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3G Service *Can* Be Fast...

9

99X

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 10, 2008
7
0
So I was talking with an AT&T employee that deals with the 3G/EDGE networks and asked him how much faster 3G is from the EDGE. He said that 3G can be faster then EDGE as long as people aren't hitting the same site(tower) a lot. Meaning, if you live in a relatively dense area with few towers, if lots of people are on it, it won't be much faster at all.

I'm sure most of you know this, but I wanted to give a heads up to those who didn't. So, this makes me wonder how much faster the 3G iPhone will be. I know it'll be faster, obviously, but the difference might not be as significant as on their keynote.
 
In my experience (5 years EVDO, 18 mos HSDPA), 3G will be a minimum of 2 x faster than your best Edge day, and may be up to 10 times faster in some conditions (250 kbps - 1.2mbps). Worst speeds tend to be in urban settings during the business day. Best speeds during non-business hours in the same locations.
 
Yes, but 3G actually has a very high speed if you let it. Certain cell providers lock it down to around 7.2mbps (I think that's in Europe) or 3mbps, AT&T has locked it down t 1.4mbps. :(
 
extraextra said:
Yes, but 3G actually has a very high speed if you let it. Certain cell providers lock it down to around 7.2mbps (I think that's in Europe) or 3mbps, AT&T has locked it down t 1.4mbps. :(
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For battery reasons, apparently. The faster you download, the more power it uses.
 
Kupe said:
In my experience (5 years EVDO, 18 mos HSDPA), 3G will be a minimum of 2 x faster than your best Edge day, and may be up to 10 times faster in some conditions (250 kbps - 1.2mbps). Worst speeds tend to be in urban settings during the business day. Best speeds during non-business hours in the same locations.
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yay someone with actual EXPERIENCE... so many people throw claims around without having any idea what their talking about. Thanks for the insight, i live in orlando and i'm anxious to see how strong the signal is around here so im gonna wait till my friend gets his v2 iphone and decided whether to upgrade from there :D
 
I've been using EVDO for a year on my Helio Ocean. In the heart of downtown Seattle, I've never once gotten a slow speed. The couple times I did a speed check, it averaged 1.4 mbps.
 
Kupe said:
In my experience (5 years EVDO, 18 mos HSDPA), 3G will be a minimum of 2 x faster than your best Edge day, and may be up to 10 times faster in some conditions (250 kbps - 1.2mbps). Worst speeds tend to be in urban settings during the business day. Best speeds during non-business hours in the same locations.
Click to expand...

Not trying to be argumentative or anything, but I'm not sure I understand your numbers. My "best EDGE day" is around 215-220 kbps. I'm not getting that today, but I get it not entirely infrequently. Are you saying that, based on your experience, HSPA will pretty much always be twice that fast -- i.e. never worse than about 430 kbps? That seems inconsistent with what others have been reporting about AT&T's HSPA service... (I admit I've never owned an HSPA device).
 
mkrishnan said:
Not trying to be argumentative or anything, but I'm not sure I understand your numbers. My "best EDGE day" is around 215-220 kbps. I'm not getting that today, but I get it not entirely infrequently. Are you saying that, based on your experience, HSPA will pretty much always be twice that fast -- i.e. never worse than about 430 kbps? That seems inconsistent with what others have been reporting about AT&T's HSPA service... (I admit I've never owned an HSPA device).
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215-220 is a good speed for EDGE (in the field, EDGE tends to max out at ~236kbps). In any case, you should expect routine speeds over 500kbps with HSDPA which, in your case, is 2x faster. My BJ2 gets up to 700kbps (measured at DSL Reports) internally and up to 900kbps tethered to a MacBook. My EVDO (Verizon) Pearl consistently gets 600-700kbps internally and ~450kbps tethered (via BT) to my MacBook (BT throughput being the long pole in the tent).

HSDPA seems to vary in speed more than EVDO here in DC, but that's probably just an impression. Most tests show HSDPA to be consistently faster. As measured by Speedtest, both services have ~150ms latency, but beyond that, the services feel a lot like average home service DSL in typical usage.
 
I compared the data speed of my edge treo 680 to my friends Palm centro on sprints 3g network. My edge averaged 70-80 kb/s and the 3g 300kb/s. its much faster no matter what.
 
NextG and the other 3G networks here keep mobile phone data downloads to around the 1.4Mbps, tethered modems for mobile broadband on computers are currently running at 7.2Mbps. They'll be up to 14.4Mbps by later this year and 40+Mbps next year.
 
Chundles said:
NextG and the other 3G networks here keep mobile phone data downloads to around the 1.4Mbps, tethered modems for mobile broadband on computers are currently running at 7.2Mbps. They'll be up to 14.4Mbps by later this year and 40+Mbps next year.
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Wow! Here in the States, you would hit AT&T Wireless' 5GB limit at about 12:20 AM on the first day of your billing period at 40mbps!
 
Kupe said:
Wow! Here in the States, you would hit AT&T Wireless' 5GB limit at about 12:20 AM on the first day of your billing period at 40mbps!
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Yes but you wouldn't pay for any of that. Here you'd have to hand over your first born for the first 50MB (that's MB not GB) and then they would have to do the same likewise for generations by the time you'd finished downloading the second volume of "Rick Astley's Greatest Hits."

