iPhone 4 HSUPA support speeds 3G uploads by 10x

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
In addition to its oddly secret 512MB of RAM, iPhone 4 also packs another important feature Steve Jobs gave only brief mention of during his introductory keynote at WWDC: support for High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA).



HSUPA (also known as Enhanced Uplink) is a 3G protocol that provides uplink speeds up to 5.76 Mbps in the Category 6 flavor supported by iPhone 4. It joins HSDPA (High-Speed Download Packet Access), the enhanced download upgrade to UMTS 3G service that was supported by last year's iPhone 3GS, enabling up to 7.2 Mbps downloads. Because it lacked support for HSUPA, iPhone 3GS was limited to just 384 kbps uploads.



Support for both HSDPA and HSUPA in iPhone 4 makes the phone a "3.5G" device and means it can theoretically achieve 7.2 Mbps downloads and 5.8 Mbps uploads, but those capabilities are also dependent upon the mobile operator.



Jobs: That's 'theoretically' because the carriers don't support it yet



In the US, AT&T's 3G HSDPA primarily maxes out at 3.2 Mbps, with typical speeds ranging from 0.7 to 1.7 Mbps. The company is in the process of deploying faster 7.2 Mbps service, but this is currently limited to just a few cities: Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and Los Angeles and Miami.



In terms of uploads, AT&T's 3G HSUPA network operates with typical speeds ranging from 0.5 to 1.2 Mbps, roughly two to four times faster than 0.3 Mbps theoretical maximum of the non-HSUPA capable iPhone 3GS. Not all of AT&T's 3G network supports faster HSUPA service.



In actual practice, tests reported by Gizmodo which pitted the iPhone 3GS against iPhone 4 found that download speeds measured across several locations in New York City were largely the same, with both ranging from 0.5 to 2 Mbps on both phones.



However, upload speeds were dramatically faster with iPhone 4. Without support for HSUPA, iPhone 3GS was stuck pushing files out at around 0.1 Mbps, while iPhone 4 was able to achieve uploads better than 0.6 to 1.4 Mbps, an improvement of an order of magnitude.



AppleInsider found similar upload speeds available to iPhone 4 in San Francisco: around 1.5 Mbps down and 0.7 Mbps up. That's much faster than before, but nothing near 802.11n WiFi supplied cable broadband, which effortlessly delivers Internet service 8.4 Mbps down and 3.5 Mbps up.







By comparison, Verizon's EVDO Rev A 3G network claims download speeds of 0.6 to 1.4 Mbps, and upload speeds of 0.5 to 0.8 Mbps, with pockets of slower service comparable to AT&T's EDGE. AT&T claims a slight edge in download speeds but significantly faster uploads. T-Mobile's 3G network, although limited in scope, is 7.2 Mbps. Sprint's highly touted WiMAX "4G" network claims average speeds of 3 to 6 Mbps downloads and 1 Mbps uploads, but is similarly only available in a few locations.



Outside the US, several mobile operators in Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia have been supporting 7.2 Mbps or faster HSDPA for more than a year (with some offering even faster 14.4 Mbps or better service) and 1.4 to 5.8 Mbps HSUPA speeds. Even faster HSPA+ networks have started offering 21.6 Mbps downloads over the past year.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 53
    vulcan1vulcan1 Posts: 56member
    Yeah, the 7.2 Mbps was a slight disappointment, was hoping for 10.2 or 14.4 Mbps
  • Reply 2 of 53
    "oddly secret 512MB"



    It's only seems odd to geeks and techies. Regular people (who are now the vast majority of iPhone buyers) just want a phone that does what it says on the box. Besides, having two memory sizes (one for working RAM and one for storage) would be confusing to a lot of people (what, it only has 512MB for storing music?! That's less than my USB stick!). This has been a deliberate marketing strategy of Apple since the first iPod (1000 songs), along with the slower than normal product life-cycle and relatively few choices (both of which make it easier for people to actually buy the product).
  • Reply 3 of 53
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Dear Steve Jobs,



    if you are reading this I can test one in Australia, my address is...
  • Reply 4 of 53
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    You'll need the new iPhone 4.1 for super awesome 3G speeds.



  • Reply 5 of 53
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,403member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Vulcan1 View Post


    Yeah, the 7.2 Mbps was a slight disappointment, was hoping for 10.2 or 14.4 Mbps



    Yeah, and I was hoping for 100 Mbps.....
  • Reply 6 of 53
    ochymingochyming Posts: 474member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    You'll need the new iPhone 4.1 for super awesome 3G speeds.





    It is now mandatory for the antenna to be @ the bottom - antennasys.com's Apple iPhone 4 Antennas...

    You fail!
  • Reply 7 of 53
    onhkaonhka Posts: 1,025member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by adrian.oconnor View Post


    "oddly secret 512MB"



    It's only seems odd to geeks and techies. Regular people (who are now the vast majority of iPhone buyers) just want a phone that does what it says on the box. Besides, having two memory sizes (one for working RAM and one for storage) would be confusing to a lot of people (what, it only has 512MB for storing music?! That's less than my USB stick!). This has been a deliberate marketing strategy of Apple since the first iPod (1000 songs), along with the slower than normal product life-cycle and relatively few choices (both of which make it easier for people to actually buy the product).



