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AT&T Could Soon Offer GSM To U.S. Customers 118

Posted by timothy from the now-how-much-would-you-pay? dept.
Tavern alerts us to this CNET story which indicates that AT&T will soon offer GSM service to U.S. customers, noting "Maybe US companies are figuring out it's time not to compete in infrastructure, but to compete in services." The article also mentions the investment of Japanese wireless giant DoCoMo into AT&T's wireless service; you may recall that they're the creators of the finger-in-ear phone mentioned a few months back. I got to demo this phone in October, and I hope they speed up the development -- it was fun to say "Hi, Mom. I'm talking with my finger in my ear!"
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AT&T Could Soon Offer GSM To U.S. Customers More

AT&T Could Soon Offer GSM To U.S. Customers

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  • Who is providing 3G equipment? AFAIK, no one is producing 3G equipment, and at the most, they are just at the stage where they can provide 1x RTT support in controlled conditions.

    Yea, 3G will be really cool, but will the Cell-Phone operators have enough money to afford it? I've heard that Cell Phone operators (like Verizon, Sprint, etc) operate on very little margins, so when people don't pay their bills, they don't make any money, and so they won't be able to afford 3G equipment...
  • Any sufficiently small phone is indistinguishable from a finger in your ear.
  • Rogers communication, which is partly owned (if not owned completely) by AT&T Canada, is also rolling out GSM service in Canada...

    Too bad FIDO (Microcell Communications) has already been offering GSM, but at 1900 mHz, instead of the world stand of 1800mHz.

    Here's the story on Canoe.ca [canoe.ca]


  • Since Slashdot NEVER posts old news (cough), I assume that AT&T will be offering GSM service at 1800 MHz, instead of the GSM 1900 service that has existed in the US for years.

    If this is true, then this IS good news. While GSM has been around for years and is relatively "old" technology, it is heavily deployed around the world - at 900 and 1800 MHz. As is typical for the US, the FCC decided to ignore the rest of the world and allocate _1900_ MHz for mobile service in the US.

    If AT&T has managed to get a license for GSM 1800, this will be terrific for anyone that travels internationally. You will finally be able to use a normal GSM phone that works anywhere ELSE in the world in the US. There are a couple tri-mode 900/1800/1900 phones (such as the Motorola L2000/timeport and a new Nokia phone), but these are exceptions.

    Of course, we would still need to deal with the obnoxious habit of US GSM providers of SIM-locking their phones so you can't use them with other providers, even if they are compatible. In the rest of the world, you can choose from a number of providers, or even buy prepaid SIMM cards on the street. And get this - YOU DON'T NEED TO BUY A NEW HANDSET. Whata concept.

    Of course, it's more likely that Slashdot got conned by the AT&T press release into thinking they were up to something new. They're probably just doing GSM 1900, like Pac Bell, VoiceStream, and dozens of others.
  • Sorry, forgot the URL
    http://www.gsmworld.com
  • A few notes:

    GSM/TDMA/CDMA/FDMA/etc are not really the same type of thing, and can't really be compared. CDMA/TDMA/FDMA are air interfaces - methods of moduating data & sharing spectrum among multiple users. GSM is an all-encompassing system for mobile phones which uses TDMA & FDMA to get it's data on the air. What most people think of as TDMA is actually a standard called IS-136 that happens to use TDMA, likewise IS-95 is often called CDMA, even though it is not the only system that uses CDMA and if things go well, GSM (3g) will soon use CDMA too.

    Finally, the voice compression performance and quality is also, completely seperate from both the air interface and the over all system in place. GSM/IS-95/IS-136 can all use a number of different vocoders to compress your speech, all offering varying bandwidth/quality tradeoffs.

    All this and more can be explained here:

    http://www.arcx.com/sites/ [arcx.com]

    http://www.arcx.com/sites/CDMAvsTDMA.htm [arcx.com]

  • Pharmecutical research is all american

    This is BS...
    Europeans researchers find something, then go to the us for financing...

  • gsm encryption is still better than no e=ncryption used by most cell phones currently in the US
  • SWBell's wireless that they market under thier own name is a TDMA based service, so it will be interesting to see where the service of SWB its subsidiaries head if they partner with bellsouth.
  • I dont know if its just where you live, but in the Austin / San Antonio TX area, ATT service is great. I always have a strong signal, and the quality is great. At school (UT) i've been in rooms that are a story underground in the middle of the building (and these buildings have bomb shelter signs on the outside, so they should be made of good thick signal blocking concrete), and have my phone ring, and the other people in the room immediatly know i have ATT. Why? because no one slses phone can get a signal. Thats just one specialized case, but overall, the service is great. I had sprint at one point, but thier service was terrible in comparison. The only place i can really say the quality of my reception was less than average, was during spring break when i was in Pagosa Springs colorado skiing, in town i had to roam on AMPS though , so i really cant blame ATT for the quality (but up until the mountains, i kept an ATT signal all the way from austin)
  • anybody could explain me what the f*** it is with all those idiotic per-country frequency availability?
    These damn things should be allocated by some worldwide organisation...
  • So basically, nothing that makes the US cell phone technology any more compatible with the rest of the world. And it's hard to see how this will be any good for roaming users, unless they're planning on making all phones dual-mode 1800/1900.

    I'm working in Hong Kong now, and the mobile saturation and technology is FAR ahead of the US. There are around a dozen mobile service providers, and usage is around 60% of the population.

    The ITU meeting will be here next week, and technology will be exhibited that will be deployed here YEARS before it shows up in the US. The biggest reason for this is that the US networks are completly non-standard both in terms of frequencies and standards.

    It would be nice if the US gets around to joining the rest of the world one of these days.
  • Why is GSM so great? Here in Europe, we'll be using UMTS before AT&T give you GSM. America is just so last millenium. :-P
    --
  • IIRC (it's been a while, so this is based purely on memory), the method found to crack GSM is using a hardware solution -- not readily available hardware or software -- and even then it's time consuming and expensive.

    So, you're not going to have Joe Weirdo down the street listening in on your conversation with a (relatively cheap) scanner as in the earlier days of cellular.
  • <disclaimer>I know it was a troll, and i've bitten</disclaimer>

    Pharmecutical research is all american

    Except for little matters like the largest pharma companies being british, german, etc. Oh yes, and most of 'US' co Pfizer's innovations being made in kent, uk - incl Viagra.

