When Broadband is Hard to Find

By: John Shepler

If your business is located downtown in a major metro area, the idea of network and telecom services being hard to find seems a little odd. You probably have at least a couple of competitive providers vying for your business, as well as the local telephone company. Your challenge is to find the best deal on connectivity, trunk lines and cloud services. There are likely options available that you don’t even know about.

If you are located in a rural area or working from a home office, this wealth of opportunity may be missing. You may feel that nothing is available or you are stuck with a single option that’s a real stretch for your budget. Actually, there may be more bandwidth options available than you think.

T1 Lines are Readily Available
Businesses with their own commercial addresses have it the easiest. They can almost always get at least some traditional telecommunications services. These include POTS phone service and T1 lines. Both use the same twisted pair copper cables that connect nearly every building.

T1 started out as a telephone trunking service, but has been used for dedicated private lines and Internet access for decades. Each T1 line provides 1.5 Mbps in both the upload and download directions. Today that’s pretty low-end broadband, but it’s more than sufficient for credit card verification, email and simple Web access. You can also run backups to the cloud and connect with headquarters.

Boosting T1 Bandwidth
Not enough bandwidth? T1 lines can be bonded together to create a larger data pipe. Two bonded lines gives you 3 Mbps, 4 lines offer 6 Mbps and so on up to 10 or 12 Mbps. Bonded T1 is highly reliable and readily available. You might find it a bit pricey because there is no economy of scale. Two lines cost 2x one line. Even so, out in the boonies T1 and bonded T1 is likely well worth the cost. That cost has dropped precipitously in the last few years, by the way. If you haven’t taken a look at T1 lately you may be surprised by the value. Even so, expect to spend a couple hundred dollars a month or more for T1 service.

Broadband From Space
Another service almost universally available is two-way satellite or VSAT. Many small retail locations use satellite for their transaction processing and connectivity to HQ. Satellite bandwidth has been similar to T1 at a somewhat lower cost. More advanced satellites now offer bandwidths of 10 Mbps or more for a higher price. The thing to know about satellites is that they can connect anywhere in the country with a clear view of the southern sky. You can even power the equipment “off the grid.” Limitations are that bandwidth is shared and you are generally limited in the amount of data you can upload or download each month. Latency is also high, making the service hard to use for VoIP telephony. Compare that with dedicated line services that offer low latency and have no usage limits.

Broadband From Cell Towers
If your needs are modest, you may get by with 3G or 4G fixed wireless. This is a fancier “all office” version of a smartphone hotspot. If you can get smartphone broadband at your location, this service should work for your office or store. Just know that usage is limited and sometimes involves overage charges. It’s great for transaction processing and simple Internet usage, but not for heavy video usage and software downloads.

What’s Available for the Home Office?
SOHO (Small Office Home Office) users generally choose DSL or Cable broadband because of the low cost with decent performance. It’s not uncommon to get all the speed you need for $50 or so. You won’t find anything like those prices with T1 or bonded T1 lines. That’s because the bandwidth is shared among many customers and is a “best effort” rather than guaranteed availability service.

I often get inquiries from home office users who can’t get or don’t “like” their cable or DSL choices, but are shocked at the cost of more reliable and higher performing business telecom services. Are there any other options available?

You, too, can get two-way satellite service. You may be quite happy with it or be frustrated by the latency (time delay hesitation), usage limits, and interruptions during bad weather. It depends on what you are doing.

Fixed Wireless for SOHO Use
How about fixed wireless? If you can get good cellular service, you might consider something like a “Mi-Fi” hotspot that creates a WiFi hotspot using bandwidth on your 3G or 4G LTE cellular plan. This lets you use your desktop and laptop computers, tablets and other Internet devices on the same Internet access available from your smartphone. Once again, this is “light duty” service that is great for limited or emergency usage, but not for consistently heavy traffic.

Other Wireless Options
Another option that’s available in some areas but not others is non-cellular fixed wireless. These are WISPs or Wireless Internet Service Providers. Generally, these companies install a small dish or antenna on your home or office building and give you a wired connection for your router. You’ll need to look for these locally, as they are typically local enterprises not connected with nationwide providers. You also need to be within line of sight from their tower or towers and not too far away.

Call for Fiber… Maybe
How about fiber optic service? Verizon, Google and other companies have been building out fiber systems in select locations around the country. If you are lucky enough to be within one of these service footprints, you can get a lot of bandwidth for the money with FTTP (Fiber to the Premises).

Finding Home Office Broadband
If you are have a home office, you can try checking for DSL/Cable services or 3G/4G cellular wireless. You can also do an Internet search for satellite broadband from Dish Network, DIRECTV and others. Look locally for non-cellular fixed wireless.

Finding Business Location Bandwidth
If your business has a commercial location, then the Telarus GeoQuote search on Megatrunks.com is for you. This service gives you instant pricing for T1 lines, DS3 bandwidth, Ethernet over Copper, fiber optic and business grade Cable broadband. A quick inquiry will also get you quotes on VSAT and high capacity fixed wireless services appropriate for your business locations.


Note: Photo of Monument Valley courtesy of Josep Renalias on Wikimedia Commons.

Broadband Insurance Keeps You in Business

By: John Shepler

Our 24/7 connected lives offer some real advantages for consumers and both sales opportunity & productivity improvements for business. Technology is a thing of beauty… until it isn’t. When your broadband line goes down, you are really, really isolated. Is there anything that can insure you against such a disaster?

Indeed, there is. Consumers have the option of using their 3G or 4G wireless service as a backup for DSL and Cable. The latest smartphones let you set them up as wireless hotspots. Just network your PC, laptop, notebook , tablet and printer to the smartphone and you can carry on. The connection speed may not be as fast as you are used to and you have to be very careful not to exceed your monthly quota. Even so, in a pinch, you can continue to use the Internet when the landlines go down.

Another emergency option is to plunk yourself down in a Wi-Fi hotspot and connect through OPB (Other People’s Broadband). Worst case, you’ll have to buy some lunch or coffee to stay a welcome guest. Other hotspots are in stores or at public libraries where you aren’t expected to actually buy something… at least not right away.

One glitch in this approach is that the same disaster that took your line service down may have also affected the WiFi hotspots in your area. I had this happen when some overzealous backhoe operator chopped the fiber trunk cable in half. It took a couple of days to get 100 plus fiber strands spliced back together. My preferred hotspot and others in the area had been hit by the same outage. I wound up going across town to find a place that still had signal.

While these extraordinary measures can save the day for consumers and some very small businesses, clearly camping out at free WiFi hotspots or glomming onto your smartphone’s diminutive bandwidth budget isn’t going to work for the majority of small office & retail or larger business operations. If your company depends on Internet connectivity to conduct business, a broken connection means you are temporarily out of business.

Fear not. There are solutions for every size company that can keep you connected worldwide no matter what. The Internet itself is amazingly robust. It was designed to handle all types of natural and man-made disasters and still get those packets from source to destination. The weak link is the last mile connection. The reason for this discrepancy is that the Internet core has path redundancies designed in. Any last mile connection is a single point failure just waiting to happen.

This suggests that the way to create a more robust broadband connection is to add redundancy. A popular way to do this has been to has been to order multiple diverse connections to the Internet. For instance, a company might order two T1 lines and specify that they must come from different suppliers and not in the same wiring bundle. You can scale this up to higher bandwidth options, including fiber optic services. The key is that you must be sure that there isn’t a line cut or equipment failure that can take out both your services at once.

There is also a business grade 3G/4G wireless solution from Accel Networks that works well for smaller companies. This is a fixed location receiver with a high performance antenna to ensure a high quality signal at your location. You can order it with enough capacity to handle things like Point of Sale terminals, inventory management, and general Internet access.

A highly desirable feature of redundant network solution is automatic failover. The Accel network continuity solution has this feature. Your users may not even know that the main network connection failed. Work continues using the backup link, perhaps at a smaller bandwidth level.

