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T-Mobile Germany Offering Subsidized iPhones with 2 Year Contract

You guys can talk about 3G all you want.

The only 3G killer app that manage to survive is location based services --- which is way ahead in the US because of mandated e911 rules.

It's not about download speeds anymore. It's more useful to have better uplink speed and QoS --- to do VoIP-via cellular.

What we have here is American carriers didn't keel over with massive 3G licensing fee fiasco, American consumers enjoy cheaper voice plans (just look at the iphone plans), nobody have to buy a useless phone with 2 cameras which nobody uses for video calling, no US government intervention screaming at the carriers to build 3G coverage (which pretty much matches most European countries), higher 3G handset penetration rate and Americans enjoy the only 2G killer app that is ahead of the pretty much the rest of the world.
 
samab said:
The only 3G killer app that manage to survive is location based services --- which is way ahead in the US because of mandated e911 rules.
It's not about download speeds anymore. It's more useful to have better uplink speed and QoS --- to do VoIP-via cellular.
Click to expand...

I fully disagree - the only 3G killer app is wireless broadband, which UMTS was intended for, anyway. Wireless broadband is booming massively in Europe. If you mean wireless triangulation by location based services: I feel no need to have the government know where I am at any given time. Also - location based services may be a killer app in the US - but that doesn't do much good if there's no network coverage they can run on.

True, uplink speeds are equally important because of VoIP - that's why close to all European carriers implemented HSUPA over the last year or so, yielding factual upload speeds of around 1.45 mbit/s - how does EV-DO do here?

As for the voice plans: that definitely has nothing to do with 3G or license fees. Voice plans have always been a lot more expensive here, for whatever reason.
But as you already said: VoIP is the magic word here - I can use Skype over my 3G handsets and have virtually free voice included with my unlimited data plan.

You're right, however: the frequency auctions were massive rip-offs and without them, Europe would be even further ahead of the US in terms of 3G usage.
Still, the auction fiasco in Europe didn't keep the US from doing the exact same thing only a couple of weeks ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/700_Mhz_wireless_spectrum_auction

kis
 
Forgive my ignorance, but hot does the iPhone contract/activation system work in Germany?
Is it like the US where you activate you iPhone and select your tariff using iTunes or do you have the sign the contract instore?
Thanks
Nick
 
kis said:
I fully disagree - the only 3G killer app is wireless broadband, which UMTS was intended for, anyway. Wireless broadband is booming massively in Europe. If you mean wireless triangulation by location based services: I feel no need to have the government know where I am at any given time. Also - location based services may be a killer app in the US - but that doesn't do much good if there's no network coverage they can run on.

True, uplink speeds are equally important because of VoIP - that's why close to all European carriers implemented HSUPA over the last year or so, yielding factual upload speeds of around 1.45 mbit/s - how does EV-DO do here?

As for the voice plans: that definitely has nothing to do with 3G or license fees. Voice plans have always been a lot more expensive here, for whatever reason.
But as you already said: VoIP is the magic word here - I can use Skype over my 3G handsets and have virtually free voice included with my unlimited data plan.

You're right, however: the frequency auctions were massive rip-offs and without them, Europe would be even further ahead of the US in terms of 3G usage.
Still, the auction fiasco in Europe didn't keep the US from doing the exact same thing only a couple of weeks ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/700_Mhz_wireless_spectrum_auction

kis
Click to expand...

It's different in the US with their auctions (which also held their last auction before the internet bubble got busted) --- the US didn't force a deployment schedule onto the carriers.

What you are saying is basically Europe is YEARS ahead of US in 3G... --- but then you are also saying that things only got better (i.e. 3G USB dongles and their data price plans...) in the last few MONTHS.

The only logical way to look at it is by looking that the weakest link or the lowest common denominator --- which is European carriers spent billions of dollars on 3G network deployments 5 years ago that never got used until a few months ago.

Isn't it better for the government to leave it to the carriers to build at their own schedule when demand is at a level that would justify the cost of the deployment --- like in the US. Americans ended up with 3G coverage comparable to Europeans and Americans have higher 3G handset penetration rate than Europeans.
 
iPhone Shortage -

So how does Apple play this one? They can't exactly make it public that they are going to be releasing the new version at a certain date, but they also have to have a degree of loyalty to their suppliers...so someone got the whisper to deplete inventory for the upcoming 3G model which will pretty much make the current 2.5 generation iPhone obsolete.

http://www.3giPhoneInfo.com
 
ubergamer said:
Forgive my ignorance, but how does the iPhone contract/activation system work in Germany?
Is it like the US where you activate you iPhone and select your tariff using iTunes or do you have the sign the contract instore?
Thanks
Nick
Click to expand...

I am wondering this too. Can anyone enlighten us?
 
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