    Computer science is all american

    Oh come on, you'll have to do better than that. One word - helsinki. Another - Symbian

    semiconductor technology is all american

    ARM - used in most phones and PDAs

    military tech is all american,

    I'll give you that one. Euro military is crap.

  • Sorry to burst your bubble, pal, but it's "UMTS" not "UTMS". "UMTS" stands for "Unified Mobile Telecommunications System".

    OK, bad spelling on my side - as long as we agree that we're referring to this [umts-forum.org].

    UMTS is known as Wideband CDMA in the US and Japan.

    Bad spelling aside, does this mean that there is current/future support for UMTS in the US and Japan? Now *that* would be cool...

  • The area in which the US has an unqualified advantage - military technology - is "socialistic," commissioned, paid for and sometimes carried out by the Federal government. Ironic, since the (probably a troll) US-is-number-one chest-beating was originally a defense of pure capitalism against mixed economies
  • All I have to say is go go gadget phone! heh

  • Re:What the hell is GSM service? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Let's not forget the #1 feature of GSM to us Americans:

    INCOMING CALLS ARE FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Just finished 3 months study in Sheffield, back in the US :-(
  • Uh... Why does the poster think that the US doesn't have GSM service? GSM 1900 is in widespread usage. Licensed providers include Sprint, BellSouth, Omnipoint, PacBell, etc.
  • GSM not working when you are in your car. How about the cell not working when you're in your car . Period. Regardless of the carrier. One of the painful things of coming back from an international business trip, is coming back to crappy cell coverage. I switched to Omnipoint (now Voicestream) about two years ago due to crappy coverage by ATT in general and the seamless international roaming, and the seamless US roaming. Granted there isn't coverage everywhere, but you can't get VM notification in CT if you have ATT, and for long periods (for all I know it is still occuring) in the LA area you would never get message notification. It would be nice if the US had adotped all of the same bands as the rest of the world (and this is going to be a problem for 2-3G phones). ATT moving to GSM should be a positive thing. This should add some coverage in the areas that VStream hasn't hit yet.

    I don't know what Cingular is going to do though, they have a mix of TDMA and GSM networks. I guess the next gen of stations should be able to handle both, but it will be expensive one way or the other to replace those handsets.

  • Haven't been to The Netherlands yet, but I hear it is beautiful and will have to get there soon.

    I guess I should have qualified my comment a bit further by stating that I meant general infrastructure (ie. transportation, etc). My slant is also biased a bit towards experiences in the UK, which of course is not most of Europe.

    I stand corrected.
  • Actually, EDGE (which is an enhancement of GPRS, which is in turn an upgrade of GSM for packet data) can be overlaid on an IS 136 network. So yes, it is a GSM type system, but it is one hell of a tweak (like the difference between your average Ford and the Rally version)

    This might actually be a smart move. GSM is the dominant 2G standard across the world, and it makes sense to buy into it. EDGE gives pretty much 3G performance. Whether UMTS (the big new 3G standard) turns out to be the biggest turkey in history is a moot point. No-one is sure at the moment whether they have done their sums right. It could be a bloodbath if the market turns out not to be there

    regards,

    treefrog

  • Not only is GSM regarded as seriously technically inferior to CDMA by every well-respected authority on wireless, but there's the health angle, too:

    GSM is a form of TDMA, and *every* study that has shown a linkage between cellphones and cancer (like the famous Adelaide study) has been using GSM. The ones that don't are nearly always using somethign else.

    CDMA in particular, almost certainly has the most minimal impact on biological systems, since it's signal looks like low-amplitude, broadband noise, rahter than having the extremely fast and spiky high-power "square" waves of GSM and TDMA.

    You can use GSM or TDMA if you want to - I'll stick with newer, better, and much safer wireless technology, thank you.
  • I could swear Omnipoint has offered GSM access in the eastern half of the United States now for about 5 years. Though it wasn't the reason I used them in 1997, I thought it was kinda neat back then.

    - A.P.

    --
    * CmdrTaco is an idiot.

  • Is it right, that in the US, 1 must pay to receive calls as well as make them?

    What a weird concept!

    As for GSM coverage in the US, I beleive Voicestream provides coverage in several of the larger US cities.
  • yeah like that damn metric system, what fool thought that up, everything in powers of ten, why make it easy. come on everything must be dificult we're the US.
  • Actually Voicestream uses the 1900mhz frequency, as state here [voicestream.com].

    Meanwhile, Cingular's network looks to me like it's an absolute mess. Cingular is actually a combination of Ameritech, SW Bell, Pac Bell, Nevada Bell, Cellular One, and SNet. Pac Bell and Nevada Bell are GSM 1900 carriers, while Ameritech is TDMA and SW Bell is CDMA and TDMA! AFAIK, there is no equipment that works on both CDMA and TDMA networks, let alone any GSM handsets that work on anything besides GSM networks. Sure, they may claim to have some sort of "national network", but unless I'm absolutely missing something, there's no way that a Cingular customer can use their handset everywhere on the Cingular network.

  • You're correct. Voicestream bought both Omnipoint and Aerial earlier this year, giving them the largest GSM footprint in the US. All 3 had been offering GSM service for several years now in their own independent territories.

  • Re:What the hell is GSM service? (Score:5)

    by evilandi ( 2800 ) <andrew@aoakley.com> on Saturday December 02, 2000 @01:22AM (#587189) Homepage
    SYRiNX wrote: Would someone please bother to explain what GSM service is?

    GSM is Global System for Mobiles. It is a digital standard for cellular telephones which runs at between 9600bits/sec and 14.4bits/sec.

    There are two particularly popular features of GSM:

    • Roaming - you can use transmitters owned by companies other than the company you pay your bill to. For instance, you can go to a foreign country and your cellphone will work automatically (but you usually pay a surcharge on calls).

      I can take my Nokia 7110 mobile phone to virtually anywhere in Europe and it works. No hassle.

    • SMS, WAP and ISDN - a whole raft of digital data protocols are supported as standard. These include text messaging (SMS Short Message Service), scaled-down web browsing (WAP Wireless Application Protocol) and data telephone calls (ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network).

    There are, of course, some downsides. Biggest of these is that the transmitters have to be much closer together than analogue transmitters to ensure consistent coverage.