For landline solutions, MegaPath is offering a “Managed Broadband Failover” solution. They install and monitor CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) that handles the switchover between main and backup links. One really nice feature of this service is that the monitoring notes the main line failure and initiates troubleshooting and repair activities to get you back on the main circuit as soon as possible.

Are you concerned that your business is vulnerable to a loss of connectivity with the Internet, your data center across town, or your cloud service providers? Check out broadband network continuity services that can insure you keep running.

Options For Network Connectivity

Rare is the company that doesn’t need outside connections to its network. The issue is what type of connection will give you the most bang for your buck. Let’s have a look at the latest options that are attractive for small, medium and large enterprises.

Outside network connections break down into categories. Are you looking for something to get you across town? Those are the Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN). How about something that will take you to another state, across the country or overseas? Those are the Wide Area Networks (WAN). Perhaps all you want is a broadband connection to the Internet. No problem. Internet access is readily available for business users. There’s much more to choose from than in the consumer marketplace. The tradeoff is that you'll be paying something more than consumer prices.

Many metro and wide area network services are more alike than different. What you are probably seeking is a dedicated point to point service or a multipoint mesh network. Point to point private lines have been the domain of the telecom industry using standards developed for digital telephony. T1 lines are classic. They give you dedicated bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps in both the upload and download directions. When T1 is not enough, you can bond T1 lines together to incrementally increase bandwidth up to about 10 or 12 Mbps. At that point most companies jump to T3 (DS3) service at 45 Mbps and then SONET fiber services, starting with OC-3 at 155 Mbps.

There’s a new service widely available today that fills in the gap between T1 & T3 and costs less as well. This is Ethernet over Copper or EoC. Ethernet over Copper actually starts at 2 or 3 Mbps and has become a strong competitor to T1 lines. You can get twice the bandwidth with EoC for the same price as T1. The other advantage of EoC is that bandwidth levels increment smoothly past 10 Mbps. You can easily get 15, 20, 25, 30 or up to 45 Mbps. That lets EoC take on T3 / DS3 services with better pricing. In some areas, EoC goes right up to 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet and beyond. Those levels aren’t so widely available as of yet.

Another advantage of what’s called Carrier Ethernet is that you can get multipoint service as well as point to point. This is great for interconnecting multiple business locations in town or around the country. Each location needs an Ethernet over Copper connection. The service provider sets up the mesh network per standards of the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF), an industry standards group.

There is also a competitor to SONET fiber optic services called Ethernet over Fiber (EoF). It works the same as EoC, but runs on fiber rather than twisted pair copper. The advantages are high bandwidth levels up to 10 Gbps and better pricing than traditional SONET telecom services.

When it comes to interconnecting multiple locations, especially foreign sites, MPLS networks have become the network connectivity option of choice. Why? Because these networks are already installed and running to many locations you want to go. What you need are on-ramps in the form of last mile connections. They can be as simple as T1 lines or EoC links. You can also install fiber optic lines to get higher bandwidth levels. MPLS can give you point to point, point to multi-point, or meshed network connections. Because the core network is already in place, pricing is very attractive compared to dedicated private lines that require engineering time and effort.

In addition to copper and fiber, fixed wireless connectivity is more available than ever. That’s thanks to the buildout of 3G and 4G networks by the cellular carriers. You can get business grade fixed wireless on these networks with bandwidth similar to T1 lines for such activities as credit card verification and network backup. Prices are very attractive, since the cellular carriers bore the cost of construction and paid for it from consumer smartphone data and voice contracts.

What sort of connection or connections do you need to connect your company network to suppliers, customers and your own operations? Compare network connectivity options and pricing for copper, fiber and wireless services to see what has become available recently.

High Speed Internet For Business

Not many years ago high speed Internet access was hard to come by, even for businesses. Prices were high and service options were few. That’s all changed dramatically. Now there are multiple broadband options for your business even if you are located out in the boonies. Let’s take a look at a range of high speed Internet connections divvied up by low, medium and high bandwidth.

Most businesses don’t need a gazillion bits per second, even though they might fancy carrier level bandwidth services. One thing that’s always been true and is likely to stay that way is that the higher the bandwidth, the higher the price. It’s true that within bandwidth categories there can be quite a price differential. You can also get a lot more bandwidth if you elect for shared vs dedicated service. However, that shared bandwidth varies all over the place while dedicated services are rock solid.

The low end of the bandwidth range is dominated by wireline and wireless services. Twisted pair copper is a popular delivery medium because it is almost always available in the form of multi-pair wiring installed by the telephone company. Any copper pairs not being used to carry telephone calls are available for data.

T1 is the traditional data connection for business locations. It is a dedicated bandwidth solution with symmetrical 1.5 Mbps x 1.5 Mbps available at all times. There are generally Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that guarantee uptime, bandwidth and other parameters like jitter and latency. Pricing starts at around $300 per month, sometimes less for a multi-year lease. Out of the way locations may find that pricing is higher for T1 lines.

Ethernet over Copper (EoC) is fast moving in as a direct competitor to T1. It uses the same multiple copper telco pairs but a different modulation scheme that is more efficient. T1 can be run just about any distance. EoC bandwidth is highly dependent on how close you are to the central office. Bandwidths from 2 to 30 Mbps are common, with 3 Mbps around the same price as a T1 line. A very popular EoC service upgrade is 10 x 10 Mbps for businesses that find T1 lines too restrictive and bonded T1 lines too expensive.

There are two other copper-based high speed Internet technologies. One is DSL, a shared bandwidth service that uses twisted pair copper and is relatively inexpensive. The other is Cable broadband, with bandwidths as high as 100 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload for about what you pay for a T1 line. Both DSL and Cable are asymmetrical bandwidth (higher download than upload speeds) and are offered without SLAs. The big attraction is lower costs, especially for businesses like quick serve restaurants that want to offer free WiFi and have email and Web access for the office. Availability is limited. Cable is pretty much only in-town where the main cable has already been run.

The other way to go is wireless. Many franchise operations use VSAT or Very Small Aperture Terminal satellite antennas. These are a bit larger than the ones used to pick up satellite TV and are set up for two-way data transmission. Recently, 3G and 4G fixed wireless broadband has become a strong competitor for both VSAT and copper wireline solutions. The cost is about half the price of T1 for similar performance, with rural service often available. VSAT can be installed anywhere that you have power and a clear view of the southern sky.

The middle portion of the bandwidth spectrum, say from 10 Mbps to 100 mbps is dominated by bonded T1 lines at the low end, Ethernet over Copper throughout the range, and fiber optic services at the high end. DS3 or T3 lines running at 45 Mbps are the legacy service and are still very popular. In downtown metro areas, you may be able to get high speed fixed wireless in this bandwidth range. Cable is becoming a competitor with 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps services displacing both copper and fiber when symmetrical and dedicated bandwidth aren’t mandatory and you can live without service level agreements.

High bandwidth Internet access over 100 Mbps is now a battle between SONET and Ethernet fiber optic services. SONET is the incumbent, but tends to be higher cost. Ethernet is the newer service, often lower in price but not as generally available. Ethernet is also more granular in its bandwidth and easier scaled up for businesses that are on a fast growth path. Both SONET and Ethernet can give you as much bandwidth as you need and can afford, up to 10 Gbps and higher.

What Internet service option is best for your business? Get high speed Internet prices and availability for a wide range of options, with complementary consulting to help you pick the right solution for your needs.

How Maestro Smart Antenna Improves Fixed Wireless

Accel Technologies, a division of Accel Networks, is introducing a game changer into the fixed wireless space. It’s their new Maestro smart antenna system. What Maestro looks to do is make 3G and 4G fixed wireless broadband more competitive with more expensive business connectivity solutions, such as T1, MPLS, VSAT, Frame Relay and point to point microwave services.