It's fast but it's far too expensive, even for businesses to be of any use.
 
Chundles said:
Yes but you wouldn't pay for any of that. Here you'd have to hand over your first born for the first 50MB (that's MB not GB) and then they would have to do the same likewise for generations by the time you'd finished downloading the second volume of "Rick Astley's Greatest Hits."

It's fast but it's far too expensive, even for businesses to be of any use.
Click to expand...
Ah - good point.

Are you sure "Rick Astley's Greatest Hits" would take more than a couple of megabytes? ;)
 
I can download torrents on my Nokia N95 connected to my Mac via USB at around 300KB/s = 2.4Mbit/s sustained. My device and network are limited to 3.6Mbit/s.

Like the iPhone, using the phone is slower than this would suggest, as its CPU and flash can't keep up.

On our countries flagship network, they claim real world speeds of 2Mbit at 200km from the base station using an external antenna. *
 
Chundles said:
Yes but you wouldn't pay for any of that. Here you'd have to hand over your first born ... too expensive, even for businesses to be of any use.
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You're not in the same Australia I'm in?? 3G data is incredibly cheap in Australia.

$15 for 1GB - Three
5GB for $39 including free modem - Vodafone

You can't get dialup and a phone line at these prices, let alone ADSL.

And your town Woolongong has 3G covered by Optus now (2100MHz) and Vodafone in a couple of months (900MHz).

Of course Telstra is expensive (850MHz) but we have three other 3G providers for people who don't need the 98.8% population coverage.
 
retroneo said:
You're not in the same Australia I'm in?? 3G data is incredibly cheap in Australia.

$15 for 1GB - Three
5GB for $39 including free modem - Vodafone

You can't get dialup and a phone line at these prices, let alone ADSL.

And your town Woolongong has 3G covered by Optus now (2100MHz) and Vodafone in a couple of months (900MHz).

Of course Telstra is expensive (850MHz) but we have three other 3G providers for people who don't need the 98.8% population coverage.
Click to expand...

in usa its $30 so how is australia cheap
 
eplchamps0304 said:
in usa its $30 so how is australia cheap
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Remind why the f*** I still live in Canada... For your unbelieving eyes, here are the Rogers data plan monthly fees...

Plan 1 : 15$ for 2MB/month, 10$ per additional MB (yes... MB)
Plan 2 : 25$ for 4MB, 10$ per additional MB
Plan 3 : 40$ for 8MB, 7$ per additional MB
Plan 4 : 60$ for 30MB, 7$ per additional MB
Plan 5 : 80$ for 500MB, 3$ per additional MB
Plan 6 : 100$ for 1GB, 1$ per additional MB


Enjoy your data; I know I can't afford it.
 
ins0mniaque said:
Enjoy your data; I know I can't afford it.
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I'm really curious to see how long it takes Rogers to follow up their useless / smokescreen offering of unlimited data (as long as you do NOT use a smartphone :rolleyes: ) with a genuine unlimited data offer for smartphones in general, like the rest of the modern world. We really feel for you guys. :eek: (P.S. if I whine on your behalf, I can has Tim Hortons? :D )

The iPhone plan they're unveiling this summer is unlimited data, though, right? Onerous 3 year contract, but....
 
All these speeds are HSDPA speeds though right?
I live in a 3G area, but not a HSDPA area (UK), so who much slower do you reckon it'll be for me in real world situations?
I'm worried it won't really be any better than the current iPhone.
 
I am Sampson said:
All these speeds are HSDPA speeds though right?
I live in a 3G area, but not a HSDPA area (UK), so who much slower do you reckon it'll be for me in real world situations?
I'm worried it won't really be any better than the current iPhone.
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In the UK O2 have 3G speeds at upto 384Kbps which is ok for surfing the net and emails tbh

O2 did roll out HSDPA in January this year and are cabable of speeds upto 3.6Mbps but I don't know how reliable that is in terms of coverage normal 3G will be fine in the UK
 
I've seen some people say they can get around 250k on the current iPhone so if the new one can only go at 384k (and obviously thats a tech max, not real world) then its not really much faster. Does seem my concerns may have some weight (annoyingly!)
It'd only be for the people in HSDPA areas where the real speed kicks in (like a friend of mine in milton keynes... i hate him).
 
ins0mniaque said:
Remind why the f*** I still live in Canada... For your unbelieving eyes, here are the Rogers data plan monthly fees...

Plan 1 : 15$ for 2MB/month, 10$ per additional MB (yes... MB)
Plan 2 : 25$ for 4MB, 10$ per additional MB
Plan 3 : 40$ for 8MB, 7$ per additional MB
Plan 4 : 60$ for 30MB, 7$ per additional MB
Plan 5 : 80$ for 500MB, 3$ per additional MB
Plan 6 : 100$ for 1GB, 1$ per additional MB


Enjoy your data; I know I can't afford it.
Click to expand...

how can they charge that much!
thats some serious price gouging
 
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