iPhone 3G STILL Faster in More Dunedin Places on XT
Geekzoners may recall that I performed a (crude) test of iPhone mobile data speeds at several locations around Dunedin last August which concluded that the iPhone 3G was “significantly faster in more Dunedin places on Telecom XT (compared to Vodafone 3G)”.
I have repeated the test, this time using more valid methodology (thanks Steve Biddle), and incorporated a more accurate ping test (thanks GZ blog commenter "Sean").
The full results can be found here: XT *Still* Faster in More Dunedin Places for iPhone 3G (March 2010 Update)
In summary, I found that at 3 out of 4 locations across the Dunedin central city, downloading a large file for the purpose of testing speed was significantly faster when using a Telecom XT SIM card compared to a Vodafone 3G SIM card. At the other location (Otago University Campus), the result was essentially too close to call (although marginally to Vodafone 3G).
Ping tests appeared heavily in favour of Telecom XT (however see sbiddle's comments below). The test results all appeared to support the theory that the iPhone SpeedTest.net app is not very accurate at all. The app was used in conjunction with other tests today purely for comparison to last August's results (which were solely based on the app), but the only conclusion that could be drawn is that no conclusions could be drawn when it comes to this app.
Just in case you are wondering, I am simply an iPhone user with no bone to pick, and no motive apart from wanting to know if XT can back up its claims of being "faster in more places". I'm not a telecommunications engineer and just did this as an interesting exercise.
Therefore please feel free to point out any errors that you see in my results, and I will endeavour to correct them. Your comments and feedback are most welcome.
Tag(s):
More information
Other related posts:
Arise Sir Graham Henry? For services to paid employment?
ASB Bank - The Best Bloody Bank in New Zealand*
Electioneering on Election Day 2011?
Comment by n4, on 17-Mar-2010 10:30 , user id: 46424)
I'd be interested in why the SpeedTest app is not accurate? Is it just because the test is a shorter burst and so not measuring sustained throughput?
Also, unless I missed it, no-one commented on the apparently consistently faster upload speeds on VF (from SpeedTest). Why would that be?
Comment by Harrylin, on 17-Mar-2010 16:10 , user id: )
Lol. Here is it. Telecom wins again. But there are still many other people who don't believe this. No matter what, no matter what other people say, even without this test, we have known the answer for a long time. It's just that most people don't wanna openly say something bad about a company as big as a telco. We all know that 2100mhz is inferior to 850mhz. You just made this story public again. As a long term iPhone user, I have know this for a long time. Of course I have used mobile data extensively on iPhone. Your results is another story of the same thing I experienced until now. I stick to 850mhz, at least in NZ.
Comment by Harrylin, on 17-Mar-2010 16:18 , user id: 31958)
Lol. Here is it. Telecom wins again. But there are still many other people who don't believe this. No matter what, no matter what other people say, even without this test, we have known the answer for a long time. It's just that most people don't wanna openly say something bad about a company as big as a telco. We all know that 2100mhz is inferior to 850mhz. You just made this story public again. As a long term iPhone user, I have know this for a long time. Of course I have used mobile data extensively on iPhone. Your results is another story of the same thing I experienced until now. I stick to 850mhz, at least in NZ.
Comment by Harrylin, on 17-Mar-2010 16:18 , user id: 31958)
Lol. Here is it. Telecom wins again. But there are still many other people who don't believe this. No matter what, no matter what other people say, even without this test, we have known the answer for a long time. It's just that most people don't wanna openly say something bad about a company as big as a telco. We all know that 2100mhz is inferior to 850mhz. You just made this story public again. As a long term iPhone user, I have know this for a long time. Of course I have used mobile data extensively on iPhone. Your results is another story of the same thing I experienced until now. I stick to 850mhz, at least in NZ.
Comment by Madmax77, on 18-Mar-2010 16:56 , user id: 25374)
@Harrylin if 2100MHz is inferior why do Telecom use it in urban situations?
You can hardly consider someone armed with an iPhone doing download speed tests to be a scientific representation of the network. Would have been great to see the results of this test on 22, 23, 24 February...oh, hang on a minute...
You can be as fast as you want...but if you don't work, it ain't much good to you.
The difference between 900MHz and 850Mhz...not much really, the difference between a network that has over 2.2 million customers and rising versus a network that has 400,000 and dropping...well, pretty obvious to anyone that drives on the motorway in peak traffic
Comment by cokemaster, on 18-Mar-2010 17:42 , user id: 9469)
Madmax77, are there really 2.2 million customers on the Vodafone 900mhz WCDMA network or the vodafone 2100mhz WCDMA network?
Comment by ChrnoXIII, on 11-Jul-2010 00:08 , user id: 56979)
well regardless this is annoying... i live in dunedin too and i am really keen on getting an iphone on plan to get the subsidy. -_- disappointing that vodafone 3G lags behind XT
Add a comment
Please note: comments that are inappropriate or promotional in nature will be deleted.
E-mail addresses are not displayed, but you must enter a valid e-mail address to confirm your comments.
Are you a registered Geekzone user? Login to have the fields below automatically filled in for you and to enable links in comments.
If you have (or qualify to have) a Geekzone Blog then your comment will be automatically confirmed and shown in this blog post.
Comment by sbiddle, on 17-Mar-2010 07:49 , user id: 1387)
My only comment is that your ping results look like they're significantly skewed because they are not all taken in the same cell state. You need to ensure both are in the same state, in fairness cell_dch for both, to really compare results. To do this you need to transfer something for force this state before you do the ping test.
In reality there is very little difference in ping times between both networks.