Page History

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1. Iridium: catastrophes (Haiti), hard to reach places: expeditions, Arctic …
2. ATT Terrestar hybrid cell & satellite switches to satellite when out of range, covers US, looks like Blackberry, not cheap $799 + $5/month on top of regular voice & data. Calls are $0.65/min. See http://www.pcworld.com/article/172944/terrestar_satellite_phone_coming_to_atandt.html^{Image Removed}
3. Laptops, netbooks (OLPC), smartbooks (kindle,iPADs), Cell phone and smartphones

Cell phones

• History (see http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone4.htm)
  • 2G, 3G (GSM, CDMA), WiMAX, LTE,
• How cell phones work (see presentation)
  • Towers: cost $120-500K, 9mos to 3 years (incl permits & construction), 80’-400’, 20 people
  • Sectors, frequencies (why low is good: potentially 2-3 times more cell towers for same coverage), channels, initial connection, hand-offs, tower radius <=10m in flat areas, often want less (e.g. by reducing power) in cities.
• Importance, growth
  • Mobile telecommunications connections worldwide reached five billion in the first week of July on growth in India and China, and could triple by 2016, PRTM Management Consultants said. Revenue will “probably grow 20 percent to 30 percent in the same time,” Ameet Shah, a consultant for PRTM, said from London in a telephone interview. The current revenue figure is about US$900 billion, according to researcher The Mobile World.
    Operators must change their operating models and may need to merge to survive, Shah said. Instead of concentrating on “high value, high price and low volume” they must focus on “immense scale, low value and low prices,” he said. Some markets have grown to 150%-200% penetration relative to their populations. More penetration than Internet.

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