New Phone Purchase.. (EDGE High Speed on which Phone?)

[truz]

I'm currently with Cingular (30 days is not up yet) I'm thinking about sending the phone back as in certin area's of my phone the call will drop. I also purchased the 8125 pda and the wireless internet seems a bit slow (on the pda and on my laptop) I used the phone as a modem which I was told if I did this I needed to upgrade my plan to the $70/month plan so I can use the phone as a modem and have unlimited internet, I find the speeds to be the same as dialup and at sometimes, it may be a little faster (9-10k) but uploads are slower or as slow as dialup so when processing websites they seem to delay when loading as I'm guessing it's sending data and then receiving data which I think takes longer then dialup.

Anyways, I was planning on trying Verizon as they offer a 15 day no contract to test there service, 100% refund if your not happy, just pay for used service (prorated).

My question, Which phone supports high speed internet so I can use my cell phone as a modem and connect to there edge network.

I was looking at the Samsung A990 it says it supports broadband and I'd like to have a small phone over a pda, I always have my laptop in the truck so a quick run to the truck from whenever I am and I'm on the net checking whatever.. I would want email on my phone tho, for alerts on when one of my servers go offline. My wife wants the Motorola KRZR K1m, this phone is nice and also cheaper then the samsung, which phone would you recommend for using high speed in the verizon areas it's supported?

EDIT: not sure if sprint or verizon is the edge network I'm sure you know what I mean tho.. I think verizon is the ev-do?

 

[flir67]

take it back, cingular WILL NOT let you upgrade until 4 months before your 2year service is up. which I think is nuts.

get prepaid for now if you want try cingular and buy a unlocked phone off ebay.

thats just my 2cents.

I have cingular and so bad want to upgrade but the customer reps just say too bad. so I've had to go the ebay way.

verizon has highspeed internet cards for laptops. my friend tells me he was downloading at 128 for there high speed internet. . I know that sucks but its better than dial up.

 

[Clydefrog]

how about sprint, i heard they upgraded their service the other day.

 

[truz]

I did a test speed with cingular and it's faster then dialup.. but still slow, works for email and surfin the web a little bit..

I'm not worried about upgrading phones, I have insurance I'll toss that baby out the windows and pay $50 for a new upgraded model.

I'd like to try verizon out.. I just don't know if the speeds are going to be great for wireless on the road. I guess cingular will do, I like the roll over minutes idea..

 

[CubeHacker]

I don't think Verizon uses edge since they use CDMA wireless service. Only TMDA uses Edge, and the speeds you are seeing is pretty much the max it goes (150kbps, give or take). However, Verizon offers something called EVDO which has speeds up to 3mbps, or as fast as DSL service. I'm not sure on the price of this, and what equipment you need, I just know both Verizon and Sprint offer it.

 

[hikeNM]

I'm currently with Cingular (30 days is not up yet) I'm thinking about sending the phone back as in certin area's of my phone the call will drop. I also purchased the 8125 pda and the wireless internet seems a bit slow (on the pda and on my laptop) I used the phone as a modem which I was told if I did this I needed to upgrade my plan to the $70/month plan so I can use the phone as a modem and have unlimited internet, I find the speeds to be the same as dialup and at sometimes, it may be a little faster (9-10k) but uploads are slower or as slow as dialup so when processing websites they seem to delay when loading as I'm guessing it's sending data and then receiving data which I think takes longer then dialup.

Anyways, I was planning on trying Verizon as they offer a 15 day no contract to test there service, 100% refund if your not happy, just pay for used service (prorated).

My question, Which phone supports high speed internet so I can use my cell phone as a modem and connect to there edge network.

I was looking at the Samsung A990 it says it supports broadband and I'd like to have a small phone over a pda, I always have my laptop in the truck so a quick run to the truck from whenever I am and I'm on the net checking whatever.. I would want email on my phone tho, for alerts on when one of my servers go offline. My wife wants the Motorola KRZR K1m, this phone is nice and also cheaper then the samsung, which phone would you recommend for using high speed in the verizon areas it's supported?

EDIT: not sure if sprint or verizon is the edge network I'm sure you know what I mean tho.. I think verizon is the ev-do?

Pardon my deep ignorance here, but I've always wondered this. What hardware is needed to use a cell phone as a modem? I would really like to be able to use my iBook with my cell phone as a modem.

 

[SpankyPenzaanz]

take it back, cingular WILL NOT let you upgrade until 4 months before your 2year service is up. which I think is nuts.

verizon has highspeed internet cards for laptops. my friend tells me he was downloading at 128 for there high speed internet. . I know that sucks but its better than dial up.

They let me upgrade 6 months into my contract when the palm treo 650 came out. They ran my credit and I renewed my contract and I got a treo 650 when they came out. As for speed my treo gets fantastic speed and when I had my powerbook I used it as a bluetooth modem(not dialup the highspeed serivec) and it worked great. now I just uses it as my main mobile platform now that i have a imac.

 

[truz]

SpankyPenzaanz, you using cingular? Also, did you have to pay the $70/month free for the modem use or just paying the $39.95 or whatever for internet on your pda?

 

[mleary]

I don't think Verizon uses edge since they use CDMA wireless service. Only TMDA uses Edge, and the speeds you are seeing is pretty much the max it goes (150kbps, give or take). However, Verizon offers something called EVDO which has speeds up to 3mbps, or as fast as DSL service. I'm not sure on the price of this, and what equipment you need, I just know both Verizon and Sprint offer it.

