FAQ

watty

What is Midband?

Midband describes the technologies that are better or faster or more on than Dialup / Basic ISDN (up to 128k) which is officially known as "Narrowband" but that are also not up to the spec of Broadband.

5 years ago Broadband meant

• > 512k bits per second download speed
• < 100ms Latency (ping time)
• Always on and flat rate.

Many International regulators increased minimum speed to 768kbps or 1024kbps (1Mbps). Our own Government Broadband committee in 2004 thought that 10Mbps would be a basic spec for Broadband by 2008, certainly 5Mbps by 2006.
http://broadband.oireachtas.ie/

Most experts would thus regard Midband today as
Less than 1Mbps download
OR
More than 100ms latency
OR
No guarantee of connection




Narrow band is less than 128kbps (dialup / ISDN) and in Ireland is still not flatrate always on even for ISDN/Dialup replacement where a line fails DSL. Narrowband costs more than DSL or even two way Satellite. Basic GSM is Narrowband as it is 14.4kbps or 28.8kbps and GPRS on GSM is about 56kbps.

watty

Midband Technologies:
EDGE (on GSM)
3G, also known as UMTS and W-CDMA
HSDPA, HSUPA or HSPA+ on 3G
EVDO (USA)
EDGE 2
Ripwave
Nextwave's IPW (Czech Republic)
Most Mobile Wimax, but not Fixed Wireless.
Thuraya Satellite (144Kbps, just beats ISDN!)
Inmarsat portable satellite terminal
Fixed Two way Satellite. (One way Satellite is a download accelerator for Dialup, so is Narrowband).
WiFi type technologies outdoors (your home WiFi is fast as range is small and only a handfull of users).
F-OFDM Mobile. (F-OFDM fixed systems can be Broadband)

"Up to" speeds are often meaningless for Wireless based systems as the Marketing usually quotes the capacity of the whole mast sector (A pie slice of users). Wireless speeds are ALWAYS shared between the users. CDMA based systems such as 3G/HSDPA, IPW and EVDO scale badly losing over 1/2 the speed in overheads due to "code interference" or reduction in signal speed due to distance.

Almost all Mobile or Nomadic Wireless systems use a much slower speed farther from the mast to combat loss of signal strength. This again means the "Up to" speed is for less than 1/4 of users by Geography even if only one user connects as twice the distance is 1/4 the signal and thus a bit less than 1/4 speed.

jor el

Midband products available on the Irish market:

Three Broadband - wireless on their 3G mobile network, good nationwide coverage.
O2 Broadband - wireless on their 3G and 2G/EDGE network (very good nationwide coverage).
Vodafone Broadband - wireless on their 3G/2G network, Vodafone also offer DSL (actual broadband) but this should not be confused with their 3G product (has very good nationwide coverage).
Clearwire - Wireless, but no mobile, as it requires mains power, and has limited geographical coverage.
Irish Broadband (now owned by Imagine) Ripwave - wireless, but same as Clearwire, needs mains power and has limited geographical coverage. Not to be confused with Irish Broadband Breeze, which is fixed wireless (aerial on the roof) and more a different technology.

3G mobile products are advertised as Broadband, but they are actually Midband. Don't fool yourself into thinking they are broadband, because they're not. However, they can be extremely good products, when used in their intended form. A fixed line, or fixed wireless, broadband substitute, they are NOT. They are a complimentary solution, for mobility.

The following is subject to correction/confirmation. watty is quite knowledgeable of 3G, so might confirm, or correct, my information:

3G suffers from an inherent contention issue, which will reduce the available speed dramatically, with number of users connected in a mobile sector. Typically, a mobile sector offers 3.7Mbps, to one user. If more than one user connects to that sector, then the speed is shared, however, it is not divided down by the number of users, it actually gets lower again. At 20 users in one sector (mathematically would be 3,700,000 / 20 = 185,000 bps per user) the speed could actually be below dial up (<56,000bps).

3G sector cells also "breath", meaning that the more users connected, the smaller the cell area becomes. If you are at the edge of a sector, you could find yourself outside coverage when other users, within that cell, connect, as it will shrink.

I'll let someone else continue with other products, as I'm not familiar with them myself.

smellslikeshoes

watty wrote: »

Midband Technologies:
EDGE (on GSM)
3G, also known as UMTS and W-CDMA
HSDPA, HSUPA or HSPA+ on 3G
EVDO (USA)
EDGE 2
Ripwave
Nextwave's IPW (Czech Republic)
Most Mobile Wimax, but not Fixed Wireless.
Thuraya Satellite (144bps, just beats ISDN!)
Inmarsat portable satellite terminal
Fixed Two way Satellite. (One way Satellite is a download accelerator for Dialup, so is Narrowband).
WiFi type technologies outdoors (your home WiFi is fast as range is small and only a handfull of users).

Flash-OFDM should be on that list too, ie Digiweb's mobile offering.

watty

Why are these here?
Midband reason in Bold.
Broadband feature in Italics

Satellite:

• Always connects,
  
• typically better than 1Mbps.
• Latency (Ping) greater than 750ms.

EDGE/3G/HSDPA/HSUPA/HSPA+ Mobile:

• Up to 3.6, 7.2 or 14.4Mbps.
• Can be less than 150kbps,
  
• Latency (Ping) 120ms to 2000ms.
• May not connect and not always on.

Ripwave (NOT Breeze):

• Up to 2Mbps
• Can be less than 100kbps
  
• Latency often 100ms to 1800ms
• May not connect

barnicles

What IP address will you be given with mobile broadband?

Vodafone : Not entirely sure. A mod can edit this.

O2 : Everytime you connect you are given a new IP. The most IPs are in the 89.204.xxx.xxx range.

Meteor : Meteors trial currently runs through one proxied IP

Three Ireland : Three currently has all users on one IP which is blacklisted and proxied

barnicles

watty wrote: »

Midband Technologies:

Thuraya Satellite (144bps, just beats ISDN!)
.

Should that be kbps?