i see no UMTS phones in cingular's lineup

temp said:
i see no UMTS phones in cingular's lineup

Me either...but there are a couple available in ATTWS's lineup. Perhaps they'll just get incorporated? Who knows.

they will, UMTS is the future of wireless technology (Well for the US anyway), so it will be incorporated

Are UMTS and 3G the same thing?

Is that something automatic in a cellular network, or something phone specific?

UMTS/WCDMA/3G are all different terms for the same thing. Now UMTS and WCDMA are 3G for the TMDA/GSM path. There is also a CDMA path which has a different 3G (third Generation) upgrade path.

So you would not need a phone that supports these upgrades, or the phones that Cingular sells currently would incorporate these already?

In order to use the advanced data network that WCDMA offers you would have to get a phone that supports WCDMA. Current Cingular phones do not support this. How ever once Cingular supports WCDMA the WCDMA phones will work on the Current GSM (2.5 G) Network. WCDMA or 3G is just an upgrade to the Current GSM network.

Thanks for the explanation. 🙂

Will Cingular notify its customers of this upgrade, or give any special offers to upgrade their current phones?

Best guess is No and yes. Generaly they won't notify you personaly but there are usually advertisements. It will probably be about the same as the TDMA to GSM upgrade. There may be insentives but again you will probably have to be eligible for upgrades. Not sure what cingular's upgrade process is. Now i'm not the best person give info on Cingular. I am an AWS rep and we already have WCDMA so i can answer questions on Technology and phones but how Cingular is going to impliment it i'm not sure. They will probably wait untill they acuire AWS and use those systems already in place. Right now the AWS UMTS phones are starting at about $300.

cheapest UMTS phone is over 400 😉

There are two UMTS phones through AWS. The Motorola A845 and the Nokia 6651. The MSRP/Full retail price on the Nokia 6651 is 249.99 and the Motorola is 299.99 as per AWS Customer care (Me) price lists.

i was referring to NEAS pricing.....woopsie doodle

Um actually, Lucent and Ericsson will be Cingular's parter in the path to UMTS. ATTWS had partnered with Nortel and Ericsson. So, the nation wide network will be built by lucent and ericcson.

so cingular is going to abandon the agreement that ATTWS has w/ nortel when the merger completes?

yes and no... For the most part Lucent and Ericsson will have the larger share, but it's also being looked at on a market by market basis. Which leaves it open for other companies as well.

When I say "test" it is not a live consumer launch. The ATT launches are trial runs for consumers. The Cingular test in atlanta is not at this point.

oh so its an internal employee thing?

no, because WCDMA is only in 6 markets now on ATTWS, not to mention the cost of the phones (damn near $500)

temp said:
i see no UMTS phones in cingular's lineup

I didn't say there were. I said that there was a trial run... you know? "testing"...

i understand that you said it is in a trial run, yet it is in a "trial" run w/ ATT and there are WCDMA phones listed in ATT's lineup

because cingular test for longer periods of time, which makes much more sense than releasing phones on a technology that is so new.

Good Point, testing should be done internally to avoid customer disatisfaction or it should be provided to existing customers free of charge.

you cannot give something to customers free of charge due to the cost of the phones, i could see if the phones prior to the release of the UMTS phones had 1900mhz UMTS support, but they dont

WCDMA technology is NOT new by far, its rather old

temp said:
WCDMA technology is NOT new by far, its rather old

Maybe if you factor in all the time it took to research and develop...but as far as consumers are concerned, it's pretty damn new.

i think you are missing the fact that WCDMA technology has been used widely in japan for years now, its new to AMERICA, its not a new technology

temp said:
i think you are missing the fact that WCDMA technology has been used widely in japan for years now, its new to AMERICA, its not a new technology

True dat. My bad.

😎

Yes, the Japanese use UMTS, which is what Cingular and ATTWS have been implementing. UMTS is one of two forms of WCDMA going to be used in 3G. UMTS takes the WCDMA signal and adds a TDMA overlay. The second kind is a WCDMA signal with a FDMA(frequency division)overlay. I believe Japan's docomo get's the credit for the first UMTS network in 2001. Those guys launched it way back when and have really reliable networks now. Vodaphone's own german network is getting a "reliable" reputation as well. Of course the hiccups it suffered in early implementation are well documented, but UMTS is working out well now in those countries.

WCDMA is the technology that UMTS uses, there is no difference between calling it UMTS and WCDMA, i believe what you ment to say is the WCDMA signal adds a GSM overlay, not a TDMA overlay

ummm no... i meant exactly what i said. UMTS uses a TDMA overlay on a WCDMA signal. The OTHER WCDMA technology has a FDMA overlay. UMTS IS difference between WCDMA and UMTS. WCDMA is a single technology utilized by WCDMA. UMTS is the more popular version, so the names are often used synonimously. But, saying UMTS is the same as WCDMA is like saying tdma and gsm is the same... whole different beast.

then explain to me why all the UMTS phones that ATTWS carries do not support TDMA

the same reason GSM phones do not support TDMA signals. It's a totally different technology. Even tho GSM is basically a FDMA overlay on a TDMA signal, the overlay makes the other incompatible.
What UMTS does, is takes the basic WCDMA signal and overlay TDMA. They are using the TDMA to essencially split the WCDMA signal into more signals using time divsion... The other 3G usage of WCDMA is to put a FDMA overlay to split the WCDMA signal using frequency division.
UMTS uses the Time Division version that was pretty much invented by docomo in Japan. They are also the japanese company that is/was ATTWS' 3G partner.

ok so i think i see what you are saying here, the TDMA overlay is for the WCDMA band and the GSM band is on the phone to "expand" coverage if you will?

sorta....

I think you misunderstand me. The UMTS will eventually be a nation-wide network.
TDMA is a 2G all digital signal that offers awesome voice but security is almost non existent.
GSM is a FDMA overlay of the TDMA signal. It also introduced awesome security measures, and offers the best voice quality today. the gprs radio signal also added to GSM for data. GPRS was also updated to what is called EDGE. EDGE currently has the speed record for wireless data on a live network.
UMTS is the 3G solution for GSM. UMTS is a TDMA overlay of the WCDMA radio signal. the WCDMA signal is a FAT 5mhz slab of bandwidth that can be used to move voice AND data on one channel. UMTS takes it a step further by splitting the ...
(continues)

Nicely done Cain, thanks! 🙂

makes more sense now, i will have to look more into it for further understanding