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Apple Delivers Latest iPad — 4G LTE Connectivity and Tremendous Resolutions are Hallmarks

March 7, 2012 by 2 Comments

Apple has taken the wraps off of its latest iPad, chock full of new features from a high end display to faster 4G connectivity as the company seeks to maintain its huge lead in the tablet market, a space that had languished for years until Apple’s entrance two years ago.

With typical panache Apple did not give the latest offering in its iPad family a name such as iPad 3 or iPad HD as had been expected but rather called it the iPad all day as the company laid out the newest features in its latest offering.

The iPad is powered by an A5X quad core processor, similar to what powered the iPad 2 and the iPhone but which has been modified to better run high end graphics. It will need that graphics power with the Retina display that enables 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution. To give you an idea of how this compares to earlier models, this is 4x the number of pixels in the iPad 2.

It includes a 5MP iSight camera that has the ability to capture 1080HD video and the iPad can play back 1080p video. There is also a second, much lower end rear facing camera that has 0 .3MP capability for video chat.

Two of Apple’s carrier partners, AT&T and Verizon will be selling 4G LTE versions of the iPad but no word yet if its third iPhone partner, Sprint will sell one when its network is up to that level. The coverage now available includes support for HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA, so that both CDMA and GSM iPad users have the ability to easily roam internationally.

Apple did not port Siri, its voice technology so popular on its iPhones to the iPad but the device does support diction and note taking verbally. Apple claims that a user should be able to get 10 hours of battery life.

The new iPad Wi-Fi models will be available in black or white on Friday, March 16 for $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model and $699 for the 64GB model. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G for either AT&T or Verizon will be available for $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB model and $829 for the 64GB model. In addition Apple has cut ithe price of its existing iPad 2, which will now start $399.

As Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO took center stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco he received a very different reception that the late Steve Jobs did just about two years ago when he debuted the original iPad.

Hard to remember now the cynicism and disdain that the original was greeted with. Remember all of the bad iPad jokes? People claiming that they could see no real use for them? Now flash forward a bit more than two years and market researchers are claiming there is a pent up demand for this product.

Apple now refers to this as the post-PC world and well they should. Cook said that the company sold 172 million post-PC products which accounted for 76% of the company’s revenue.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, Apps, AT&T, iPad, iPhone, Sprint, Tablets, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: ,

Sprint brings Streaming TV to iPhone –Including Live Sports!

February 29, 2012 by 1 Comment

Apple iPhone users have finally caught up with smartphone users powered by Android and Windows phone users – they can now get a wide package of streaming TV offers that include both free and premium channels from Sprint on their phones, if they are Sprint users of course.

The basic program is free with most data plans and additional packages will range from $4.99 to $9.99 a month and come in wide range of options tailored for everybody from news junkies, sports and comedy fans and also has 20 stations for the Spanish speaking market.

The basic Sprint TV has 15 channels including live sports and news as well as daytime, primetime and kids entertainment channels. Included are ESPN Mobile TV ABC and NBC News, Disney Channel, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, The Weather Channel and a variety of shows such as CSI, NCIS, The Office, and 30 Rock.

On top of the basic services are a number of premium offerings with Sprint TV Xtra, that includes a number of cable and news programming such as FOX Sports, FOX News, ABC Family, MTV, Discovery Channel, , Nickelodeon and more, all for just $9.99 monthly.

It is servicing the business market with a $5.99 monthly package that includes live and on-demand business and financial news and a $7.99 Spanish language package that has 20 channels including programming from Univision, Telemundo, ESPN Deportes, Azteca America and others. There are a number of additional packages available as well.

Now iPhone users have an additional option for live sports and news streaming to their phones, previously they only had the option of AT&T’s U-Verse app, which comes with a basic fee. There are also carrier specific sports deals available.

The video can be streamed over Wi-Fi or via cellular connections.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, AT&T, ESPN, Fox Sports, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Smartphone, Sprint Tagged With: , , , ,

Dear Cell Companies: Event Upgrades Aren’t News. They Tell Us Your Network Stinks.