    Been up all night preparing for final lecture. Perhaps I need some sleep, but what the hell are you talking about?
  • Reply 8 of 53
    russgrizrussgriz Posts: 20member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Onhka View Post


    Been up all night preparing for final lecture. Perhaps I need some sleep, but what the hell are you talking about?



    Are you being ironic?
  • Reply 9 of 53
    pmzpmz Posts: 3,433member
    I'm getting insane speeds on my iPhone 4, putting to shame those screenshots on the front page.



    Tested inside my home, and no it doesn't matter how i hold the damn thing. Lol what idiots.



    Wifi: 12.26 mb down - 11.16 mb up



    3G: 2.72 mb down - 1.28 mb up



    All of these numbers are a big jump over my 3GS, except the 3G download which has always been around 2.5mb during calm hours.
  • Reply 10 of 53
    bslaghtbslaght Posts: 40member
    deleted
  • Reply 11 of 53
    nhtnht Posts: 4,522member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Vulcan1 View Post


    Yeah, the 7.2 Mbps was a slight disappointment, was hoping for 10.2 or 14.4 Mbps



    Yes, it was a slight disappointment...but when AT&T is on the ball the speeds aren't any worse than WiMax (in philly on the Evo anyway).







    (that last 4.7M bps run on the list is 802.11N to a Time Capsule connected to a 5 Mbps FiOS feed)



    I'm getting slower speeds (2.5 Mbps vs 3.9 Mbps) this morning since...hey, more folks are awake and hitting that same tower. Both Sprint's WiMax and AT&T HSPA 7.2 networks are limited by their backhauls. As AT&T updates their towers with more backhaul to support HSPA+ 14.4 speeds we're going to see our phone more consistently hit that 4-5 Mbps performance range. Which will be just as fast as it is at home connected via a low end FiOS contract...



    The congestion point isn't the radio...it's backhaul. And they have to continue to improve that before LTE makes much difference. Same for WiMax for Sprint.



    Typical towers have 1-3 T1 as backhauls while upgraded towers have fiber. Estimates are that only 15% of towers have been updated to fiber* in the US. My guess is that the AT&T tower I'm hitting is HSPA 7.2 (and not one of the upgraded HSPA+ ones) with 2-3 T1s equivalents given that I had good signal and probably little load at 1AM.



    Once that tower goes fiber (or provisioned higher) I expect to see real world 5 mbps consistently given the signal strength. Even the old HSPA 3.6 towers can do 3 Mbps if it has 3.6+Mbops backhaul to the net.



    By the time our contracts are up neither LTE or HSPA+ will see consistent real world speeds faster than HSPA 7.2. This is why 4G WiMax isn't spanking T-Mobile's 3.5G HSPA+ roll out in Philly.



    By the time it matters that we don't have a HSPA+ 14.4 radio in the iPhone 4 we're probably all standing in line or waiting on FedEx for our new iPhone 8...



    --



    * many towers already physically have fiber to them since there are often multiple carriers per tower. The thing was in the 90s it was cheaper to stick in a mux and run the last bit as copper T1s to the different users. So you need to rip out a couple hundred to a couple thousand feet of copper even if it "already" has fiber then replace the mux in the cabinet with something like a Fujitsu 4100 that can do a optical GigE output to provision all the (new) wireless carrier gear with what they need. VZW fiber towers are typically provisioned between 10 to 100 meg vs the full GigE fiber feed off that original OC12. Yah...10 megs for LTE would suck but they can dial it up when the tower needs more without redoing the backhaul cabinets.



    Upgrading a single tower can run you $30K+ and take months to do. Just running physical fiber to the tower is a fraction of that cost and effort so even already having fiber to the tower cabinet with a copper mux doesn't mean an easy/fast/cheap upgrade to "fiber".
  • Reply 12 of 53
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Nht, you clearly know what you're talking about... which instantly disqualifies you from posting here. .
  • Reply 13 of 53
    wally626wally626 Posts: 72member
    AT&T finally bumped the tower near my house to 7.2 mbps, I was able to get over 3 mbps last Sunday morning. At work it is up from around 1 mbps to 1.5 mbps. So they may have also upgraded the tower here, but just more traffic on it.
  • Reply 14 of 53
    onhkaonhka Posts: 1,025member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by russgriz View Post


    Are you being ironic?



    No.



    Perhaps you can explain what he meant when he says, the iPhone 4 "?only has 512MB for storing music?! That's less than my USB stick!"
  • Reply 15 of 53
    noirdesirnoirdesir Posts: 1,027member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Onhka View Post


    No.



    Perhaps you can explain what he meant when he says, the iPhone 4 "?only has 512MB for storing music?! That's less than my USB stick!"