So, what is this Maestro and what’s so smart about it? Like all other smart devices, Maestro incorporates active technology improve performance. In this case, the improvement is to an inherently passive element, the RF antenna. Antennas are used for all electronic communications. They can be as simple as a foil trace on a circuit board to a multi-element Yagi beam antenna. Satellite dishes are antennas, or antennae if you prefer. So are long wires used with short wave radios or vertical tower arrays for directional AM radio broadcasts.

The thing that’s important about antennas is that they are the first point of contact with any incoming signal and the last element involved in outgoing signals. An antenna can be any random length conductor or it can be a finely tuned system. Most antenna designs are “cut” to a particular size that resonates with the frequencies you are using. The right antenna length greatly improves transmission and reception. You can tune antennas by adding other passive elements, capacitors and inductors. By adding more elements or creating a parabolic reflector (satellite dish) the gain of the antenna is increased. Gain is like amplification. It gives you a stronger signal. As a passive device, you can’t get something for nothing. That gain in a particular direction comes at the expense of reduced sensitivity in other directions. For most applications that’s an additional advantage. A directional antenna reduces pickup of otherwise interfering signals coming from other directions.

Now, take a look a the antenna on your wireless router. Looks like a little black vertical stick, doesn’t it? Is it a particular length selected for the frequencies involved? Yes. Is it directional? No. A vertical “whip” antenna radiates and receives equally in all horizontal directions, although not so well in vertical directions. That’s nice if you want to blanket an area for reception, like a WiFi hotspot. You need broad coverage if you have users scattered all over or moving from place to place.

Now, how about an antenna to connect with a fixed wireless service? Is a simple whip antenna good enough? It is if you have a very strong signal. But what if you are just far enough away from the tower that you don’t have 5-bar coverage? In the case of smartphones and USB modem aircards, you take what you get or do without. These devices are designed to be nomadic, so they have to have universal coverage that brings with it mediocre pickup performance. However, if your business location is fixed and the towers are fixed, you can do better with an antenna that optimizes for the transmission path.

This is what Maestro is all about. It’s a high technology patent pending design that includes eight antennas, three switchable filter banks and an embedded LNA (Low Noise Amplifier) that adjusts to maintain the highest carrier to noise ratio for the 3G or 4G service you are using. Maestro has over 500 discrete setting options to fine-tune for optimum performance.

Why go to all this trouble? Accel Networks has specialized in leveraging the near-universal availability of cellular broadband service across the US and Canada. We think of cellular as a way to get broadband for our mobile phones, but it can also be used as a fixed location broadband service. It sometimes doesn’t work so great within buildings because those itty-bitty antennas on USB dongle adaptors and MiFi boxes can’t deliver a strong enough signal. Put a decent antenna ahead of ahead of the transmitter/receiver and you’ll have a robust signal that won’t go dead or reduce connection speed.

Maestro will be available in about a month from this writing. Accel expects that its introduction for 3G and 4G fixed wireless broadband service will challenge other solutions that businesses have employed to get high speed Internet access. These include VSAT satellite dishes on the roof, T1 lines, DSL and Cable that may or may not be available, frame relay and even microwave fixed wireless systems. Most businesses, especially small retail stores and offices, don’t need massive bandwidth. They need basic connectivity for credit card verification, email and website access. A 3G or 4G cellular service can provide the bandwidth, reliability and latency they require at a substantial cost savings. Accel has over 6,000 installations now that prove just that. With Maestro, many more locations will be able to gain these benefits.

Is your business located in an area where broadband service is hard to come by or unreasonably expensive? Check availability and pricing for fixed wireless broadband. You may be pleasantly surprised by how affordable it is and how well it works.

Fixed Wireless Moving To 4G

There are a couple of faces to fixed wireless broadband for business. First is the licensed microwave services that you’ll find downtown in major cities. The coverage is limited to a few thousand feet with strict line of sight requirements. Bandwidth is high, but availability is very limited.

The other approach is to piggy-back on the 3G cellular broadband services that already blanket the country. This approach offers lower bandwidth, similar to a T1 line, but is available just about anywhere you can get a cell phone signal. That has made it perfect for rural locations, temporary stores and small businesses that need a broadband connection fast.

Accel Networks has been a leader in 3G fixed wireless in the United States and Canada. Their winning approach has been in contracting with multiple wireless providers and creating a proprietary hardware solution that is plug-and-play for the user. Your equipment package comes pre-programmed for the optimal carrier signal available at your location. The Maestro antenna system ensures a solid RF link. All you need to do is connect to the serial or Ethernet connection and you are ready to go in as little as 3 days from order placement.

What do you get in the way of performance. You have a static or dynamic IP address on a PCI compliant private Layer 2 connection. Typical 3G data rates average 1 Mbps download by 512 Kbps upload. A service level agreement assures you of 99.9% availability. Coverage includes 99% of all retail locations in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico.

As good as 3G fixed wireless is, businesses are pressing for more bandwidth. Fixed wireless providers are following the cellular upgrade path from 3G to 4G as it is fielded. Accel Networks has launched their 4G service with a proprietary antenna and embedded modem technology. Speeds are expected to increase to 6 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload with under 100 mSec of latency.

How long until you can upgrade from 3G to 4G? The industry changeover is expected to be completed within the next two years. It will depend on where you are located as to how quickly you can install 4G fixed wireless broadband.

If you’ve been following the consumer smartphone upgrades from 3G to 4G, you know that there are a competing technologies. The ultimate is LTE (Long Term Evolution), a GSM technology that looks like it will become the universal standard. That includes a switchover for CDMA carriers like Verizon. In the mean time, carriers are performing intermediate upgrades to their existing networks to squeeze out a little more bandwidth. Why? It’s quite expensive to install new circuit cards in every cellular base station to change the technology of the signals being transmitted. Simple evolutionary upgrades often involve only a software upgrade to existing hardware. T-Mobile is taking this approach with an upgrade from HSPA to HSPA+ prior to full deployment of LTE.

The other limitation to higher speed cellular deployment is backhaul. This is the connection between the cell tower and the centralized switching equipment. Up till recently, T1 lines were used for cellular backhaul. They offer 1.5 Mbps in both upload and download directions and are both highly reliable and available anywhere twisted pair telephone wire exists. That’s just about everywhere, including out in the boonies. Bonding T1 lines can increase bandwidth by adding two, four, six or more T1 lines in parallel. That’s good to about 12 Mbps. After that, you need either microwave backhaul or fiber optic connection.

Fiber optic is the way to go if at all possible. The bandwidth is nearly unlimited and you only pay for the construction costs once. The problem is that there are several hundred thousand cell towers sites that need to be upgraded to fiber. In remote locations, fiber is nowhere nearby and needs to be brought-in. Even in the cities, there is a cost and time involved to upgrade each cell. That, plus the cost of the hardware and labor for site just to switch to LTE limits how fast the carriers can move. Even so, cellular broadband is so lucrative that billion dollar investments will continue to flow until the job is completed.

Will fixed wireless work for your business situation? If so, prices are very attractive for both 3G and 4G fixes wireless broadband solutions. Check pricing and availability to see if you really need those landline connections after all.

Gigabit WiFi For Video Streaming

WiFi hotspots, routers and access points have been deployed to such an extent that WiFi really is the default wireless connection. Bluetooth range is way too short. WiMax never deployed far enough, wide enough or fast enough. Cellular 3G and 4G are only valuable when you are away from WiFi access, since bandwidth is limited and overages are painful. Recent reports show that most tablets never use the built-in 3G wireless. WiFi is a replacement for cellular broadband, but it’s also becoming a replacement for wires.

Think about it. How much trouble and how expensive is it to string Ethernet cables through a home or office? Most people don’t have the skill or determination to snake wires through the walls of their two story home and don’t dare to try to wire an apartment. That means you are stuck with being in the same room as your DSL or Cable modem. Inexpensive WiFi routers got rid of that cable limitation. Now many PCs and printers come with WiFi access so that you can place them anywhere you want.

