iPhone 3G Speeds: More Cingular Mediocrity 24 comments
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Regular readers know that I’ve been singularly unimpressed with Apple’s choice of Cingular (later AT&T) as the exclusive US carrier for the Jesus Phone. It’s not just the idea of a five-year exclusive (which made sense under the old business model but not the new one), but also the mediocre quality of the Cingular’s US mobile phone network.
The iPhone 3G was supposed to take advantage of AT&T’s wonderful new HSDPA network. Promoters of this UMTS (W-CDMA aka 3GSM) technology claimed it would deliver downloads at “8-10 Mbps”. AT&T invites prospective customers to “Download and surf on the nation’s fastest 3G network.”
At the same time, iPhone 3G user are unhappy with their network performance. Wired asked its readers around the world to run a test to report their actual download speed, to distinguish between iPhone performance problems and network performance problems. Here is what they found:
- Tests in Germany and the Netherlands achieved 2,000 Kbps.
- Tests in Canada delivered 1,330 Kbps
- AT&T provided an average speed of 990 Kbps
- The only carriers that were worse were two Australian carriers, with an average speed of 390 Kbps
It gets better:
In some major metropolitan areas that are supposedly 3G-rich, 3G performance can be very slow. For example, zooming in on San Francisco, you'll see that 10 out of 30 participants reported very slow 3G speeds — barely surpassing EDGE.
The hypothesis is that AT&T didn’t buy enough 3G radios in the cities where the iPhone is most popular, and thus the network is getting overloaded.
As skeptical as I am about WCDMA and “wireless broadband” in general, AT&T here may have a slight advantage over its US rivals. On the wireline side, they finally have a solution that beats all DSL (although not a cable modem or FiOS or uverse). On the wireless side, neither of their EVDO rivals (Verizon, Sprint) do much better, claiming only 600-700 Kbps — athough a July review of a Sprint modem measured an actual speed of 966 Kbps for its EVDO service.
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As for the iphone speeds versus light speed there really are four issues at play here;
1. Battery life - more speed = less battery life. Some of you may say "duh, no kidding to the comment" but trust me this is a focal point that handset vendors like Nokia and RIM have spent millions of $$$ in research dealing with. Apple is now only beginning to feel this pain and frankly exasperated the problem by rushing this version phone into the market.
2. Latency - As consumers, your experience with a handset screen the size of a postage stamp, or in the case of the iphone a business car, speed, while important, is overall less important than network delay response. And today's 3G implementations in North America for several reasons are still immature and not delivering against the lower theoretical 3G latency metrics potentials. AT&T really has to get this straightened out.
3. Beauty contest fame last about an hour - We should all appreciate the game changing event of the iphone in terms of its user interface - and trust me i was skeptical. But...building a wireless micro-computer - my definition of a handset - requires a lot more than aesthetics and cool user interface. The core integration of the radio and the operating environment is at best marginal, vastly insecure and battery power wasteful, the network comments about still withstanding. Apple needs to wake up and think more about the kinds of "clean sheet of paper" design objective it put into the iMac - which actually runs Windows better than my last 4 Windows machines before it releases a version 3 phone...
3. Network deployments and capability have been over hyped by AT&T analyst relations and PR people. Its all work in progress. The issues range to the speed governance mechanisms AT&T have engaged within their network, to what backhual capacity they have at a given location and lets not underestimate in the case of third party application and web sites implementations are widely variable in they way they have been designed.
I am a Christian who is not offended by Joel West's or any Mac Evangelist calling the iPhone the Jesus Phone. I also like the humor of it all.
But you must admit that there are similarities between Jesus Christ and the Smartphone iPhone: Jesus is superior to the average person and the iPhone is superior to the average cell phone. Jesus saves when nothing else works, and so can the iPhone when other phones do not. While Christ as Jesus had not yet achieved his full potential until He became Christed, so the iPhone has not yet achieved full potential until it becomes connected to a better network. See?
And just as the wicked at first vilified and then crucified Christ, so the other cell phone companies vilified and are trying to destroy the iPhone. Jesus is the leader of Christendom just as the iPhone is the leader in Smartphonedom. Christ said something like, "Just as i have done, you will do better," so Jobs says something like, "just wait. The phone will become even better."
While I thank the Lord Jesus for everything He has done, and now I am free from sin, I also thank the iPhone for everything it has done, and now I am free from more dropped calls. *S*
Well, you can see that I made a good case for this Christian to call the iPhone the Jesus Phone.
After it achieves the promised improvements in capabilities and connectedness, I would even stop calling it a mere Jesus phone, and begin to call it the Christ phone, as in Christ the resurrected.
Therefore, to prematurely break one's relationship to the iPhone can be likened to prematurely break one's relationship to Jesus.
In the long run the 3G being turned off gives better performance since most of the places I have gone don't even carry 3G and this latency of trying to connect and then falling back to EDGE or providing sportty 3G is much worse then using EDGE alone.
Still love the phone without 3G...just wish ATT would get their act together.
America protects the freedom of speech and freedom to practice (or even not practice) religion. We're free to talk about other religions, and even to make fun of them. It's part of living in a multicultural and tolerant society. Welcome to the modern world. If you don't like it, I'm sure there are some religious theocracies elsewhere in the world where you can enjoy stoning to death financial analysts, artists, musicians, bloggers, and others who might choose to make light of religion.
