Another day, another misleading press release about wireless data
A few days ago I received a press release from Lucent about providing CDMA 2000 1x infrastructure hardware to Telefonica Celular in Brazil. I recently returned from Sao Paulo, where I spoke about the future of wireless banking in Brazil, and I follow what's happening with wireless data in Latin America. Naturally, I was interested in the Lucent press release.
Alas, Lucent is just like so many other wireless companies when it comes to wireless data press release. It misleads the public.
The release says, in part, "The new network will initially serve Telefonica Celular customers in Rio de Janeiro, providing them with data transmission speeds of up to 153 kilobits per second." The release further says, "These increased speeds, which are made possible by Lucent's mobile network infrastructure equipment, will enable Telefonica Celular to offer its customers advanced services such as video streaming, which makes full-motion video transmission possible...."
What baloney. (I wanted to use a word that rhymes with WAP, but decided to be polite <g>).
153K bps -- yeah, right. The typical speeds for this type of network are 40K bps - 60K bps. It's the same type of network being rolled out by Verizon Wireless now and Sprint PCS in a few months.
As for full motion video -- that's ridiculous. 100K bps is a good starting speed for full motion video -- not what subscribers will obtain from Telefonica Celular's 1xRTT network.
Clueless or amoral?
Lucent's press release continues in the fine tradition of many cellular operators and handset vendors that continue to mislead the public about data rates and realistic applications. I sent a message to two people at Lucent, asking about the reality of data rates and the pricing for video transmission. The answer: Ask Telefonica.
No Lucent -- you issued the press release. I'm asking you.
I don't know whether the PR people who write press releases like this and the executives who approve these releases are clueless, amoral or both. Do they not know the difference between right and wrong or are their I.Q.s merely a couple of standard deviations to the left of the center of the bell shaped curve?
Don't these dolts ever learn? It's not enough that the wireless industry screwed itself and its customers by lying and misleading to the public about the speeds, capabilities and value of WAP. Now, they want to muck up PR and marketing for 2.5G networks.
1xRTT (as well as GSM GPRS) do indeed offer faster data rates. Apparently, though, reality isn't good enough for the incompetents who market these systems.
12:24:43 AM 
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