First of all im not complaining, im simply wondering... Will the EDGE speed ever get any faster on our iphones? Is it even possible for it to get any faster? If it is possible what is stoping them from making it faster? I realize that the iphone is still a phone and i cant expect it to be as fast as my macbook and i know i could always turn wifi on, but the problem with wifi is it takes up a lot of battery. Just curious as to what everyones opinions would be on this subject.
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Will EDGE speeds ever improve?
- Thread starter Joshua8o8
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Yes, it's called 3G which the iPhone does not have and cannot get. 3G can also chew up battery. Probably not as bad as wifi though.
It could be possible if ATT upgrades their network to EDGE Evolution. Would also require an update to the iPhone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Data_Rates_for_GSM_Evolution#EDGE_Evolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Data_Rates_for_GSM_Evolution#EDGE_Evolution
This article guesses 2008 for a 3G iPhone. But that's just another guess.
More to the point, it hints that overseas carriers don't want to sell it without 3G. Unknown if they'll have a choice.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL1988927220070719?rpc=44
More to the point, it hints that overseas carriers don't want to sell it without 3G. Unknown if they'll have a choice.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL1988927220070719?rpc=44
WiFi
Honestly the way trends are going with the cell carriers over here in the US I think that wifi is going to be the best option for the faster speeds. WiFi is a lot cheaper to deploy so it doesn't make much sense for them to roll out 3G and WiFi at the same time. I could be wrong because big companies do like to waste money. If you think about it though, why waste money rolling out 3G when WiFi is so much faster and cheaper?
Honestly the way trends are going with the cell carriers over here in the US I think that wifi is going to be the best option for the faster speeds. WiFi is a lot cheaper to deploy so it doesn't make much sense for them to roll out 3G and WiFi at the same time. I could be wrong because big companies do like to waste money. If you think about it though, why waste money rolling out 3G when WiFi is so much faster and cheaper?
Actually the reverse is true. 3G is the worst at battery life. On the iPhone EDGE is worse than wifi believe it or not. Anantech tested it out and i find in my usage that EDGE will eat battery life more than wifi. I assumed before I got the phone wifi would be worse but I guess wifi is much more mature at this point so it is easier on the juice.
[G5]Hydra;3942568 said:
Actually it has very little to do with maturity and almost everything to do with distance. A typical WiFi link has a range in the range of yards where an EDGE/3G signal could be traveling miles... longer distance with more possibilities for interference will require more power to transmit where WiFi can remain very low power due to limited range and interference.
What you say is true but take a look at the size and number of the chips that make up EDGE/3G/wifi and you will see the wifi is a tiny single chip with 3G having the biggest and most numerous chips. The bigger the chip and the more chips needed to support a standard the more power it is going to suck. Also a long distance to a tower means more power transmitting like you said but all these devices have limits on the power they can transmit anyway.
Big companies hate to waste money. They just can't help it sometimes
WiFi is not cheaper from the carrier's standpoint. Consider how much they pay now to landowners for tower locations. We're talking often thousands a month. Can you image how many more WiFi units would be required to cover the same hundreds of square miles? And the cost of renting space to put them?
[G5]Hydra;3942639 said:
I'd have to look at the chips specifically but number of chips doesn't necessarily mean more power is consumed. It may be necessary with the EDGE/3G chipsets to isolate the analog and digital more from each other to maintain any signal recovery while WiFi would not necessarily need the separation due to the proximity. This does not mean that the multiple chips have to consume more power.
Depending on power management you might even be able to coax more life out of EDGE/3G if you were close enough and in line of sight to a tower since if they really spend the time on the power circuit it will reduce the power draw as the signals to/from the cell tower improve. I would guess under ideal conditions and good power circuitry you would get comparable if not better battery life from EDGE/3G, however you quickly fall out of that once you start getting out of line of site and add more obstacles. WiFi is probably easier to plan for since it would not have to deal with nearly as many environmental factors.
I've seen cards in my life where a single chip on a card can consume more power than the rest of the chips on the card combined, numbers of chips has very little to do with power draw.
I recognize it's not practical given Apple's launch plan, but it would be interesting to have different profiles for connectivity to weak battery life vs. connection speed.
If you're not going to go more than a couple of hourse without access to a charge, massive battery drain isn't an issue.
Of course such capabilities would probably result in a differently shaped/packaged iPhone, but if the battery issue is that large a concern, it would be interesting to have a choice based on the way you used the iPhone.
And not just the iPhone either...are there any mobiles out there where you can pick and choose to maximize battery life?
If you're not going to go more than a couple of hourse without access to a charge, massive battery drain isn't an issue.
Of course such capabilities would probably result in a differently shaped/packaged iPhone, but if the battery issue is that large a concern, it would be interesting to have a choice based on the way you used the iPhone.
And not just the iPhone either...are there any mobiles out there where you can pick and choose to maximize battery life?
Big companies hate to waste money. They just can't help it sometimes
WiFi is not cheaper from the carrier's standpoint. Consider how much they pay now to landowners for tower locations. We're talking often thousands a month. Can you image how many more WiFi units would be required to cover the same hundreds of square miles? And the cost of renting space to put them?
I understand what you are saying, but there are alot of places that actually pay to be wifi hotspots. So that the company really doesn't have to pay that much to deploy it. Also metro areas are starting to roll out city wide wifi. Add that to the tons of businesses that want to provide free wifi to their customers and you can see the savings it would be to deploy wifi. I work on-call shifts for my company and it use to limit me to staying at home when I'm on call. This past week though I have discovered that many places in the Dallas area have free wifi. So I have been able to go out all week and not worry if I get paged. I easily just jumped on a wifi network when I got paged and did my work.
Good idea. I've had industrial PDA/phones that had tons of OEM specific power options, because how field technicians use them, varies all over the place. (Some always have the computer in a truck with power; others use them heavily for 12 hours a day without recharge.)
Sometimes I think consumer companies are scared of giving too many options, because then you'd have to write a huge manual
Id also like the phone to be able to dynamically change setting based on which wifi you are connected to. Ringer Volume, silenced contacts, email outgoing servers used etc. The email part would be the most useful for me as my home ISP blocks emails sent out unless they use the ISPS own servers, but those servers are only available to when your connection is to them - i.e. I have to change the out going server based on where I am.