Wired's Global iPhone 3G Performance Study

[MacRumors]

The folks at Wired.com are compiling an iPhone 3G performace map and are asking iPhone users to participate.

IPhone 3G network performance issues aren't isolated to the United States, and the time has come to collect global data. IPhone 3G owners from around the world: Wired.com needs your help. We've created an interactive ZeeMap, and we'd like you to report your iPhone 3G's 3G and EDGE download and upload speeds. We promise it's easy, and assuming your connections aren't grindingly slow, this should only take you about five minutes.

So, if you have 5 minutes, you can submit your speeds.


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[nickspohn]

They would steal my idea.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=543903

edit: Oh well, the map is slow as hell to load, and some people actually uploaded their actual house address.

[ventro]

SO poorly executed. Why not create a native app that automatically calculates your speed and sends it to them along with lat/long coords, and whether you are actually on an iPhone 3G and not on Wifi? Basically a mobile version of speedtest.net.

Wired is a huge company with millions of dollars, couldn't they hire a programmer?

[iWizzard]

There is no way this will fal out well...

Who is goinig to do this servey? They who never had anny problem, or the people who as experienced problems?

[Sweetbike40]

Originally Posted by ventro

SO poorly executed. Why not create a native app that automatically calculates your speed and sends it to them along with lat/long coords, and whether you are actually on an iPhone 3G and not on Wifi? Basically a mobile version of speedtest.net.

Wired is a huge company with millions of dollars, couldn't they hire a programmer?

Because most companies these days are too CHEAP to hire anyone anymore.

[sebastianlewis]

Originally Posted by iWizzard

There is no way this will fal out well...

Who is goinig to do this servey? They who never had anny problem, or the people who as experienced problems?

If you actually looked at the map (or the map that the first poster made) you'd see a good mix of both. You'd also note that San Diego, California has moved to Russia... heh.

Sebastian

[REBELinBLUE]

Originally Posted by sebastianlewis

If you actually looked at the map (or the map that the first poster made) you'd see a good mix of both. You'd also note that San Diego, California has moved to Russia... heh.

Sebastian

Ah, glad I'm not the only one who had that problem. The first time I did it for Fulham, London it ended up in Norway

[jimN]

It had no problems mapping me. Am pretty pleased that those of us in the UK seem to be getting. The speed at my place is very pleasing and I seem to get a 3G signal more often than an EDGE one.

[nagromme]

Originally Posted by sebastianlewis

If you actually looked at the map (or the map that the first poster made) you'd see a good mix of both. You'd also note that San Diego, California has moved to Russia... heh.

Sebastian

The goal of a USEFUL survey isn't to have a "mix" that looks "good"--it's to have an ACCURATE mix. The survey is NOT useful data on how common any problems are, if a person with a problem is more likely to respond than someone without a problem.

And that's the case. This is NOT a random sample, it's a self-selecting sample. It's part of mini-media-storm that draws those with a problem, and will show a higher rate of problems than reality. The faster/better your connection, the less likely you are to respond to this study.

But even if it can't tell us how common problems are, it may still be useful to compare one geographic region with another. (Such as.... Russia vs. California? )

Beyond that, it sounds like ad bait. All they had to do, at minimum, was announce an iPhone study and NOT say it was about performance. And collect other data so people don't know the performance data is the main goal. And especially, NOT slant participation by actually mentioning performance problems in the lead-in to the study.

When a "study" uses loaded language like "grindingly slow" in its invitation to volunteers, you know you're not talking about something scientific

[jayducharme]

The map crashed Safari on my iPhone when it completed loading. Given the sloppy implementation, I wouldn't put much stake in their survey.

[dasmb]

10 out of 10 for good ideas, but minus a million for execution.

Allowing people to enter their own download times is dumb. Allowing them to enter their own UNITS is beyond stupid.

I mean, right here in the ALB, I see that one guy has blindingly fast edge speeds of 1100 Kbps, while another poor shmuck has horrible speeds of only 137.5 KBps!

At least they're both doing better than this guy whose edge speed is a paltry .14 MBps.

Proving once again that Wired is the best place for mouthbreathing geeks to whine about things they barely understand while being sold vodka.

[jkreileder]

The really strange part with this test is that 3G connections give me far better downstream rates than WIFI connections.
3G connections are about 7.8 times faster than EDGE connections. But WIFI is about the same speed as EDGE!

On upstream connections WIFI clearly wins though.

[pgflmac]

Honestly, I don't think the big problem with iPhone is data speeds as much as it is dropped calls. I was at the Apple Store in SF and they were disabling 3G on dozens of customers phones. The Genius' told me they all had disabled 3G on their phones.

[NDiPodTouch]

I was having problems with the map loading earlier this week, but it seems to be working fine now. Putting the fact aside that users are entering their own info which may or may not be accurate, I think it is hilarious that Cupertino has a red bar indicating low-to-no 3G connection speeds.

[jbode]

The map is slow at times, I agree

it is very helpful when traveling tho even if it takes forever