And another point (as I'm on a rant!)
A quick guide to data rates: Data rates are dependant on two things.

1. No of timeslots available (1 timeslot is used per voice call). GPRS can have up to 4 down, 3 up.
2. Amount of data error protection.

The 170Kb 'claim' is for 4 slots, unprotected data and this is true. My main point is this: this is not a real life rate and these claims were really backed off in 2000 as real data rates were seen on GPRS deployments I would be suprised to see these sorts of numbers in official marketing. In reality two timeslots, with moderate data protection will probably get you 35-40kb. This is still a lot better than a GSM data link of 9.6Kb (max) real life dropped packets brought this down further. (Hence the fiasco of GSM WAP but that's another story)

On the other hand phones capable of more timeslots are coming onto the market and the network software allowing for reduced protection coding schemes are providing faster data rates in areas with good signals. So slowly GPRS is evolving and getting faster, closer to the 'holy grail' of 170Kb.

P.S When I refer to protected/unprotected this is datastream error protection, not encryption which is a default of GSM networks (which GPRS uses).

Just a technical point. EGDE is not a software enhancement to GPRS. EDGE uses a different air interface modulation scheme. (GSM and GPRS use the same but protect the data in different ways). I think the change is 4 way to 8 way guassian but I may be wrong on that. The key point is this is a hardware change, not just software. EDGE however has been talked about for a long time 5+ years and some suppliers have built in EDGE hardware capability to their existing Base Station products. Consequently the only work being done is software support - this doesn't necessarily apply to all suppliers rememeber, some may be doing some frantic hardware development as the holy grail of 3G hasn't quite materialised yet!

SBC does WiFi installation (it's an ADSL provider) and Cingular plans to do 3G (well, EDGE) and they're getting together.

The announcement is that: "In addition to establishing hot spots at primary venues, SBC companies also plan to provide a turnkey product that enables small-business customers to quickly become a hot spot and differentiate themselves in the marketplace. The businesses would then offer Wi-Fi access to their customers."