Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Where am I?

Name this city in 2007:
1. Completing a call from start to finish on a mobile is something to be celebrated. Having the least number of 'dropped' calls is used by operators as a USP.
2. Big money is being spent on advertising by the banks to tell people all about their new free current accounts - a whole new concept for the locals.
3. Getting a 3G signal on your phone is er... well... I never saw one in four days in the city.
4. Chip and Pin is a far off dream for credit card companies. You still have to sign for purchases - twice - on two separate receipts.

It's that cutting-edge soaraway skyscraper of a city... New York. Yes, really. Yes, I've been away for a few days - and now you know where.

UPDATE: Having blogged with mobile expert Tomi Ahonen at Communities Dominate Brands, I now know why I couldn't get 3G in New York. It's because "New York does have 3G, but its the "other" 3G variant used by about 15% of the world's 3G networks, the so-called American 3G, ie CDMA2000 EV-DO for example on the Verizon network in New York." And that won't work with my '3' Nokia N73.
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous5/03/2007 10:56 am

    Hi David,

    Yep, your N73 from Europe is a WCDMA/UMTS 2100MHz-band device. The US uses mostly CDMA/EV-DO 850 & 1900MHz, with UMTS 850 widespread from Cingular. Cingular are apparently going to roll out UMTS 1900 in 2007, and have just released a device doing every possible GSM & UMTS band on the planet - the 8525 (aka the HTC Hermes 160). There is also the 'AWS' spectrum around 2100. I'm uncertain if it could support UMTS2100 as well to support legacy non-US devices.

    Low-end so-called 'Pentaband' phones will start to come onto the market later this year, allowing trans-Atlantic 3G services where roaming agreements for 3G with US UMTS operators have been struck....although whether 'roam like home' agreements will be in place to allow continued flat-rate data access is quite another thing ;-)

    Cheers,

    Mike

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  2. David Kohl5/06/2007 9:24 pm

    Dave,
    Did you really just write that you 'blogged' with someone?

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