iPhone 4S new 14.4 Mbps HSDPA 4G speeds won't help Americans - Page 2

They haven't. We have to wait until iFixit does their stuff.

Apple notwithstanding, any carrier promising 3G beyond 5mbps is outright lying and should be taken to task for their blatant deception. Like I said, show me in volume around the world where you can get 5mbps sustained on 3G. HS-whatever-PA is all nice on paper but in practice you're pushing the limits of what is possible with 3G networks as they currently stand around the world.

Finally I agree with you. At least in Asia Pacific it's not that horrendous. In Malaysia there is a pioneering telco rolling out 4G WiMax that actually is close to the promise of WiMax. You can hit about 6mbps down and at least reach 2mbps down on an average day. The 3G telcos are nowhere near. This 4G WiMax telco is headed by two former Sprint WiMax execs. Say what you will about Sprint's troubles with WiMax but speaking to these execs they at least seem to be doing in Malaysia perhaps what they really wanted to do with Sprint in the US.

Here in Australia, Telstra has rolled out their dual-band 3G but in any case Telstra has launched their LTE network and clearly for mobile broadband that will be where the speed is. 3G is just not designed for high-bandwidth data. It just isn't, and it just isn't implemented anywhere close to the required demands for mobile broadband. In a few years we'll all each be chewing up about 50GB of mobile data per month. No small amount for any telco.

It won't matter because the battery life would still suck, given the state of current LTE chips. You'd need to turn off LTE anyway.


Assuming this is real, how do you plan to use a 15+ Mbps connection on a pocket-able device?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4450/lg-revolution/5

With 14 months of R&D, apple could probably do something more than provide average data speeds.


In this one story, a fox sees some high-hanging grapes and wishes to eat them. When the fox is unable to think of a way to reach them, he surmises that the grapes are probably not worth eating, as they must not be ripe or that they are sour. This example follows a pattern: one desires something, finds it unattainable, and reduces one's dissonance by criticizing it.

[wiki - cognitive dissonance]

just accept Apple's mistake of not including LTE or even 21mbps HSPA+

Dutch? But why? And what?

LG Revolution dropping browse time from 7+ hours for iPhone to less than 4 confirms my point. Even the best "4G" rates 1 1/2 fewer hours of battery life than the iPhone 4.


How about dropping the lame fable and give a use for the speed. I suspect the reason you chose to tell a story is because you don't have one. It's not worth dropping hours of battery life now for an assumed and unrealized future use for the extra speed.

The battery could have been improved upon to compensate for the additional power draw. The extra battery draw would only come from downloading files, not things like talking on your phone/texting.

As far the use for that speed, tethering would be an obvious advantage. Upload speeds of videos you capture on the go, app download speeds, faster syncing, streaming video etc.

Just a few circumstances where I could see it being useful personally.

Deleted - someone answered my question.

There's only so much a battery can be improved without just making it larger or giving the technology time to be ready for commercialization.

An active radio, even when not transmitting and receiving a data payload, will consume power just for being on, and they generally scan the spectrum for towers on a regular basis, which consumes power, and if the signal is weak, it can really drain power quickly. That's why the lists on how to conserve power suggest even turning off WiFi and Bluetooth if you're not using them - they do make a noticeable difference in battery life. On heavy-use days, I sometimes even turn off 3G when I don't need the speed.

Ask Sol what he could do with that.

This article is a complete travesty of misquote, misunderstanding, misspelling, and misleading.

AT&T has about as much 14.4 Mbps HSDPA as they did 7.2 HSDPA 2 years ago when the 3GS launched...almost none. By now, real world data rates are 3-5 Mbps.

You'll see at least that speed on the 4S immediately, and probably upwards of 7-10 Mbps over the next 2 years.

I get up to 5 MBit download and 2 upload on AT&T now. While I often like daniel's posts this one just sounds incorrect. AT&T has been rolling out new android phones using the faster huspa speeds and tests have been conducted showing them faster, at time approaching 10 mbits and more. Apple benchmarks in the presentation to those. How can Daniel say the actual speeds will be slower than what we are getting now? Give me a freakin' break...

