Edge faster than 3G!!!!

Question

Edge faster than 3G!!!!

I bought my iphone so i could waste time when i was bored, going on facebook and the likes at work etc where theres a blocked wifi.

However!

I find that 3g is unbearably slow for me, i mean slow. So slow that I stop bothering with it and actually start working again. a test on the speedtest.net app usually gets me an overall speed of 150Kbps with 3g, and about 7 kbps with Edge.

But whenever i try and use 3g for anything other than speedtest app, edge trumps it in all areas. When im using the edge network i get faster speeds buffering youtube videos (approx 15 secs for a 1 min video to buffer a bit then start playing) about 20 secs for a webpage to load, and faster loading of directions and maps images in the google maps app.

Does anyone have any idea what on earth is going on?!

Macbook, iPhone 3G 16GB, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on May 6, 2009 6:51 AM

Reply

Answer 1

May 6, 2009 7:08 AM in response to BennyboyOxtoby

The YouTube app, for one, is sensitive to connection speed - decreasing quality video/audio is accessed on Wi-Fi vs. 3G vs. EDGE.

Reply

Answer 2

May 6, 2009 8:02 AM in response to neuroanatomist

true, but the point still remains that it should be faster when using 3g, Obviously wifi trumps edge AND 3g, but i have no problems using my iphone for wifi, its just edge vs. 3g

Reply

Answer 3

May 6, 2009 8:35 AM in response to BennyboyOxtoby

BennyboyOxtoby wrote:
true, but the point still remains that it should be faster when using 3g,

Not necessarily. If you're getting 3G speeds that are twice EDGE speeds, for example, but the YouTube stream for EDGE is 1/3 the bandwidth of the YouTube stream for 3G, then the download on EDGE would be faster. Just a hypothetical scenario.

Either way, though, the problem is most likely with the network and not with the phone. Download speeds are dependent on network traffic. During business hours in a downtown region, 3G speeds are significantly slower than during off-peak hours. Early on, I was getting 3G speeds slower than EDGE speeds too - AT&T (the US iPhone carrier) upgraded their 3G network in the Boston area, and now I get good speeds on 3G (as reported by SpeedTest, but also in actual use) - noticeably faster than on EDGE (the phone drops to EDGE in the middle of my building, since the EDGE frequencies have better structural penetration than the 3G frequencies).

Reply

Answer 4

May 6, 2009 8:46 AM in response to neuroanatomist

ah maybe its because im in a busy town centre? Ive never tried 3g in the country side! ill give that a go later if i get the chance. still seems very odd that a technology thats supposedly 10x faster than edge is slower for me haha. been having difficulty finding anyone else with the same problem!

Reply

Answer 5

Aug 20, 2009 7:43 AM in response to BennyboyOxtoby

Manged to fix this myself, by turning on 3g and interestingly "data roaming" everything goes a lot faster!

Reply