    This isn't a problem in densely populated continents such as Europe or Asia. In the UK for instance, there is near 100% coverage of landmass, even in rural areas- I have strong mobile phone reception at my home in Gloucestershire, UK despite being so rural that I don't have mains sewerage! In the Americas however, with large blobs of population concentrated in small areas with vast inbetween areas of little or no population, this requirement for so many transmitters could be considered uneconomic.

    To be quite honest though, us Europeans consider the USA's lack of GSM coverage as frankly a frightening concept. I can't imagine what it would be like to drive somewhere and my phone not working. To me, that is as unacceptable as my watch not working.

    --

  • In fact, it's not only Europe and Australasia, but Africa and South America too. Only North (and parts of Central) America and Japan do not use 900/1800 MHz GSM exclusively. Here's a list [gsmworld.com].

    Soon, GSM will be enhanced by UMTS [umts-forum.org], which will allow for high speed wireless networking (2 mbit/sec), with other nifty services, making GSM even more useful than it already is.

    Cheers,

    Costyn.
  • 1800mhz is not an available frequency for use in the US by commercial mobile communications companies. So you're correct, nothing new here, as AT&T will be using GSM 1900. They do, however, have the potential to roll-out a GSM network with a larger coverage area, whereas current GSM service in the US is a hodge-podge of several different companies operating in different regions.
  • Voicestream and cingular (sbc, pb) already offer GSM, but on the wrong frequencies (900, instead of 1900Mhz.)

    Wrong for what? Most European countries started out with GSM 900, later on other carriers went to GSM 1800. Voicestream (and some Sprint affiliates until about a year ago) offer GSM 1900 - which means you could carry a European SIM here and plug it into a phone (hoping the phone's "Super PIN" is not held secret by the provider) and use it; vice versa, take an American SIM and plug it into a European phone (the Super PIN must be provided to the customer by law, at least in Germany), and it also works. The frequency difference however prevents from just using phones - as in, any phone from outside the US does not work inside and vice versa. Exception: Tri-Band phones (IIRC, Siemens offers one, and so does Motorola) which operate on 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz.

    Madde

  • Well, since you're a guy who *obviously* knows everything about market driven economy, does 20+ telecom operators competing furiously over a piss-ant little country with 5 million people sound like communism? Does competition so fierce that mobile phones are frequently GIVEN AWAY to get more subscribers to talk at 10-15 cents per minute in premium quality sound like communism? And no, they get NO subsidies whatsoever.

    No government has forced anything down anyones throats here. Just like you guys have FCC to regulate the airwaves, we've got a similar organization in Denmark. Instead of giving the frequencies to whomever lobbies the most, the guys who are willing to pony up the bigger amount, simply gets a frequency. Capitalism at work...


  • From Ericsson's press release:
    As a part of the agreement, AT&T Wireless will use Ericsson's R520 mobile phones to launch its General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network

    I guess this means AT&T's service will be SIMM-locked. :(

    Does anyone know what's the point in SIMM-locking?
    Everybody knows it's silly and cumbersome so why do it?

  • yeah, I CAN see the point in SIMM-locking...

  • I don't know how much research the writer of the article did, but he is very wrong.

    GSM is not used in Japan. (indeed, Japan, along with the US, Canada and Mexico, are the only major developed countries without well-developed GSM coverage.)

    NTT DoCoMo's iMode technology is vastly different from GSM, and you can't really have one on top of the other -- the former is packet-based, the other is connection-based.

    Is AT&T going to offer two incompatible standards -- GSM and iMode?! How will they reconcile them??

  • Doesn't VoiceStream [voicestream.com] already offer this service in many markets?

    I have to say, I want GSM, and the (not-quite-so-)associated SMS, just so I can download fancy ringer tones. :)

    ---

  • It's wonderful that the USA finally wakes up to notice this wonderful mobile-phone technology. In Europe, we've had it for about ten years. Over here we're just planning to install the next generation of mobile technology, so I think you can get hold of lots of very fine second hand GSM-cells.

    Welcome to the nineties! :-)

  • Step right up to old service (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why begin to offer GSM when 3G services are starting to be tested by Verison? Nothing like being behind the 8ball before you start.
  • from At&T themselves...
    More Info [att.com]

    This article states that AT&T will actually deploy GSM overlaying the existing Network "IS-136", since both technologies use TDMA..it is possible to "upgrade" the existing network to the GSM interface...

    Also, for those of you claiming that UTMS will support IS-95(Qualcomms version of CDMA Heavily supported in the US by Sprint, Verizon, the US government etc), There's is no confirmation that UTMS will support IS-95 period...it will However use a more broad version of CDMA...called Wideband CDMA..which supports Spread spectrum technology, but at a far faster rate..and then you'll see some real multimedia, far better than what WAP or I-mode have to offer..

    As for Qualcomm's quest for world domination i.e. charging Licensing fees just for use IS-95 a.k.a "cdma" interface is over..They lost major deals in China that could have helped them a lot. GSM won big over there. Qualcomm dropped the ball and Both factions of the so called 3G have yet to agree on a a true universal standard putting Qualcomm's closed,"proudly made in the U.S of A " proprietary interface...to bleak and dark future..

    However, don't give up hope yet.. Some of the finest US centric Congressmen and Senators...have a large stake in Qualcomm and are lobbied heavily...since IS-95 was actually developed by the U.S. Military...It's in the US "interest" to support a US centric technology for world Domination. Why is the Duetch Telekom buy out of voicestream being heavily opposed by the countries' finest?? Is it because of Germany's near 50% stake in the company? No, Germany has proposed to sell ALL of it's stake in the company. So then what are the real US "interest" that these congressmen are fighting for? They're ASSets ..it's all about the Benjamins baby!!

    Anyhow the rest of the world isn't buying into it...and wants to support a true universal standard .. and that is GSM, and later UMTS. Congratulations, AT&T for just now realizing this...It's about time.

    Peace..
  • The article is actually rather about mobile "internet" then pure GSM access.
    Has anybody here ever had real Life experience with i-mode mobile "internet". I mean here ini Austria were I live WAP is offered by all 4 GSM Providers and a lot of people have WAP capable phones but still very little people use it because it is just crap(At least in my opinion.

    Is this i-mode thingy really widely used in japan? What kind of things are people doing with it?
    While I do aknowledge that there are certainly a lot of great opportunities for service which use WAP here in Austria the only really interesting one I've seen is a service which localizes you and then shows you the nearest pharmacies/restaurants/etc..