The other big tether is the television coax or HDMI cable. If you want to connect video, you have to string wires. The standard means for that has been RG-6 or RG-59 coax. But HD outputs are now HDMI, so your old coax is limited to SD video. That’s assuming you were able to get coax installed in every room you wanted.

Complicating matters now is that traditional video sources, such as satellite and DVD, are merging with the Internet. Many TVs, Blu-ray players and games now come with Ethernet jacks. You still need an Ethernet cable, but now it’s for video broadband not just web browsing. Or... do you?

Video is a need screaming for a wireless solution. The legacy WiFi 802.11b&g versions clearly are not up to the task. WiFi 802.11n does much better, but has trouble finding a clear path through the crowded 2.4 GHz ISM band. It's also pressed for enough bandwidth to support all things video. The solution? It’s an enhancement to WiFi-N called WiFi 802.11ac.

What’s better about WiFi-AC compared to WiFi-N? Most importantly, it pushes wireless bandwidth above the Gbps level. Total capacity of an 8 antenna system will reach almost 7 Gbps when this technology is fully developed. That should be enough to keep up with the rapid advancement of HD and 3D streaming video devices and become the way to eliminate Ethernet, HDMI and coaxial cabling in the home and office.

How does 802.11ac achieve this performance? First of all, it completely abandons the crowded 2.4 GHz band and uses the lesser populated 5 GHz band exclusively. That cuts out a lot of interference. Next, the transmission channels are widened to achieve more data carrying capacity. Channels are 40 MHz maximum in 802.11n. These are expanded to 80 MHz minimum and 160 MHz optional for the new standard.

WiFi-N introduced MIMO or Multiple Input Multiple Output antenna technology. MIMO is a way for transmitters and receivers to deal with scattering radio waves and interference by intelligently analyzing the received signals to determine which ones are valid. It’s a little like being able to tell which direction a sound originates by using two ears rather than one. Beamforming compensates for phase shift of multiple received signals to increase the total signal level. This allows higher bandwidth over a longer range.

A more complex modulation scheme is being introduced in 802.11ac called 256 QAM. The term QAM refers to Quadrature Amplitude Modulation. It uses both amplitude and phase shift to send data over two combined carriers differing by 90 degrees, called quadrature. Each combination of phase and amplitude represents one digital number. 802.11n used 64 QAM to send 6 bits per symbol. 256 QAM sends 8 bits per symbol, a third more efficient in use of the spectrum.

When will be see 802.11ac equipment on the market? Probably near the end of this year or the beginning of next. Broadcom recently announced the first chipset to support the protocol. They are dubbing it “5G WiFi” to emphasize the considerably higher performance from previous wireless standards, similar to how cellular carriers use 2G, 3G and 4G to describe their generations of technology.

Fixed Wireless For Rural Retail

Retail businesses in small towns and rural locations often find it difficult or expensive to get the broadband connectivity they need. Many go with two-way satellite or T1 lines to get the point of sale and Internet access they need. Others have discovered that 3G wireless gets them a reliable and secure connection for credit card verification at half the cost of a T1 line.

We’re all familiar with 3G as the cellular broadband service for smartphones. It is also used with USB aircards to get Internet access for laptop and notebook computers. There’s a less well known service that leverages the availability of 3G wireless signals with the robustness of high performance multi-carrier equipment and a secure VPN network. This is what you need for serious business applications.

Conventional cellular service is fine for mobile applications and has the low cost advantage for personal use. The Accel Networks fixed wireless solution adds performance reliability, coverage and security for installation in business locations. The idea behind fixed wireless is that you set it up once and forget it. It’s always on and connecting you to the data center. You can safely turn your back and forget about tweaking antennas or charging batteries. This network is managed to ensure that it is always up and running. Think of this solution as a replacement for T1 line service or a satellite dish on the roof.

Accel Networks has addressed the issue of poor rural broadband availability by leveraging the broadband signals that are available. You know that you can get cellular phone service just about anywhere. The only question is whether the carrier you are contracted with has coverage everywhere you want to go. Accel gets around the limitations of carrier coverage by contracting with multiple cellular carriers to provide coverage to over 90% of business locations in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. They have a proprietary provisioning system that determines which carrier has the most robust signal for your particular location. That data is used to configure a unique modem, router and antenna equipment package that is sent to you in a couple of weeks, although it is possible to get expedited delivery in as little as a few business days.

Once you get your wireless equipment bundle, you simply plug it in and you are up and running. No need to wait for a service technician to install an outdoor dish or roof antenna or go through a complex configuration setup. None of that is needed with the Accel Network system. You’ll be ready to go in 15 minutes after you open the shipping box. The rental of the equipment is also bundled with your bandwidth lease so that you pay by the month, without having to buy any hardware. Even at that, the cost of a bandwidth service that is competitive with many T1 installations is about half the price.

What kind of performance can you expect? You’ll get 3G data rates bursting to 1 Mbps download and 512 Kbps upload on a 99.9% available network. That’s more than adequate for most small retail applications. This connectivity is on a PCI compliant private layer 2 network that gives it a big advantage for meeting credit card verification requirements. Use it with a single card terminal or hook up all your electronic cash registers and get fast response times, especially compared to dial-up telephone line solutions.

Accel’s fixed wireless package is perfect for retail POS, security, inventory polling, tank monitoring and digital signage. Oil and gas companies have found it works great for remote site management. Other applications include lottery machine and ATM support. Specialty retail stores, convenience stores, grocery stores, automotive retailers, restaurants, payday loan stores, and car dealerships have all found that fixed wireless meets their needs.

Is your business located in a rural or out of the way location where business broadband is either hard to come by or expensive? If so, check out fixed wireless business broadband service as a high performance low cost bandwidth solution for your business location.

DROID 2 Global is a World Phone

What would you call a smartphone with a 1.2 GHz processor that can make and receive calls from over 200 countries? You’d call it the DROID 2 Global.

Just a second. This is a phone for Verizon and yet it works worldwide? How to they do that?

Verizon has excellent coverage in the United States and is the preferred carrier for tens of millions of users. The one little hiccup is that most of the world operates on the GSM standard and Verizon works on CDMA. It’s pretty much a VHS/Betamax argument. The two standards are mutually incompatible. So how does a Verizon phone work overseas?

Ah, the trick is to make it two phones in one. The Motorola DROID 2 has built in support for multiple networks. It covers WCDMA 850/1900/2100, CDMA 800/1900, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 10.2 Mbps (Category 9/10), CDMA EV-DO Release A, EDGE Class 12, GPRS Class 12, and HSUPA 1.8 Mbps. That’s pretty much everything you can use for telephone calls, Internet access and messaging.

Your DROID 2 comes with CDMA international roaming, but you’ll need to activate a pre-installed SIM card and a Global Service plan or feature to enable roaming outside of the US when using GSM and UTMS networks. You’ll want a global data plan so you can message and access the Web in those 200 countries, with 3G speeds in 125 countries. Why, it’s all the comfort of home!

Oh, by the way. The GSM feature doesn’t work on AT&T or T-Mobile networks here in the States. Verizon isn’t about to have any part of that.

Multiple network access may be the future of cell phones, at least in the near term. The idea of multiple incompatible networks is an idea who’s time has come and gone. Technology has advanced to the point where you can have both CDMA and GSM access designed into the same device. Look for this idea to spread to tablets and other 3G/4G devices.

The way things are going, it looks like most 4G wireless data networks are going to be LTE in a few years. Yet, WiMAX is enjoying popularity too. Next we need LTE/WiMAX dual-mode transceivers for smartphones and computing devices.

What other tricks does the DROID 2 Global have up its sleeve? A slide-out QWERTY keyboard for one. That makes high speed messaging and email a lot easier. The camera is a 5 Megapixel model with a dual LED flash and DVD-D1 video capture.

You also have the ability to make your DROID 2 Global a 3G mobile hotspot so you can share your data connection with up to 5 other devices.

This is truly a breakthrough smartphone design with a lot of advanced features for the Android user. Did you catch the 1.2 GHz processor? That should make your apps scream!