Are you suggesting that the Better Business Bureau "shut down" the carriers? That ridiculous suggestion aside, Apple chose to release a phone that does not support LTE? The carriers are supporting high-speed data, but Apple chose to adopt a protocol that nobody in the US uses.

Your angst is misdirected.

You mean 3G only, not 3.5G/HSPA+, right? Because there are plenty of carriers who deliver a lot better than 5 Mbps, even on straight 3G phones.

Would you ellaborate as to why not? 15 codes, 16QAM + MIMO or Dual Cell will get you real speeds beyond 5Mbps quite easily. Just as with LTE it can be done, it can be done with HSPA+ (or soonish HSPA+Adv). It's mainly a matter of dimensioning the radio network and transmission to fit your needs. The first google search I did came up with: http://www.signalsresearch.com/Docs/MWC-%20SRG.pdf. How many of such research papers would you need to satisfy your "in volume around the world" hypotheses?

A while back many networks fell in the 2-3Mbps practical range (achieved with 5-10 codes and 16QAM), but the higher speeds (5-10Mbps) have been on the increase for a while now and should be reality in quite a few locations already since 10-15 codes and dual-cell has become more prevalent and the reception will improve with advanced receivers (FDE, Interference cancellation, CPC and FDPCH) coming to commercial devices withouth changing network HW (SW upgrade required).

Regs, Jarkko

So please forgive my ignorance, but I thought the Apple presentation said that the 4S supports HSDPA, not HSPA+?!? Are they the same thing?? Thanks!

You realize that the world is larger than the U.S., right? Also, this is likely Apple's way of telling these morons to shape up.

They are not the same thing and 4S does not do HSPA+. 4S does HSPA.

- 3GPP Release 5 introduced HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) with speeds up to 14.4Mbps in the downlink and this tech was deployed to networks roughly around 2007-2009.

- 3GPP Release 6 introduced HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) up to 5.8Mbps in the uplink direction. Deployed roughly 2008-2010

These two together are collectively known as HSPA

- 3GPP Release 7 brought HSPA+, which increased speeds in both directions (DL 21Mbps-84Mbps) and brought many other improvements. This is what has been deployed in networks globally during the last few years or so.

- 3GPP Release 8 brought LTE and is being deployed as we speak

- Release 9 will bring improvements to LTE. Next 1-3 years for deployment

- Release 10 will bring HSPA+ to 168Mbps

- Release 11 will bring HSPA+ Advanced (speeds up to 678Mbps). 3-5 years from now in real life.

Regs, Jarkko

I don't understand this quote from the article, my current VZW Thunderbolt 4G LTE is showing speed tests around 30 Mbps down and 12Mbps up currently. Can someone explain what they mean by highest performance cellular data technology with a theoretical rate of 14.4 Mbps?

I's called an error or a lie depending on your viewpoint. Highest performing cellular data at the moment is LTE with HSPA+ a very close second.

Regs, Jarkko

So 23 seconds at peak speed to hit the data cap. Great.

Frankly it doesn't matter. Wherever I go the AT&T signal is so unreliable that what their theoretical capacity is of NO relevance.

I can't tell you how many times I have full signal strength, yet no internet connectivity on my 3gs. Or how often it takes FOREVER to do things using the AT&T network.

I will take a slower consistent connection over anything AT&T.

I'm pretty sure that AT&T's network, in most large cities, can pull down 21mbps and T-Mobile's network is lightyears beyond 14mbps with their 42mbps network that is about to be utilized by the Galaxy S II. Some of the information in this article is misleading as the iPhone 4s will more than be able to use the technology in AT&T's network because it is almost double the speed of the phone.

The real story is the disparity of speed options available to Sprint and Verizon customers because of a lack of 4G on the iPhone 4s (ironic that the entire iPhone 4 line lacks any 4G at all, and no, 14mbps really doesn't count). The most notable omission will be Sprint's WiMax, as it's been around for years, and every competitive phone to the iPhone will be WiMax-enabled on their network.

Testing shows Verizon's LTE (and AT&T's) to be top dog, followed by T-Mobile's 42mbps-enabled 3G network, followed by Sprint's WiMax and then AT&T's 3G network... just like you said.

The real advantage of LTE over other technologies is the latency, which is much better than 3G technologies and even WiMax. Exciting!