  • ATT = Bad quality. Maybe they're stepping up... (Score:3)

    by tshak ( 173364 ) on Friday December 01, 2000 @09:14PM (#587202) Homepage
    Everyone I know who has ATT wireless sounds like they are going through a broken vocoder. Seriously, all of them (I can name at least 3 off the top of my head) hate the quality of their service - they'd switch if their number followed them elsewhere.

    We all know GSM rocks and the US is idiotic for not adopting it. I'm not a socialist but this is a prime example of how a public wireless network would have been better than a capitolistic privatized network. Capitolism does not always = innovation. America = way behind Japan and Europe.

    Maybe ATT is just stepping up to the plate and going from one of the worst services to the best, by adopting this technology. Let's just hope they keep the rates low and upgrade their network quickly!

  • nope. EDGE is dead! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    AT&T isn't going to EDGE. They and Cingular are moving towards GAIT, which will combine the 136 and GSM networks, leading to a GPRS 2.5 gen system, leading to the WCDMA true 3rd gen, 1.5Mbit network. GAIT is a standard, not new protocol, that specifies how 136 and GSM networks can interoperate. Cingular is a major contributor. GPRS is high speed GSM, already rolling out in Europe and East Asia. Ericsson has fifty or so of the 60 contracts out there. As for I-MODE, that will stay is Japan. GSM is, and GAIT and GPRS will be WAP.
  • 3G is third generation cell phone technology that promising substantially increased data bandwidth (current technologies around about 9.6 kbps) perhaps enough for streaming video.
  • If it doesn't have a Microsoft logo on it, it ain't shit.

    So if it does have a Microsoft logo on it, it is shit? That's what I've been saying for years. I'm glad you agree.

  • Cell phone encryption works between the phone and the base station. It does not give you a secure call end-to-end. Moreover, you should check if the carrier even uses encryption on their network. The AT&T IS-136 system does not use the encryption capability in the Nokia handsets they sell their customers. If you have one of these very-common Nokia phones you can turn encryption on in the handset (using the option menus) and it will constantly warn you that encryption is not on for your calls. I bet it is optional on GSM networks, too.

    One reason to hope phones get more intelligent is that they might get intelligent enough to enable access to the audio path and be programmable enough to run encryption in the phone. Now that will put a scare in the LEAs.

  • Call me selfish and Amero-Centric if you must, but I think that the world should adopt US standards, instead of us adopting worldwide standards.

    Seriously, is there any reason for ME to buy a new phone?

  • Voicestream and cingular (sbc, pb) already offer GSM, but on the wrong frequencies (900, instead of 1900Mhz.)

    Voicestream and cingular just traded some bandwidth [voicestream.com], Cingular got 10Mhz in NY, St. Louis and Detroit in exchange for 10Mhz in SF and LA.

  • This is bad news. GSM encryption has already been cracked a while ago, why offer cracked encryption to customers?

  • Hmm. "...starting to be tested by Verison?"

    Nothing like making money off vaporware. You probably work for Micro$loth. It rings of the M$ FUD that Linux is based on old technology.


  • The finger phone sounds interesting. Quite frankly, I'm still waiting for the Shoe phone from Get Smart or, alternatively, the ComBadge from Star Trek TNG.


    Sensual: Running a feather down your lover's body
    Kinky: Using the whole chicken
  • I disagree. Capitalism has provided me, the US consumer, with choices. I can choose what cellular phone protocol I wish to use. In my case, I've chosen iDEN [mot.com] because I believe its a better protocol than GSM and CDMA. I'd rather have this choice than have a government tell me what protocol I WILL use. I fail to see how a government funded wireless network would be better than what we have now? All that would end up happening is that taxpayers would be forced to pay for cellular infastructure whether or not they chose to use it. Would imposing such a burden and removing the element of choice be worth having coverage in remote sparsely populated backcountry areas? I think not. Its also important to point out that, wireless networks in europe are privatized, just the protocol has been dictated by the government, so in any one country there are usually two or more GSM networks each owned by seperate companies (sometimes one is a state monopoly) Granted GSM has its strong points like SIM cards and the convenience that comes from it being a standard, however, it is my view (and that of most capitalists) that a standard should exist because the market decided upon it than because a government dictated it.
  • I have to take issue with your assault on capitalism...
    Ok, first off, the daft socialist economics used in the old world have nothing to do with the superiority of GSM. The reason GSM is a superior standard is that it was developed with the benefit of hindsight. Since europe tends to be 5 years behind the US technologically, they had the opportunity to learn from our mistakes.
    That's the problem with being on the bleeding edge, sometimes you head in the wrong direction.
    At any rate, it's perfectly obvious to even the most casual observer that Europe would be nowhere without US innovation. Pharmecutical research is all american, Computer science is all american, semiconductor technology is all american, military tech is all american, you get the point.
    Just because the leftist losers in europe managed to come up with a wireless standard that doesn't suck doesn't mean they have any real kind of innovation going on.
    Innovation is as american as apple pie, good old Yankee ingenuity is what makes the world go round - everyone else is a free rider.
    Go ahead, just try to come up with counterexamples.
    --Shoeboy

  • Background on GSM (Score:5)

    by wolvie_ ( 135527 ) on Friday December 01, 2000 @11:01PM (#587214)
    A lot of people posting don't know what GSM is, or why it is good. It's a mobile telephony standard like CDMA or TDMA, and has some very decent sounding voice compression [tu-berlin.de]. It operates on 900 and 1900 MHz, and is widely used throughout Australasia and Europe. It operates similarly to other digital cellular networks, but cells tend to be much smaller than on other standards such as CDMA, making it more suited to metropolitan use. It is true GSM crypto was cracked [slashdot.org], but if you need security for your conversation, you shouldn't be using wireless in the first place.

    There is already GSM coverage over much of the US, but it is far from complete, and presents problems to international visitors, who cannot use global roaming on their dualband GSM phones. While not exclusive to GSM networks, SMS is an extremely useful facility (nine billion SMS were sent around the world in August) that many users of non-GSM networks often miss out on (you can send SMSes to phones from many [mtnsms.com] web [quios.com] sites [blueskyfrog.com] for free). GSM ties in with the other popular acronyms at the moment - GPRS, WAP and Bluetooth (but not iMode - iMode is something specific to DoCoMo and their phones, while the rest of the world uses WAP).

