Too good to be true?

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veethree

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I noticed tonight that my cellphone is showing the message “3G Enabled” where it normally identifies the base station. All well and good, I thought, but it doesn't really benefit me because I don't have a 3G phone or card.

Anyway, I decided to do a speed test using www.texan.net/speed.htm and the results were amazing. I was consistently getting speeds of between 102 Kbps and 136 kbps! My first thought was that the test was at fault, but it was working propeely earlier in the day and when I checked the inbuilt counter on my device, it seemed to correlate with the results.

My question is, how can this be? I'm accessing the net on an iPaq paired with a SE K700i via bluetooth. Though the cellphone is a class 10 device, it shouldn't give me more than 80 Kbps.

I'm not complaining, but I am curious. Any ideas? And is the “3G Enabled” message a new thing?
 
It has to do with the way they compress. I have measured speeds of up to 180kbps on GPRS
 
Yes, the "3G Enabled" was added to the cell ID of 2G cells to indicate there is 3G in the area. Another forum idea!

Depending on your device and location you could get GPRS up to CS4 and possible EDGE, resulting in higher throughput.
 
magus said:
It has to do with the way they compress. I have measured speeds of up to 180kbps on GPRS
Click to expand...

Time to try some new tests, then. Pity they aren't real results, but I guess that would eat into the 3G market.
 
vodacom3g said:
Yes, the "3G Enabled" was added to the cell ID of 2G cells to indicate there is 3G in the area. Another forum idea!

Depending on your device and location you could get GPRS up to CS4 and possible EDGE, resulting in higher throughput.
Click to expand...

Nice idea, and nice to see forum ideas being implemented yet again.

Is it any indication of signal strength? I did a test at my house about a week ago on my brother-in-law's computer and couldn't get more than 1 or 2 bars - not really usable.
 
After a bit of pressure from a certain user group, Vodacom decided to release the 'normal' 6680 and not to wait for the V-Live! version. As soon as I have details on stock, etc. I'll post here.
 
Forumites, you see Vodacom listens to you ;)

Thanks v3g, I am sure there will be a bunch of forumites putting their names down for a backorder or something of 6680's :D.
 
veethree said:
Nice idea, and nice to see forum ideas being implemented yet again.

Is it any indication of signal strength? I did a test at my house about a week ago on my brother-in-law's computer and couldn't get more than 1 or 2 bars - not really usable.
Click to expand...

I use my 3G with 1 - 2 Bars regularly as I live in a complex with no less then 5 cellphone towers centralising and only two places in my house where I can get 3G. The speed doesn't seem to be affected and I have surprisingly little drops in connection.
 
veethree said:
Nice idea, and nice to see forum ideas being implemented yet again.

Is it any indication of signal strength? I did a test at my house about a week ago on my brother-in-law's computer and couldn't get more than 1 or 2 bars - not really usable.
Click to expand...

My 'bars' vary between 0 (fairly often), 1 (mostly) and 2 (seldom). 3G is still usable, though I do sometimes revert to GPRS (manually)
 
vodacom3g said:
My personal experience is very similar. Zero (sometimes) to mostly 1 to 2 bars and very usable service with either Option or Novatel. 250Kb/s and no drops.
Click to expand...

Perhaps I should do another test, but the speeds that I got weren't anywhere near that - about 90Kb/s at most and that only in erratic bursts. Compared to the 64k ISDN line I'm running at the moment, it wasn't as reliable or as fast. I'm also looking at using the service on a desktop, so don't have flexibility in terms of where in the house the connection will be made from.

However, I'm willing to wait for a while because Vodacom seems to be upgrading nicely - GPRS reception has improved significantly in the last month. Should be getting a Nokia 6630 soon and then I'll have a lot more flexibility to see what the connection is like.
 
Thats good to hear. I have very poor signal on all networks where I stay. I was wondering how signal strength would effect a connection. Thanks guys.
 
Thank you Vodafone for buying Telscum's share and helping improve mobile communications in this country!
 
Crash said:
Thats good to hear. I have very poor signal on all networks where I stay. I was wondering how signal strength would effect a connection. Thanks guys.
Click to expand...

Signal strength is one factor to consider. Another is interference.

What you'll probably find is that a low signal strength but with no interference work well whereas the opposite (good signal / lots of interference) will not be true.

A fair number of forumites have described a direct correlation between signal strength and connectivity and throughput. They're probably in a low signal / high interference situation.

Only real way to know for sure is to test, unfortunately.
 
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