More Wireless Mobility… This Time In Germany
Seems like there have been a lot of stories the last few days about broadband wireless mobility. The latest, from TheRegister, is that Airdata (a wireless ISP) has installed a base station on a Berlin hotel for their “PortableDSL” using IP Wireless’ UMTS TDD technology. Unlike WiFi, the fact that this base station is installed in a Hotel does not mean that the signal is limited to the Hotel — though, the article doesn’t say anything about range. The Stuttgart networks of Airdata has coverage to a maximum radius of 8Km in free air. Airdata’s speeds are up to 1024Kbps downstream for a flat-rate price as low as 20 Euros. (Funny that speeds are always “up to” but prices are always “as low as.”) TheRegister somewhat confuses the technology issues, by writing “PortableDSL can easily compete with UMTS” when it actually IS UMTS, just the TDD (Time Division Duplex) variant. They are likely intending to compare the data-designed TDD variant against the voice-centric FDD (Frequency Division) variant which is used by Vodafone for data in Germany. Although from the product name “PortableDSL” it seems obvious Airdata plans to compete FDD and with DSL, too.