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Your post is full of Errors:
1. Cingular has not existed in name, nor in operation, for over 1 year.
2. The 3G tests you report were done on the previous iPhone software version. The new 2.1 iPhone software has been shown to much improve performance.
3. The 3G carrier offerings vary with each company in each nation. AT&T is just rolling out 3G in the U.S. and it will be adding many more 3G tower radios for much better service.
4. You state that Verizon and Sprint do not have any better network service, so, what difference would it have made if Apple used all three of these carriers for the iPhone? None, they all would need to be improved!
Apple is now only beginning to feel this pain and frankly exasperated the problem by rushing this version phone into the market.
yeah cause the macbook, powerbook, ibook, macbook pro computers, and 20 years of laptop experience never taught them anything about power management.
You can turn off the 3g, smart guy. Put that in your bullet points. Also, you people are PC enough to make me vomit. Really, you must be great at parties.
ATT does not play clean, they do "bandwidth throttling" which means they need less equipment to give all a bit more speed.
These are facts.
BTW: I was an old AT&T customer with a Cingular 8525. For me it has become "half the speed for twice the price", and I cannot switch back to the old plan and all the features I had with it, including the ability to use the internet on my computer via my 3G phone while traveling.
Wish I was never lured into the iPhone mania. It's great phone but still a consumer toy: email sucks and too limited to the programs that Apple/ATT allows on the App Store.
It deserves the monicker - Jesus Phone.
The iPhone can reach 2000+ kbps download speeds but only in European countries, such as Germany, where they have great 3G networks.
This is nearly the speed of WiFi on the iPhone - where I get 2900 - 5000 kbps download speeds.
The onus in the USA is on AT&T to improve its 3G network. Although various studies find an average download speed of 900 kbps, I am finding in the cities where I work, download speeds of 380-700 kbps.
Certainly, 3G is better than EDGE - which is 110-150 kbps. But as illustrated in other countries (e.g. 1500 kbps 3G in Canada), AT&T can do much better with 3G.
The problem is not the iPhone 3G. The problem is AT&T.
Woe be AT&T - as well as through lawsuits - if it is found to be throttling network speeds on 3G just like Orange did in France, until Orange was found out.
Choosing AT&T is not a mistake for Apple. Clearly, there was no other choice. The iPhone is a GSM phone. GSM is a worldwide standard. Verizon is NOT compatible with GSM. Verizon's phones cannot be used wordwide. You can't even text message all over the world with a Verizon phone. Text messages are limited to only select countries. T-Mobile has even worse 3G coverage than AT&T in the U.S. For better or worse, AT&T is the only logical choice in the U.S.A.
AT&T does have its work cut out for it, however, to satisfy its customers. The iPhone complainers should instead target AT&T so that it will pick up its rump and continue building the 3G network so that it can be comparable to Europe, much less Asia.
The App Store is a Revelation. It has vastly improved the usefulness of the iPhone. I have over 100 apps and counting since I plan to buy more. My friends have 100+ apps themselves. The quality of the apps far exceed those on Windows Mobile and Palm - my previous smartphones.
From only 500 on launch to now over 3000 apps within 2 months, and growing, the App Store is a fantastic market for developers who write apps for the iPhone. Think about it. The App store has distributed 30 millions apps in the first month. It distributed 70 millions apps in the second month. It is destined to become a Billion Dollar market sometime in 2009. This is a money tree waiting to happen for developers - with little marketing to be done as well.
For those developers that shun the iPhone market - GOOD RIDDANCE. This will mean more money for myself and other developers. It is a fantastic opportunity.
This article appears to be nothing more than a shoddy job of publishing a bunch of half concocted statements that can't be connected logically. "Singularly unimpressed with Apple's choice of Cingular" - please check your facts of carrier names and timing of the choice. Regardless of this technicality, ragging on AT&T's 3G network early in the article while stating that their U.S. competitors' networks are even worse is convoluted at best. If Apple chose Verizon or Sprint would you have been "singularly SOMETHING LESS THAN unimpressed"?
What do you mean by, "On the wireline side, they finally have a solution that beats all DSL"? Really? Something faster than the 6Mpbs (highest) download speeds that DSL delivers over copper, without it being cable modem FiOS or U-verse? What would that be?
I'm seeking something significantly better than this article. Hope same does not translate to your work at SJSU, or to your consulting work at Open I.T. Strategies!
A bullet referring to shutting off 3g wasn't needed, and that isnt the point, now is it?
And as to making some reference of PC power management expertise vs wireless handset power management as if there is some reasonable crossover of expertise is simply misguided. It would be an effort in futility, given your comments, to waste ones time/energy enlightening you with the details. But as you say "smart guy", make a few calls to Qcom, IFX, NOK, RIM or even Apple itself and perhaps you'll learn something....
try looking at the web on a treo or blackberry... if you can see it.
May S. Jobs bless you, and I give you permission to call the iPhone the Mother Earth phone.
The best part of an iPhone? Not owning one. I'll stick with my older Blackberry that NEVER quits, has been dropped on the cement, dropped in water, works with anything that I want to put in it, and always connects me. Sorry, I don't want my phone to be a toy, I want it to be a phone and contact manager. Add the calendar and I'm all set. If you have to be connected to the internet THAT much, seek professional help.