service throughout the Ku-band portion of the network.
The legacy market for maritime communications is the 1.6 GHz L-band (Inmarsat, Iridium, Globalstar, Thuraya) and it will continue to be the core base of users, says researcher, Northern Sky Communications, despite the impact of High Throughput Satellites which are expected to make available huge gains in satellite capacity.
Inmarsat’s Global Xpress is their next generation of maritime satellites. It will use Ka-band Inmarsat-5 satellites beginning in 2014, offering mobile broadband speeds of 50Mbps to terminals as small as 60cms, and up to 10Mbps on terminals as small as 20cm.
Three Inmarsat-5 satellites will operate in the Ka-band (20–30 GHz). Each Inmarsat-5 will carry a payload of 89 small Ka-band beams which combined will offer global Ka-band spot coverage. There are plans to offer high-speed inflight broadband on airliners. The move to “High Throughput Satellites” will be key to success in broadband access around the world, says Northern Sky.
Satellites like ViaSat’s ViaSat-1, EchoStar’s Jupiter and Europe’s KASat, will dramatically increase satellite capacity in the next few years, but the Ku band terminals will still dominate, says Northern Star Research. High capacity Ka-band satellites will use spot beams focused on North America and Europe, respectively, so they won’t be much good over the open ocean.
Here is a quick round-up of must-have apps that are helping users focus on their health:
ZocDoc – A free service that enables patients to search for doctors, sort by location, specialty and insurance accepted, read verified patient reviews, and instantly book an appointment online.
SkinScan – A free service that enables patients to search for doctors, sort by location, specialty and insurance SkinScan – Easily photograph, scan and monitor your moles over time with this app in order to prevent skin cancer.
Med Helper– A free service that enables patients to search for doctors, sort by location, specialty and insurance MedHelper – Tracks medication and stores information for accurate prescription inventory while sending you reminders to take your prescriptions.
RunKeeper – A free service that enables patients to search for doctors, sort by location, specialty and insurance RunKeeper – Encourages you to track, measure and improve your fitness.
The mHealth field has emerged as a sub-segment of eHealth, using computers, mobile phones, patient monitors, etc., for health services and information. According to the analyst firm Berg Insight, around 2.2 million patients worldwide were using a home monitoring service at the end of 2011. That figure does not include patients that use monitoring devices connected to a PC or mobile phone. The number of these devices using integrated cellular connectivity increased from 0.42 million in 2010 to about 0.57 million in 2011, and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 34.6 percent to 2.47 million in 2016.
In a letter published by the regulator yesterday (pdf), it asks Verizon the steps it has taken to date to deploy services using the 700MHz licences in question, which include a network buildout obligation for June 2013. It also asked the operator to “explain the relevance, if any,” of the 700MHz sale plans on its investigation of the AWS transaction, including any details of previous sale efforts, and its plans if the AWS deal does not go through.
Some reports suggested that the request indicates that the FCC has concerns about the deals, and Verizon’s approach to its spectrum holdings. Rivals of Verizon, including Sprint and T-Mobile USA, have argued that the AWS deal is unnecessary, due to the existing spectrum holdings. The FCC has requested a response from Verizon by 22 May 2012.
Verizon bought 700 MHz frequencies in 2008 for $4.4 billion. Verizon will auction all of its 700 MHz Lower A and B Block spectrum. AT&T currently uses “B-block” spectrum, while smaller regional carriers use “A block” spectrum. Verizon currently uses their nation-wide “C-Block” licenses, which are 20 MHz wide, exclusively for its LTE network.
The above chart shows Verizon owning some 25 licenses in the lower “A” block. But recently, Verizon swapped their 12 MHz A Block spectrum with Cricket, so they may not need to provide roaming on the “A” block. Verizon’s LTE devices work only on their nationwide (10 MHz x 2) upper C Block spectrum.
No doubt, AT&T (in blue) would like to purchase more of Verizon’s “B-Block” (in green), especially for cities like Chicago where AT&T has only half the LTE spectrum of Verizon.
