Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 22:01:53 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Doug Young" <dougy@gargoyle.apana.org.au>, <freebsd@sysmach.com>, <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: dialup modem (some off topic stuff) Message-ID: <002b01c0b295$9815a340$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <04f101c0b254$9c53aba0$8300a8c0@apana.org.au>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Doug Young >Two items to start with .... according to the local Nokia >'boy-wonders" >(and confirmed by a Nokia URL) their DataSuite product turns any Nokia >GSM phone into a "proper" modem. It DOESN'T !!!!!. In fact the thing >ONLY sorta works with Win98. I had problems with it months ago and >came to the conclusion that its yet another rendition of the evil >winmodem >species but it took over 4 months for the techno-morons at Nokia >Finland >to confirm that. > What do you expect from a product designed to be cheap? >The installation was relatively "mission critical" & was only >implememted after >we were assured by local Nokia technical people that there were no >known >issues .... obviously the reason for "no known issues" was that the >Nokia staff >have minimal knowledge of ANYTHING !!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR > >A second issue was substandard reception on a top end Nokia GSM phone. >The distributor replaced the thing once but said it was Nokia's >responsibility >thereafter. It was a few days out of warranty by the time I got it to >them & >needless to say they refused to help (despite knowing it had been bad >since >new). The abortion died totally at 13 months anyway. In many of the >countless >areas here where Nokia GSM phones refuse to work there is usually no >trouble >whatever with even 4 year old Ericsson / Mororola / Siemens products. > The problem with cell phones is that people don't understand d^&k about radio. To get any kind of clear reception and transmission you need to have a good antenna, and a good antenna is a large antenna in a clear field. People don't like handheld phones with 6 inch long slongs sticking out of the top of them, despite the fact that the big poker is a superior antenna. Instead, they want little weenie teeny thingies inside the case of the phone, nicely shielded by all the electronics the antenna is lying against. They also want - COLORS! (Check out the "decorator" phones on Nokia's website) it's like the old joke about Apple Macintoshes that goes "This year the new Wintel machine increased it's processing power tenfold. This year the new Macintosh has .... drumroll..... COLORS!!) It's been years since anyone has produced wireles phones with decent antennas and electronics save military applications. Today they are basically consumer electronics toys intended for women to drop in their purses and for fools to impress each other with. Nokia is basically manufacturing expensive toys to meet this demand. 90% of the applications I've seen people try selling toy phones into are completely inappropriate (like how stupid is it to put a transmitter in a building with metal walls throughout when you can run cable for deskset phones) and 90% of the places I've seen people USE wireless phones in are places where there's no alternative. (like in a vehicle) Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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