AT&T BroadbandConnect (HSDPA) review by pcmag

AT&T's high-speed network has come a long way in the past year. It's the only real option for globe-trotting businesspeople who spend time in Europe, and it's got some unique features, such as the ability to talk and transmit data at the same time. Still, for U.S.-bound users, coverage isn't quite up to Verizon's and Sprint's levels.

AT&T's high-speed network is based on HSDPA, which is an upgrade to UMTS—which, surprisingly, isn't an upgrade to the GSM network that AT&T and its predecessors have been using for years now. In fact, it's a whole new network, based on a different kind of technology that's more like (but not compatible with) Verizon and Sprint's CDMA than AT&T's old GSM system.

The current round of HSDPA offers, in theory, 3.6-Mbps downloads and 384-Kbps uploads, with latency of 50 to 100 ms and the ability to do simultaneous voice and data connections. Since it isn't GSM, it also gets rid of the "GSM buzz" you often hear when you use GSM phones near consumer audio or laptop speakers.

Of course, those speeds are theoretical, but I've still gotten very good speeds on AT&T's current network. Testing in New York in May, I recorded average download speeds of 967 Kbps, with peaks at 1.63 Mbps and latency generally around 230 to 240 ms. Upload speeds usually hovered in the 350-Kbps range. Those download speeds are on a par with what I've seen from Verizon's and Sprint's EV-DO Rev A networks, though those networks allow for faster upload speeds; I've observed 800 Kbps on a good day.

You can connect your laptop to AT&T's network using PC Cards, ExpressCards, USB dongles, or embedded modules, or by tethering to a phone. The Motorola RAZR V3xx is the only phone I've confirmed so far that can get the maximum speeds out of the network, because other phones use older, 1.8-Mbps chipsets rather than the new 3.6-Mbps chips. More phones with 3.6-Mbps chipsets should be coming soon, though. If you tether with a phone, you should use USB rather than Bluetooth, as the network exceeds the 500-Kbps Bluetooth transfer rates you get on most phones today.

The network isn't just for laptops. Handhelds such as the Samsung BlackJack and Cingular 8525 benefit from HSDPA's ability to do voice and data connections simultaneously—you can chat on a Bluetooth headset and surf the Web at the same time, something you can't do on Sprint's and Verizon's networks. It's a definite plus for smartphone users. That ability to multiplex voice and data will also come in handy with AT&T's new video-sharing service, debuting this summer. Sprint and Verizon can't match that service, either.

AT&T seems to have a muddier idea of how to make HSDPA pay off for media delivery, though. The company's music and video strategy is less streamlined than that of the two other high-speed carriers. It has no downloadable full-track music store, and in my experience, its MobiTV video application showed jerkier video than Sprint's or Verizon's alternatives. Most disappointingly, HSDPA won't be available at all on AT&T's new flagship media phone, the Apple iPhone.

AT&T now has HSDPA in at least one city in each of 37 U.S. states and territories, but Sprint and Verizon both have more coverage. For instance, AT&T covers only Milwaukee in Wisconsin; the two competitors have Madison, and Verizon works in Green Bay. AT&T covers only Louisville in Kentucky, where the two competitors also have Lexington. In Oregon, AT&T has Portland, but the competitors add Eugene and Salem. In Indiana, both AT&T and Sprint have Gary and Indianapolis, but you'll have to go to Verizon for high-speed coverage in Evansville, Fort Wayne, or South Bend.

What AT&T has that its competitors don't is global reach. Because HSDPA and EDGE are popular standards worldwide, its handsets and cards work in 95 countries, with high-speed connections in more than 40—including Canada, Mexico, and most of Western Europe. Though Sprint and Verizon roam to Canada and Mexico, they don't go to Europe. AT&T offers a $109.99/month plan with 100MB of data in Canada and Mexico, and a $139.99/month plan with 100MB of data in a bunch of other popular countries, including Australia, Japan, and several European countries. After you hit 100MB, though, data costs a painful $5/MB. We took a laptop with an AT&T card to Spain, and we were happy to see speeds in the 300-Kbps range, with peaks of over 600 Kbps.

For folks staying in the U.S., AT&T's prices land between Sprint's and Verizon's. Laptop connection rates are the same as with the other two carriers, at $59.99/month. Cingular's smartphone plan, though, is much cheaper than Verizon's, at $19.99/month; Verizon charges $44.99, and Sprint charges $15.

