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

Which is faster - 3G or Wi-Fi?

Uh oh

adversecamber said:
If I bought the iPhone based on that ad, I'd be incredibly pissed off. It clearly shows a 338KB file downloading in about 2secs.

That's misleading and I'm going to report it.
Click to expand...

Hey, good luck with that. I also notice that McDonald's cheeseburgers don't look exactly like they do on the menu and my new car gets one mile less per gallon in the city than my manufacturer advertised.

Where can I go to report this stuff? Is there a Department of Ridiculous Complaints that you send yours off to?
 
My iPhone and MPB are getting about the same times as FJR, Sonicwall wireless with a Sonicwall router on DSL.
 
26139 said:
Hey, good luck with that. I also notice that McDonald's cheeseburgers don't look exactly like they do on the menu and my new car gets one mile less per gallon in the city than my manufacturer advertised.

Where can I go to report this stuff? Is there a Department of Ridiculous Complaints that you send yours off to?
Click to expand...

Like anyone else, you can voice your concerns with the relevent authorities.
 
Wifi is faster. 3G is almost as fast as Wifi in my area though.

Where I live there is 3g coverage virtually everywhere. If I get into a 3g zone with full bars on my iPhone the speeds are almost as quick as wifi.
 
adversecamber said:
If I bought the iPhone based on that ad, I'd be incredibly pissed off. It clearly shows a 338KB file downloading in about 2secs.

That's misleading and I'm going to report it.
Click to expand...

I do not think you have a case if they did not show 3G and Wifi side by side thus implying 3G is faster than Wi-Fi.

Another poster said 3.6mbps is the theoretical maximum speed of 3G in the U.K. That is 450KB /sec. You are saying their ad showed 169KB/sec. So that is the problem?

Having said that, I wish that advertisers in general do not rely on fine prints and show what the consumers can reasonably expect.
 
FJR said:
Using my 54 mbps airport express connection on my iPhone, I got 10 secs and 8 secs.
Click to expand...

Your 54mbps airport connection is limited by your internet connection, which is probably ~2-12mbps depending on the service.
 
Companies will ALWAYS put their product in the best light - which means they will be in quality conditions with perfect performance, speed, etc. There is hardly a case for this and you will not take down Apple.

Also, I loaded both pages on my phone using 3G and got them to load in 10 seconds for the home pages and 6 seconds for the follow-up page. Then on my WiFi I got 20 seconds and 15 seconds. I admit, my WiFi is NOT the fastest (1.5Mbps), but that proves that in fact, 3G can certainly compete with even "decent" connections (I say this simply because yes, I can browse quite quickly over WiFi, even if I'm not using a 10Mbps connection - it's not like you're using all of them to download that tiny .pdf anyways).

Also to note - after viewing the ad, I realized that in fact it didn't appear that the first page loaded at all - when you fire up your browser, it takes you to the last page you were on. And who says that the page wasn't "pre-cached" in a sense - both the pages loaded previously. When I went and retried (closing my browser), the page fired up immediately, then clicking on the follow-up page, it had fully loaded in about two seconds. And this is over crap-tastic WiFi!
 
xandrex said:
Companies will ALWAYS put their product in the best light - which means they will be in quality conditions with perfect performance, speed, etc. There is hardly a case for this and you will not take down Apple.

Also, I loaded both pages on my phone using 3G and got them to load in 10 seconds for the home pages and 6 seconds for the follow-up page. Then on my WiFi I got 20 seconds and 15 seconds. I admit, my WiFi is NOT the fastest (1.5Mbps), but that proves that in fact, 3G can certainly compete with even "decent" connections (I say this simply because yes, I can browse quite quickly over WiFi, even if I'm not using a 10Mbps connection - it's not like you're using all of them to download that tiny .pdf anyways).

Also to note - after viewing the ad, I realized that in fact it didn't appear that the first page loaded at all - when you fire up your browser, it takes you to the last page you were on. And who says that the page wasn't "pre-cached" in a sense - both the pages loaded previously. When I went and retried (closing my browser), the page fired up immediately, then clicking on the follow-up page, it had fully loaded in about two seconds. And this is over crap-tastic WiFi!
Click to expand...


