Exactly how fast/slow is Tmobile's EDGE?

[emblem]

I have a Shadow and I've really been wanting to get internet service but from what I've heard about EDGE it's pretty slow. Don't know if it would be worth the $19.99 I would be paying for it.

Is it dial up speed or what?

 

[pm]

It's slow - the bandwidth is much higher than a 56k modem, but the latency is much, much worse. So it's very much a "click, wait, wait, whoosh" type browsing experience.

The following tests were done at my house. I am ~0.4 miles from my T-Mobile tower, and I show 5 bars on my iPhone. I have the $20 internet plan.

iphonespeedtest.com says I get 203.4kbps
www.iphonenetworktest.com says I have 187.4kbps.
i.dslr.net/tinyspeedtest.html says I get 172kbps with 953ms latency.

So, bandwidth is good... but the latency is awful. I've heard AT&T EDGE is the same... slightly better latency, slightly worse bandwidth, roughly the same browsing experience.

Real world tests:
www.yahoo.com took 19 seconds to load (the real version, not the mobile one)
www.digg.com took 32 seconds to load.
www.anandtech.com took 1 minute, 5 seconds to load (not sure what happened here)
forums.anandtech.com took 14 seconds to load.

 

[uli2000]

IIRC, EDGE tops out at ~328 kb/sec max. That will depend on the signal strength you get, so, best case senario, max 200-250 kb/sec.

 

[Calculator83]

Yo Pm,, I just got Vnsea to work with dyndns "FINALLY" 1 WHOLE excruciating HOUR. Anyhow, I was wonder if I should finally get the tmobile data plan since Remote Desktop "i actually give a h00t".

 

[emblem]

Originally posted by: pm
It's slow - the bandwidth is much higher than a 56k modem, but the latency is much, much worse. So it's very much a "click, wait, wait, whoosh" type browsing experience.

The following tests were done at my house. I am ~0.4 miles from my T-Mobile tower, and I show 5 bars on my iPhone. I have the $20 internet plan.

iphonespeedtest.com says I get 203.4kbps
www.iphonenetworktest.com says I have 187.4kbps.
i.dslr.net/tinyspeedtest.html says I get 172kbps with 953ms latency.

So, bandwidth is good... but the latency is awful. I've heard AT&T EDGE is the same... slightly better latency, slightly worse bandwidth, roughly the same browsing experience.

Real world tests:
www.yahoo.com took 19 seconds to load (the real version, not the mobile one)
www.digg.com took 32 seconds to load.
www.anandtech.com took 1 minute, 5 seconds to load (not sure what happened here)
forums.anandtech.com took 14 seconds to load.

Is the price worth it for the service for you?


I also just heard Tmobile just rolled out with 3G in New York area.
The shadow can't use 3G can it?

 

[pm]

Yo Pm,, I just got Vnsea to work with dyndns "FINALLY" 1 WHOLE excruciating HOUR. Anyhow, I was wonder if I should finally get the tmobile data plan since Remote Desktop "i actually give a h00t".

Yeah, VNSea is pretty cool. I played around with it a bit... pretty neat.

Is the price worth it for the service for you?

Yes, I believe it is... I check my email, the weather and stocks on my iPhone all the time. When I'm travelling Google Maps is awesome - particularly for finding restaurants. I wish it was faster, but I love having all-the-time internet access.

I also just heard Tmobile just rolled out with 3G in New York area. The shadow can't use 3G can it?

No. That said, not much in the world can use T-Mobile's 3G... it's on it's own band that no one else in the world is using (AWS, 1.7GHz). I'm not aware of more than a half dozen phones that are out right now that will work on T-Mobile's 3G network.

 

[Calculator83]

Originally posted by: pm

Yo Pm,, I just got Vnsea to work with dyndns "FINALLY" 1 WHOLE excruciating HOUR. Anyhow, I was wonder if I should finally get the tmobile data plan since Remote Desktop "i actually give a h00t".

Yeah, VNSea is pretty cool. I played around with it a bit... pretty neat.

Is the price worth it for the service for you?

Yes, I believe it is... I check my email, the weather and stocks on my iPhone all the time. When I'm travelling Google Maps is awesome - particularly for finding restaurants. I wish it was faster, but I love having all-the-time internet access.

I also just heard Tmobile just rolled out with 3G in New York area. The shadow can't use 3G can it?

No. That said, not much in the world can use T-Mobile's 3G... it's on it's own band that no one else in the world is using (AWS, 1.7GHz). I'm not aware of more than a half dozen phones that are out right now that will work on T-Mobile's 3G network.

Is ur 20 Dollar service Faster than the 6.99 Service? Because I read around, and no one seems to have Definitive responses.

 

[pm]

Yes, where I live it seems to be faster... but not by much. Definitely in a the side-by-side test with a co-worker with the $6/month plan, mine won. But not by much.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Yep, it's Wait...wait...WIZZ!!