The global scale of HSDPA also promises a wider range of available devices than on Sprint and Verizon, but so far, the promise hasn't been realized. Nokia and Sony Ericsson, especially, have churned out a range of exciting 3G phones for Europe, but their high-speed capabilities don't work on AT&T's frequency bands. All we here get from those two high-end manufacturers is the lackluster Nokia N75. RIM has also developed high-speed BlackBerrys for Sprint and Verizon, but none for AT&T. Sony Ericsson promises more high-speed phones for the U.S. later this year, so maybe we'll see more then.

I'm thrilled to see three strong competitors in the race to cover the U.S. with wide-area, high-speed Internet access. For now, for U.S. users, I still rate Verizon's network as the ultimate business tool. But especially if you're looking to buy a Windows Mobile smartphone or travel abroad regularly, HSDPA should immediately become part of your business vocabulary.

Twitter Review PC MAG

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Twitter's overnight Internet fame stems from one simple question: "What are you doing?" You have 140 characters of text to answer, and as soon as you hit Update, the site's millions of users can see what you're up to. This small idea has blossomed into a hugely popular phenomenon, with its users covering the entire Earth, developers creating scores of helper apps for it, and a raft of imitation sites. This is the "social-networking and microblogging" site where you can read fascinating and mundane quick takes such as "ate a piece of cherry pie" or "just had a great workout." But despite the service's seemingly trivial function, which causes many to snub it and can at times make it akin to listening to other peoples' cell-phone conversations, Twitter fills a gap left by other forms of communication.

After a simple sign-up involving the standard username, password, e-mail, and CAPTCHA entries, you can join the conversation, adding text to the "What are you doing?" box. Each Twitter entry, aka "tweet", is followed by a time stamp and its source. Clicking on the time stamp brings up a page of the tweet alone. If you don't want everyone in the world to be able to see your tweets, you can make them private and visible only to people you approve by checking the Protect my updates box. It's all or nothing: All your posts will be either public or private. I'd prefer to see more options that would let you make some posts public and others private. It doesn't seem as if this would be particularly difficult to implement—blogs have had this ability for years.

But posting via the Web site is hardly the whole story. Since the post size limit fits within the SMS 160-character limit, one of the features that adds immediacy to Twitter is the ability to update your posts from a cell phone. You can do this by sending a message to the service's short code, 40404, after you've verified your phone number. (Short codes should be familiar to you from TV promotions that ask you to vote via text message—these are reserved numbers that work just like telephone numbers.) Finally, you can make a post through AIM, Jabber, Gmail, .Mac, or LiveJournal instant messaging. This misses a couple of the big IM names—Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger—but it still covers a lot of ground. Oddly, when I sent a post from IM, it was marked "from Web" at the end. If you send from your phone, the tag says "sent from txt."

Once you enter a tweet you can't edit it, but you can delete it by clicking the trash-can icon. A star next to every post lets you designate it as a favorite, and you can access all your favorite posts by clicking the Favorite link under Stats on the right sidebar. There's no way to search posts based on text—something I think limits the usefulness of the site—but it's a limitation shared by Jaiku.

In addition to being able to view everyone's public Twitter posts, you can "follow" another user, which means his or her posts will appear in your Home page timeline, and you'll have the option to receive text messages or IMs to alert you of your followed one's posts. To find people to follow, you can click on Find & Invite at the top of the page. From here you can search for Twitter users in your Gmail address book, invite new friends, or search existing Twitterers. Once you find other users you can opt to follow them. You can also add people to follow on your phone. The icons of all the users you're following will appear at the bottom of your right-hand sidebar. If there's someone in cyberland that you don't want to be followed by or don't want as a friend, you can go to that person's page and choose the Block link.

To respond to a post that strikes a chord in you, there are two options: You can reply publicly or Direct Text the original Twitterer. To reply publicly, Twitter uses another fairly counterintuitive method: You have to begin your response with "@" prefixed to the username of the Twitterer you want to reply to. This will be familiar to posters on non-threaded discussion boards, but I'd prefer a simple "Reply" link. Jaiku's Comments feature handles this better, despite the argument that everything posted in these microblogs is a comment, so why the need for a separate comment feature?—Next: The Twitter Phenomenon