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EDGE Can Out-Perform 3G; Here's Why
goombah99 writes "Blackfriars's communications has an interesting discourse on why the practical difference between 3G and EDGE cellphone data networks is less than it appears to be based on a naive bandwidth metric. Their argument is that the user experience of TCP/HTML is much more impacted by latency, error rates, and processor speed than by bandwidth — and Edge had the edge on all three. Additionally, EDGE may consume considerably less power."
So one guy who owns an iPhone (and Apple stock) writes an argument, based on his own limited experiences with an iPhone and a Nokia, without any precise measurements, concluding that EDGE is better for mobile web browsing than 3G.
Submissions to "articles" like these are making Slashdot look more and more like Digg. I don't know about the rest of you but in my opinion, that's a Bad Thing.
My personal experience in Japan over the past 5 years has shown that 3G does little or nothing to address latency issues, but 3.5G (aka HSDPA/HSUPA or together just HSPA) has made a huge breakthrough in cellular latency.
I have used data services via 2G (9600bps), PHS (32-128kbps), 3G (384kbps), and now 3.5G (3.6-12mbps). While the bandwidth has gone way up and monthly charges have gone way down, everything before 3.5G had horrible latency (400-900ms), not to mention ridiculous fees (think $20/MB or more).
Now I use a 3.5G (HSDPA) cellular data service called eMobile which sprung up just over the past few months. I get about 300KB/s (bytes not bits) down and 100ms latency, unlimited use for about $50/month. Not quite as fast as the gigabit fiber I have at home for $40/month, but it certainly works well enough for a snappy browsing experience, and WoW and FPS games are perfectly playable.
Translating into "layman's terms", EDGE is more responsive than UMTS or HDSPA, but the 3G protocols are better at shovelling huge files up and down the stream. That means that lots of small data like an IM client will feel faster on EDGE, but downloads and video will be faster on UMTS/HDSPA.
I can accept that argument. If this is true, then Meebo would be faster on EDGE; but YouTube faster on UMTS. Using my cell phone as a modem (no DSL in my neighbourhood), I can say that my experience has been pretty much like that, though I thought it was due to longer "handshaking" at the beginning of a UMTS connection...
3G is rubbish here in Ireland, where people desperate for broadband have bought 3G data modems for internet access. The problem is that the system is not very scalable, and it is too expensive and slow for the operator to upgrade capacity to provide more service. The bandwidth they advertise for example (as "up to 3 Mbs") is shared for each cell - so even just two people using it solidly means half the bandwidth - but in city areas it means that the conditions can be worse than fixed-line dial-up.
From what I gather, EDGE is nice and cheap and can be more easily scaled. I believe O2 are now planning to roll it out in Ireland despite having a 3G network already.
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- iPhone: 667MHz Samsung S3C6400
- Nokia E61i: 220MHz TI OMAP1710
Yep, must be the network causing all that slowdown.That's just plain wrong.
HSDPA latency is significantly lower than for UMTS, thanks to a couple of enhancements (Lower TTI, HARQ, etc). There's been a major effort to reduce latency in the 3G/3.5G systems in order to make VoIP viable.
http://www.umts-forum.org/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_download/gid,1632/Itemid,12/
I'm the author of the original article on Blackfriars Marketing, and the title of this thread is misrepresenting that article. The original title is "Why EDGE versus 3G matters less than you think.", not why EDGE is getter than 3G. I've posted a followup to the article today here. It's not nearly as inflammatory as implied here.
Like many engineering issues, this is one of balance.
It's not that Edge has any advantages when it comes to processing efficiency, it's that to take advantage of 3G's greater bandwidth you need more processor bandwidth than you can get today in a reasonable mobile package.
If you take a Dodge Neon on the autobahn, you don't enjoy the unlimited speed offered by the highway very much. If you are making frequent side trips, you might do better with a slower road with more frequent exits.
In the end, there is no single thing as "speed" when it comes to networking. There are several, such as bandwidth, response time, and latency. If I had my choice, 3G would be my choice for applications that have to deliver large volumes of bits at a consistent rate. That doesn't describe most web use by a long shot. It does describe streaming high quality video to a device that can display it, but has limited buffering capacity. If you think about that, in mobile applications that's a rather narrow niche in which to have a killer advantage.
It comes down to balance. Does 3G widen the narrowest bottleneck in my mobile network use? If not, then it's advantages don't mean much to me. It may be that other bottlenecks have to be widened before anybody needs 3G's peculiar advantages.
Coming back to TFA, it may be that the iPhone would be better suited to exploit 3G's advantages than other phones. But you can't get an iPhone on 3G, so it's an academic question. The practical question is whether the less powerful devices on a 3G network can exploit that network well enough to outweigh the iPhone's attractions?
Personally, it doesn't matter to me one way or the other, because nobody has good enough coverage to render that issue irrelevant. I don't care how "fast" a network is unless I can reach it every place I have to go. If I lived and worked in Manhattan, this might not be an issue, but then I'd have better things to do with my time than watch videos on my phone.
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