Why do American cell phones suck so incredibly much?

[skroo]

I haven't really been keeping up with this thread, but thought this bit of news might make some people happy: 3G is currently undergoing trials in Atlanta. While it's not the wide deployment we might crave, perhaps there is some light at the end of the tunnel after all.

[bascule]

And from /.: NTT DoCoMo is performing 4G trials in Japan, with peak bandwidth of 300Mbps.

[kree]

I got it. Cell phones can't be any smarter than the salesman trying to sell them. :D

Oh, holy shit I dont know how many times I have gone into fry's, radio shack, or some other electronics store and held mini lectures for the salesmen on the features of the phone that they are tring to sell me.

If I remember corectly, japan was able to structure thier telephone network alot later than we were, allowing them to go wireless instead of building a land based network such as the U.S. . In other words, we invested a long time ago into a large land based telephone network, while japan had phones that were land based they did not invest so much into, instead when cell phones became widely avalible they invested into the wireless networks building those as we did our wired networks. As I understand from one of my former teachers we could probably do so something simillar as japan by tearing down our land based telephone wires and recycling the copper from those lines using the money from the recycling to fund the wireless networks, but now thinking of it that would also probably throw the copper market out of balance and I dont know what else, huh. If it sounds like a bunch of shit it probbably is as I dont know a whole lot about the japanese phone system just what I have been told by others.

[Dented-Halo]

Tri-band or "world" phones are readily available.

I have a quad band motorolla V600 GSM 'world phone' and it does not work in Tokyo. I would have to unlock my phone from my provider, make it 'free' and then throw in a vodaphone gsm chip and then it might work.

But I can not roam with my CDN GSM cell phone in japan on their GSM network. Rogers (my provider) is aware of this.

[Dented-Halo]

since my CDN phone doesnt work here, I have a dedicated japanese cell phone account, but my handset is pretty old and crappy. Im probably going to upgrade to somthing in the 505 series. Check this flash stuff out of the newer handsets in Japan now:

Eigo Ban (english version)

the Fujitsu 505 has a biometric fingerprint reader built into it, just like the higher end Ipaq 5000 series. Thats pretty kewl i think. I'd probably get that one.

[[Syntax]]

Ive had my share of network incompatibilities, I bought a used phone one time, and the charger with the german plug on it should have tipped me off.. Found out after charging it that it was on the European GSM band. Looked just like the american model, just a different color face.

I saw that coke machine with the phone capability on tv a few months back. Might have been on Tech TV, was a show about where cellular technology is going, and how people use thier phones, how youth uses thier phones, how the japanese use thier phones. Talked about how big text messaging is over in Japan, and how fast people have become at typing on a phone.

Whats the deal with Nextels network? Have they improved the security of the 2-way "walkie talkie" feature. I heard a while back it was very insecure.

[kree]

Ive had my share of network incompatibilities, I bought a used phone one time, and the charger with the german plug on it should have tipped me off.. Found out after charging it that it was on the European GSM band. Looked just like the american model, just a different color face.

I saw that coke machine with the phone capability on tv a few months back. Might have been on Tech TV, was a show about where cellular technology is going, and how people use thier phones, how youth uses thier phones, how the japanese use thier phones. Talked about how big text messaging is over in Japan, and how fast people have become at typing on a phone.

Whats the deal with Nextels network? Have they improved the security of the 2-way "walkie talkie" feature. I heard a while back it was very insecure.

What was it that you heard? I know they were talking on off the hook about an insecurity with the default password for voice mail and being able to hear the users name when you go into thier voicemail menu, all minor things that can be taken care of quite easely and probably comon with other carriers. I have a nextel and besides its sometimes limted coverage in my desolate state of arizona it works great, especially on the east and west coast.

[[Syntax]]

OK, now this was 3 years ago.. I wrote an article and did a talk at the local 2600 meeting, disected a Nextel phone, and explained some of the company history and how the network was built..

In my research I saw that Motorola, had purchased ESMR bands from 800-900mhz. Created the TDMA system, and then labeled it iDEN. According to the info the TDMA system is like a trunked system and carries no encryption.

I just did a google on ESMR "no encryption" and got this as a result.
http://radioscanning.wox.org/Scanner...xtel_study.pdf
Look at page 27, talks about the no encryption factor. That is what I was referring to when I said I had heard it was "very insecure".

Some info on ESMR and SMR
http://searchmobilecomputing.techtar...499531,00.html

Ive never read anything about someone exploiting it.