    There is more information on GSM at GSM World [gsmworld.com] and the North American GSM Alliance [gsm-pcs.org].

  • Would someone please bother to explain what GSM service is?
  • Doesn't VoiceStream already offer this service in many markets?
    Not here (Las Vegas), at least...the local GSM service provider is Nevada Bell, which is related somehow (subsidiary, maybe?) of Pacific Bell.

    I had GSM through them a while back...it's good stuff. The only reason I dropped it is that my employer provides me with a phone and service for free. (That service is Nextel, which has its advantages and disadvantages.) Why pay for something you can get for free? :-)

    At this point, I'm not aware of anybody who offers GSM on a national basis. PacBell/Nevada Bell's network covers only California and southern Nevada (maybe the Reno/Carson City area by now as well; it has been a while), but most providers have roaming agreements with each other. On a trip a while back to Arizona, the phone worked between Phoenix and Tucson once roaming was enabled. (Between Las Vegas and Phoenix? No service, and that's somewhere around 270 miles.) You still need AMPS compatibility if you want your phone to work as close to anywhere as possible. (AFAIK, no phone combines GSM and AMPS. Plenty of phones offer TDMA and AMPS or CDMA and AMPS.)

  • Here in Denmark everybody and his uncle has a GSM900 or GSM1800 based cell-phone (or mobile phone, which is a better word for it, IMHO). We're getting ready to abandon it in favor of UTMS, the next generation in cross-european mobile standards. The frequencies are being auctioned away to whomever makes the best offer, and the market is going to be HUGE. Think real data transfer, not the crappy 9600 bps you get with GSM. Mobile internet, here we come - and I DON'T mean WAP!

    So just bypass GSM and go directly to UTMS - anything else would be totally backwards.


  • Having lived in both North America and Europe, I can definitely say that in most terms NA is ahead in infrastructure.


    Wrong.
    The Netherlands is the country with the highest density in cabling.
    All telephoneswitches are digital and 93% of all households have cable TV.
    And with 5 GSM providers you have much choice.
    Prices for GSM are dropping every day.
    Average callprices are around $ 0,10 a minute.
    And of course you don't pay for incoming calls.
    O yeah, ISDN is almost the standard.
    Analogue lines are phasing out.

  • 3G is third generation cell phone technology that promising substantially increased data bandwidth (current technologies around about 9.6 kbps) perhaps enough for streaming video.


    Then UMTS seems better.
    2 Mbit/sec wireless.
    UMTS is going to be the succesor of GSM.
    And yes, it will start in Europe again (like GSM).
    Only problem is, don't expect that prices will be the same as GSM.
    Due to the fact that the frequencies where sold fot too much money aroudn Europe.
  • Yet another lame CNET John Borland article.. this one needs a serious reality check. Do you think AT&T is currently going to change its path from upgrading its TDMA and CDPD infrastructure to support GSM overnight? Right.

    They currently sell GSM cards for use outside of the US so that customers can have a 1-bill cellular solution while renting a phone in Europe. Nothing new. This does not mean they will be undertaking the effort of licensing GSM spectrum all over the US.

    "The new upgrade path will not significantly increase AT&T Wireless' planned range of capital expenditure, although it will take the company to the high end of those expectations, executives said."

    Tell me how AT&T plans to replace all of its switches and transmission equipment to GSM without it costing a dime, and without disrupting their user base. As GSM is a widely used time tested mobile protocol that has great data support, one can only dream..

  • Maybe you are using the Half Rate codec in your phone. Sometimes it is enabled by default because it saves battery life, but it lowers the quality. Try switching it to a Full Rate or Enhanced Full Rate codec instead. Most Nokia phones can do that if you know how.
  • "Maybe US companies are figuring out its time not to compete in infrastructure, but to compete in services."

    And where are they going to get this 3G bandwidth? Currently the data (CDPD) side of the network, uses 56K frame relay circuits for their Basestations...
    They have been buying more cisco routers and ds3 circuits than all of UUNET. ;)

    Speaking of hardware, do you realize all the companies bidding for the contract for the 3G telco equipment?
    Nortel, Lucent, Ericcson.. At 250K per basestation and 2Mill MDIS units, That 9.8 Billion investment will come to good use...

    As for WAP/I-Mode, WAP is already installed, phones are out, people are developing for it now. You can get free developers kits at www.openwave.com [openwave.com]

    I actually got to see some of the I-Mode brochures when DoCoMo was looking at our NOC, It looks like they use multiple TDMA basestations for broadband, so you get the combined bandwidth. They had Video phones, streaming audio phones, even some cool Mp3 phones on display.. Very cool stuffs.

    Also, didn't see one darn thing about PocketNet on that article from Cnet. Currently we are giving the service away free. Also kind of funny, Phone.com (aka now Openwave) sells the gateway software that both Sprint and Verizon uses. Guess who co-developed with phone.com (cough) ATTWS (cough)...

    The world is smaller than you think.
    *disclaimer, if your my boss reading slashdot, someone stole my slashdot account.

  • Nokia has a press release up which says they are going to sell AT&T a GSM/EDGE/UTMS system, but it is at 1900MHz, same as the current US GSM. It does GPRS as well.

    Have a look here for more info...


    [nokia.com]
    http://press.nokia.com/PR/200011/800453_5.html

  • As I understand it, UMTS will just enhance GSM, not replace it. Wireless videophoning will be cool, though. :-) Reading Slashdot on my color Palm will be cool, too. Granted, I can do this today, too, but the speed leaves a lot to be wished for.

    Cheers,

    Costyn.

  • Voicestream and cingular (sbc, pb) already offer GSM, but on the wrong frequencies (900, instead of 1900Mhz.)


    That's good.
    That means that I can use my own 900/1800 GSM phone over there.
    Instead of the non-standard 1900 GSM (but maybe I can borrow a triple band GSM 900/1800/1900 when I go to the US).
    The thing is, that our company has offices all around the world.
    So, somebody from our Amsterdam office can use his phone in Singapore or Hongkong without any problem.
    But not in the US.
  • With respect to the encryption: GSM phones in the US are not allowed by law (actually by regulation, which is slightly different but has the same effect) to enable the encryption system.