TDMA does not use EDGE and TDMA is also a pretty much dead technology. Cingular is GSM and EDGE is GSM. Cingular is in the process of rolling out a 3G network (mostly just in metro area's right now i believe) which gives similar speeds to Verizion's EVDO. Of course you need a 3g capable device and be in an area where the network is 3G to obtain these speeds.

 

[mleary]

Back to the original question, most of Cingular's phones can support EDGE now and some have 3G support. phonescoop.com is a great site to check phone specs.

 

[Steve Jobless]

evdo > edge

and i use t-mobile (which sucks but has $6 unlimited use, you have to make a work arounds to get it to work though)

 

[tarjan]

EVDO has quoted avg speeds of 400-800kb/s, those are real in world speeds and not marketing fluff. I avg around 800 to a meg off my sprint 8703e blackberry based on a few speed testers I have run. Works fine for me in nyc, dc, chicago, and a bunch of other airports and cities I visit for work. Sprint is also rolling out the evdo network everywhere, and not just a few cities. The service is unlimited, where VZs is unlimited until you download too much, then it gets shut off. At least thats what those letters they sent to a bunch of people said... (and to boot, the modem access is included on blackberries in sprint and extra money on the other companies blackberries! True, if you are looking at a regular phone the story is different, but hey I love my blackberry.)

I asked the company that does the blackberry software for a mac if they were working on a modem port mapper over the usb cable like they do in the windows world, and they did respond yes. No timeframes, but I'll be doing a little dance the day I see that!


EDGE avg speed is around 180kb/s IIRC, and that requires a fairly free network to get those speeds (19.2k per channel gprs, speed x3 for edge. 30 or so channels per cell tower, max attach is 10 channels I believe, for an absolute max around 600kb/s before bit error correction which effectively brings max down to 400kb/s then add in channel use and switching times and you get back down to 4-5 channels being a realistic max attach yadda yadda) . Suffice it to say the basic network technology is VERY different and it is extremely hard to get high speeds on gsm/gprs. Edge works best in high density areas with lots of channels available on your cell tower, but remember that those channels are set prioritizing voice, so add some callers on and you lose your channels and you cant split them between towers. It is also very dependant on distance, if you are not close to a cell tower you wont get high speed as the bit error rate rises quickly and you drop to gprs.

HSDPA is a different story, but then location is a problem until the network gets built out

 

[MSD401]

the place for phone knowledge.....

www.howardforums.com


...i love my unlocked qtek 9100 on cingular.....its all you could ever want and need in a phone... minus its windows... but still

 

[apfhex]

TDMA does not use EDGE and TDMA is also a pretty much dead technology. Cingular is GSM and EDGE is GSM.

More specifically, EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution ) is an enhancement to GRPS, which is for GSM. T-Mobile and Cingular have EDGE available in most coverage areas, I think. I gave Tmo's a try for a short while after getting an EDGE capable phone and successfully paired it for internet use on my PB. I found the speeds not much better than dialup (speed tests placed it at just under 128k—nearly double 56k, but still slow). I guess if you want something faster you should get Sprint of Verizon or something. Cingular is rolling out some 3G stuff too. I guess it depends on your area if you get any of those high speed services at all though.

 

[bousozoku]

Here is some information on EV-DO, which is supported by Sprint and Verizon. Halfway down the page is a chart comparing the speeds. The difference is pretty amazing. Before EV-DO, Sprint's web access was horribly slow to me and supposedly, that's equivalent to EDGE.

I don't know if you'd consider a CDMA phone, but if you're not taking it outside the U.S.A., there is no real issue.

 

[tarjan]

If you need cdma and international you could get the ip830 which does both gsm and cdma voice/data. Microsoft unit though, which might not be right for this particular group

 

[truz]

I think I'm going to stay with cingular for now. I'd really like to have verizon as I was getting the same speeds when testing the connection "128k—nearly double 56k" was still slow, but works for ssh connections and email, just not surfing the web.

My main thing is a 2 year contract, I hate being locked down for 2 years with a phone provider. Not only that, I purchased 3 phones.. 1 for myself, one for a modem (pda +$10 for extra line, +$39.95 for internet) <- almost seems not worth buying the phone as a modem over a pc card. Not only that.. I also purchased one for my wife so we have a total of 3 phones on a family plan, all 3 have a 2 year contract tho, which I'm not too happy about. It seems verizon wireless offers 1 year contracts when you purchase from amazon.com, but the phones seem a bit high in price as I got the samsung d807 for $0.01 plus $70 credit to my account, and the Cingular 8125 for $150 with $70 rebate as well. The pantech c300 or whatever was also $0.01 with a $20 rebate but on a family plan you can only claim 2 rebates.

Anyways, Verizon would cost me about $350 in phones for the two I would want, I'm just not sure if it's worth switching right now.

I guess.. if I cancel before 2 years I can sell the phones and pay the fee ($170x3)

Service seems okay at my house, there is a few areas it will lose signel, I think it's my house to be honest, I have a netgear rangemax and it won't reach 25 feet threw the house. Most I can get is about 20 feet away from the router or less. Yet, at my sisters house, she has an older linksys and I can go about 200 feet away (maybe more) and get a connection.

 

[tuartboy]

I have an earlier (March '06) model Moto e815 and I was able to get dial up networking (DUN) enabled on it. I connect up through bluetooth and it just uses minutes from my plan. I have tried to enable DUN on a later model e815 and it did not work, so YMMV.