Well, I could have told ya this! Of course it seems more “real” coming from a more authoritative source like RCRNews.
It seems people and critics are starting to realize that EDGE services, provided nationwide by T-Mobile and Cingular, are good enough to get most mobile broadband work done.
While the industry looks ahead to W-CDMA and HSDPA technologies, EDGE handsets will quietly deliver “near-acceptable†mobile broadband experiences across a wide geographic area, according to ABI Research. The firm projects that vendors will ship as many as 148 million EDGE handsets this year—totaling about 14 percent of the global handset market—and suggested that the industry pay closer attention to the technology.
Although EDGE often is viewed as merely an evolutionary step in GSM technology, it has an important role in delivering services for carriers without 3G licenses or for those waiting for 4G, ABI said.
Well, sure – if you look at the majority of the handsets from T-Mobile and Cingular, you’ll see that the support EDGE. Most often in a quad-band configuration (850/900/1800/1900) to cover most of the world’s GSM implementations.
“When the prospects for EDGE are viewed in the context of next generation networks, its true value comes to light,†said Stuart Carlaw, ABI’s principal analyst. “The technology still represents the only viable choice for supporting seamless service delivery on a very wide area basis. Neither WiMAX nor LTE nor HSUPA will be rolled out with enough geographic coverage to guarantee minimum service requirements on a wide scale.”
Considering that EDGE service has a larger footprint than Verizon/Sprint EVDO networks, I’ll choose EDGE any day. Also, with Cingular’s current HSDPA rollout and T-Mobile’s current winnings in the latest FCC spectrum auction for UMTS/HSDPA, we’re in for some awesome mobile data solutions in 2007!
Cool news, all the same.