Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

AT&T to Complete 3G Rollout by June

Hmm. I would love to see news about the expected expansion of the 3G coverage. I have not been able to find a single drop of good info.

WTB full 3G coverage of existing AT&T service area!!!
 
Peace said:
What I meant by "premium" is AT&T will have bandwidth caps like Verizon and now (gasp ) Comcast. Anything over a set amount and you get charged.
Click to expand...

These caps are usually 5GB a month (for 3G data). I don't have an iphone, let alone a 3G capable phone, so I don't know how reasonable that cap is.
 
ktemkin said:
Arn,

Can you do a better job of explaining some this?

Your post talks about this HSUPA network begin deployed "on [AT&T's] 3G network."

Does that mean that HSUPA IS the 3G network? Or is it a protocol on the network? Is it the thing that makes the 3G network 3G? From this posting, I just do not know.

What is HSUPA? (and not just what it stands-for.) What is the significance of HSUPA?

Your post uses three acronyms: HSUPA, HSDPA and HSPA, but only tells us what the first one stands for.

This almost looks like a reposting of a AT&T press release without any explanation.

Ken
Click to expand...

HSUPA = high-speed upload (or High-Speed Uplink Packet Access to be precise)
HSDPA = high-speed download (or High-Speed Downlink Packet Access)
HSPA = general term covering both HSUPA and HSDPA (and HSOPA)

speeds will vary according to implementation
 
TLewis said:
That's low-end DSL.

Considering all the 3G drooling that's going on, I predict that people will be disappointed with the speed once the 3G iPhone comes out, because (1) 3G is still slow (much better than EDGE, but still slow), and (2) the iPhone's processor is slow (and I haven't seen any rumors regarding a processor speed increase).

I have a somewhat fast DSL line (6.0mbps down, 600k up) with wifi, and I think the iPhone is only marginally usable in terms of speed (wifi, of course). Since AT&T's 3G is significantly slower than my DSL line, I'm definitely not excited about 3G (and please note that AT&T's 3G coverage is significantly less than EDGE).

Of course, there could be other features in the new iPhone that'll make me drool, but 3G is nowhere on my list. :cool:
Click to expand...

Well at least 3G removes the network as the bottleneck.

The processor can get only so much faster without taking a toll on battery life. It's a pocketable device. You're gonna have to make some compromises somewhere.
 
anyone have insight on what at&t means by "markets" when it says that 3g is in 275 markets and will be in 350 by years end?

I'm on the central coast of california (santa cruz area) the sf bay area has great 3g coverage, but it pretty stops at the mountains that separate them from us. My fear is that they will focus on new major areas as their promised 75 more markets rather than expand to the outskirts of their existing markets.

I'm on wifi a lot anyway, so it shouldn't matter, but I wanted to get a new iPhone when it came out, but I can't justify it if I won't be able to use the 3G...unless mine breaks...hmmm.
 
TLewis said:
DSL goes up to at least 6.0Mbps down/600k up (residential). That's what I have, and it's really nice to get 600+Kbytes/sec downloads.
Click to expand...

Actually, my local DSL carrier is upgrading their 'DSL Max' plan to 1Mbit up, 10 Mbit download speeds. It's currently 6Mbit down, 384kbit up. On the download side, you only really see it with bit-torrent style downloads, as few single servers can output that kind of bandwidth. The internet itself is too slow.
 
dongmin said:
Well at least 3G removes the network as the bottleneck.

The processor can get only so much faster without taking a toll on battery life. It's a pocketable device. You're gonna have to make some compromises somewhere.
Click to expand...
True, no argument there.

My post was aimed at all the people who think that 3G is going to make the iPhone really fast ....
 
AT&T better hurry up and have their network up and running. It would suck to have that new 3G iPhone and NO faster than EDGE network to run it on.

And I do hope prices do stay the same. Especially since the current prices are outrageous for the lousy speeds of EDGE.
 
arn said:
800 Kbps up (100K/s up)
1.4 Mbps down (175K/s down)

Not as good as Cable, probably comparable or better than DSL.
Click to expand...

In reality though, it sucked big time. I recently was travelling and bought a laptop connect card and 3G connectivity was spotty at the best and even when connected at 3G speeds the latency was higher than DSL or Cable.

On top of that the driver provided for the express card was so unreliable - 5-6 kernel panics in a day's use. Deeply unfunny.

Hopefully it will get better with 3G iPhones.
 
parapup said:
In reality though, it sucked big time. I recently was travelling and bought a laptop connect card and 3G connectivity was spotty at the best and even when connected at 3G speeds the latency was higher than DSL or Cable.

On top of that the driver provided for the express card was so unreliable - 5-6 kernel panics in a day's use. Deeply unfunny.