    He was saying that some people might think the iPhone 4 "?only has 512MB for storing music" if Apple advertised the 512 MB RAM too much.
  • Reply 16 of 53
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    I can't say I am getting the upload speeds mentioned here. This morning I was at 1.3Mbps up, which was slightly higher than my download speed. My average seems to be about 600-700Kbps, or about 2x that of the maximum HSDPA upload speeds.



    I previously speculated Sprint's WiMAX performance win will be short-lived. After seeing the iPhone 4's speeds higher than expected I am now certain of it. On top of that, you don't get the power drain on your device the way you do with WiMAX. This important fact really needs to get more attention.



    Next competitor will be Verizon with LTE but AT&T and T-Mobile USA should still be able to best them in speed while offering a more power efficient HW.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by adrian.oconnor View Post


    "oddly secret 512MB"



    It's only seems odd to geeks and techies.



    Of course, this isn't David Pogue reporting for the NYTimes. This a site and writer that gets very technical and writes in-depth articles. I don't agree that it's "odd" of Apple as they have never revealed the RAM of an iDevice as far as i can recall.



    Since the recently released iPad only 256MB and that by design would need more RAM than a pocketable iDevice I was pleasantly surprised (and I'm sure I'm not alone on this board).





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Onhka View Post


    Been up all night preparing for final lecture. Perhaps I need some sleep, but what the hell are you talking about?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Onhka View Post


    No.



    Perhaps you can explain what he meant when he says, the iPhone 4 "?only has 512MB for storing music?! That's less than my USB stick!"



    He's pointing out that Apple listing the RAM on their site might be confusing for the average buyer. His comment was an example of what one might say if they didn't know better.



    Specicially reason as to why include Flash NAND and RAM can both be referred to as "memory" and other smartphones only coming with a very limited amount of on-baord Flash NAND, requiring the user to play musical chairs with very slow MicroSD cards.
  • Reply 17 of 53
    zoetmbzoetmb Posts: 2,654member
    never mind...someone answered before me while I was typing the response.
  • Reply 18 of 53
    I'm in Charlotte and have yet to see this 7.2 jump. My download right now is 1362 kbps and my upload is 565 kbps.
  • Reply 19 of 53
    dtidmoredtidmore Posts: 145member
    As one of the cities that AT&T has been upgrading both backhaul and wireless service, performance is pretty nice. My new 4G reports between 2.7Mb and 3.5Mb down and 1-1.5Mb up, more or less consistently, with latency averaging around 250ms. I do get an occasional test result below these numbers, but overall, pretty nice service.



    I also use Verizon EVDO revA broadband wireless (5 years as a user) on my MBP. In the beginning, Verizon was lightyears ahead of anyone in both coverage and performance as well as consistency of performance. My VZ service on revA (I have excellent signal strength), runs between 500-1.6Mb down and 300-500Kb up (upside the majority of the time). VZ latency is the biggest downfall for me, currently running around 300-500ms, which is about twice what AT&T is delivering.



    The other day, I had the opportunity to give T-Mobile's Dallas area broadband service a spin on a friend's notebook. I was WAY underwhelmed given the hype about T-Mobile leapfrogging AT&T to 21.4Mb. It struggled to deliver 1Mb down and 200Kb up. The T-Mobile app on her notebook verified that she was connected to 7.2Mb service (her wireless card not capable of the newer 21Mb service apparently) and excellent signal strength. I really expected performance more along the lines of what my new 4G iphone is measuring given that T-Mobile and AT&T both use UMTS technology). This points to a backhaul issue, which is of course more expensive to fix than upgrading the UMTS wireless side. It would appear that T-Mobile is engaging in the age old game of bragging about a single aspect of service rather than the actual end user experience.



    CLEAR is also here in the Dallas area and they advertise end-user real-world performance running slightly above AT&T's 7.2 deliverable (ie as stated above) with even lower latency. Their pricing is very attractive, requires no contract and has no caps or limits.



    Depending on the details of VZ's rollout of LTE in this area later this year, I may make the switch to CLEAR for broadband wireless since I know that my current grandfathered VZ contract with true unlimited data will likely fall under a usage cap if I upgrade to LTE on VZ (conjecture, but likely).
  • Reply 20 of 53
    zoetmbzoetmb Posts: 2,654member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nht View Post


    Yes, it was a slight disappointment...but when AT&T is on the ball the speeds aren't any worse than WiMax (in philly on the Evo anyway).





    (that last 4.7M bps run on the list is 802.11N to a Time Capsule connected to a 5 Mbps FiOS feed)



    I'm getting slower speeds (2.5 Mbps vs 3.9 Mbps) this morning since...hey, more folks are awake and hitting that same tower.



    Those are pretty amazing speeds. In Forest Hills, Queens with my 3G phone and using the same Ookla Speed Test, I'm getting 7150/739 over WiFi, but only 146/35 over 3G. And in Manhattan, I think it would be far worse. Using the Xtreme Labs SpeedTest, I've gotten as little as 31/90 (and yes, download was slower than upload on that test) over 3G.
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