blog.forret.com Peter Forret

because eloquence is, like, whatever

My ideas My Software

About Categories Search

iPhone bandwidth: orders of magnitude – 2009

17 Nov 2009

04112009175905[1] I did a bandwidth test the other day with the iPhone SpeedTest tool. I wanted to compare the speed using (standard) GPRS, using 3G and my own Wi-Fi. The results were all a power of ten apart:

The real reason is that I wanted to see how fast I would wear out my Proximus data plan (200MB per month). The answer: with GPRS I would need more than 12 hours of continuous downloading, with 3G I could do it in less than 2 hours. So GPRS is pretty safe, it’s also easier on your battery, but you have to live with slow, pre-1996 modem-like performance. The latency – the time it takes to get your first byte after requesting a URL –  is easily 10 to 50 seconds. Not milliseconds, seconds!

As a side note: do not take a time-based data subscription, certainly not with the iPhone. My first post-iPhone Proximus invoice was 800,- euro, which is more than the price of my iPhone! When I contacted them about that, they immediately offered to reimburse it and advised me to switch to a size-based plan. I guess I was not the first one …

💬 bandwidth 🏷 data 🏷 iphone 🏷 phone 🏷 proximus 🏷 smartphone 🏷 speed 🏷 wifi

Also on this blog ...

Don’t send me a video, send me a link • 29 Jan 2009 • I know, there are so many ‘funny’ videos you just have to share with your friends. So you send them an email. But for god’s sake, not with a 5MB movie in attachment! For all you know, he/she might not even be able to play that MOV/WMV/XVid movie anyway. Don’t...
Dag van de download • 18 Dec 2007 • Met deze actie willen wij een statement maken: stilstand is achteruitgang. De toestand op de Belgische markt dient te veranderen. De gebruikers willen van de datalimieten af, meer concurrentie en betere tarieven voor hun breedband-internet. Dag van de download
Dreamhost has better performance now • 17 Oct 2006 • Ine mentions that Dreamhost has become a more reliable hoster. I am actually tracking Dreamhost performance, and I can only agree.
Database war stories: DB vs _square_ files • 05 May 2006 • I’ve been following the Database War Stories of O’Reilly Radar: how companies use text-based alternatives to classic relational database systems in order to cope with huge volumes. Check out the stories of Findory/Amazon, Google File System, Flickr and Second Life. Anyway, this seemed like a good moment to share some...

© 2004-2024 by Peter Forret • v1.4.110