Okay, so you guys were right.

[SunnyD]

17Kbits/sec upstream is what T-Mobile seems to be getting me. Downstream is passable at about 110Kbits/sec.

But as a side note, I'm still pleased that I have an iPhone running with unlimited data/texts and relatively cheap voice ($0.15/min) on a prepaid plain for what amounts to $1/day.

Now, perhaps if I were to get a G1 on the same plan, VOIP might be a reality (along with free calling thanks to Google Voice).

In the mean time, are there any "tweaks" out there for the iPhone that can squeeze any more life out of EDGE? It can be unbearably slow sometimes just for mundane tasks like browsing. But it sure as hell is handy!

 

[pm]

The best change that I know of for improved EDGE performance on T-Mobile was to use epc.tmobile.com vs. any of the older APC's like internet2.voicestream.com. Beyond this, there's not much you can do. It's not really the bandwidth that's the problem - it's the latency and the packet loss. I when I did testing here in northern Colorado, I found that a good ping latency is ~800ms and a bad ping latency is ~3s or more, and the packet loss was very high too. All of this led to a very laggy browsing experience. It's cool, it's convienent and it's cheap, but it was laggy.

I used EDGE in Europe and it was much much faster over there. Latency was in the 400ms range, and packet loss was less than 1% and everything was much more zippy. Maybe it's just the network in northern Colorado, or maybe it's just T-Mobile.

 

[SunnyD]

Unfortunately I'm stuck using hiptop.tmobile.com for my APN (Sidekick prepaid). I will say though over the weekend it served it's purpose quite well - looking up ISBN's on Amazon while at the flea market and Google-ing info on the TV we bought at Costco. I was just hoping for a bit more, I was thinking upstream at least wasn't going to be quite so abysmal.

 

[kalster]

g729 uses only 8 kpbs. I am not sure if there is an iphone sip/voip app that supports g729. Even if you find one that does if the latency is high you might experience lag.

 

[shortylickens]

I'd suggest a phone like the G1 or any phone with Wifi to give you the superior bandwidth, but then I realized, you dont NEED voice over IP. Most every phone with Wifi on T-mobile also allows UMA calling. In fact the Nokia 6301 only allows UMA calls. For that phone all data is done over cellular.

Something to think about. I did it and UMA was pretty good for call quality but sucks for battery life.