Are you interested in owning a cutting-edge phone with international capability? If so, learn more and order your Motorola DROID 2 Global for Verizon Wireless now. You can also browse the extensive selection of Android and other smartphones and feature phones, all at significant discounts and some even free.

HTC ThunderBolt Screams On LTE

Get your hands on this Android smartphone and it will hit you like lightning. This is the future of mobile connectivity. The HTC ThunderBolt doesn’t just run on Verizon’s LTE network. It screams.

Not so long ago you could turn a colleague’s eyes green with envy by showing off your cutting edge smartphone with amazingly fast 3G broadband. Remember those days? You couldn’t possibly be that young! It was only a few years ago. That’s how fast things have been moving in the world of mobile devices.

When 3G entered the marketplace it really did seem fast. Well, fast in the way that 56K modems seemed amazingly fast when you remembered poking along at 300 baud. There are all sorts of speeds quoted for 3G and 4G transmission, but let’s say that 3G comes in at about 1 Mbps and 4G takes that up to 10 Mbps. You know that you may get more than that or a mere fraction depending on how strong your signal is and how congested the tower is that you are connected to.

When they say that 4G is an order of magnitude times the speed of 3G, they're not kidding. All that extra speed lets you download apps faster and enjoy video experiences that might not be up to it with lower bandwidth. Also like all technology advancements, there seem to be two competitors trying to claim the market.

First out of the gate was WiMAX technology deployed by Sprint and Clearwire as CLEAR. You’ll find CLEAR capability on Sprint Android smartphones. So fast is this technology and so powerful is the signal that CLEAR is selling wireless service for both desktop and mobile applications. You still have a broadband modem on your desktop. There just aren’t any phone or cable wires running to it.

T-Mobile and Verizon have shunned WiMAX in favor of a competing technology called LTE. AT&T is also planning to deploy LTE and not WiMAX. Some pundits are predicting that LTE will be the universal standard in a few years, but WiMAX is also a worldwide standard and may be more resilient than anyone expects.

Is this the end of the line as far as speed enhancements are concerned? Not hardly. Both WiMAX and LTE are upgrading their standards to offer peak rates of at least 1 Gbps for fixed operation and 100 Mbps in mobile use. Nobody’s talking 5G yet, but those speeds suggest the order of magnitude increase that justifies a new descriptor.

The ThunderBolt itself is a 4.3 inch full touch screen (800 x480 pixels) smartphone running Android 2.2 OS with HTC Sense 2.0. It uses the Snapdragon 1 GHZ processor with 8 GB of built-in memory that’s expandable up to 32 GB via plug-in microSD card. You have enough horsepower onboard to act as a WiFi hotspot for up to 8 other devices. You also have excellent photographic capability with an 8 Megapixel 2x LED flash camera that takes HD videos plus a 1.3 Megapixel front facing camera for video chatting.

Do you live in one of the 39 initial cities where Verizon LTE has been deployed or the 150 markets where it should be installed by the end of 2011? If so, you may have a hard time resisting the urge to move up 5x to 10x the download speed of your once-amazing 3G smartphone. If so, learn more and order your HTC ThunderBolt with Verizon Wireless Service and get a tremendous discount off the suggested retail price.

Broadband Business Internet Service Options

Nearly every business today is connected to the Internet or soon will be. Even those mom and pop operations that still use the mechanical credit card machines will soon use electronic card verification, email and at least a brochure website. Businesses that are already seasoned users of the Web are looking to upgrade their bandwidth to support a move to cloud services. Let’s compare and contrast the various options you have for a broadband Internet connection.

Business Internet broadband services generally fall into two categories. They are shared and dedicated connections. Shared connections are similar in design to residential broadband services. The fact that the bandwidth is divvied up among many users lowers the cost for all. Dedicated services allocate a certain bandwidth to your connection and it does not vary regardless of what other users are doing. These services also tend to come with SLAs or Service Level Agreements that spell out technical parameters and availability commitments.

Shared bandwidth services include Cable Broadband, DSL, 3G and 4G Wireless, and two-way Satellite Internet. What they all have in common is that the actual bandwidth you’ll see varies with the number of other users and what they are doing. These services are sold as speeds “up to” a certain number of Mbps. That means what it says. You may get the full speed the connection is capable of or you may get a tenth of that at any given time.

These variations may or may not bother you. If you are running enterprise VoIP or bandwidth sensitive business processes, your variable connection may not support the performance you have in mind. On the other hand, if you use the Internet at work the same way you use it at home for email, Web browsing, or accessing pre-recorded audio and video, you may be quite satisfied with the service and delighted with the cost savings. Some services, like 3G wireless and Satellite are often used to support electronic credit card machines in lieu of using a phone line.

Dedicated Internet access connections, such as T1 lines and Ethernet over Copper, have rock solid bandwidth and generally excellent latency, jitter and packet loss characteristics. These are the same lines that you would use to interconnect business connections on a private line service. As Internet connections, they have one termination at your location and the other at your Internet service providers location.

Dedicated Internet access supports Web and email servers. The also support multiple users accessing the Internet and VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). If you are going to stream content to Internet users, you’ll want a DIA (Dedicated Internet Access) connection from the server to the Internet.

Ethernet over Copper (EoC) has become very popular as both a private line and DIA connection. You can often get twice the bandwidth you could with a T1 line costing the same price. Like T1, EoC is provisioned over twisted pair copper telco wiring to keep construction costs down.

Larger companies and those with demanding applications such as video transport move up to fiber optic services, such as OC3 to OC768 SONET and Ethernet over Fiber (EoF) 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1 Gbps GigE and 10 Gbps 10GigE bandwidth services. All of these are dedicated services with service level agreements.

How do you decide which broadband service is right for your business? Perhaps the best way is to compare prices, availability and features for the range of Broadband Business Internet Service options available for your location. Most business grade broadband services are available only for business locations and not residences, despite similarities with consumer Internet services.

A Myriad of Business Broadband Options

Business class broadband comes in more flavors that ever before. Your options include DSL, 3G & 4G Wireless, Cable broadband, Satellite, T1 lines, and Ethernet over Copper. Those are just for small business locations. Fiber optic services expand the menu for medium and large scale business users. What is it that distinguishes these broadband options and how do you choose?

You should know that there are two different types of Internet broadband access regardless of the medium used. The medium might be wireless, twisted pair copper, coaxial cable, or fiber optic strand. That’s just the physical layer. What makes even more difference is whether you are on a dedicated or shared broadband connection.

Your lowest cost options fall into the shared bandwidth category. These include DSL, Cable, 3G & 4G Wireless and Satellite. What these all have in common is that the bandwidth is shared among multiple users. A tip-off to shared bandwidth is a statement that your service speed is “up to” so many Mbps. The upper limit, be it 2 or 20 Mbps, is the maximum you’ll experience. How much you get in practice depends on how many other people are trying to use the connection at the same time.

Shared bandwidth services don’t have to be asymmetrical, but they often are. What that means is that the upload and download speed differ, often by a large amount. You might get 5 Mbps in the download direction, but only 1 Mbps in the upload direction. Why is it done this way? It’s because these services are most often used for email and Web access. When using a Web browser, you typically type in an address and then download a page of text and graphics. The upload to request the page is a very few packets. The download of everything from the page is a much larger collection of packets.

The same is true of accessing audio and video content or downloading software. It’s primarily a one-way transmission with the speed of the download much more important than the speed of the uploaded requests.

Another characteristic of shared bandwidth services is that they are promoted as “information” rather than “telecom” services. By using the information category, these services avoid regulatory constraints. What you get for your money in the way of bandwidth levels, availability, time to repair, latency, jitter, packet loss is completely up to the service provider.

Dedicated Internet Access or DIA services allocate the full bandwidth of the connection for your usage. A T1 line, for instance, has a speed of 1.5 Mbps at all times. If you aren’t using it, the line simply idles until needed. You can elect to access the Internet via your T1 line as needed, or you can keep the line busy uploading and downloading data files 100% of the time. There’s no such thing as user limits. You’ve got a pipe with a capacity of 1.5 Mbps and you can transport as many packets through it as it will carry.

