Technically speaking, it’s not actually the 28th of December in the Bay Area yet, but Sprint’s already out in front with its announcement that WiMAX connectivity has been activated in and around the city of San Francisco. We were promised this development exactly three weeks ago, back when Los Angeles and Washington DC were first familiarizing themselves with the glorious new speed, and today the Bay Area, which also includes San Jose, Palo Alto and Oakland, adds to a total of 71 metropolitan markets that have been lit up with Sprint’s finest wireless offering. Guess Verizon had better start fast and keep running if it wants to keep up, eh?
Hey, it’s not just Verizon making waves in the LTE arena today: MetroPCS — which gets to lay claim to having the first commercial LTE network in the US — has flipped the switch on its next-gen network in San Francisco, offering the same Samsung Craft handset that it’s been selling in its other LTE markets so far for $299 (expensive for a dumbphone, absolutely, but you get it contract-free) with plans running $55 to $60 a month depending on whether you want access to the carrier’s video-on-demand service. We’re still holding out for a USB stick ourselves — or at least an honest-to-goodness smartphone — and now that Verizon’s live, that might just force MetroPCS’ hand. Follow the break for the press release.
Hey, it’s not just Verizon making waves in the LTE arena today: MetroPCS — which gets to lay claim to having the first commercial LTE network in the US — has flipped the switch on its next-gen network in San Francisco, offering the same Samsung Craft handset that it’s been selling in its other LTE markets so far for $299 (expensive for a dumbphone, absolutely, but you get it contract-free) with plans running $55 to $60 a month depending on whether you want access to the carrier’s video-on-demand service. We’re still holding out for a USB stick ourselves — or at least an honest-to-goodness smartphone — and now that Verizon’s live, that might just force MetroPCS’ hand. Follow the break for the press release.
Seems like Sprint wants to get every last lick of 4G coverage in before Verizon flips the switch on LTE — today, its joint venture with Clearwire is launching WiMAX in the City of Angels a day ahead of schedule. Lest you think Los Angeles is getting special treatment, five other cellular markets can now also get a taste of 5Mbps to 7Mbps download speeds, including Miami, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and our nation’s capitol, Washington D.C. That brings the total number of regions where you’ll get some mileage out of that $10 surcharge up to 68, in case you’re keeping track. What’s next? If the press release after the break is correct, San Francisco will finally satisfy its need for speed on December 28th. Not that any of these locales haven’t been secretly enjoying 4G already, of course.
The fact that Sprint and Clearwire have teamed up to deliver WiMAX to New York, LA, and San Francisco isn’t news. In fact, we’ve already seen the networks light up in operational readiness modes on the way to full consumer availability. But now we’ve got dates, the first specifics that we can recall for these cities. Now, according to both Clearwire and Sprint, New York’s WiMAX service will go live on November 1st, LA’s on December 1st, and San Francisco sometime around the end of December. We’ll see if those early 5Mbps to 7Mbps download / 1.2Mbps upload speeds we’ve experienced can be maintained once the service meets the crush of the big city horde. Of course, this is nothing but good news for wireless consumers who’ll also see Verizon light up its competing LTE network in these cities (38 in total) at about the same time.
Here’s something that’ll surely send Birthers and Roswellians into a tizzy. The FCC quietly changed its long-standing recommendation that consumers concerned with cellphone radiation should purchase phones with lower SAR levels — SAR meaning Specific Absorption Rate or the rate at which at which energy is absorbed by the body. The revision to the FCC website was made last week without any formal announcement. Odd, given the brouhaha created when the city of San Francisco passed a law requiring retailers to display SAR values next to cellphones as part of “right to know” safety campaign. A move that caused the CTIA to pull its fall event out of The City only to replace it with a big fat lawsuit. Here’s a snippet from the FCC Consumer Fact sheet about SAR for Cellphones:
Many people mistakenly assume that using a cell phone with a lower reported SAR value necessarily decreases a user’s exposure to RF emissions, or is somehow “safer” than using a cell phone with a high SAR value. While SAR values are an important tool in judging the maximum possible exposure to RF energy from a particular model of cell phone, a single SAR value does not provide sufficient information about the amount of RF exposure under typical usage conditions to reliably compare individual cell phone models. Rather, the SAR values collected by the FCC are intended only to ensure that the cell phone does not exceed the FCC’s maximum permissible exposure levels even when operating in conditions which result in the device’s highest possible – but not its typical – RF energy absorption for a user.
So why the sudden, unannounced change? Collusion between the cellphone industry’s lobbying machine and big gov? Doubtful, the claification certainly makes sense to us. Besides, The Washington Post says no, citing a source familiar with the FCC’s decision. Great, case closed then.
It seems awfully odd that San Francisco — you know, San Francisco, part of America’s technology nexus — had been left out in the 4G cold for so long while over 70 other networks have been brought live in Clearwire’sWiMAX footprint. Well, turns out there’s a good reason… or maybe not a “good” reason, but a reason nonetheless: the city’s notoriously brutal cell antenna approval process had ensnared Clearwire’s efforts, leaving both Clear and Sprint customers out in the cold. The company apparently successfully navigated eight months’ worth of approvals in and around SF’s Planning Commission before getting slapped with an appeal over concerns that an earthquake could dislodge the antennas and blast residents with excessive levels of radiation; of course, it seems like it’d be a simple matter for technicians to go out and fix anything knocked loose after a tremblor, but what do we know? Regardless, looks like this is all behind us — but it certainly serves as a sobering warning to all future networks that dare launch in and around the bay.
Well girls and boys, if you’re in San Francisco, today’s your lucky day! It looks like Sprint has finally switched on its WiMAX 4G network in the city by the bay, so whip out your Sprint Overdrive, EVO 4G, or Epic 4G and join the party. We’ve tested connection speeds using the Epic 4G in Potrero Hill and are seeing between 5 and 7 (!) Mbps down and 1.2 Mbps up with 6 full bars of signal indoors. Even after moving 4 blocks away, download speeds stayed between 2 and 4 Mbps, with the signal dropping to 4 bars, so it appears we’ve finally reached the realm of “ludicrous speed” on mobile devices. Hit us up in the comments and let us know what kind of performance you are seeing, and in what neighborhood you’re located.
Oh snap! This is exactly what Nokia needs right now — another cheap Android handset to gobble up its wallet-friendly stronghold. What we’re looking at here is Orange’s oddly named San Francisco, a £99 ($154) pay-as-you-go Eclair handset crafted by ZTE. Much like its humble sibling Racer, Orange’s 4.6-ounce offering is loaded with a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 chipset, 3.2 megapixel camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, FM radio, and MicroSD expansion. Yet for the same price, the San Francisco somehow comes with a larger 3.5-inch 480 x 800 OLED capacitive touchscreen. This sure sounds like a tempting deal, but don’t whip out your credit card just yet — we’ll give you a yay or nay once we’ve seen how the phone fares in real life. For now, check out the official promo video after the break.
We’ve already heard how Verizon expects to hit the ground running on LTE, starting this November with a launch in 30 markets — New York, LA, Philadelphia, and so forth. Now it looks like you can add San Francisco to that aggressive list, if Boy Genius Report’s leak proves true. Will it beat WiMAX to the region? Your move, Sprint.
