Bluetooth in M-B article... HUH? (and a recap question)

Jun 23, 2006 | 01:26 AM

JAdmiral

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'07 S550, '03 FXDWG

Bluetooth in M-B article... HUH? (and a recap question)

I came across an article, and I'm not sure what they're trying to announce.

http://www.emercedesbenz.com/Jun06/2...Bluetooth.html

I have the bluetooth module in my S550, and the pairing works great! So, what am I supposed to be getting excited about in this article? Can someone help?

My recap question: Does anyone know if the COMAND radio supports RDS?

Thanks!

Jun 23, 2006 | 10:59 AM

whoover

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Quote:

Originally Posted by JAdmiral

SAP (SIM Access Protocol) is of interest to people with GSM phones. Since US cell-phone systems are not GSM, you would care only if you have a GSM-capable phone because you travel to Europe a lot.

Jun 23, 2006 | 11:29 AM

MB Fanatic

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From: South Orange County, CA

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Quote:

Originally Posted by whoover

SAP (SIM Access Protocol) is of interest to people with GSM phones. Since US cell-phone systems are not GSM, you would care only if you have a GSM-capable phone because you travel to Europe a lot.

WTF are you talking about man? Cingular the nations largest provider in the US is GSM entirely. T-Mobile here in the US is also GSM.

In the US we have CDMA and GSM as the major players in the cell phone market.

Jun 23, 2006 | 12:27 PM

whoover

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Because the European system was always GSM, consumers have been SIM-aware from day one. European carphones have SIM slots; people pull their SIMs from mobile phones and put them in other mobile phones or carphones in order to move identity and phone lists. Bluetooth/SAP is a big improvement.

In the US, GSM is one of three systems in use, and most folks who are on GSM networks don't really know much about the advantages. They use multi-band phones and are vaguely aware of the different networks as part of the complication of roaming. In my experience, the exceptions are the world-travelers. They're the ones who know what the SIM is and how to pull it out of their phones to redeploy it. Perhaps I'm underestimating the speed at which GSM-awareness has come to the US. In any case, my oversimplification was intentional; Europe is almost exclusively GSM, we are not. This means that for most Americans SAP support is not the big deal it is for Europeans. Most Americans use multi-mode handsets which are able to download their phone lists to the existing Bluetooth puck that JAdmiral is uses.

The others probably understood the gist of the announcement.

Jun 24, 2006 | 12:06 AM

MagicO309D

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Quote:

Originally Posted by JAdmiral

While the two new Bluetooth modules will function with the US MHI system, you'll not be able to take advantage of the SIM access profile (SAP) feature in the US. These new BT modules are dual-band and operate on the European cellular frequencies only. Also, at this point, Cingular and T-Mobile do not offer handsets with SAP profile in the US.

There is nothing at all to get excited about until SAP is adopted in the US.

RDS is not supported by any MB headunits.