T1 lines are symmetrical, also called full duplex. The bandwidth is the same in both the upload and download directions. In this case, it’s 1.5 Mbps. Ethernet over Copper, a newer competing service to T1 lines, is similar but offers more bandwidth options. You can often get 2, 3, 5, 10 and even 20 Mbps EoC service. It’s often stated in the form 10 x 10 Mbps Ethernet to show that you get 10 Mbps in the upload and 10 Mbps in the download direction.

T1 and Ethernet services are not information services. They are network telecom services, often with SLAs or Service Level Agreements. These agreements spell out what you can expect in the way of availability, time to repair, bandwidth, jitter and latency. Because these services are more costly to engineer and provide, they have higher pricing than shared bandwidth information services.

So does that mean that you always need a T1 line or Ethernet connection? Not necessarily. If your primary reason to have an Internet connection is to access information on the Web or maintain a Website and email on a remote hosting service, you may find that DSL, Cable, Satellite or Wireless service works just fine and costs half as much. Satellite and Wireless are especially useful for remote locations that aren’t within the service areas of DSL or Cable. You can use 3G and 4G cellular wireless for point of sale terminals, even at temporary locations.

On the other hand, if you want to run your own servers in-house or connect multiple business locations with a converged voice and data network, you’ll probably find that you absolutely need the more robust bandwidth services. The same is true if you are providing rather than consuming content or can’t stand having employee productivity impacted by bandwidth that varies up and down throughout the day. Would a multi-day outage put you out of business? It probably makes sense to either have a backup bandwidth service or pay up for a Service Level Agreement.

What Internet access options make the most sense for your particular business situation? Why not have a bandwidth expert call you with prices and availability for a wide range of bandwidth solutions? Then you can weigh the costs and benefits and make an better informed decision.

Internet Bandwidth Connections For Business

Internet access can be divided into three categories. Consumer residential broadband, dedicated business bandwidth, and 3G/4G mobile. Mobile broadband serves both individuals and business users. But fixed wireline is either business or consumer, but not truly both.

Why is that? There’s as cost vs performance decision that separates the two. Consumer services, and that includes home based businesses, are not even classified as telecom services. They have a designation as “information services.” What that does is keep them relatively unregulated with few commitments to the customer. In return, costs are kept low so that they are affordable by most households.

Business bandwidth is a regulated telecom service with high performance expectations. Unlike consumer connections, your business line services have a dedicated bandwidth level that is available 100% of the time. You can use that line up to its full capacity without bandwidth caps.

Business bandwidth also tends to be symmetrical. That is, you get the same bandwidth in both directions. An example is 10 x 10 Mbps Ethernet. What that means is that you get 10 Mbps in both the upload and download directions. Contrast that with consumer DSL, Cable and wireless services that favor the download direction by a large margin. That’s because most consumers download far more data than they upload. Business use tends to be more balanced.

Business bandwidth services are designed to be highly reliable. After all, the telecom companies and network carriers use the same line services themselves. Many come with an SLA or Service Level Agreement. That document defines the performance and availability of the line. If it goes down, it gets fast attention from the service provider. Most outages are restored in a matter of hours or less. There is no such commitment for consumer services. It’s a “best effort” arrangement with multi-day outages undesirable but not unknown.

Business Internet bandwidth is also called “dedicated” access. The dedicated term means that you and you alone have use of that much bandwidth. That may seem obvious, but do you realize that consumer broadband services are called “shared” and not dedicated? What the service provider does is purchase a large dedicated line service and then share that bandwidth among the user base. How much bandwidth you have at any given time is a function of how much your neighbors are also using. Bandwidth slowdowns during peak usage times are to be expected. This is why consumer bandwidth is sold as “up to” a certain Mbps.

Popular Internet bandwidth connections for business are T-Carrier, SONET and Ethernet. T-Carrier includes the popular T1 lines that offer 1.5 Mbps bandwidth and are available just about anywhere you can get telephone service. SONET is the big brother of T-Carrier. It is a fiber optic service with designations such as OC-3, OC-12, and OC-48. Ethernet can be provided on either copper or fiber. Ethernet over Copper is available in metropolitan areas at bandwidths up to 45 Mbps. Most popular are 3 Mbps and 10 Mbps Ethernet over Copper. They typically offer more Mbps for your bandwidth dollar, where available. Ethernet over Fiber offers near limitless bandwidth, although 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gbps Ethernet are popular standard line speeds.

Are you frustrated by a poorly performing Internet connection or just want to compare pricing to ensure that you are getting the most for your money? If so, get competitive pricing and availability for business Internet bandwidth services now.

Why Ethernet Broadband For Business?

When we think of broadband, what generally comes to mind is DSL, Cable Internet or cellular wireless services. But these are light duty or consumer-grade bandwidth services. Why might you become frustrated with such broadband services in business and is there an attractive alternative?

First, let’s take cellular wireless. It goes by the name 3G and, increasingly, 4G. The problem with both 3G and 4G coming from cell towers is that there is a very limited amount of bandwidth available and it has to be fairly apportioned to all the users who want it.

Smartphones gobble up bandwidth at an eye-popping rate. Get enough smartphones or netbook aircards in a particular area and the whole network can be brought to its knees. That’s why most carriers now have monthly bandwidth limits with steep overage penalties. Satellite and some 4G carriers take a different approach. Instead of charging for overage, they throttle down bandwidth for heavy users. If you use too much in a given period, they slow down your access to give others a chance.

While out and about, cellular broadband may be your best bet simply because service is so readily available compared to everything else. If the cells are too congested, you can find a WiFi hotspot and likely get better throughput there.

If you want or need wireless broadband service for an office with multiple users, consider a fixed wireless option designed for business. They’re mostly available in large metropolitan areas. If you can get this service, you’ll be hooked up quickly and have generous amounts of bandwidth at your disposal. An outdoor antenna is installed on your building to a strong signal for reliable service.

DSL and Cable broadband were designed for consumers. The carriers bend over backwards to keep the price low so that most consumers can afford the service. But they achieve that by having everyone share the available bandwidth. Your service might offer “up to 10 Mbps” of download bandwidth. Whether or not you get anywhere near that depends on what your neighbors are doing online. When everybody starts heavily accessing the Internet, the line speed for each user slows and sometimes slows to a crawl.

Businesses that need reliable, dependable and fast Internet service often find themselves frustrated at keeping up productivity on services that cater to people downloading music and videos at home. The classic solution is the T1 line. T1 lines are dedicated, in the sense that you have full use of the available 1.5 Mbps bandwidth. T1 is highly reliable, gets fast repair service if anything ever does go wrong and is “unlimited” in that you can run it full speed 24/7 all month. If you need more bandwidth, you can “bond” more T1 lines up to about 10 Mbps both upload and download.

The one thing that makes businesses sometimes hesitate at installing one or more T1 lines is that the cost is several times what you pay for those consumer services. Even though the cost is well worth it when you consider the lost business or productivity that results from flaky Internet service, there is now an even better option for business use. That service is Ethernet broadband.

Ethernet broadband is a high speed dedicated wireline service that can be provided to your business location on either copper wiring or fiber optic cable, depending on bandwidth. Popular speed options are 3 and 10 Mbps for smaller businesses, 100 to 1000 Mbps for medium size operations, and 1 Gbps and up for large corporations. Your line speed is scalable, so you can generally have it increased up to the full capacity of the installed port with only a phone call to your provider.

Best of all, Ethernet is often the best value for your broadband dollar. A 3 Mbps Ethernet connection is often about the same price as a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. A 10 Mbps Ethernet service is easily affordable by most businesses.

Would you be interested in switching to highly reliable, high speed Ethernet services if the price were attractive? Why not check out Ethernet broadband service prices right now? See how much bandwidth you can get for your budget.

