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EDGE isn't slow...

S

skeen

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 12, 2007
264
0
London, England
On various podcasts, and YouTube vids, etc., I've seen american users constantly complaining about the speed of EDGE for the iPhone.

Is this just a US thing? Because EDGE is surprisingly fast here, in the UK, IMO. I even caught a YouTube clip on the way back home on the train, and it only needed about a 10 second preliminary load.

Web browsing seems to go a bit faster than dialup, which is pretty great for general web browsing - a lot of people still use dialup in their homes.

So what's with the complaints? Do other UK users concur that it's pretty fast? And just how slow is it for you americans?
 
D

DenniZ

macrumors 6502a
Oct 5, 2007
676
0
Liverpool, UK
In the UK we have a bigger bandwidth for edge compared to america, although im not sure of the exzact numbers.

I think edge is around 200-300 kb/s

3g in the uk is 384 kb/s i think.
 
FunkyJunk

FunkyJunk

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2007
219
0
Leesburg, VA, USA
It's really not that bad in the U.S. either. The complaints you're seeing are probably mostly from people so used to broadband access that EDGE seems unbearably slow in comparison.

I remember what dial-up access was like, and EDGE is much better than that. I'm quite satisfied with the speed it delivers (given that it's a mobile device) and wouldn't be interested in paying any more for a phone with 3G just for a bump in bandwidth.
 
P

Project

macrumors 68020
Aug 6, 2005
2,297
0
EDGE can theoretically go past regular 3G/UMTS speeds, depending on whether it is a 4 or 8 timeslot implementation. 8 timeslot EDGE can reach over 450kbps. We do not know what O2 is doing.

All I do know is that EDGE on the iPhone is faster than 3G on my Nokia N73. Things like processor, browser rendering speed etc have a lot to do with it too. And the iPhone is pretty much unsurpassed in both of these respects. So the difference between regular EDGE (280kbps) and 3G (380kbs) is negligible in real use.

Now HSDPA on the other hand.... that IS fast. I hope O2 jump straight to it with v2 of the iPhone.
 
Fuchal

Fuchal

macrumors 68030
Sep 30, 2003
2,607
1,086
I have been pretty impressed with the general speed of EDGE (in the US) as well.
 
billchase2

billchase2

macrumors 68000
Feb 28, 2006
1,821
111
Ann Arbor
the EDGE speeds completely depend on where you are at. i've tested it out while on the road with my band. in some areas you get really good speeds... in other areas it is painfully slow.

so to those who have fast EDGE speeds in the US, consider yourself lucky! ;)
 
M

mugwump

macrumors regular
Jan 10, 2004
219
0
There are busy areas in LA where edge barely crawls, times out, or only provides one minute of connectivity. Other areas provide smooth performance and is somewhat enjoyable.
 
Phil A.

Phil A.

Moderator emeritus
Apr 2, 2006
5,799
3,094
Shropshire, UK
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3B48a Safari/419.3)

I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by the speed of edge data. I've used it before on orange and it was painfully slow but o2's implementation is pretty snappy. Subjectively it feels a bit slower than 3g (which is to be expected) but very usable for web browsing and email and pretty good even for youtube.
 
P

phaggard

macrumors regular
Sep 28, 2007
141
2
FYI- You can't use the download speed of a Youtube video for data comparisons. When on Edge, the video quality and size is not the same as on WiFi. Youtube vidoes while on Edge are very poor quality.
 
FunkyJunk

FunkyJunk

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2007
219
0
Leesburg, VA, USA
To have a reasonably objective speed test on the iPhone, you can navigate to http://www.inetworktest.com. There's a web app there that will test the speed of your connection.

My results after two tests:

83.9 kbps at four bars
94.4 kbps at five bars

iNetworkTest says people are reporting average Edge speeds at 210 kbps currently, although how accurate that number is may be questionable. I don't know.
 
S

snook911

macrumors 6502a
Aug 13, 2007
889
0
Yorba Linda, CA
FunkyJunk said:
To have a reasonably objective speed test on the iPhone, you can navigate to http://www.inetworktest.com. There's a web app there that will test the speed of your connection.

My results after two tests:

83.9 kbps at four bars
94.4 kbps at five bars

iNetworkTest says people are reporting average Edge speeds at 210 kbps currently, although how accurate that number is may be questionable. I don't know.
Click to expand...


Thanks for this site I just did the test and at five bars I got 162 in Vegas. Is that good?
 
C

chicagdan

macrumors 6502a
Jan 3, 2002
723
0
Chicago, IL
FunkyJunk said:
To have a reasonably objective speed test on the iPhone, you can navigate to http://www.inetworktest.com. There's a web app there that will test the speed of your connection.

My results after two tests:

83.9 kbps at four bars
94.4 kbps at five bars

iNetworkTest says people are reporting average Edge speeds at 210 kbps currently, although how accurate that number is may be questionable. I don't know.
Click to expand...

My score was 175.3 in Chicago (5 bars.)
 
e²Studios

e²Studios

macrumors 68020
Apr 12, 2005
2,104
5
chicagdan said:
My score was 175.3 in Chicago (5 bars.)
Click to expand...

133kbps 2-3 bars (was going in between the two during the test)

Edge isn't as slow as the whiners here would have you believe it is. It's a phone, I won't be using it like a laptop nor do i hold it to the same standards as a laptop so if it takes me a little more to get a site up I will either deal with it or pre-load the site i need.

I did that with something I needed from Home depot, pre-loaded the site with the item i needed, went to the store, brought up the page and then showed the CSR what i was looking for. Worked out great and it took seconds to bring up the page when I needed it.
 
csi24

csi24

macrumors regular
Nov 20, 2007
202
171
Maryland
snook911 said:
I Thought GPRS was slower then edge?
Click to expand...

I believe it is, that's a pretty crazy speed:eek:. I don't have an iPhone yet but I have a Cingular 8125 and I could load myspace and pages like that pretty quickly. And my phone is over a year old so I'm sure the iPhone should be even faster:D
 
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