UMTS: Finally Here

Following up on a two-month-ago blog post, Cingular today unveiled the initial 16-city rollout of its 'BroadbandConnect' UMTS cellular data service. The price matches what Sprint and Verizon are charging for EV-DO: $60 when bundled with cellular voice service (2-year contract), $80 standalone. But as Om points out (additional commentary comes from Ars Technica, BetaNews and Engadget), right now the UMTS downstream bandwidth is only one-third to one-half of what EV-DO delivers; a future upgrade to HSDPA will be necessary for the GSM technology to achieve speed parity with the CDMA alternative. Thanks, Cingular, but I think I'll stick with EV-DO, supplemented by T-Mobile's slower-but-cheaper-than-UMTS $20/month EDGE plan and an often-plentiful selection of open Wi-Fi access points.