the hills are alive with the sound from ear buds

EDGE? EV-DO? I saw one comment on this, but I can't believe more people haven't said this:

WTF??? Taking a step back like what? 5 years? EDGE/EV-DO were like, 2.5g.

OF COURSE THEY WILL HAVE EDGE OR EV-DO!!!! Most dataphones, even your fancy pants 3g ones have EDGE for networks that don't have 3g or if say you're roaming and the po-dunk town you're in doesn't have 3g yet. 3g isn't everywhere, so of course they're going to put these techs in there. But what's the point of making these phones w/o 3g???? That's what I don't get. If these are smartphones, to be used with data plans, people are going to (probably) (for the most part) spend money on a data plan that isn't limited by speed or protocol, but by actual used throughput (so many MB for so many $s) or get an unlimited data plan. Either way, the standard their phone uses to connect will (or should be) location dependent [ie network dependent (if there's 3g in the hood or not)].

Manufacturing these phones, at least for the US or Europe, is a completely moronic idea. Maybe the receiver chip is a tad cheaper, but um, how much is that going to drop the cost of the phone to the end user? We won't know cause we won't be able to tell. Maybe it makes sense for a foreign market of some kind, where they are still struggling to implement an EDGE network.

I mean hey let's just for kicks manufacture an iPhone that supports AMPS!!!!

for a cdma carrier? did you know 3g is an evolution of CDMA? Granted ATT/Cingular still have EDGE support built in for the slow to upgrade subscribers, but the 3g they use is no longer FDMA

This is horrible.

Why? 2 reasons:

1) More DIFFERENT technology: If you look at the history of cell companies, Sprint in particular, the integration of different technologies is a huge set back. Basically, take Sprint a long time ago. It started off with CDMA tech. Great move on Sprint's part, even if they had so much difficulty initially, it ended up being a good move. That's the only reason Sprint is still around at all. When they then tried to integrate Nextel technology, they gave themselves a huge headache. Bad idea. They have two different technologies to maintain and keep implemented and it's already caused them too much trouble. Integrating wimax as well, for any other cell company, might be an OK move. But for Sprint, VERY bad move. They already are suffering and this will really kick them under, and in my opinion:

2) the future of Sprint depends on them making themselves look good. Not to us the blog readers and subscribers, but to other companies. T-Mobile buying Sprint?? Fantastic. If T-Mobile can buy Sprint at a price that is low enough it pays to simply buy the spectrum, then maybe T-Mobile could roll the current subscriber base of Sprint over to their networks and technology. MAYBE T-mobile would integrate nextel tech, or maybe let it fall to the wayside. But if Sprint tried to get WiMax going, then T-Mobile would have to integrate WiMax, and Nextel, AND Sprint's already failing company. Horrible move on Sprint's part to try to get WiMax

that seems to make complete sense, since ya know, people are causing the traffic why not use them as the sensors. Think about how this might work with other handi's even w/o gps chips. just using info off of the cell towers could work if they were able to track the velocity and general location of the person, they could narrow it down to a street and then id traffic issues.

I thought it was interesting you said "some anonymous bidder". All bidding is anonymous in the auction, so there's no saying wether it was actually google or not. It could be anybody.

hey i tried to reply to you but i screwed it up. sorry mate. but check my comment on the bototm

For someone who asked about what this means for the average american:

Basically since the popularity of regular transmit analog tv is losing ground, the government wants to make a buck. So they are forcing TV to not use so much of the spectrum, by making them compress to DTV channels (which is better in the long run for us anyway). So then for us:

These frequencies are much lower than the freq cellphones are using right now. The lower the frequencies, basically, the easier they are to transmit over long distances. So if they are "open" frequencies, like the bluetooth and wifi frequencies, anybody and their mom can get a license (for MORE money) from the FCC and manufacture a device to use them.

SO expect to see something like "wifi everywhere", but of course it wouldn't be "wifi" 802.11 type frequencies at all. It would be in this new range.

It can get really complicated, there are LOTS of possibilities.