Downlink Data Transmission Speeds
Data,
<< Eric - the N95 does HSDPA at 3.6 Mbit/s (upload is 384K capable per Nokia site), the 3G iPhone was claimed by SJ to be "36% faster" (on DL, UL is still 384K) than the N95. The IFX chip that is available (and rumored to be in the iPhone) has HSDPA at "up to 7.2 Mbit/s"...I suppose that really makes it (in theory) 100% faster ?... >>
In theory but it is of course network dependent, as you note. and raw transmission rate and average user rate are two different animules. Credit Jobs for not claiming 100% faster -- and on AT&T's optimized test networks +36% could easily be the correct differential.
<< ... there seems to be a little specsmanship going on.... have you seen any reports that provide real world network performance (throughput) on ATT (or others) HSPA? Carriers are all talking good games as far as their network upgrades, but what I've experienced is sub 1Mbit/s >>
I haven't seen much of anything worthwhile published, and the average user downlink transmission speed you note is about par for the course so far as I know, and latency, web server lag, and how the client device handles the transmission becomes even more important than what is already a very adequate transmission speed. Jobs' "36% faster" doesn't mean much to me. My recall is that the 2.5G iPhone had problems multitasking multiple data apps and the N95/N95 8GB with latest firmware handles that quite well, better than ever (i.e. infrequent crashes). We'll have to see how iPhone 2.0 handles that capability.
<< I guess what I'm getting at is....if the network only supports a lower category HSDPA, it doesn't really matter if the phone has a higher category.... throughput will be at most (in theory) the highest category the network supports...and neither of these products supports HSUPA >>
Your thinking parallels mine, and operators will gate transmission speeds to preserve the capacity of the pipe as multimedia data usage expands. QoC will come into play and he who pays more will get more.
HSUPA becomes somewhat important for e-mail (with attachments or embedded graphics), and perhaps even more important for sharing, but of course outbound transmissions take place in the background with multitasking 3GSM so its less important to the average user.
As for specsmanship -- its an every day occurrence and raw specs mean something, but not that much. That's where the good testers and reviewers benefit us immensely. Today 5mp cameras in mobile phones aboundeth (and have plateaued there), but there is one heck of a difference in image quality and usability from one to the other e.g.. That's partially hardware but it's mucho software dependent.
Best,
- Eric -
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