Vodafone Rocks in Mobile BB Speed!!

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107 posts

Master Geek

#509031 19-Aug-2011 14:50

Ooops...yes EVDO was switched off so it is apples for apples. Let the battle rage on!!!

timbosan

2159 posts

Uber Geek

#509034 19-Aug-2011 14:56

A friend and I, both with iPhones 4's, his on XT and mine on Vodafone, ran speedtests at the same time from inside the Vodafone building in the Viaduct, Auckland CBD, and XT easily run. Forgot to take a photo (will try and re-run it) but XT was 50%+ faster than Vodafone.

However, I know this doesn't translate 100% into what the user experiences, but it shows what the networks are capable of from an identical location.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#509064 19-Aug-2011 15:47

freitasm:
joutei: Hey NonprayingMantis

What is your opinion on the reason XT has faster speeds then voda ?
Or which one really is faster.

It should be worth mentioning NonPrayingMantis opinion in this matter may be biased.

Lol :D

Really, I have no idea. For some people XT is faster, for others, Voda is faster. For others, 2Degrees is faster. At any one time it will all come down to so many factors such as where you are standing, how many people nearby are using it, backhaul contention etc etc that any sort of scientific test is virtually impossible.

The closest you will get is probably the recent Truenet studies, but I have problems with those as I mentioned in the other thread. Mainly that speed *isn’t* really very important anyway once you get to a certain level. E.g. let’s say I test Voda, XT and 2Degrees in a particular place and XT comes in at 7Mbps, Voda at 4Mbps and 2Degrees at 2Mbps. Big difference right? Not really. For the stuff people mostly use mobile broadband for (browsing, emails, youtube etc) there is no significant difference between any of those speeds – you ight find a webpage loads half a second faster on Xt, but is it really that noticeable? I don’t think so. Speeds above 2Mbps only really become relevant, IMO, if you are downloading large files or streaming HD video, neither of which is economically viable via mobile broadband at current prices. truenet also concentrated on average speeds whihc is also largely useless. I would prefer consistant 2Mbps 100% of the time than 50% 10Mbps and 50% 50kbps.

oxnsox

1923 posts

Uber Geek

#509085 19-Aug-2011 16:49

timbosan: A friend and I, both with iPhones 4's, his on XT and mine on Vodafone, ran speedtests at the same time from inside the Vodafone building in the Viaduct, Auckland CBD, and XT easily run. Forgot to take a photo (will try and re-run it) but XT was 50%+ faster than Vodafone.

However, I know this doesn't translate 100% into what the user experiences, but it shows what the networks are capable of from an identical location.

No surprises there... How many people in that building would have had 3g devices on the same cell site as you????? Pop into Telcom Tower in Wellington and see if you similar results......

codyc1515

1598 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#509089 19-Aug-2011 17:05

oxnsox:
timbosan: A friend and I, both with iPhones 4's, his on XT and mine on Vodafone, ran speedtests at the same time from inside the Vodafone building in the Viaduct, Auckland CBD, and XT easily run. Forgot to take a photo (will try and re-run it) but XT was 50%+ faster than Vodafone.

However, I know this doesn't translate 100% into what the user experiences, but it shows what the networks are capable of from an identical location.

No surprises there... How many people in that building would have had 3g devices on the same cell site as you????? Pop into Telcom Tower in Wellington and see if you similar results......

Valid point there, I actually hadn't thought of that. Although, knowing that and also being at a Vodafone building why not add more capacity?

oxnsox

1923 posts

Uber Geek

#509092 19-Aug-2011 17:12

codyc1515: Valid point there, I actually hadn't thought of that. Although, knowing that and also being at a Vodafone building why not add more capacity?

Because as Nonprayingmantis says... once you reach as certain speed point, for most of us it doesn't really make all that difference.
We're all focused on 'outright speed' rather on overall performance. (Same as having a 'faster' car when you really only drive it between say 0-120khr)

mthand

148 posts

Master Geek

#509228 19-Aug-2011 21:32

I have noticed my trophy 7 "seems" better today. But that's not measurable or even visible. The phone has a theoretical ceiling of 7.2 Mbps, so any improvement would have to be significant to easily measure it anyway.

In fact, it could be just a trick of the mind...

Is it possible that we have become used to the nature of ADSL and most lay people, myself included, believe that the d/l and u/l figures are everything, when in reality, mobile data has very different characteristics, and like earlier posts infer, there's no point quoting figures unless qualifying it with what data it applies to? And even then, there are so many different ways of delivering that service and so many variables which affect the device's ability to receive the maximum throughput.

