Way to go Apple and China Unicom! You have overcome a great obstacle in perception in China. May the sales keep rolling in!
the rumor i was told is that grey market iphone from hong kong will not work in mainland china. by the way, one of must-have features for folks in china is text messaging capability on iphone, as they care less about high speed 3g. any one can comment on chinese text messaging on iphone?
I continue to believe that no single network is capable of handling the bandwidth demand from iPhone's users.
It may not be just the bandwidth. iPhone's air interface apparently has issues and it's overly aggressive power saving features cause problems for the networks, which expect specific behaviour from devices. This comes from the mouths of several operators' radio network guys. And mind you, they're not complaining about BW usage (although undoubtedly that's an issue as well in many cases).
I don't have exact technical details as the info came from coffee table discussions. To be honest, I was surprised about it when I first heard. But similar comments from different countries different operator personnell have lead me to believe there's some truth to it. But regard this as rumour until more reliable technical data is published somewhere.
I have an iPhone in both the UK and the US, and I would agree that ATT service is pretty bad, but it is no where as bad as O2. The UK consumer is so used to poor levels of service, they do not know how bad they have it. There are ton of 'DROP ZONES' inside the city limits of London itself which is pathetic. 3G, if your lucky to get it at all, usually drops within a minute or so. If you are on a train, forget it, 99% chance you will not have coverage. So in short, O2 service is pathetic, but their APOLOGIES are fabulous and frequent.
Can you be specific about which areas of London you have no coverage? I'm on Orange but my mother's on O2 and she's had little to no problem when out and about in Central London.
I'm intrigued by the reception on the trains. Technically it's more difficult to provide a usable connection to a moving phone than to a stationary phone. Furthermore there are plenty of tunnels and bridges in London which mess around with the signal. Nevertheless when I'm on the train within London I have good 3G reception on Orange; I have poor reception on one particular line between London to Portsmouth.
10 years ago there was 14.4k WAP, then 56k GPRS, 384k 3G around 5 years ago, 1.8Mbps HSDPA around 3 years ago and now that's up to 14.4Mbps in some places.
The pace of innovation in mobile technology makes Moore's Law (computers) look like snail's pace.
Building mobile networks is a constantly evolving enterprise which doesn't really suit businesses who built copper line infrastructure then used it for 100 years.
14.4 Mbps? Ha! What total BS! This is a THEORETICAL PEAK data speed that can only be achieved in a lab, or by sitting still next to the base station w/ absolutely NO LOADING....
A friend & I are constantly testing the competing 3G networks, and just like in the PC World tests run around the country, Verizon outperforms AT&T on 3G data speed on a pretty consistent basis. (in the few locations AT&T actually has 3G).
It has to do w/ the fact that CDMA2000 runs circuit-switched voice over a separate RF carrier (3G-1X) while data is run over EV/DO. (This is why you can't use 3G data & voice at the same time - a somewhat useless feature anyway) Therefore, data speed on EV/DO is not effected by voice loading on the RF carrier (as there is none).... This was shown in the PC World tests that were performed during busy hour... Verizon's data speeds were barely effected.... AT&T slowed to a crawl...
Also, EV/DO doesn't use the creaky, old GPRS packet core network... EV/DO uses straight Mobile IP into a standard PDSN.. Therefore there are no delays as what's experienced on a GPRS core network...
14.4 Mbps? Ha! What total BS! This is a THEORETICAL PEAK data speed that can only be achieved in a lab, or by sitting still next to the base station w/ absolutely NO LOADING....
Also, EV/DO doesn't use the creaky, old GPRS packet core network... EV/DO uses straight Mobile IP into a standard PDSN.. Therefore there are no delays as what's experienced on a GPRS core network...
Ahem. Creaky old GPRS packet core network? The main delay components come from the air interface (talking with 10+ years of practical experience with the systems). The GPRS core network delays should be well below 10ms (usually under 2-3) range in a well dimensioned network.
If you are using EDGE, the delays are long due to the architecture of the air interface (originally designed for Voice only). But if you compare that with the current flat network architecture in 3GPP WCDMA networks, the delays go down to 30-50ms (even seen below that) end-to-end. And some of these networks have already been deployed. That compares quite nicely even to WLANs. And still the GPRS core network is not the issue. The latest WCDMA networks connect the base station directly to the GGSN for user plane.
For the 14.4Mbps being just theoretical, you're right and wrong. For category 10 UE's you're right. It's theoretical air interface throughput. But HSPA+ networks are already deployed and experiencing faster real speeds than that. Sure you won't get it at a local ice-hockey game, but in more lightly loaded areas you can.
Comments
Way to go Apple and China Unicom! You have overcome a great obstacle in perception in China. May the sales keep rolling in!
the rumor i was told is that grey market iphone from hong kong will not work in mainland china. by the way, one of must-have features for folks in china is text messaging capability on iphone, as they care less about high speed 3g. any one can comment on chinese text messaging on iphone?
