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Concerned about 02 edge coverage. Is web over GPRS usable?

P

prayforsnow

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 4, 2005
8
0
I was certain, until spending a few hours on here that I would be queuing on friday to buy an iphone but having read the thread below I'm now not so sure.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/364802/

The thread details 02's EDGE upgrades and finding my home town is nowhere near, I'm now concerned that I won't be using my iphone for the no. 1 reason I'll be getting one and the reason I'll be paying such a high contract price - the unlimited data and mobile web access. I know I can still use GPRS but I have questions:

Does anyone know if a) o2 will expand upon the edge network they have created for the launch and b) if they don't is GPRS gonna cut the mustard...cause if its not...I'm struggling to justify the £35 a month for just 200 txts/mins :mad:
 
I’d like to know this as well, I doubt where i live ill have Edge coverage, I’m sided towards getting it on a official o2 Tariff at the moment just because i check the football scores a lot on my phone and it always raises my bill on my current tariff, that and the not having the hassle of getting it unlocked again after every update. It’s just the 200 texts I’d like to have more of with the £35 o2 option as i always seem to go just over. I’m kind of tempted towards unlocking it though as you can get 200 mins and 400 texts with o2 on their website with an option for unlimited data for £7.50 but when you add it up its only £12.50 more for the proper iphone contract for peace of mind but with just less texts.
 
Hi
I've got an iPhone in the UK, unlocked on Tmobile (which doesnt have an EDGE network as far as I know, so must be on GPRS). I'm on firmware 1.1.1.
As an example, I timed going to a few websites:
BBC Sport homepage - 19s to load up all links (but not all pics), 28s to finish page
Macrumors homepage - 29s for links, 35s to finish
Guardian homepage - 32s for links, 1m for what looked like the finished page, but blue bar didnt disappear until 1m 28s

I think those are all pretty useable, but depends how impatient you are. I do think Safari helps - as an ex SonyE M600 and Nokia N95 user, both their browsers were bobbins compared, so takes the edge off not being on 3G.
 
The problem with the £7.50 O2 data tariff is that it may not work with Edge. Details are scarce on this..
 
Web over GPRS is unbearable. Crappy PDA/Mobile friendly site (read:text based) take an age to load, let alone anything with any real weight to it (as you really would want given the great browser).
 
Do you get a cancel period with o2 so you can try it for a couple of days and if it is really slow u can cancel it and get another contract then unlock your iphone.
 
Thanks for the replies

rjackman said:
Do you get a cancel period with o2 so you can try it for a couple of days and if it is really slow u can cancel it and get another contract then unlock your iphone.
Click to expand...

Does anyone know if Apples 14 day return policy is still active with the iphone? I'd also like to try out the speeds before commiting

If i knew my area was going to be upgraded to EDGE in the near future I'd have no problem but the fact they aren't telling us anything makes me think they are doing this 30% now for the short term until iphone v2 with 3G is released and then they will forget all about the EDGE rollout
 
rjackman said:
I’d like to know this as well, I doubt where i live ill have Edge coverage, I’m sided towards getting it on a official o2 Tariff at the moment just because i check the football scores a lot on my phone and it always raises my bill on my current tariff, that and the not having the hassle of getting it unlocked again after every update. It’s just the 200 texts I’d like to have more of with the £35 o2 option as i always seem to go just over. I’m kind of tempted towards unlocking it though as you can get 200 mins and 400 texts with o2 on their website with an option for unlimited data for £7.50 but when you add it up its only £12.50 more for the proper iphone contract for peace of mind but with just less texts.
Click to expand...

Also bear in mind, the 1.1.2 firmware the UK iPhones comes with is not unlockable...currently.
 
I find web over GPRS utterly unbearable, but then I've been used to 3G for years. On the plus side the iphone is pretty good at locking onto nearby wifi hotspots (I have btopenzone through work and devicescape loaded onto the phone to do auto logon*)... so in practice you can get away with avoiding GPRS browsing for the most part.

Macrumors.com timings: WIFI 15 secs. GPRS 44 seconds.

That's a lot faster than I was getting a couple of weeks back.. I wonder if voda have enabled Edge in the local cell tower.

* A locked iphone can't use devicescape so you'd have to factor in the time to login to public hotspots which can be a bit of a pain in the neck, unless you're around lots of 'cloud' hotspots (there are rare as hen's teeth at the moment but maybe that'll improve from all the money they'll be getting off O2).
 
Virgin supply my broadband, so I'm used to GPRS speeds every evening and weekend. Maybe that's why it doesn't bother me so much....
 
I am not so sure what the difference will between the two, but i have noticed on my current phone that my area has been updated to EDGE so I am looking forward to the slight speed increase.

This is new to me because I usually stay away from mobile internet mainly due to the high costs, so for me the iphone is my first experience in the truly mobile internet.
 
emotion said:
The problem here is that O2s 3G coverage isn't much better than their current EDGE deployment (in fact Warrington to Manchester on the train is better catered for by EDGE and the NW is a mobile phone netwrok hotspot).
Click to expand...

I like the sound of this... I live in Warrington! :D
 
"Concerned about 02 edge coverage. Is web over GPRS usable?"
Web over edge is barely usable! Just find a hotspot via the cloud network (thecloud.net) Theres 27 networks within 5 miles of where I live, and I live in the suburbs.
 
TonyHoyle said:
unless you're around lots of 'cloud' hotspots (there are rare as hen's teeth at the moment but maybe that'll improve from all the money they'll be getting off O2).
Click to expand...

Surely you jest? I don't use them at the moment, but from their website it looks like there are loads, e.g. 107 in (what they call) the centre of Manchester.
 
alFR said:
Surely you jest? I don't use them at the moment, but from their website it looks like there are loads, e.g. 107 in (what they call) the centre of Manchester.
Click to expand...

107 in the manchester *area* - their site defaults to 5 miles radius. Indoor hotspots cover one single location. Outdoor ones (there are a few) have about 50 feet radius.

They list 15 within half a mile of the centre. Nearly all of them within pubs.

There are far more BT Openzone hotspots in manchester than cloud (for a time BT were putting wifi phone boxes in the city and there are still a few hanging around).
 
GPRS runs at between 9600bps and 38,400 bps (very, very rarely at this speed: It depends on your device and operator to get these "massive" speeds) or about 0.9K a second. that's about 7% of the speed of Edge or 2.5% the speed of 3G. Compared to ADSL it's about 0.1% of the speed

I personally wouldn't consider GPRS worth even thinking about as a viable way to connect to web sites: You could just about use it with e-mail as long as people only send you short mails :)
 
Phil A. said:
GPRS runs at between 9600bps and 38,400 bps (very, very rarely at this speed: It depends on your device and operator to get these "massive" speeds) or about 0.9K a second. that's about 7% of the speed of Edge or 2.5% the speed of 3G. Compared to ADSL it's about 0.1% of the speed

I personally wouldn't consider GPRS worth even thinking about as a viable way to connect to web sites: You could just about use it with e-mail as long as people only send you short mails :)
Click to expand...

2.5%? Surely it's 0.1% of 3G (3.5Mbps*) and about .04% of ADSL (8Mbps).

Unless my maths is totally out again..

* Assuming cities, which are pretty much all HSPDA now.
 
I've used it for tasks (used loosely):

Checking my bank, FaceBook and GMail, and MR on launch days etc.

But as for surfing? No way.

It's hell.

If you have a 'get in, get out' task, its bearable - but for actual internet surfing and useage - you'd be better to catch the bus to your local library.
 
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