T-Mobile to debut 3G as voice-only. No data. We're over it.

Well screw us -- T-Mobile's 3G network debut tomorrow? It's going to be voice only. That's right, you heard us, VOICE ONLY. So trepidatious is this company to actually get their 3G data rollout, um, rolled out, they're launching first with kneecapped voice-only service, keeping only EDGE for those demanding data. Here's the snippet from the memo we received:

"3G is the next generation of our wireless network, following our current GSM network. In this early phase of our network evolution, 3G is a new technology for carrying wireless voice calls and supporting existing data capabilities on our network. In future phases, this next generation network will power 'high-speed' (3G) products and services that connect customers in new and exciting ways. ... Inform customers who are interested in high-speed data that the first phase of our 3G roll out supports voice only." [Emphasis ours]

No word on when T-Mobile actually plans to turn on the faster data, but for everyone who hasn't already jumped ship -- hoping against hope -- the wait continues.

P.S. -Don't believe everything you hear about this kind of thing being status quo. Every single major US 3G network -- including Cingular, Verizon, and Sprint -- went live as either data card-only (with phones added later), or data and voice together.

[Seth @ Apr 30th 2008 4:28PM]

That's some crazy bologna right there.

[tom @ Apr 30th 2008 4:55PM]

3g VOICE...wow, is it gonna be stereo 5.1 surround dolby digital?

[Bevo4138 @ Apr 30th 2008 5:03PM]

I don't know what you're talking about- I'm able to talk 4x faster now! As one of the many cattle auctioneers who lobbied T-mobile for this, this was a much needed step in the right direction.

[ryan10ad @ Apr 30th 2008 5:18PM]

You could make a podcast on you phone then upload it to your caller. That's (still) technically voice. (Please just shot me down)

[packetsniffer @ Apr 30th 2008 5:40PM]

That's technically data, and your humor escapes me.

[Rowen23 @ Apr 30th 2008 6:44PM]

So did I read this right..... "3G is a new technology...". Ummmmm.... hasn't 3G been in place in Asia and Europe (or maybe more specifically Germany) for at least a three years now?

http://www.nordicwirelesswatch.com/wireless/story.html?story_id=3558

Sprecken ze Bogus?

[N30 G30 @ Apr 30th 2008 8:51PM]

Hell, 3G has been in the US for atleast 2 years.

[Lars @ Apr 30th 2008 8:51PM]

3 years is pretty new for a communications service.

Re: the main article, better to get 3G voice now and the rest of the the 3G packages later, rather than nothing now and all of it later.

Oh and to the people saying "now I can talk 4x faster..." that's not how it works. Speed and bandwidth have effectively the same result: more people can use it at once, less data gets lost.

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Apr 30th 2008 9:17PM]

and even when it's this stupid I really pronounce it " bo-la-ga-na" :P

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Apr 30th 2008 10:19PM]

maybe they changed it to voice only because you guys refused to change engadget mobile.

[aus @ May 1st 2008 6:36AM]

Million dollar question. Where / what are the 3G handsets they have on offer.. WCDMA (3G voice) is useless without it. Considering they use a frequency nobody else does..

[Bryan Thornsberry @ Apr 30th 2008 4:29PM]

Nobody beleived me when I said this months ago on a similar post.

But who cares. It sucks.

[Totalfixation @ Apr 30th 2008 4:29PM]

I am somewhat glad to hear, because It be a shame to put that spectrum to almost outdated technology. I would prefer they focus all that resource towards 4G (LTE). That way, maybe at&t and Verizon will start there 4G roll out a little sooner.

[Anthony @ Apr 30th 2008 4:29PM]

yessir.. bologna

which reminds me... Sandwich time mmmhmmm =P

[Jonathan Keim @ Apr 30th 2008 4:35PM]

How can you think of food at a time like this!




:-)

[Jay @ Apr 30th 2008 4:32PM]

so explain to me please, whats a tangible benefit to using 3G for voice,..less call drops? clarity? what..?

[rock99rock @ Apr 30th 2008 4:39PM]

Acoustic coupler modem what? Yea, i dont think that there is a shit of difference that the average end user would be able to hear on their end, but perhaps the coverage or signal strenght would be better considering it is out on the 1700 band. AFAIC, this is a total marketing ploy. Total fail T-Mobile. Glad i left you for 3g. 2 FRICKEN YEARS AGO!

[mzinZ @ Apr 30th 2008 4:41PM]

More throughput is always better. But yes, clarity.

[Bill Ferrante @ Apr 30th 2008 5:34PM]

It allows them to have more capacity on the same spectrum. Highly doubtful that you'll see any difference in the quality of your calls unless their network was at capacity in your area.

