Thread: The Nokia N810 - WiMAX Edition
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johnkzin is offline johnkzin
2008-03-31 , 04:42
Posts: 1,878 | Thanked: 646 times | Joined on Sep 2007 @ San Jose, CA
#121
Originally Posted by _Q_ View Post
WiMAX falling back to EDGE/HSDPA, maybe--then Nokia could sell it as an unlocked GSM device anywhere in the world. EV-DO and CDMA would be too limited (just the US, South Korea, some parts of China...). There's just no way (in the US, at any rate) to sell a CDMA device without getting the carriers involved.
That's not _necessarily_ true. Until now, sure, you needed to convince the carriers to sell your CDMA device. But, if Verizon is going to be true to their word, then all Nokia has to do is get their devices certified, and then the customer can buy them without Verizon branding them. And hopefully this will lead to Sprint and the smaller CDMA carriers following suit (MetroPCS, Cricket, etc.).

Also, "generic EDGE/HSPA unlocked device anywhere in the world" isn't trivial. There's at least 3 or 4 frequencies they have to support now. If they do it, then great. But if they only support Europe and AT&T (spit), but leave out T-MobileUSA, then I certainly wont care.

As for a WiMAX modem for current tablets, wouldn't that just create a bottleneck when transferring data from the modem to the tablet? AFAIK WiMAX is significantly faster than either Bluetooth or USB, so it would make as much sense to just stick with using an EV-DO or HSDPA phone as a modem.
I don't want to see "modem" per-se, but I would _LOVE_ to see Nokia compete with Cradlepoint. Only, instead of using an external EVDO device (Cradlepoint's devices use USB to connect to a phone or dongle), they could have 3 models that use internal radios, one CDMA/1xRTT/EVDO based, one GSM/GRPS/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA based, one WiMAX based. All would have:
  • Wifi for communicating with clients
  • RJ-45 for connecting to a WWAN or LAN (depending on situations)
  • USB client and/or OTG for config and charging
  • LOTS of battery
  • SIP server for interfacing with CDMA or GSM voice capabilities (and whatever WiMAX might have in that regard)
  • Jabber server for interfacing with SMS/MMS capabilities

This wouldn't just be a good companion product for the NIT line, other consumers could use it for their laptops (the MacBook Air doesn't have an express card slot, for example), UMPC's and MID's that don't have WWAN options (how many EEE PC users might buy one of these?).

And by having the delivery be Wifi, they can do a lot better than bluetooth and USB speeds.

I think I'd much rather see that than a version of the N810 for each WWAN, etc.