T-Mobiles 3G Service

[Guest Blakey]

I have been on the T-Mobile 3G option with Web and Walk for about three months now. I can honestly say I can see no real speed differences between when my Universal (MDA Pro) is showing G or U in the title bar and operating off GPRS or 3G.

How fast is T-Mobile's 3G and is at actually all that faster than GPRS?

3G data was one of the reasons I bought (and continue to use) the MDA Pro and the whole WnW package. But I'm wondering if its actually all that good.

Is there a way to test the throughput I am getting at any given time?

Many thanks all

Blakey

Edited October 5, 2006 by Blakey

[Guest AlanJC]

I have been on the T-Mobile 3G option with Web and Walk for about three months now. I can honestly say I can see no real speed differences between when my Universal (MDA Pro) is showing G or U in the title bar and operating off GPRS or 3G.

How fast is T-Mobile's 3G and is at actually all that faster than GPRS?

3G data was one of the reasons I bought (and continue to use) the MDA Pro and the whole WnW package. But I'm wondering if its actually all that good.

Is there a way to test the throughput I am getting at any given time?

Many thanks all

Blakey

On the device I have had upto 420kbps on UMTS, that blows GPRS away. using as a modem on my laptop, I had 864kbps according to an online speed test.

Either way, yes, it's far in excess of GPRS speeds. I don't know what applications you are using that make things seem so slow, but I use Opera Mobile for my browser, Hubdog (which I left downlading, and had over 300mb of mp3 podcasts in under 2 hours when I next looked at it), Agile Messenger, and the built in mail client.

Yes, it's lots faster :rolleyes:

[Guest richard_d]

I have been on the T-Mobile 3G option with Web and Walk for about three months now. I can honestly say I can see no real speed differences between when my Universal (MDA Pro) is showing G or U in the title bar and operating off GPRS or 3G.

How fast is T-Mobile's 3G and is at actually all that faster than GPRS?

3G data was one of the reasons I bought (and continue to use) the MDA Pro and the whole WnW package. But I'm wondering if its actually all that good.

Is there a way to test the throughput I am getting at any given time?

Many thanks all

Blakey

Speed does vary depending on how many other people are using the service (and signal strength), but it's definitely faster than GPRS almost all the time. Maximum transfer raters for 3G are 384kps (about ten times faster than GPRS). If you try and use it at the station between 5-6.30pm you'll find it a lot slower than say at 9. HSDPA is faster still - I generally get around 7-800kps with a moderate signal but at peak commuting hours it drops to as low as 300kps.

Richard

[Guest richard_d]

Oh and try www.dslreports.com/mspeed to test data transfer.

[Guest Blakey]

Oh and try www.dslreports.com/mspeed to test data transfer.

I just tried that sat at my desk. I did the 1Mb test and got a transfer speed of 335kps. Pretty good I think! That's over 3G (obviously). For comparison I plugged the phone into the PC and did it via pass through and got 850kps. :-) I've saved that web page (thanks) and will try it when I only have GPRS signal so I can compare.

Thanks

[Guest]

In portsmouth in southsea at home i get normally 1.2 mb (tested by downloading with hubdog ) and dslspeed test thing

at work havant portsmouth (also full 3g reception) i get 338 k so only 3g speeds

ie HSDPA is not everywhere even if you have 100% 3g reception

but it is damn good for speed and i really really notice it compared to gprs and often dont use the net till i get to a 3g area (which is most places here) only a few places on the way to work have no 3g

JEREMY

[Guest nsm]

I have HSPDA enabled - though at work (Central London) I get around 200KB and then at home I get 250KB - (Bexley, Kent).

Both areas on the website for T-Mobile coverage for 3G show complete coverage (i.e it is all red on the map).

I've no idea why I cant get good speeds?

[Guest AlanJC]

I have HSPDA enabled - though at work (Central London) I get around 200KB and then at home I get 250KB - (Bexley, Kent).

Both areas on the website for T-Mobile coverage for 3G show complete coverage (i.e it is all red on the map).

I've no idea why I cant get good speeds?

On the device itself, you won't, if you use it as a modem for your PC, you will probably get fairly good speeds.

On the device, you're limited by the speed of the device to process the information, and save it to storage, the faster the CPU and memory, the less bottleneck there will be, but the Vario 2 isn't the fastest of devices out there.

If you have tried it as a modem, and these are your speeds, then you might simply be in a fringe area between masts, or getting interference from somewhere.

[Guest drummer]

......

On the device, you're limited by the speed of the device to process the information, and save it to storage, the faster the CPU and memory, the less bottleneck there will be, but the Vario 2 isn't the fastest of devices out there.

......

I don't think that's strictly true. I'm getting approx. 884 kb/s directly on my device and when used as a modem.

[Guest]

yeah that's not true at all hubdog is a program on my ppc using entirely the ppcs memory and processor and I get upto 1.2mbps downloading stuff off there mainly podcasts.

it really just depends on where you are AND if you have hsdpa enabled on the phone AND your account. it should be under additional services as 384 k hsdpa uplink and billed as 0.00

Jeremy

[Guest AlanJC]

I don't think that's strictly true. I'm getting approx. 884 kb/s directly on my device and when used as a modem.

Please read my full comment, the first line in fact :rolleyes:

[Guest Confucious]

I have been on the T-Mobile 3G option with Web and Walk for about three months now. I can honestly say I can see no real speed differences between when my Universal (MDA Pro) is showing G or U in the title bar and operating off GPRS or 3G.

Blakey

When my Universal seems to slow to a crawl I can almost garauntee it's because it has gone into a GPRS area - 3G is much, much faster than GPRS

[Guest richard_d]

Please read my full comment, the first line in fact :rolleyes:

I'd argue the Vario ii is fast enough to notice the difference but I accept that you don't get twice the performance when you get twice the connection speed.

[Guest]

I don't know for web browsing I'd say you are right often don't notice a whole lot of difference between regular 3g and hsdpa although there is some difference for sure. however between gprs and 3g or hsdpa there is a major difference.

when downloading podcasts though with hubdog I definitely notice the difference between hsdpa and regular 3g (as they are lrge 60 mb or more files where the difference between 384K and 1.8mbps is huges then.

Jeremy