The apple site says the sites weren't pre-cached.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/wireless.html

"Testing conducted by Apple in May and June 2008 using preproduction 3G/EDGE-capable iPhone units and software and currently shipping EDGE-capable iPhone units and software. Testing was conducted by browsing to http://www.lonelyplanet.com and measured uncached page load performance. All settings were default except: Call Forwarding was turned on; the Wi-Fi feature Ask to Join Networks and Auto-Brightness were turned off. Wi-Fi was enabled but not associated with a network. Throughput depends on the cellular network, location, signal strength, 3G/EDGE connectivity, feature configuration, usage, the Internet, and many other factors. Throughput tests are conducted using specific iPhone units; actual results may vary. "
 
Hmmm. Interesting. I remember reading that now, but I totally forgot about it. Thanks for pointing it out. ;)

But to back up what I said previous to that - Apple (and every other company) will put their product in the best of light. This is an obvious form of marketing and propaganda. Instead of reporting it, especially since you didn't buy the product and try it, why don't you just ignore it? One complaint won't do anything.
 
The only thing I've seen or really heard Apple compare is 3G to Edge and I've yet to see any Edge connections that are anywhere near as fast as 3G. I don't think anyone with half a brain would use 3G over a Wifi connection.

My best 3G connection so far has bee usually its in 1500 kbps the. My wifi has ranged from 2500 kbps. I didn't record the one Edge test that I ran but I believe it was much lower like around 50 kbps.
 
Yeah, I just saw that commercial last night and I had to laugh at it.

The part that was funniest to me was how non-laggy their OS was. Even if I had data speeds like they had, it would still be slower because the OS is very laggy. Theirs was like touch and BOOM loaded. Mine is like touch think think load load load boom!

Just for fun, last night I ran three tests at inetworktest.com (the web edition version). On my wifi, I averaged about 1200Kbps on my 54Mbps wireless G connection at my house (where I can routinely score around 4000Kbps on my hardwired computer and upwards of 8000Kbps depending on the time of day), and with full bars 3G I was averaging about 330Kbps, but saw as high as like 390Kbps. On edge, also full bars, I was seeing between 200-220Kbps. The 3G and edge tests were both in the same location (my bed, lol) where I had full bars with both.

That being said, for browsing, obviously the wifi is fastest, but the 3G is definitely noticeably faster than edge, so I'm not sure if the throughput is the only factor for "fast browsing" or if that 50% increase makes that much difference.

What I'm wondering is even if the 3G network could technically support like 4000Kbps, would our browsing ever get faster than wifi? I mean, there is no reason that my wifi can't put out more than 1200Kbps, as my laptop with 802.11g can download at 600k/sec (4800Kbps). So I'm wondering if ~1200Kbps is just the limit of the hardware (processor?) in the iphone, such that with this version of the iphone we probably won't see any faster downloading/browsing than wifi, even if the 3G became technically faster than wifi.

(These tests were done in the DC metro area, BTW, FWIW).
 
adversecamber said:
Really?? That's interesting. Perhaps you could help me out then. I've loaded www.lonleyplanet.com (like on the ad) then clicked 'Tiger Watching in India'. Here's the times on wifi (I've included the times of same pages on my MBP to show that it's not my internet connection)

To load homepage: iPhone 33secs, MBP 11 secs
To load linked page: iPhone 15 secs, MBP 10 secs

In fairness, my MBP has six apps open and is HandBraking a DVD - processor is at 99%.

speedtest.net says my connection is 3936Kbps (which suprises me...)
Click to expand...

what is the exact speed of your router, 10mbp?? ive never heard of one of those...
 
pj rage said:
Yeah, I just saw that commercial last night and I had to laugh at it.

The part that was funniest to me was how non-laggy their OS was. Even if I had data speeds like they had, it would still be slower because the OS is very laggy. Theirs was like touch and BOOM loaded. Mine is like touch think think load load load boom!

Just for fun, last night I ran three tests at inetworktest.com (the web edition version). On my wifi, I averaged about 1200Kbps on my 54Mbps wireless G connection at my house (where I can routinely score around 4000Kbps on my hardwired computer and upwards of 8000Kbps depending on the time of day), and with full bars 3G I was averaging about 330Kbps, but saw as high as like 390Kbps. On edge, also full bars, I was seeing between 200-220Kbps. The 3G and edge tests were both in the same location (my bed, lol) where I had full bars with both.

That being said, for browsing, obviously the wifi is fastest, but the 3G is definitely noticeably faster than edge, so I'm not sure if the throughput is the only factor for "fast browsing" or if that 50% increase makes that much difference.