This basically buys nothing for existing customers and allows Tmo to add more voice lines to their network.

On the bright side, at least their engineers are working with 3g technology now. The data has got to come eventually.....

[Maximillian Karpiak @ Apr 30th 2008 7:02PM]

Okay, so this is a little odd, because generally everyone considers voice harder to do than data.. users are less tolerant of drops, problems in voice quality are much more evident to the end users, etc. Also, you can usually monetize the new data capacity faster than you can new voice capacity.

When you get right down to it, in UMTS there isn't a huge difference between voice and data at the base station. Unlike CDMA voice and data, you can actually use the same block of spectrum for both voice and data at the same time. So, you go out into the field, screw your base stations (NodeBs) into the ground, point your antennas, do your RF engineering, and you hook 'em up to your Radio Network Controller, and you're good to go.

Now when you get into the core network, that's when things split. Hooked up to the RNC, there are two network elements that handle the voice traffic (the MSC and GMSC), and two that handle the data (SGSN and GGSN).

One possible explanation for what's going on here is that they had limited capacity for voice, and not enough people and money to roll out voice and data at the same time, and so they picked voice because they just plain needed more capacity.

Another possibility is that their MSC vendor had an easier upgrade path for them (a simple software add-on or maybe just bolt on another cabinet) than their SGSN vendor did, and they could just get there first.

Other than that, there's other odd technical reasons: maybe they're having problems getting enough IPs for the glut of data users they want to support. Maybe they don't have enough capacity in their nationwide data network, and they need upgrades.

My guess is that, for whatever reason, their core network people on the voice side could be ready before the core network people on the data side.

At this point, data is just about getting the core network finished. If they're doing voice, they should be looking at both data and HSPA as software-only upgrades, so if I was a T-Mo customer, I wouldn't sweat it too much.

[TheDude @ Apr 30th 2008 4:34PM]

funny (sad?)... I have 3G in Kansas City.

[BlowURmindBowel @ Apr 30th 2008 5:27PM]

On what carrier?

[TheDude @ Apr 30th 2008 5:31PM]

AT&T (Cingular when I bought it)

[BlowURmindBowel @ Apr 30th 2008 5:38PM]

Howz the coverage, I've heard it is decent in the southern burbs (Leawood, OP, Lenexa, Olathe, etc.) but kinda crappy up north or in the MO burbs...

[TheDude @ Apr 30th 2008 5:47PM]

It's just fine... I live in the West Plaza and work in NKC. not a problem! of course, my last carrier was sprint, so everything seems like a better connection (rocks, small mammals, etc...) we have a few Motorola phones that are within a few years old...
: )

[Mike @ Apr 30th 2008 4:32PM]

T-Mobile....so much potential....so little provided!

[one1082 @ Apr 30th 2008 4:35PM]

weak! -- lol @ t-mobile...

[teslasnp @ Apr 30th 2008 4:34PM]

and be certain "he wait continues" is correct

[Brian @ Apr 30th 2008 4:38PM]

I love Amish furniture. Ever seen it/tried it? Great.

[tb @ Apr 30th 2008 4:39PM]

what is the point of 3G if it's voice only, we'll all talk faster?
stupid cel phone carriers

[Towncivilian @ Apr 30th 2008 4:42PM]

What's the point of having a 52X CD-ROM? It doesn't play music any faster.

[Mark @ Apr 30th 2008 4:45PM]

@Towncivilian... 52X CD-ROMs are faster for data transfer.
3G is faster for data transfer.

T-Mobile is missing something here.

[CraigJ @ Apr 30th 2008 6:06PM]

"3G if it's voice only"

Marketing!

[Kris @ Apr 30th 2008 8:37PM]

@Mark and the idiots who marked him high:

You are totally lost on the sarcasm. He was making a sarcastic advantage trying to show the OP how stupid he was for only looking at one aspect of 3G (i.e. 1 aspect of CD-ROM drives).

Idiots.

[Russell de Pina @ May 1st 2008 8:51AM]

52X is the sampling rate -- not data transfer. The higher the samplling rate, the more data points obtained from the [analog] audio data input. Having more data points to be reintegrated back into the audio allows better sound reproduction.

[Shawn @ May 1st 2008 9:10AM]

Uh, 52X IS the transfer rate. You know nothing about transfer rates. 52X is 150KB times 52, so approx 7.8MB/sec. The sampling rate of a CD-ROM is fixed, 44100 samples per second, 16 bit resolution, 2 channel stereo, which is 44100*16*2/8=176.4K/sec. CD-ROMs have error correction in the sectors which reduces the actual data to 150KB/sec for a 1X CD-ROM.

I hope you don't teach computers.

[clicclic @ Apr 30th 2008 4:40PM]

Soooo tired of waiting for 3G.