1) These comments strike me as so odd. You clearly talk of handsets yet reference a carrier doing some preliminary test. Switzerland rolling out 42Mb/s at their towers does not mean that phones in Switzerland have 42Mb/s chips. IT's a completely different situation with the cellular tech coming wll after the carrier's tech.

2) Sure it does. It has '4G' because the carrier defined it as their 4th generation network. They can use any measure they wish because there is no governing body that says you can't use a number followed by the letter 'G' unless you first get approval from the ITU. And nowhere on these carriers's sites are they saying this is '4G" as defined by the ITU. So what's your problem.

3) Oh yeah, as previously discussed, 14.4Mbps is HSPA+ and the ITU-R included LTE and HSPA+ as '4G'.

•

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/imt-2000/Do...0/IMT-2000.pdf (PDF, 500KB)

• http://www.anandtech.com/show/4304/a...spire?all=true (see 2nd post)
PS: Show me where the ITU has classed HSPA+ as a corny '3.5G'.

Exactly, technology on paper is unlimited. Problem is most of us don't live on paper and I'm getting real tired of all the bogus claims companies like to throw around.

How many seconds faster does your phone load a common website vs say an iphone? Even if you are getting 30mbps down consistently, the limitations of your phone would prevent it from loading the page any faster than a desktop pc on a 3mbps connection.

Downloading files/apps would be the only advantage, which is usually done over wifi.

No doubt that Verizon's LTE network, where available, is much faster than HSPA 14.4. I don't actually see where Apple is claiming that HPSA 14.4 is the highest performance. However, your Thunderbolt has under 3 hours of battery life in Anandtech's smartphone web browsing test. The iPhone 4 has 6.65 (AT&T) or 7.67 (VZW) hours. Undoubtedly the Qualcomm add-on LTE chip used in the Thunderbolt is fast - but it is also big and power hungry. If you don't mind the very short battery life and you live in LTE deployed territory, I can see how you can be swayed by this. But that's a very small percentage of people. Most of Apple's customers have pretty high expectations for their phones, like decent battery life - and that means some engineering compromises, even if that means not using the 1st generation LTE chipsets, not cranking the clock speed beyond what is reasonable given the current process technology and ARM CPU design.

But just like there are people that like buying 10-12 pound 17" gaming laptops with desktop processors and 45 minute battery life, there are people willing to buy the current 4G LTE handsets. Just don't expect Apple to ship unbalanced products like that. 4G HSPA+ phones are pretty much the same in the real world in 2011 and possibly 2012 as the iPhone 4S (HSPA, not plus), which is what Apple is saying. I don't know why Apple didn't ship a HSPA+ phone, maybe they didn't like the quality or power characteristics of the available Qualcomm chips.

BTW, if you really "need" LTE now, it probably makes more sense to get a LTE hotspot device with its own big battery so you have it in the car or wherever you can handle the bulk and otherwise use 3G/3.5G in your phone the rest of the time.

When the actual LTE chipsets intended for phone use come out in 2012, what are you going to think about the brick that is your Thunderbolt then? Sometimes the earliest adopter gets screwed.

Yes, I think about 15% US vs. 85% rest of the World.

Thanks! So it looks like the internet speed from the 4S will be exactly the same as my 3GS. Is that a correct statement?

Kevin

Nope. The 4S will potentially provide 2x the data rate at 3GS and 4 users in areas where ATT has HSDPA 14.4 coverage. So, if you're in such an area, you'll get up to 4 to 10 Mbit/s depending on conditions.

With the 3GS, people tend to get 0.5 to 3.5 Mbit/s down and <0.3 Mbit/s up.

With the 4, people tend to get 0.5 to 3.5 Mbit/s down and 0.5 to 1.5 Mbit/s up.

With the 4S, people should get from 0.5 to 8 Mbit/s down and 0.5 to 1.5 Mbit/s up.

These are not exact numbers as it is dependent on local conditions, obviously, you need to be in an 14.4 area to get those 2x data rates over the 3GS/4.

On the bright side, people in other parts of the world (like Europe, Australia) are more guaranteed to get 5 to 10 Mbit/s as their 14.4/21 Mbit/s networks are more mature and built out.

