We hate to say it, but when you’re in the local mobile phone shop the world is a different place. In that world there’s excellent 3G / HSDPA connectivity everywhere and you’ll never have a flat battery. The reality is slightly different, and many people don’t realise that there’s usually a repeater in the back of the store to give a glorious signal for customers around the shop. The BBC have a great story today about the “3G traffic jam” and how networks have been caught slightly off-guard by the massive increase in data usage over the last few years.
Years ago many networks paid a high price for their precious 3G licences and were left with a small pot of money to build the network. When the new 3G networks were rolled out, many networks saw only a tiny amount of interest in “high speed data” as video calling was mostly ignored by customers.
You will have no doubt experienced the painfully slow GPRS connections that tend to only exist where you live or work. That ultra-powerful handset suddenly turns into a 386 with a dial-up connection (ask your Dad).
The solution? Well, for T-Mobile and Orange it’s a complete merge. Otherwise it’s the introduction of femtocells (a small GSM base station which uses your broadband connection to route your calls / data).
Link – BBC News
High-speed data. Do you really get it everywhere?
January 15, 2010