February 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Portable cellular tower on light truck -- aka a "COLT." Credit: Verizon Wireless

Are you getting as tired of this as we are? Every time there is a big sporting event now, the major wireless carriers in the U.S. are racing each other to put out press releases saying how the companies are rushing extra gear to the event stadium and surrounding area, all to ensure good performance of their customers’ devices. We hear tales of new antennas, new infrastructure equipment and the now-ubiquitous COWs, aka cell trucks on wheels. Is this news?

No. What it means is that the wireless networks stink, and the companies are trying to make a positive out of what is really years of neglect and shortsightedness in network design and deployment. This week’s offender is Verizon Wireless, which wants you to know that among other things it has “installed powerful base station equipment for both the 4G LTE and 3G networks inside the arena” for the upcoming NBA All-Star Game in Orlando, and “recently completed high-tech in-building systems at various hotels and other facilities in the Orlando area.”

Wow, “high-tech” systems! What will they think of next?

And for the Daytona 500, an event that has roughly been going on since cars were invented, Verizon needs to truck in a couple COWs (“each featuring a 75-foot telescoping antenna and advanced hardware for both 4G LTE and 3G voice and high-speed data channels”) because apparently the existing network in the greater Daytona area will fall to its knees when the hundreds of thousands of “race fans” gather there later this week for the NASCAR season opener.

Leaving aside the offensive tone of the press releases, which assume a level of ignorance on the customer/press part (what exactly is a “high-tech” system, and how does that differ from the old stuff? Was that all coal-fired?), the bottom line is that Verizon and other carriers who put these press releases out are glossing over the fact that their standard cellular system deployment is way behind the times, especially in areas surrounding big sporting arenas. Even though the iPhone revolution has been going on now for almost 5 years, it seems as though carriers are still being caught by surprise by fans showing up at games wanting to use those whizzy phones that Verizon, AT&T and Sprint are selling them.

Get over it. Get out there and rebuild those networks, and make the necessary extra improvements around stadiums. You’re certainly charging folks enough to be do so, since your execs are all pulling down Prince Fielder paychecks. So spare us the “news” about having to compensate for bad network design and deployment. And get more of that “high-tech” stuff out there.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Daytona 500, iPhone, NBA, Sprint, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , ,

Verizon Used Cisco Gear for Super Bowl Wi-Fi Network

February 15, 2012 by 1 Comment

Cisco Sports and Entertainment Solutions Group SVP and GM David Holland

Nobody’s talking yet about how much traffic it carried, but from a recent Cisco blog post we learned that Verizon’s Wi-Fi network used inside Lucas Oil Stadium for Super Bowl XLVI was a Cisco Connected Stadium deployment.

David Holland, the Sports and Entertainment Solutions Group SVP and GM at Cisco, revealed the partnership Tuesday in a company blog post where he claimed that the Super Bowl was the first time fans had used an in-stadium Wi-Fi network for the big game. Cisco representatives, however, declined to say just how well that network was used during the Giants’ win over the Patriots. If Verizon ever credited Cisco for being the gear behind the Wi-Fi network at the stadium, we haven’t seen it.

Verizon has also remained mum on just how much traffic traversed its in-stadium Wi-Fi network for the big game. In its follow-on press release Verizon did note that its own customers used “2.75 times more data than last year’s Super Bowl in Dallas and 4.5 times more data than a regular-season game at the stadium,” but without hard numbers it’s hard for us to judge how big a deal that really was.

Verizon did note that other cellular customers, and not just Verizon customers, were able to use the in-stadium Wi-Fi network during the game. And neither Sprint nor T-Mobile has yet to reveal any discrete traffic numbers from the game, unlike AT&T which provided a very detailed description of the cellular traffic its customers generated.

So the question of “how much wireless data did Super Bowl fans really use” remains unanswered. But as Holland said in his blog, it’s a practice that will quickly go from being unique to mainstream:

Most importantly it shows that this is headed mainstream, and a tipping point has been reached. Just as people walk into an airport today and expect to be connected to a Wi-Fi network, so fans in stadiums around the world are beginning to look for and demand the same thing.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, NFL, NFL Mobile, Sprint, Super Bowl, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , ,

Super Cellular Battle II: AT&T, T-Mobile Beef Up Indy Coverage; But What About Twitter?