MiFi Points The Way to Wireless Transition

Verizon Wireless just made an amazing announcement. They will be selling the Apple iPad in their stores. But aren’t Apple and AT&T exclusive partners? Indeed. So, why is Verizon selling a product that won’t work on their network? ...Or will it?

Yes, it will. How Verizon accomplished this clever feat of engineering points the way to the future of wireless broadband. Actually, not the future future. Just the immediate future. Call it the era of wireless transition.

Wireless technology has pretty much developed along two lines. One is the telecom carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. There are other players in the cellular wireless game, but they are simply private branded versions of the big four within the US. What characterizes the major carriers is that their offerings are proprietary. What works on AT&T won’t work on Verizon Wireless, and vice versa.

The other wireless path is an industry standard known a WiFi. It comes in flavors such as a, b, g, and n. But unlike telecom carrier services there is enough commonality and backwards compatibility that pretty much any WiFi device will work on pretty much any wireless router, hotspot or access point.

What Verizon has cleverly done is marry the two lines. They can’t get into the iPad through the front door, so the come in the back door. How? Very simple. They use an interface device to convert cellular to WiFi. That device is the MiFi. The Verizon MiFi is a little box about the size of a pack of cards. Inside is a cellular radio, a WiFi radio, a battery and some circuitry to make it all work. All you do is push a button to turn it on and the converter works automatically. It allows up to 5 wireless devices to gain access to the Verizon 3G wireless network as if they were Verizon-enabled to begin with.

The Verizon iPad will consist of an Apple iPad and a Verizon MiFi bundled together. They are separate pieces of equipment, but the MiFi will slip into your pocket or bag so it isn’t intrusive. At first blush, it may seem like having to carry around two pieces of equipment instead of just one is a big disadvantage for Verizon compared to AT&T. But Verizon may get the last laugh after all. The MiFi provides 3G connectivity for your iPad, but it also provides 3G connectivity for your other devices that don’t have their own 3G service built-in. That includes your laptop computer, netbook, games, and even your Apple iPod. If you had to buy separate 3G service for each device, you’d go broke. But one MiFi can serve whatever gadgets need connectivity, as long as they are WiFi enabled.

Verizon isn’t the only one with a MiFi. Novatel, maker of the MiFi, offers an unlocked version for GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile. There’s a MiFi specifically for Virgin Mobile. Sprint goes one further with their Sierra Wireless Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot. It works on both the Sprint 3G Mobile Broadband network and its 4G WiMAX network. CLEAR offers a similar 3G/4G converter called Clear Spot.

Even these converters are transitional technology. Smartphones, starting with the Droid X by Motorola and Samsung Epic, have the cellular to WiFi hotspot capability built-in. This is likely to become a standard feature on smartphone designs, as WiFi and Bluetooth are the industry standard wireless technologies. WiFi has the greater transmission range.

Down the road a few years, the tide of wireless seems to be going in the direction of standardizing on LTE as a 4G standard. Cellular phone may give way to VoIP over LTE. At that point it will be hard to tell the difference between a mobile phone, a smartphone and a digital device like a tablet computer. Perhaps a single smart radio chip will provide universal wireless connectivity. Just pick your carrier and sign up for a service plan after you buy the device. The wireless transition era will be complete.

3G 4G Mobile Bandwidth

The Internet long escaped the desktop and moved onto the mobile phone. The problem is that it has been following a similar learning curve that took us from 300 baud telephone modems to DSL & Cable broadband and now to high speed wireless and fiber optic service. Mobile bandwidth is undergoing a steady evolution, with the demand for higher and higher speeds pushing the technology. Let’s have a look at what’s available and what’s coming soon.

The benchmark today is 3G wireless. This service offers somewhere between 500 Kbps and 1.5 Mbps and is owned and operated by the cellular carriers. The same company that sells you your cell phone minutes also sells you 3G wireless Internet access. The signals come from the same towers, so if you are in a dead spot for phone reception you won’t be surfing the Web or watching videos either.

The 3G build-out has been proceeding at something of a panic level, especially since the introduction of the Apple iPhone. The first iPhone used the AT&T EDGE network, which is actually called a 2.5G network. That means it has considerably less bandwidth than the newer HSPA or High Speed Packet Access 3G network, perhaps as little as a tenth as much. HSPA is offered by GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile and is also known as HSUPA.

A competing 3G service is offered by CDMA carriers Verizon and Sprint using a different technology. Theirs is known as EV-DO and EV-DO Rev A. Download bandwidths are in the range of 1 to 2 Mbps, depending on signal conditions.

Note that 2.5G and 3G cellular broadband not only gives cell phones the ability to download videos and surf the Web but also gives you the option of adding 3G to your laptop computer. The functionality is added using a plug-in wireless modem aircard. These are sold with data-only service plans, since they don’t work as telephones. The aircard and wireless service has been a boon to field sales people who don’t always have the ability to set up shop within a WiFi hotspot.

The newest service on the market is called 4G mobile bandwidth. Right now the run away leader is the WiMAX service offered by Clearwire and Sprint under the CLEAR trademark. WiMAX is yet another wireless standard, albeit a global one not associated with the cellular phone system. WiMAX offers a powerful signal that covers an entire city. It’s strong enough to penetrate buildings so that you can have the same WiMAX broadband on your desktop and laptop computers. Download bandwidth typically ranges between 3 and 6 Mbps, considerably faster than 3G networks.

The cellular companies aren’t sitting still, though. Both AT&T and Verizon plan to deploy another standard called LTE to compete with WiMAX. It will likely be a year or two before these two 4G technologies are competing head to head in most populated areas. For now, WiMAX gives you the most mobile bandwidth at the lowest cost in the cities and states where it is available.

Houston, We’ve Got A 4G Solution

How’s your broadband experience? Lovin’ it or... You know. The speed really drags. It’s dead half the time. Even when it works, it seems to cost a lot more than it should. Worst of all, there are lots of places, even in town, where you can’t even get connected.

Well, you won’t have to put up with that treatment anymore if you happen to be living in Houston, Texas and nearby locations such as The Woodlands, Pasadena, Baytown, Mission Bend, Missouri City, Lake Jackson, Alvin, Conroe, or League City. CLEAR, the new 4G wireless broadband service being deployed by Sprint and Clearwire, has installed their WiMAX Internet service and it’s up and running right now. Can you get it? Enter your zip code and see if you’ve got coverage.



So, is it only the lucky residents of Houston that can get 4G wireless broadband service? No, not by a long shot. There are 10 states and 30 cities that are already on the air with WiMAX service. Others are in the works right now. That’s millions and millions of users who have the opportunity to cut the cord and get away from DSL and Cable if they aren’t satisfied.

One of the unique features of this service is that you can get both fixed and mobile service on the same account. Remember -- this is wireless broadband. That gives you the opportunity to be working on a project at your desk and then take it on the road using the same broadband service. You don’t need to pay twice to get desktop and mobile WiMAX service from different providers. CLEAR will give you both at an attractive price.

What kind of bandwidth is available? The service runs at 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps for downloads and up to 1 Mbps for uploads. That compares favorably with the better DSL and Cable services and completely blows away 3G cellular broadband.

Do you live in the Houston area? If not, are you curious to see if 4G wireless broadband is available for your location? If so, simply Enter your zip code and see if you’ve got coverage.

Is The End Of Cellular Phone Near?

We love our cell phones. We can’t live without them. Yet, a recent report throws into doubt the future of cellular phone service as we know it today. What can possibly threaten the most popular telecommunications service in the world and what will we do instead?

The report is a bit of news that was announced about the same time as the release of the new Apple iPad. Almost lost in the hoopla was a confirmation by Apple that they are now allowing VoIP applications over 3G cellular on the iPhone. AT&T chimed in that they had “tweaked” their network to allow VoIP over 3G.