I've been a T-Mo customer (aka LUZER) since 2002.

WTF T-Mo!

[BlowURmindBowel @ Apr 30th 2008 5:29PM]

I've been a T-Mob customer since they were called Aerial...

My brand loyalty PWNs your brand loyalty... And we're both tards...*tear*

[Blacksheep @ Apr 30th 2008 5:36PM]

I've been a T-Mo customer since 2002 as well, never had a cell phone before that.

Of course when my contract runs out in June, I'm gone this time. That's IT t-mobile, you really blew this 3G thing, I'm going to Verizon. Oh yeah, and you know what else t-mobile, you never fixed those dead spots in my town you said you were "working" on two years ago!

[JAmerican @ May 1st 2008 1:14AM]

I've been with them since VoiceStream witht the Nokia 3390 then the B&W Sidekick. Never been with another cellphone company. Definitely considering other companies nowadays!

[RyanTV @ Apr 30th 2008 4:40PM]

as if you needed another reason to leave T-Mobile.

[mzinZ @ Apr 30th 2008 4:42PM]

I've been with T-Mo for 8 years. Don't know why I have sat around so long.

I wish Android would come out already.

[Bill @ Apr 30th 2008 4:42PM]

Wow, if you want to go wtih GSM in the States, you can choose either AT&T's crap 3G coverage or T-Mobile's vapor-coverage (vaporage?). What a joke! 3G voice means absolutely nothing, other than the most important part of the equation ain't done yet.

[Todd @ Apr 30th 2008 4:42PM]

Beyond lame!!!!!!!! SRSLY. Do they do that in Europe? Charge you for 3G and not allow data at 3G speeds?

[r3loaded @ Apr 30th 2008 4:46PM]

In the UK most of our networks have already upgraded to HSDPA, never mind 3G. At least you yanks can take solace in the fact that your northern neighbours get an even rawer deal than you do.

[aux @ Apr 30th 2008 5:05PM]

I do find T-Mobile's actions strange. A few moths ago in the UK they singed a deal with 3 to merge their 3G networks together to give 90% coverage (just like Vodafone and Orange).

[Dorz @ Apr 30th 2008 6:18PM]

I had my first contract phone with them back in Nov07 and it was also the first time that I used T-Mobile. At no stage did they indicate that HSDPA would not be available to me, despite them advertising the phone as having HSDPA (it is also advertised on the box). Low and behold I get the phone and play around with it and to my surprise I wasn't getting HSDPA connections, so I queried it them them.

To my utter shock and disbelieve my "tariff isn't eligible for an HSDPA connection". No where in the T&C did it mention this and nowhere on their site did it mention it (the site has been updated since I took out my contract with them). I was completely pissed off and caught out and their CS people were very unaccommodating. They had one chance with me and they blew it - simple as that.

Another thing that is shocking with them is that their signal output is absolutely appalling despite me living in a "good" connection area. I could put my phone down somewhere and have a full signal then I could literally move it one inch in any direction and get no signal. On occasions I have put it down while having a full/good signal and left the phone and when I come back I find the signal is completely gone. I've also heard of other people experiencing similar things, it's just a seriously lacking network.

It behaves in this temperamental manner all over the place, and if it wasn't so annoying (and serious if you need to make an emergency call) it would be a comical. I really have to be careful where I put it down and where I use it. I could be walking while using it and get completely cut off because I hit a bad reception patch, even while right in the middle of town. I'm just...oh so pissed off with T-mobile and their lame service.

I can't wait for them to phone me up and try to persuade me into getting another contract out with them. By the time I've finished them their ears will be bleeding. They've really made the experience of owning a vario III very disappointing. Even their 3G service is dire.

NEVER AGAIN T-MOBILE NEVER AGAIN.

[Brian @ Apr 30th 2008 10:56PM]

@r3loaded

Like most Europeans, you seem to be vastly misinformed about the state of US mobile services.

AT&T offers HSDPA in the US and has done so for quite some time.

EVDO is also pretty much universal.

T-Mobile, a GERMAN-OWNED company, is behind in the US for spectrum reasons.

[CaptSaltyJack @ Apr 30th 2008 4:43PM]

Epic fail.

[daynewatkins @ Apr 30th 2008 4:44PM]

Well they just lost me as a customer. I was waiting, and waiting....looks like it's Sprint for unlimited everything or AT&T for HSDPA....Tmobile really has some balls to pull this. I don't remember the last time I was this angry. Are they idiots? Who in their right mind uses 3G for better call quality? no one. that's who. No freaking one on the earth is excited about a 3G-3.5G network so they can have better call quality....it's for faster data DUH. I feel like I'm on the titanic here.....