    Also, GSM signaling protocol is already in use here in the US in the PCS band. It's just not in use in the same frequency band as (say) the UK, and never will be. The UK and Europe have a different set of frequencies allocated to GSM than the US has allocated to cellular, and the frequency bands that the UK uses for GSM are already spoken for here in the US. Additionally, the frequencies above 1GHz that are used for GSM/PCS style services in the UK are different from the frequencies in the US for the same reason. Only if the governments of the world get together and allocate some frequenices world-wide would this be fixed.

    I'll know that has happened when I put a pot of hot water on my gas stove and it freezes.
  • Doh, UNTS isn't better, it's the same. 3G is the marketing buzzword commonly used when talking about UMTS.

    And the licenses weren't sold for too much money, they where auctioned off, with a minimum entry price. It's the telecom companies who were willing to pay that much, having bought into their own hype.

    But I've seen UMTS demos at some Ericsson roadshow, and I must say I'm drooling already (note however that 2mb/sec is the upper limit in next to optmial conditions, which you won't usually have; moreso, some Siemens engineer say there were some _speed_ limitations relative to the fixed antennaes... funny no?)

  • Ehh, the drive behind GSM was also the market.
    And the sound quality is quiete good.
    only problem is the link they use to connect a GSM transmitter to the phone network.
    If they use shitty lines, the quality is also shitty.
    Last week somebody called me from Italy with his GSM-phone.
    I have ISDN at home.
    The quality was quite good.
    But the quality of phonesystem in the Netherlands is quite good.
    Which isn't so special because all telephone switched are 100% digital.
    Analogue lines are not so common any more.
    ISDN is almost the common standard for telephone lines in the Netherlands.
    And the price difference between an ISDN-line and an analogue telephone line is less dan $ 6 a month.
    With ISDN you get two B-channels and four phonenumbers.

  • Slashdot headline wrong again! NOT GSM! (Score:5)

    by isdnip ( 49656 ) on Saturday December 02, 2000 @05:39AM (#587230)
    If anybody bothered to read the CNET article and/or research the topic, they'd understand that AT&T is no more adopting GSM than Morse code.

    GSM is an obsolescent technology, a clever hack for the 1980s but terribly inefficient by today's standards. The GSM community is planning to migrate to new "3G" protocols, which are designed to accommodate GSM migration while using a CDMA-derived technology.

    AT&T is planning to use EDGE (a data upgrade of their current IS-136 TDMA protocol) and migrate to new formats that will, in the 3G spirit, interwork better with GSM. And they've got the common sense to use imode rather than WAP, which is pretty awful. So in a while their sets will be data-compatible with where GSM networks will be. But that's NOT the same as adopting GSM in the latter's twilight of existence.
  • ..and while the U.S. finally get widespread GSM, several European countries have awarded UMTS [umts-forum.org] licenses and expect to see commercial launch by 2001. At least we'll have a market for our obsolete GSM phones.. :D

  • That CNET article isn't too informative, here's some more info (Source: AT&T's, Ericsson's and Nokia's press releases):

    Nokia and Ericsson will deliver the network base stations, planning & implementation.

    It will be 1900 MHz, GPRS-ready, triple-mode (GSM/EDGE/UMTS) system.

    Network will evolve to UMTS 'over the next several years' (says AT&T).

    AT&T Wireless will use Ericsson's R520 mobile phones to launch its GPRS network.

    DoCoMo will provide i-mode. (OK.. CNET told that.)

    Initial launch will be in first half of 2001

    This means AT&T's network will have great services (i-mode), great tech (GSM), reasonable speed (GPRS/EDGE) and later on will implement UMTS.

    Looks like this will bring wireless USA to a new era.
    BTW: As a European I have to admit I'm a little bit jealous about that i-mode thing ;)

  • GSM stands for Global System for Mobile communication.
    This standard is used almost everywhere in the world. (except of course in the US because of the "not invented here" syndrom).
    GSM started in 1989 in Finland and by 1992 every eastern- and western Europe country had a GSM-network (with the exception of the Netherlands and Bulgaria).
    And it is now the defacto standard for mobile phones in Africa, Europe and Asia.
    Some south-american country's are also switching to GSM because of the scale the prices for a GSM-network are lower than a wired telephone-system.
    In some European country's you will find more GSM-phones than normal phonelines.
    There are two GSM standards namely GSM 900 and GSM 1800.
    On this site you can find some more information.
  • hopefully i'll be able to transfer my company AT&T service to a VisorPhone [handspring.com] so i don't have to change my number, and use voicestream's service..
    according to the goobers at best buy, the visorphone will be out next week, sold as just another GSM phone through voicestream
  • To be quite honest though, us Europeans consider the USA's lack of GSM coverage as frankly a frightening concept. I can't imagine what it would be like to drive somewhere and my phone not working. To me, that is as unacceptable as my watch not working.

    I don't know how you can take the liberty to connect one with the other.. I don't recall my phone ceasing to work when I arrived in Las Vegas waiting for my flight into Los Angeles, nor when I was traveling down to San Diego.

    There is roaming coverage all over the United States, and AT&T offers a $60 OneRate plan which treats all calls as local, regardless of where you make them or where you are calling. As far as I'm aware, regardless of your calling plan, if there is coverage of a certain area by one provider, you can use another provider's phone.

  • AFAIK, no phone combines GSM and AMPS.
    Actually, I believe there are one or two Motorola models VoiceStream is/was selling that are combined GSM/analog. Of course, they don't exist anywhere on the Motorola site, so they may be discontinued.

    Not too sure about this, but I do know that you can get AMPS modules for at least the Nokia 5190 (I'd assume the 6190 supports it, too, but don't know for sure)...
    You're absolutely correct. The same "Plus" module (although I think it should be a "Minus" module..) is available for both phones. I had looked into getting one at one point, but as they were $200, I decided I'd just stick with my glorious GSM.

    GSM is the god of cellular (or "PCS" if you're one of those psychotic people) service. Encrypted phone calls, SIM (Smart) cards, the ability to easily roam... Spent two weeks in San Diego on the Pac Bell network without a hitch. And of course there's nothing like buying a new phone, slapping your SIM card in it, and having the same address book and general settings as you did before. Ah, the wonders of GSM.

    It's very interesting that VoiceStream, a relative newcomer to Arizona, has a better service area than Alltel and Qwest/USWest who have been around for some time now. If it hadn't been for VoiceStream, a guy stranded at the side of the road might still be there -- out of a USWest, Alltel, and VoiceStream phone, mine was the only one with any service (and this was not an area I'd expect to have service).

