Ye Still Doubt the GPhone?

Android WiMAX

For any naysayers out there, I bring a little more evidence to help convince you of a VoIP GPhone.Â  In an article titled “Android Comes to WiMAX,” it’s mentioned that Android has been used in VoIP phone calls.

“In early November, D2 and Beceem completed what they claim to be the worldâ€™s first mobile VoIP calls over WiMAX on Android using the Zoom OMAP34x-II mobile development platform (MDP) and a Beceem BSCM250 WiMAX modem with D2â€™s kernel-level embedded voice engine.”


Just wanted to throw that out there for all you guys.Â  Enjoy your daily GPhone fix. This one had me salivating.

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  • Jonny

    This is the evidence? This is getting silly. This is circumstantial at best. Get something concrete and maybe we'll talk.

  • Dave Haynie

    Yeah, I still doubt the GPhone.

    The WiMax people (Clear, which is Sprint, the old Clearwire, Intel, Google, Comcast, and a few others) are in about 30 cities, with fairly spotty coverage right now. Comcast is capping their downlink at 4Mb/s, apparently.. the others (well, Clear and Sprint) claim up to 12Mb/s. Comcast offers 4G-only or 3G/4G, and of course, app Sprint phones are 3G/4G (if they do Wimax at all).

    There's no question about the reality of WiMax as a protocol.. you can buy a WiMax USB dongle just like a WiFi or 3G (any flavor) USB dongle. The standards were pretty much set in 2001. The rollout, however, just started this year. And at best, it's woefully inadequate to pass for "phone" converage.. and will still be in a year or two.

    So no, I don't believe in the Google Phone. Maybe a Google Pocket Computer … hopefully a better name. It's all perspective.

    Back in the early 1990s, I bought a pocket computer. These had been around for awhile.. a friend of mine had owned most of them, but by the time the Palm V out, most people said "PDA". Toe-mae-toe/Toe-mah-toe far as I'm concerned. Some years later, I bought an upgraded one. This one played music and video as good as any iPod, still did the "pocket computer" thing, and had PAN and LAN for connections to other things. I used Opera Mobile to surf the net, occasionally, via WiFi.

    So at some point, some joker at Handspring mated a PDA just like that with a phone modem, one more function, but somehow that got called "phone". Kind of like putting a cooler on my deck and calling my house a nightclub, but whatever. The problem, of course, is that once you call something "phone", it has to have very phone-like properties. It can be a pretty crappy phone like the iPhone, or a decent one like the DROID, but it still had to work as a phone. When I break down in the swamplands of South Jersey, miles from anything reasonably defined as civilization, I had better be able to make a call… that's kind of the point of "phone'.

    There is absolutely no way that WiMax is going to function as "phone" in that capacity in 2011, much less 2010. They're building this network, but it's slow going.

    So, back to Google… they clearly have a stake in Clear, they can far as we know offer WiMax subscriptions in about 30 cities today, which work in at least part of those cities. That might be cool if you sell the device as a computer, it fails completely as a phone. So, if they're doing anything (and let's get this straight… the "artist's concept" of the Google phone fails on multiple points.. you all need to stop showing that, or at least Photoshop the Windows Mobile screen out and put an Android screen in), they should not call it a phone.

    Now, of course, once you say "computer", you can still make "calls". If I put Skype or some other SIP/VoIP thing on my PC, I can make calls. Couple with this Google Voice, and it gets pretty cool. So sure, a Google Pocket Computer (or whatever cool name they produce) might look like a modern smartphone.. but that's only because they haven't been phones in awhile, we just keep saying "phone". But by not calling it a phone, they don't get the telcos as angry at them, and they don't have to answer the "how come I can't make calls in 98% of the USA" question.

  • Bob

    Google can also resell Sprint's 3G… Not as Robust as Verizon's map, but better than ATT's.
    A device capable of connecting to both clear's 4G, and sprint's 3G Google's investment bought them access to, negates any of your concerns.

    • Dave Haynie

      So you're pretty much suggesting that Sprint's offering up 3G access in return for 4G support from more cash rich companies… I saw that Comcast has a 3G option, too. Maybe that's the only way, since Sprint has had issues retaining clients, making money, etc.

      It doesn't negate every concern… they actually have to be voice-based to really work as a phone. You can do VoIP over 3G, sure, and like Verizon, Sprint has an all 3G network, far as I know (it's a gimme on CDMA). But you can't always sustain a 3G connection. There's no way to do VoIP on an "1G" voice/data connection, 14kb/s or less. So they would definitely have a problem if they're not doing "regular cell phone" audio.

      Which they certainly could.. but why would they? At that point, they're really just Sprint with a cool phone. The Google name might work, but they could so that through Sprint if they were just doing a traditional smart phone. With possible even more ROI.

  • Mihai

    I'll believe it when I'll see it. End of discussion.

  • thescarletnecklace

    Ok…this IS getting a little excessive/obsessive. How does this prove any rumors of there being a "Gphone"? Even Google themselves have said that there will not be one. Agreed, Google is very secretive when it comes to these types of things but this is just too much

  • Arasmus

    There is a GPhone. Its is VOIP. But this is not evidence. There are a number of apps, including Fring, that could have had this result.

  • ikilobo

    this is one smart GPhone…