From: John Goggan (jgoggan_at_dcg.com)
Date: Tue Feb 18 2003 - 05:36:45 PST
Roman Pixell wrote:
>
> well, that resembles the cost in sweden too, even with GPRS.
Yes, I meant that, in the US, to do anything wireless with a PDA, it is
generally MORE expensive than other countries. There just aren't a lot of
cheap solutions that work in the US. We've managed to muck up our wireless
enough to make things "just not work well" for data.
> i still want to point out that $35 is a rather juicy bill to pay
> for say a student.
Well, yes and no. If you already pay for dialup and a phone, then there is no
additional costs per month at all. Many, many students already have
cellular/wireless service -- and most pay more than $25 a month in what I've
seen. I've always went the cheapest cellular plan -- but almost everyone I
know with a cell/wireless phone pays $30+ a month for their service. So, I
was assuming he already had the phone service. Above that, you can find cheap
dialup for $10 a month. I really see that as the only additional monthly fee
-- provided that he doesn't already have access to a free dialup from school.
> i mean, if you really value being completely mobile and
> download mail and RSS via the newt, id pay for a trotter card and
> stick to that - it would pay over time. the hardware cost is
> negligible over time, compared to the variable cost.
Um, isn't that a GPRS card? In the US, GPRS is still fairly "new", IMO.
Plus, I don't see how that would be cheaper. I don't know of any plans with
GPRS service that are less than the $20 a month that I was talking about that
I pay. Therefore, I don't see how GPRS would be cheaper than going with a
cheap cellular plan, as I mentioned...
Plus, on a side note, cellular is actually more reliable for low-speed data
communication from what I've found in the US. Cellular phones are allowed a
higher power rating -- and therefore, in my testing, seem to work farther out
in the middle of nowhere than wireless.
So, for people like me -- trying to Newton wirelessly in the woods or on a
train -- cellular is the way to go. It was much better and cheaper than any
wireless/GPRS solution that I could come up with (at the time, at least).
- John...
-- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries List FAQ/Etiquette/Terms: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Feb 18 2003 - 06:00:00 PST