Either customers are given all of this information when told the theoretical speed, or the telcos have to make sure that the customers' perceptions and expectations are what they actually experience.

I don't think it can ever be apples with apples unless it's only one provider selling the apples.

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timbosan

2159 posts

Uber Geek

#509269 20-Aug-2011 04:10

oxnsox:
timbosan: A friend and I, both with iPhones 4's, his on XT and mine on Vodafone, ran speedtests at the same time from inside the Vodafone building in the Viaduct, Auckland CBD, and XT easily run. Forgot to take a photo (will try and re-run it) but XT was 50%+ faster than Vodafone.

However, I know this doesn't translate 100% into what the user experiences, but it shows what the networks are capable of from an identical location.

No surprises there... How many people in that building would have had 3g devices on the same cell site as you????? Pop into Telcom Tower in Wellington and see if you similar results......

Maybe, but its only across the road from Telecom, and all the Telecom Place staff (2500 or so) would be online too, most of them on XT, and on the same XT cellsite. So I would have said it was a valid test (i.e. two cell sites with heavy usage in the CBD).

nzbsgfan

146 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#509416 20-Aug-2011 18:37

With all this talk about speed - in my mind there's two ways to look at it.

You either look at all networks in their unloaded state - say the early hours of the morning when you're the only users on a site and run some tests. In fairness to all operators you'd have to find a location where all 3 operators are present with similar RF conditions, and utilize the same test devices....

OR

You test at any time regardless of network loading - and get the best average result per network. Again, where all operators are present.

One is the maximum speed of the network, the other perhaps a better customers perception of speed at that location and time dependent on the local environment.

Either way - the results in the second test will vary from minute to minute over the day.

But, if the RF conditions, and devices are similar, the first test should have a more scientific outcome.

It just depends what you're looking to prove when it comes to speed.

:)

wreck90

780 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#509427 20-Aug-2011 19:37

timbosan: A friend and I, both with iPhones 4's, his on XT and mine on Vodafone, ran speedtests at the same time from inside the Vodafone building in the Viaduct, Auckland CBD, and XT easily run. Forgot to take a photo (will try and re-run it) but XT was 50%+ faster than Vodafone.

However, I know this doesn't translate 100% into what the user experiences, but it shows what the networks are capable of from an identical location.

The speedtest.net app for the iphone is simply awesome .

I've been running speed tests on my vodafone iphone 4 around the tauranga area, including indoor/outdoor around different spots in tauranga and Mt Maunganui.

Out of 20 tests, I had one that got to 2mbps while most of the other tests were around 0.4 - 1mbps (a few times the test did not complete).

The phone has trouble holding a consistent signal with vodafone, it speeds up , slows down to just about 0 before speeding up again. I'd prefer a constant speed that this fluctuating rollercoaster.Also,the number of bars in the signal strength gauge gives very little indication of the speed I will get. Sometimes on 3 bars, and virtually 0 throughput. Power cycling the phone would help for some reason.

Today I popped in my prepaid telecom xt card in mt maunganui .... 1st test....over 4mbps.

It is also very noticeable in webbrowsing speed.

I'm heading off for the central plateau area tomorrow, will run a few more tests if i get time. PITA changing sims/3g settings though, is there an app to do that?

richms

28168 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#509588 21-Aug-2011 13:25

To me it seems stupid that the speedtest app doesnt log signal levels, cell sites used and location and embed them in the image.

Would be good if you could enter details like indoor, outdoor, etc as well so that its all documented in the app for speed comparison.

Richard rich.ms

nate

6473 posts

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Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#509731 21-Aug-2011 22:56

freitasm: Yeah, yeah. But What? Why? When will be available elsewhere?

Who cares about elsewhere!?!

scottychch

14 posts

Geek

#509997 22-Aug-2011 15:56

Speeds do seem faster for me today on my iPhone 4. Am in Chrsistchurch.

Quinny

885 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#510057 22-Aug-2011 17:17

To get downloads I need better than "network lost" all the time. Regular issue damaged side of Chch (can loose signal in Sydenham, Ferrymead, Woolston let alone the Red zones East). Seriously looking at moving my phone to XT as any coverage is better than then being unable to fix cell towers in 6 months since the Feb quake. Pre Feb never had an issue and while speeds were not great they at least worked.

kingjj

1728 posts

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#511295 24-Aug-2011 15:18

scottychch: Speeds do seem faster for me today on my iPhone 4. Am in Chrsistchurch.

I've noticed this too, nice but hasn't actually made that much difference day to day.

SpeedTest

(Chch - Chch at 1355 this afternoon, Riccarton Mall)

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