  • But can you drive straight through USA, from west coast to east coast, and still be able to use your phone during the entire journey? That is, full cell phone coverage not only in cities.

    There are towers along major highways, and all large and medium, and most smaller, cities. This still leaves many rural areas without service.

    In Southwest Wisconsin, service is available on ridgetops, cuts out in the coolies.

  • This is not true, my landline telephone bills aren't increased because my telephone company doesn't offer wireless service and the company i have my wireless service doesn't have a local/long distance service. The reason I'm guaranteed the phone will work is because Nextel is in the iDEN business and ONLY that business. They don't offer cdma phones and they don't do analog roaming therefore there 100% of their network expansion is of their iDEN network and it HAS to be because that's how they make their money.
  • I find this a bit funny. I personaly don't like
    mobiles, but to think this old obsolete
    technology is just apearing in the USA makes me
    laugh. Is this "technology leadership"?

    If it takes GSM to make the caller pay, that is good however. It is still a laugh over here that
    the _receiving party_ pays for the call. Have
    some respect for tradition! Equally funny is
    when a phone is forwarded to here, the _receiver_
    pays upto and over $1.00/min! (Payphomes are
    ALOT less)

    Beware GSM is a scam. A scam allways flys better
    in the US of A. You've been warned. But what
    good can this do for a country that cannot elect
    a president?

    Disgusted ex-pat

  • Typical Euro-centric blather.

    AT&T isn't going to adopt GSM voice where it now has IS-136. Not that IS-136 is much better, but a) you can run IS-136 on the US 800 MHz band and not GSM, thanks to the latter's screw-the-US design, and b) they're both obsolete.

    CDMA is by far the better technology, using less battery power (because spreading lowers Rayleigh Fading) and more spectrum efficiency (because it allows adjacent-cell frequency reuse). W-CDMA is one mode of 3G but so is cdma2000, upward-compatible with IS-95. GSM was hurried to market because Europe needed something fast (its analog networks were in compatible, unlike US AMPS) while CDMA was based on later technology (really fancy silicon).

    The UMTS club tried to keep Qualcomm *and the USA* out. They proposed a chipping rate that would just barely NOT fit into a USA 5 MHz frequency allocation. They ended up lowering it just a little bit but it's still too large, so there's a separate cdma2000-based 5 MHz air interface (3.68 Mcps) and an Ericsson one (3.88 Mcps, I think). How truly petty.

    BTW, GSM is just as "closed" as CDMA. It's protected by a patent portfolio that is shared among its club of members, but outsiders have little advantage picking it over CDMA (and thus paying Qualcomm its patent royalties).

    Note also that WAP and Imode are application-layer things, separate from air interface questions. "3G" means a higher bit rate, if you can afford to pay for it. WAP was optimized for <= 9600 bps on tiny phone screens. Imode is a bit more webbish, but designed for handheld screens too.
  • Therefore gentlemen; what?
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but is GSM one of the types of networks that they use in other countries (not u.s.) that so many nifty phones will solely support?
  • if there is coverage of a certain area by one provider, you can use another provider's phone.

    That's just the point, with GSM you DON'T have to use another provider's phone, not even another number.
    It's called ROAMING.
    Last summer I went to Italy, all I had to do to make a phonecall was just turning the phone on and dial the number and 6 seconds later I was telling my mother the trip went ok and I was already unpacking my bags. It was the same phone I used at home, it was the same SIM card I used at home; the only different thing was I was using Telecom Italia [telecom.it] instead of my local Iceland Telecom [www.gsm.is].

    Did I mention my mother didn't have to pay a penny for receiving that phonecall? (I still find it hard to believe you actually PAY for INCOMING calls, it's almost like the postal service billing you for delivering you mail; it's just stupid)

    Same thing happened when I went to Scotland a year ago, I just had to turn the phone off during the flight. I turned it back on when we landed, that same evening a friend of mine gave me a call, asked me where I was, to which I replied "oh, I'm in Edinburgh". He had no way of knowing that, after all he just called my regular number :). I used the same phone, same SIM card, even the same number. Only I used Vodafone [vodafone.co.uk] instead of Iceland Telecom [www.gsm.is], (well I had a choice between BT Cellnet [cellnet.co.uk] and Vodafone [vodafone.co.uk] when I landed so I just picked Vodafone out of habit).

    But that's enough ranting for now...
  • Why the UScentricism? There are plenty of examples of products that the US should take the advice of. Mobile protocols such as GSM is only one of them. European fashions are another.

    ---
  • is this the technology you mean [gsmworld.com]?
    It's stated that this technology actually bases on GSM. I can't judge if it's better then the normal GSM networks we have over here in Europe but I have to mention a few things
    The thing you mention with the several differnet protocls, well, we had just that over here in europe a few years ago.
    Every country had it's own standard which was used by the local company(a lot of monopolies, you are right, this has also certainly to a point hindered alot of stuff over here but things have changed).Look at this link [gsmworld.com]. So GSM is actually a multinational standard and I think it is a good thing to let the providers compete by service rather than protocol because when I here switch my network provider I can keep my phone.
    Still companies over here are innovating, for example one provider here is already beginnig to offer GPRS [gsmworld.com] Service, another(we have 4 GSM providers here which I think is a lot for such a small country as Austria) has already offered data transfers with 28.8 kBps for 6 months now(via phone cards for notebooks, they basically just bundle several lines)
    Competition is big here and so prices are relatively low, GSM at times(when normal telephones were still mostly in the hand of the state company, which has been fully privatized now)was almost the same as normal telephone calls.
    I agree with you about the hazard of state monopolies but independent standards are generally a good thing.
  • I wouldn't say that. I have had ATT for about a year, and have yet to have a serious sound problem (maybe 1 out of ever 25 calls needs a reconnect), in fact i come through crystal clear according to most people. I live in San Antonio, where is used to have SWBell for 2 years and they screwed me over, with bad serivce and billing.
    ---------------------------------------- -----------------------
  • I'm told DoCoMo's i-mode service is a fully controlled "walled garden" of the web. You go only where they lead you. That will have to change here, I hope.
  • The simple fact is that you pay for the infrastructure no matter whether it is a publicly built one or a privately built one. Nobody is making money off of mobile phones yet, the infrastucure is just too new. Everyone's land-line telephone service (and whatever other service you buy from a phone company) bills are increased, simply because these companies are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into making a network, and rip one out whenever a new standard arrives. If you go with a private, competitive system, though, you end up paying for several networks: one for each competitor, and substantial installation, and later, removal costs. If you don't think you pay because you didn't buy from those other companies, think again: They likely defaulted on literally dozens of loans from various financial institutions and spent millions of dollars of venture captital on a phone system that was only to be torn down. That money could have gone into any number of other things. If you have a savings account, and especially if you have a mutual fund, that is YOUR money being used. And in a open market, when things are all said and done, what guarantee is their that your iDEN phone that you bought in LA will work in New York when CDMA prevailed there and your provider scaled back your service? Today, you can buy a GSM phone, and it will work everywhere in the world, except the US. Perhaps it isn't the bleeding edge or even close. But when you come down to it, dozens of other countries have gone with GSM and we'd be stupid not to follow.
  • The US Marine Corps seems to like the Harrier (sic?).