Can you explain what you mean, I wasn't comparing NZ to whatever you think I was.

Only if the phone supports Release 7 signalling features (fractional DPCH, CPC, Fast Dormancy etc.), which Apple has not given any statements on. So if it's just a bump from using 10 codes to 15 codes in parallell, it's still HSPA.

Until Apple clarifies (or someone grabs signalling traces), then it's safer to assume HSPA.

Regs, Jarkko

Common misconception. I've seen WCDMA networks, with 25-35 ms roundtrip delay. If you build your WCDMA network architecture the same way as LTEs (as defined in 3GPP R6), then there should be negligible difference in delay between LTE and WCDMA.

LTE is speedwise only 10-20% better than WCDMA when you compare oranges to oranges (most sites don't). It's drawback is the differing spectrums allocated globally (think how compatible your phones are between WCDMA operators in the US to get an idea), which leads to phones not being usable globally at least in the beginning.

So no, LTE is not the shining start many think. Good yes, heads above WCDMA? No. Not yet (and for a good years to come). Better than WCDMA? In some places, yes.

Regs, Jarkko

Good point. I didn't even consider that when looking at all the other '4G' phones the iPhone 4S was compared to.

Is there any data on ATT's progress on their 14.4 network? Any locations that supposedly have it?

Just check attwireless.com. My eyeballs say they've got coverage for most of the high population metro areas. I'd estimate 200m people are covered in the USA, including cities in Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Alaska. My area is covered.

Jarkko, see above. I am not doubting the science or the technicalities, clearly I am no expert in this area.

Edit: see my next post for the best proof I can find...

It is a point of frustration that many users around the world on 3G, 3.5G, 3.5G+ HS-whatever... whatever you call it, it is rare to see 5mbps sustained in many major cities.

There are claims by LTE and WiMax 4G providers that 3G was designed for voice and so there is an inherent disadvantage. Newer 3G standards as you mention can perhaps remove these disadvantages, if they exist. Now the question to you would be, do you believe that there are these disadvantages compared to LTE and WiMax. Secondly, do you believe that telcos around the world, or at least AT&T are addressing these disadvantages. How is Verizon? Does their LTE speed and consistency show a marked improvement over AT&T's fastest 3G speeds?

At what stage does a telco need to focus strongly on LTE to be able to feed enough bandwidth to customers?

Looking at LTE vs 3G in the US, what is the scenario as it stands?

The proof I will present is the data by NetIndex which is as much as I can find. Scroll down to the breakdown by ISP. A quick run through shows that some countries can provide 3G averages above 3mbps but not often... and never averages above 5mbps except for very few countries. Of course, these tests are done by those using laptops and phones that support Speedtest.net apps. Which poses some caveats to the data. But interestingly, we do get a good sample of mobile broadband use, since anything lesser than a smartphone cannot run the test AFAIK. So the data rightfully excludes phones that would never get decent 3G speeds anyway.

Here we can try to see average speeds from tests done.

Australia
http://netindex.com/download/2,18/Australia/
For Australia, notice Vivid is a 4G WiMax provider. Vodafone is a 3G provider. Optus and Telstra's results are both fixed line and wireless which complicates things.

USA
http://netindex.com/download/2,1/USA

UK
http://netindex.com/download/2,4/UK

(Just change the 2,1 in the URLs to 2,2 2,3 2,4 etc. to get the different countries. e.g. http://netindex.com/download/2,10/USA (the country word actually doesn't seem to matter)

New Zealand is interesting:
http://netindex.com/download/2,5/NewZealand
2Degrees is 3G but seems to have some good speed

Sweden seems excellent:
http://netindex.com/download/2,6/Sweden

Brazil
http://netindex.com/download/2,13/Brazil

Singapore
http://netindex.com/download/2,17/Singapore
Note they have HSDPA vs normal

Malaysia:
http://netindex.com/download/2,26/Malaysia
Note Maxis Broadband Sdn Bhd, Digi, Celcom Internet Service Provider are 3G providers. YTL Communications is a 4G WiMax provider. Packet One Networks is also a 4G WiMax provider. Anything above 6mbps except for YTL Communications is fixed line broadband, not wireless.