January 24, 2012 by 6 Comments

If your call, text or tweet doesn’t get through from the Super Bowl in Indianapolis, you probably won’t be able to blame the phone companies. Today AT&T and T-Mobile joined Verizon Wireless and Sprint in announcing special plans to increase wireless capacity for the Feb. 5 showdown between New England and New York, which is expected to attract enough folks to completely fill the 70,000-seat Lucas Oil Stadium.

From the info provided so far it looks like AT&T has done the most in terms of bringing wireless resources to the Indy table: According to the press release AT&T is not only expanding the DAS antenna coverage inside the arena, it is also firing up a public Wi-Fi hot zone in the adjacent neighborhood, while also adding some outside DAS deployments as well as driving nine COWs (cell towers on wheels) in for the party. Indy is also one of the select cities where AT&T has launched its new 4G LTE network, so it’s a good guess that the infrastructure there is new and ready to rock. Safe to say, AT&T probably isn’t going to experience a SXSW style cellular fail at the Super Bowl this year.

T-Mobile, the nation’s fourth largest wireless provider, had sort of a me-too feel to its announcement but things like free charging stations (at the T-Mobile store that is near the stadium) and a T-Mobile sponsored relaxation zone with couches and hot beverages might come in handy if you are in the area. T-Mobile says it has also beefed up backhaul inside the stadium and throughout Indianapolis in general, so if you are a T-Mobile customer you should be OK come game day.

Still unanswered is the question of whether or not popular Internet sites like Twitter are making similar infrastructure preparations for the expected surge in traffic. We still haven’t seen any explanation or mea culpas from Twitter in regards to Sunday’s multiple fail whale appearances, other than a small status report that says everything got fixed. As Jim Rome says, better head to Fry’s, guys, and beef up that server farm.

Awesome day for the NFL, terrible day for Twitter. Better hit up Fry’s for a server or two before the Super Bowl.

January 22, 2012 9:24 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@jimrome

Jim Rome

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, NFL, Sprint, Super Bowl, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Super Cellular Battle: Verizon Adds DAS, Sprint Calls on the COWs

January 18, 2012 by 4 Comments

Portable cellular tower on light truck -- aka a "COLT." Credit: Verizon Wireless

In addition to the football game, there’s a cellular supremacy battle going on in advance of the NFL’s Super Bowl on Feb. 5, as wireless providers are bringing in extra technology to make sure all their customers’ calls go through on the big day in Indianapolis.

The cellular conundrum facing sporting events is old hat to readers of Mobile Sports Report, who know about the bandwidth challenges when 70,000 of your closest friends show up on Sunday and all try to post to Facebook at the same time. For the Super Bowl in Indy’s Lucas Oil Stadium Verizon Wireless has the inside lead, by installing a Distributed Antenna System (DAS), basically a bunch of small cellular antennas hung inside the building to provide better reception. AT&T put a DAS in the Superdome ahead of the BCS championship, and has put DAS installs in other stadiums like Cowboys Stadium in Dallas.

There’s an excellent walk-through with geek-heavy pictures about the Verizon updates in this post by theGadgets blog, which apparently is local to the Hoosier locale. Verizon is also installing public Wi-Fi networks inside both the stadium and the nearby convention center, and will improve outside coverage by bringing in COWs, aka Cell towers On Wheels — mobile antennas that beef up coverage. Verizon notes that Indianapolis is one of its 4G LTE coverage areas, so customers with access to Verizon’s newer faster network will have 4G access at the game, all the better to watch the mobile stream of the Super Bowl via the NFL Mobile app, only available from Verizon.

Also calling in the COWs is competitor Sprint Nextel, which according to a press release out today will drive in two COWs for the stadium, two at the Super Bowl village and one more at the University of Indianapolis (the NFC practice facility). Sprint also says it has “added capacity to 21 CDMA [3G wireless] sites and seven iDEN [push to talk] sites around downtown and surrounding area hotels, including a major capacity upgrade inside the stadium.”

We are still waiting for an official AT&T response but you can bet Ma Bell will also be beefing up its cellular arsenal in advance of the Feb. 5 game day. All good news for connected fans who want to stay linked while they’re at the big game.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, BCS, NFL, NFL Mobile, Sprint, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , ,
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