Carriers like Sprint, T-Mobile and MetroPCS say the cable deal would create allies out of former rivals, while selling the “B-Block” spectrum to AT&T would strengthen the Verizon/AT&T duopoly.
The HughesNet Gen4 satellite service, starting in summer 2012, will deliver better performance, faster speeds and superior download capacity to customers throughout the United States. It could help Hughes — now an EchoStar subsidiary– to provide competition to the ViaSat bird for delivering broadband to rural areas. The huge KA-band (20/30 GHz) spotbeam satellite will let Hughes deliver improved internet capacity to over 1.5 million of its consumer- and small-business subscribers.
Employing a multi-spot beam, bent-pipe architecture, the new geostationary satellite will expand the total capacity for HughesNet service to over 2 million in North America, which today at over 620,000 subscribers represents both the world’s largest consumer satellite Internet service and the largest Ka-band technology network.
HughesNet sells three high-speed tiers to rural subscribers. Its $40 monthly tier offers download speeds of just 1 Mbps. For $80 monthly, subscribers can get download speeds of 1.5 Mbps, and for $110 monthly, rural broadband users can surf the Web at speeds of 2 Mbps. Hughes hasn’t said how much it will charge for its Gen4 service or how big the monthly data caps may be.
Hughes Network Systems, the world’s leading provider of broadband satellite solutions and services, was bought by Charlie Ergen. The new broadband satellite will compliment EchoStar’s DBS television satellites and EchoStar’s new Blockbuser streaming service. Charlie Ergen has also amassed 40 MHz of MSS spectrum at 2.1 GHz, from the remains of the bankrupt ICO and TerraStar satellite platforms. Whether that will result in 40 MHz of terrestrial LTE is anyone’s guess, but indications on the board all look green.
The main competitor to Hughes is the new ViaSat’s Exede, which provides satellite broadband at a fast 12 Mbps with a 7 GB monthly usage cap (up & down combined) for $50, a 15 GB cap for $80, and a 25 GB of monthly usage cap for $130.
Both WildBlue (ViaSat-1) and HughesNet (Jupiter-1), can deliver satellite internet access that will dwarf their predecessors in space. WildBlue’s ViaSat, for example, has 10 times the capacity of its three current satellites combined.
Verizon’s HomeFusion LTE dome is installed outside the house (for $199.99). Using Wi-Fi, customers can connect up to 20 devices. Verizon says customers should expect downlink speeds of between 5Mbps and 12Mbps and uplink speeds ranging from 2Mbps to 5Mbps.
Plans include rates of $60 per month for 10GB of data, $90 per month for 20GB, or $120 per month for 30GB, with a $10 per GB penalty for each plan after reaching the cap.
If the household exceeds 10 GB, 20 GB or 30 GB of data per month, subscribers are charged an extra $10 per GB of data per month. AT&T says its average U-Verse user gobbles up about 21GB per month. That may indicate that a typical Verizon HomeFusion user may pay about $90/month for 20 GB.
Verizon’s HomeFusion serves a niche and the pricing is in line with their cellular service. Verizon’s chief terrestrial competitor may be the CLEAR Modem with Wi-Fi ($99), which delivers truly unlimited WiMAX at 2.6 GHz for $49/month for homes or offices. The integrated wi-fi router provides broadband connectivity and local networking.
Clear isn’t likely to be a contender for rural users – it has limited coverage.
But if you plan on using 25 GB/month, Clear would be cheaper at $50/month. ViaSat would cost more, about $130/mo., while Verizon HomeFusion costs about $120/mo (for 30 GB). Presumably, the new Hughes Jupiter satellite internet service will be priced competitively.
Head to Dealzon.com for tech & gadget deals, including the best laptop deals, cheapest HDTVs and gaming deals.
DailyWireless Advertising now has sponsored links. You get 200K pageviews/3 months. Minimum two lines (or less) cost $150 for 3 mo or $250/6 mo. Additional lines $15/month or $10/mo for 3-6 mos. The best CPM in the business!