What I'm wondering is even if the 3G network could technically support like 4000Kbps, would our browsing ever get faster than wifi? I mean, there is no reason that my wifi can't put out more than 1200Kbps, as my laptop with 802.11g can download at 600k/sec (4800Kbps). So I'm wondering if ~1200Kbps is just the limit of the hardware (processor?) in the iphone, such that with this version of the iphone we probably won't see any faster downloading/browsing than wifi, even if the 3G became technically faster than wifi.

(These tests were done in the DC metro area, BTW, FWIW).
Click to expand...

i wonder if the 3G servers/whatnot have faster response times that allow it to reply faster.

802.11g can download as fast as 6.75mbps (theoretical). i would get 3mbps (practical) if i had that fast an internet connection. a wi-fi connection will always be faster than a mobile connection, basically because of frequency factors and distance factors.

3G can support a pretty large capacity (in our country anyways) of 28.8mbps (theroretically in megabits), which is very reasonable. they are currently implementing a 14.4mbps technology. even with these newest technologies they are still WAY behind the 3-4 year old 802.11g wireless computing technology...
 
DoFoT9 said:
i guess i misread sorry. 10mbps and your getting 4mBps?? wow your pretty far from the exchange or something!!! what is your latency time?
Click to expand...

What's latency time? I'm actually on optic fibre which, according to Virgin, makes no difference how far we are from the exchange. I'm a bit pissed off and plan to contact Virgin to find out why I'm only getting a third of my speed!
 
adversecamber said:
What's latency time? I'm actually on optic fibre which, according to Virgin, makes no difference how far we are from the exchange. I'm a bit pissed off and plan to contact Virgin to find out why I'm only getting a third of my speed!
Click to expand...

lol i HIGHLY doubt you have fibre to your house, otherwise youd be paying $10k per month. ive heard the copper lines to the houses are very bad.

latency is the time that it takes for the request for data to be sent to the host machine, and the requested data be sent back to your computer.. its basically how long it takes A to get to B, then for B to get back to A.

if you go to speedtest.net it will tell you the latency there (choose the closest server to your place)
\
if your getting 4000kb and your on 10megabytes (i take its megabytes). if its megabits then thats EXTREMELY fast you should only be getting 1.25megabytes in that case...
 
If he has a 10Mpbs line, he should see max download speeds around 1.25Mb/sec. Do you download that fast? If so, don't freak out.

I have 8Mpbs line with "speed burst" of 12-15Mbps (I believe this depends on file size). I see 1.5Mb/sec download speeds regularly, and I've seen as high as 2Mb/sec download speeds. I generally never download any files (from the web) at less than 800kb/sec (~6400Kbps).

Verizon has FiOS here in the states which is fiber to your house. And no, it is not $10k/month. It's superfast internet speed (I believe they have packages up to 50Mbps down and 20Mbps up for ~$90 for my area and up to $150 or so for other areas (for the 50/20 package)) and great picture on the HDTV due to the increased bandwidth. They are rolling it out slowly but surely in different areas. I can't wait until they offer it for my condo complex!
 
pj rage said:
If he has a 10Mpbs line, he should see max download speeds around 1.25Mb/sec. Do you download that fast? If so, don't freak out.

I have 8Mpbs line with "speed burst" of 12-15Mbps (I believe this depends on file size). I see 1.5Mb/sec download speeds regularly, and I've seen as high as 2Mb/sec download speeds. I generally never download any files (from the web) at less than 800kb/sec (~6400Kbps).

Verizon has FiOS here in the states which is fiber to your house. And no, it is not $10k/month. It's superfast internet speed (I believe they have packages up to 50Mbps down and 20Mbps up for ~$90 for my area and up to $150 or so for other areas (for the 50/20 package)) and great picture on the HDTV due to the increased bandwidth. They are rolling it out slowly but surely in different areas. I can't wait until they offer it for my condo complex!
Click to expand...

he did a test and is getting ~4000kbps.. which is wierd on his plan/speed.

in reply to the 2nd part, i was being a smart arse. we dont have access to fibre optic cables running through our front doors. fibre at 50mbps doesnt seem that good. i was hoping something more like 200mbps!!
 
3g speeds vary from location to location. When I was in Minnesota my sprint 3g got me speeds of 2.5mb/500kb. Down in Florida the same setup gets me 600kb/200kb at best. Having said that, wifi should always be faster.
 
I think a lot of people here are confused about bits vs. bytes. 1 Byte = 8 bits. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits per second while file sizes are in bytes.
 
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