May I ask why you are comparing an Application (WAP) to wireless services (GPRS etc), did you mean CSD, or HSCSD, or CDPD instead of WAP?
i think he meant WAP over CSD/CSD-like
I continue to believe that no single network is capable of handling the bandwidth demand from iPhone's users.
It may not be just the bandwidth. iPhone's air interface apparently has issues and it's overly aggressive power saving features cause problems for the networks, which expect specific behaviour from devices. This comes from the mouths of several operators' radio network guys. And mind you, they're not complaining about BW usage (although undoubtedly that's an issue as well in many cases).
I don't have exact technical details as the info came from coffee table discussions. To be honest, I was surprised about it when I first heard. But similar comments from different countries different operator personnell have lead me to believe there's some truth to it. But regard this as rumour until more reliable technical data is published somewhere.
Regs, Jarkko
i think he meant WAP over CSD/CSD-like
Well if he did, it makes his post just a bunch of rambling nothingness.
I have an iPhone in both the UK and the US, and I would agree that ATT service is pretty bad, but it is no where as bad as O2. The UK consumer is so used to poor levels of service, they do not know how bad they have it. There are ton of 'DROP ZONES' inside the city limits of London itself which is pathetic. 3G, if your lucky to get it at all, usually drops within a minute or so. If you are on a train, forget it, 99% chance you will not have coverage. So in short, O2 service is pathetic, but their APOLOGIES are fabulous and frequent.
Can you be specific about which areas of London you have no coverage? I'm on Orange but my mother's on O2 and she's had little to no problem when out and about in Central London.
I'm intrigued by the reception on the trains. Technically it's more difficult to provide a usable connection to a moving phone than to a stationary phone. Furthermore there are plenty of tunnels and bridges in London which mess around with the signal. Nevertheless when I'm on the train within London I have good 3G reception on Orange; I have poor reception on one particular line between London to Portsmouth.
10 years ago there was 14.4k WAP, then 56k GPRS, 384k 3G around 5 years ago, 1.8Mbps HSDPA around 3 years ago and now that's up to 14.4Mbps in some places.
The pace of innovation in mobile technology makes Moore's Law (computers) look like snail's pace.
Building mobile networks is a constantly evolving enterprise which doesn't really suit businesses who built copper line infrastructure then used it for 100 years.
14.4 Mbps? Ha! What total BS! This is a THEORETICAL PEAK data speed that can only be achieved in a lab, or by sitting still next to the base station w/ absolutely NO LOADING....
A friend & I are constantly testing the competing 3G networks, and just like in the PC World tests run around the country, Verizon outperforms AT&T on 3G data speed on a pretty consistent basis. (in the few locations AT&T actually has 3G).
It has to do w/ the fact that CDMA2000 runs circuit-switched voice over a separate RF carrier (3G-1X) while data is run over EV/DO. (This is why you can't use 3G data & voice at the same time - a somewhat useless feature anyway) Therefore, data speed on EV/DO is not effected by voice loading on the RF carrier (as there is none).... This was shown in the PC World tests that were performed during busy hour... Verizon's data speeds were barely effected.... AT&T slowed to a crawl...
Also, EV/DO doesn't use the creaky, old GPRS packet core network... EV/DO uses straight Mobile IP into a standard PDSN.. Therefore there are no delays as what's experienced on a GPRS core network...
14.4 Mbps? Ha! What total BS! This is a THEORETICAL PEAK data speed that can only be achieved in a lab, or by sitting still next to the base station w/ absolutely NO LOADING....
Also, EV/DO doesn't use the creaky, old GPRS packet core network... EV/DO uses straight Mobile IP into a standard PDSN.. Therefore there are no delays as what's experienced on a GPRS core network...
Ahem. Creaky old GPRS packet core network? The main delay components come from the air interface (talking with 10+ years of practical experience with the systems). The GPRS core network delays should be well below 10ms (usually under 2-3) range in a well dimensioned network.
If you are using EDGE, the delays are long due to the architecture of the air interface (originally designed for Voice only). But if you compare that with the current flat network architecture in 3GPP WCDMA networks, the delays go down to 30-50ms (even seen below that) end-to-end. And some of these networks have already been deployed. That compares quite nicely even to WLANs. And still the GPRS core network is not the issue. The latest WCDMA networks connect the base station directly to the GGSN for user plane.
For the 14.4Mbps being just theoretical, you're right and wrong. For category 10 UE's you're right. It's theoretical air interface throughput. But HSPA+ networks are already deployed and experiencing faster real speeds than that. Sure you won't get it at a local ice-hockey game, but in more lightly loaded areas you can.
Regs, Jarkko