Hopefully it will get better with 3G iPhones.
Click to expand...

what do you mean latency was higher than DSL or Cable?
 
in europe we have had video calling since 3G networks were launched, and it doesn't use HSUPA. i don't know exactly how it works, but i think the video is sent like a call rather than like data over an internet connection, and will be billed by the minute rather than by the amount of data send. you ring someone on their normal phone number, you just choose an option on your phone for video call rather than normal call. the majority of 3G phones (but not all) support it, and all 3G networks i can think of in Europe support it, but few people use it as it's expensive and to be honest there isn't much of a demand - however lots of phone manufacturers add it, since in europe most people buy their phones subsidised through carrier and carriers are more likely to subsidise a phone by more if it supports features they think will make them more money, like video calling. if the 3G iphone does support video calling, it seems likely to me that it will do it through this feature of the 3G network rather than as a data connection over HSUPA, since most 3G network outside the US already support video calling in this way.


(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_calling#Current_use for a picture of a 3G phone in europe making a video call, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMTS#Features where it talks of how the UMTS standard - ie. the version of 3G that AT&T uses but without the addiction of any HS... etc. features that speed it up - supports video conferencing)
 
Alkiera said:
Actually, my local DSL carrier is upgrading their 'DSL Max' plan to 1Mbit up, 10 Mbit download speeds...
Click to expand...
Same here. I live in Omaha, and use Qwest for my DSL. I'm paying for their 7mbps/768kbps plan. But in reality, I get more in the range of 8-9mbps down, and over 1mbps up. I'm not sure where in relation to the base node I am, but I'm very pleased with the speeds. The 1.5mbps that I see people quote all the time for DSL speed is basically the slowest you can get around here as far as DSL.
 
parapup said:
In reality though, it sucked big time. I recently was travelling and bought a laptop connect card and 3G connectivity was spotty at the best and even when connected at 3G speeds the latency was higher than DSL or Cable.
Click to expand...
Out of curiosity, would anyone happen to know which frequencies AT&T is using?

The use of 1800MHz or 1900MHz would help to explain the spotty connectivity (the higher the frequency, the more easily it is attenuated ("blocked") by objects such as walls, floors, pipes, mirrors, heater ducts, etc.).
 
i dont recommend using the iPhone as a modem even tho it gets 3G cuz the contract usually excludes the unlimited dataplan for modem use etc

here someone from college used his has a regular modem to download stuff and then he got a bill from vodaphone charging him 30.000 $ lol he didnt have to pay it tho but still shocking
 
ktemkin said:
Arn,

Can you do a better job of explaining some this?
Click to expand...

Sorry if it wasn't clear. someone else mentioned it.

But they've added 3G upload (HSUPA) to their network in all the places they had 3G download (HSDPA), meaning a "complete" HSPA network.

I tweaked it a little to see if it's easier to understand.

arn
 
voodoofish said:
in europe we have had video calling since 3G networks were launched, and it doesn't use HSUPA. i don't know exactly how it works, but i think the video is sent like a call rather than like data over an internet connection, and will be billed by the minute rather than by the amount of data send. you ring someone on their normal phone number, you just choose an option on your phone for video call rather than normal call. the majority of 3G phones (but not all) support it, and all 3G networks i can think of in Europe support it, but few people use it as it's expensive and to be honest there isn't much of a demand - however lots of phone manufacturers add it, since in europe most people buy their phones subsidised through carrier and carriers are more likely to subsidise a phone by more if it supports features they think will make them more money, like video calling. if the 3G iphone does support video calling, it seems likely to me that it will do it through this feature of the 3G network rather than as a data connection over HSUPA, since most 3G network outside the US already support video calling in this way.


(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_calling#Current_use for a picture of a 3G phone in europe making a video call, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMTS#Features where it talks of how the UMTS standard - ie. the version of 3G that AT&T uses but without the addiction of any HS... etc. features that speed it up - supports video conferencing)
Click to expand...

AT&T has half way video calls. They just would have to enable both ways. They use similar means as you described.
 
Thanks for being responsive

arn said:
Sorry if it wasn't clear. someone else mentioned it.

But they've added 3G upload (HSUPA) to their network in all the places they had 3G download (HSDPA), meaning a "complete" HSPA network.

I tweaked it a little to see if it's easier to understand.

arn
Click to expand...

Thanks for being responsive

Ken
 
Fort Wayne, IN

For those in the Midwest, I have heard from the local stores it will be available by the end of August at the latest, but from this link, it would seem it will be happening earlier than that.

-Phil
 
ktemkin said:
Arn,

Can you do a better job of explaining some this?

Your post talks about this HSUPA network begin deployed "on [AT&T's] 3G network."

Does that mean that HSUPA IS the 3G network? Or is it a protocol on the network? Is it the thing that makes the 3G network 3G? From this posting, I just do not know.

What is HSUPA? (and not just what it stands-for.) What is the significance of HSUPA?

Your post uses three acronyms: HSUPA, HSDPA and HSPA, but only tells us what the first one stands for.

This almost looks like a reposting of a AT&T press release without any explanation.

Ken
Click to expand...

HSPA=High Speed Protocol Acces: This represents 3G as a whole.
HSDPA=High Speed Download Protocol Access: This is the download aspect of data transfer. This generally faster.
HSUPA=High Speed Upload Protocol Access: This is the upload aspect of the data transfer. Slower.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back