What’s so earth-shattering about that? Until now, VoIP has been application non-grata on cellular networks. There are two good reasons for that. The technical reason is that VoIP generates a steady stream of packets while a call is in progress. If you have too many conversations going simultaneously, they’ll hog all the bandwidth and the network will become congested to the detriment of everyone. The business reason is that any call made using VoIP on the broadband data link is one less call using cellular minutes.

This showdown has been brewing for some time. It’s rooted in the historical design and pricing for cell phone service. In the beginning... a couple of decades ago... cellular phone systems were designed to offer mobile telephone service. The first generation were analog. The next generation went digital. But it was all based on voice channels transporting full duplex phone conversations. The model was the standard telephone handset minus the wire.

The addition of a separate data service, especially a broadband data service, is a more recent addition. Each carrier has only certain licensed frequencies that it can use at each tower site. They divvy up that bandwidth between voice and data. There need to be enough channels so that anyone who wants to make a phone call can do so. But there also needs to be enough broadband capacity so that customers will buy the add-on data service for their smartphones.

Now here’s the rub. Voice plans are sold as a package of so many minutes per month. Data plans are sold as an unlimited broadband usage, although in practice there actually is a limit of 5GB or so to thwart those who try to use the cellular network to replace a DSL or Cable broadband connection. There’s just not enough bandwidth available if everyone did THAT. But, in theory, you could use Skype or another VoIP service on your data plan for telephony and skip the voice package completely. This is the doomsday scenario that has triggered the wrath of cellular carriers whenever they suspect a VoIP incursion into their networks.

There are some recent developments that may soon render this battle of the protocols moot. The first change was the availability of all-you-can-eat voice and data plans. If no one is tracking minutes so they can charge for overages, then who cares if the call goes down the voice or data pipe? It all pays the same.

Just as significant is the reality that the data channel is the one with the screaming demand for more and more bandwidth. Video is becoming the wireless killer-app and video consumes bandwidth by the Mbps, versus a few dozen Kbps to support a phone call. Every carrier is in a mad scramble to upgrade its backhaul capability and tower site facilities to add more and more 3G bandwidth. They’ll likely not even finish before the next generation of higher bandwidth called 4G is deployed. That’s coming sooner than you think. The FCC just told wireless microphone users to get off the off the old 700 MHz TV channels that were sold to wireless carriers so they can be put to their planned uses.

If data bandwidth demands are swamping voice channel demands, it’s only logical to rethink the whole cellular service market. In the future, we’ll all be carrying small computers that also make voice calls or, more likely, video chat calls. Telephones that also do a little Internet browsing will be relegated to the recyclers. How about that iPad? It even looks like a big iPhone. All you need is a Bluetooth headset and an approved VoIP app and you’ve got yourself a tablet telephone.

Data dominance is going to render the idea of talk minutes a bit quaint. You’ll either pay by the minute for everything with a pay-as-you-go plan, or pay a flat fee for however you want to use the cellular network. The cellular carriers will become wireless broadband network providers for roaming, mobile and some fixed location applications. Cellular may be entering its twilight years, but wireless is just getting started.

A Smartphone of Mythic Proportions

You’ve been considering a new smartphone. Don’t just buy the first one you see in the store. Not when you can get a smartphone of mythic proportions for FREE.

It’s true. This new beauty is the Samsung Mythic A897 Black for AT&T. It has high-end features and should command a high-end price. In some places it does. That’s what I mean by not just grabbing the first thing you like off the shelf. You’ll probably wind up paying way more than you should. In this case, the Mythic is free after instant online discount and comes with free shipping to your home or business, ready to use.

So, what makes this a mythic phone other than the name? First of all is the brilliant 3.3 inch touch screen display. It’s perfecty for streaming AT&T Mobile TV or video conferencing with AT&T Video Share. With Video Share you can show others what you are seeing with live video streaming during your phone call. That’s the beauty of the AT&T network. You can talk and do other things at the same time. Not like some networks we won’t mention here.

By the way, this is both a 3G phone and a world phone. It runs on AT&T’s GSM network, the international standard. It’s capable of operating on the GSM 850, 900, 1800, 1900 and 2100 bands for universal coverage.

That big color display is a perfect match to the 3.2 Megapixel digital camera that takes high resolution pix good enough to print as well as share. You can also run it in camcorder mode to make your own movies on the the spot. Get a video messaging plan and share your cinemas with family and friends. Or, upload them to YouTube for worldwide exposure.

Surf the mobile Web, send email, text or instant message. This phone supports them all. If you get too absorbed in what you are doing and get lost, don’t worry. The Samsung Mythic supports AT&T Navigation for turn by turn directions to get you back in familiar territory.

Oh, and what are those Mythic proportions? They're 4.4 inches high by 2.1 inches wide by a mere half inch thick. You also get up to 3 hours of talk time and up to 10 days on standby.

Mobile TV, navigation, video sharing, picture messaging, email, Web browsing and so much more. This is one smart phone. Can you believe that it’s available to you free? Well, it probably won’t be forever so get in on this special offer while it lasts. Learn more and order your Samsung Mythic A897 Black with AT&T wireless service. If it makes sense, get TWO Mythic phones on a family plan. That’s a great way to get the high end wireless phone service you want at a very attractive price.

Of course, there are many excellent deals right now on smartphones and cellphones of all types. Check out Today’s Special Deals at Cell Phone Plans Finder.

Cell Phone Wireless Broadband

If you are only using a cell phone to talk, you're missing half the capability of the cellular networks. What started as a mobile voice network is now both a voice and data network. Not just text data, but wireless broadband Internet access that rivals fixed DSL and Cable broadband offerings.

What's available in mobile Internet service today? If you haven't used this capability or been following industry developments, you may be surprised by how available and how fast cell phone wireless Internet access has become. There are two rival systems in use today, with two more even faster networks starting the build-out phase.

AT&T has championed their HSDPA and EDGE networks, with the most talked-about implementation being the Apple iPhone. The original iPhone runs on EDGE, with broadband speeds around 100 Kbps. That's at least twice what you'd get with dial-up, but modest by broadband standards.

The new iPhone 3GS runs on the HSDPA or High Speed Download Packet Access network. That jumps the download speed up to a maximum of 3.6 Mbps, with typical user speeds around 500 to 700 Kbps. That's more what you'd expect in basic broadband service and enough to enable fast Web browsing and video downloads. Right now AT&T is upgrading its network to a faster technology called HSPA which should double your access speeds.

T-Mobile uses the same technologies for voice and data as AT&T. Both are worldwide carriers based on GSM service that is popular internationally.

Verizon and Sprint are CDMA rather than GSM carriers. That means they use a completely different technology. On the data side this is called EVDO for EVolution Data Optimized. EVDO is highly competitive with HSDPA, with a basic Rev 0 speed offering bursts of up to 2.1 Mbps on downloads and a typical speed of 400 to 700 Kbps. EVDO Rev A takes that up to 3.1 Mbps download bursts, although typical speeds are only modestly improved to around 800 Kbps. What Rev A really does is improve upload speeds to 300 to 400 Kbps.

As you can see, the 3G networks for the major cellular carriers give you similar performance. Your choice probably will revolve more around the coverage available in your area and the particular model of phone, aircard or netbook that you choose.

What's even more interesting is the 4G wireless broadband in the development and early deployment phase right now. Sprint has partnered with Clearwire to create a new service called WiMAX that will run on completely different frequencies. AT&T and Verizon are working to develop a competing technology called LTE, or Long Term Evolution, that will also use different frequencies than are being used for cellular service now. That means that 3G and 4G networks will co-exist, at least for awhile.

How fast will 4G be? They'll start out about 10x as fast as 3G and go up from there as the technology is refined and deployed everywhere. The 4G wireless networks will be the equal of faster wireline broadband services today and will easily support services such as real-time two-way video.

While 4G is the coming thing, 3G is the hot mobile broadband service readily available today. Discover the wide variety of cell phones, smartphones, wireless modem aircards and netbook computers available with cell phone wireless broadband, often free or at very attractive discounts.