    Once it was rebuilt to make it a working VTOL craft, sure. The model we fly was totally redesigned - here in America.

    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]

  • DoCoMo (Score:4)

    by nachoworld ( 232276 ) on Friday December 01, 2000 @10:13PM (#587250) Homepage
    With the new GSM standard, AT&T wireless customers will be able to communicate with Aruba, Jamaica,... Bermuda, and Bahama. But does AT&T really wanna go, way down to DoCoMo?

    ---
  • just wanted to add 2 things:

    GSM also operates at 1800 (actually 900/1800 DualBand is most common is europe)

    while GPRS [gsmworld.com] is a extension to GSM, both bluetooth and WAP [wapforum.com] are independent standards

  • Having lived in both North America and Europe, I can definitely say that in most terms NA is ahead in infrastructure. However, I can't believe that North Americans STILL pay for incoming calls! While I believe in privatisation in principle, sometimes the gov't needs to intervene to define the infrastructure standard to ensure that the competition isn't eliminating the better choice (Bill? Bill? ;-) for the longer term. The whole point of a cellular telephone is mobile communications, so what better way to implement a system than to ensure than a mobile phone is truly mobile?
  • Cool, you seem to have touched a zenophobic nerve. But I think you are right w.r.t. wireless technology deployment and adoption. The U.S. lags, and the networks are not, or have not been, as good here in the states.

    I also think you have a point about publicly managed or centrally planned infrastructure having advantages over privitized alternatives. The phone networks are a good example. Rail would arguably be another.

  • GSM 1900 is only used in North America. The rest of the world uses GSM 1800 (1800 MHz) and GSM 900. This means that you can't use most US GSM phones (ie, Nokia 5190/6190) anywhere else, and you can't use a phone that you buy anywhere else in the US. There are a couple exceptions, including the Motorola L2000 ("Timeport" in the US) which are tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900, but these are expensive and have a lousy menu system.

    Unless AT&T is going to be supporting GSM1800, which I doubt (because 1800 is not an available mobile band in the US), there is nothing unique about this article. GSM service @1900 MHz has been available in the US for years.
  • Two-way SMS is INCREDIBLY useful on my GSM phone.

    I signed up for Microcell Fido service in Canada about a month ago, because they were the only carrier in my area who would be offering true WAP any time in the near future. Little did I know that I was signing up for GSM. But I love it.

    My phone is small, very good quality, and cost me $25 (includes a cell modem, and features such as a phone book (which gets stored on my SIM card, and can travel with me when I change phones), calculator, alarm clock, and, of course, 'snake' (nibbles)). The best part, though, is bi-directional SMS.

    Users can send me SMS through ICQ2000b, and I can reply directly to their ICQ. It's amazing for when I'm not in the office.

    Also, I've set up some nifty perl scripts (that I'll share if anyone wants) that interface with mtnsms and Canada411.com to allow me to make 411 requests via SMS without paying the $.95. It's great. I'm planning on setting it up to allow me to request slashdot headlines and articles.

    The major drawback to SMS on GSM is the 160 character/message limit. Since I pay a flat rate of $3/month for SMS, I just send multiple SMSs when the size exceeds 160B.
  • Air interface and software protocol are seperate issues. CDMA is regarded more highly than GSM's air interface, but the software versatility of GSM is much better. So, why not pick CDMA's air interface (or one of its upgraded cousins), and GSM's software?

    The entire mess came about because of infighting between US and European companies, which in turn was mostly determined by whose patents would prevail. Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia and Qualcomm have been screwing over their users by this stupid fight. Both the US and European governments have been riding their own companies horses, rather than acknowledging that in the end it is cheaper to just pick the best bits from each standard and move forward. All the public bickering about upgrade costs is just to hide the monied interests behind it -- new infrastructure has to be rolled out anyway, new handsets will have to be purchased anyway.

    As to the encryption troubles with GSM, well, 3G would be a nice starting point to fix those. As other posters have indicated, the communications can be tapped easily on the provider end anyway, so there is no excuse for an encyption that is weakened after following advise from US law enforcement agencies.

  • I found myself walking with my kids in an 'interesting' part of town recently when my 7yr old asked me "Daddy ... who is that lady talking to ..." and I honestly couldn't tell whether she had one of those hands-free phones ..... or her own personal demons

    It's either going to get a lot harder for us to tell who's crazy ..... or an awfull lot easier for the crazier amoung us to fit in .... just put on some OK clothes and go downtown to the financial distruct and commune with the voices

  • well let's see - everywhere else in the world already uses the same standard and the US has 2-3 of it's own which one will you pick :-)

    seriously though - I went to a funeral in NZ recently, my Uncle was there he had his GSM phone on international roam - his works at my Mom's house in the NZ Alps, at his house on an island off of Brisbane and where he's currently consulting near London ... the same number rings worldwide - except where I live in the US (but it does work in Baltimore)

    as soon as someone starts deploying a GSM network here I'm buying one

  • Cool: Retro News (Score:3)

    by KrunZ ( 247479 ) on Friday December 01, 2000 @10:30PM (#587277)
    The GSM standard is so old that this posting must be considered super-retro.

    What will be the next subject:
    - Vehicles that moves without the use of horses
    - Nifty tricks with the ZX80
    - Automatic Ballot Counting...

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