If you glance over at the opensignal.com site for Bangalore you see very few Vodafone towers, Airtel has the most.I am a Vodafone Gujarat subscriber and use a prepaid connection in my data card. My 3g data pack works on 3g signals properly everywhere in India (that I've been to) except Bangalore (the place where I need to travel to the most). Everytime I am in BLR my data card works on EDGE networks - Vodafone stores in BLR couldn't help me out. It works on 3g only at the BLR airport where it shows Airtel HSDPA. Is there some special setting that needs to be done for 3g data packs in BLR?
So thats a 10% improvement on 3G for how much more ?speeds are not too bad, about 27kB/s download on a 2g signal, and a steady 30kB/s if i connect to a 3g signal (with steady battery drain even when connected via usb).
So thats a 10% improvement on 3G for how much more ?
You're getting EDGE and at 200kbs is good enough for browsing.
Many years ago i was productive with just 48kbs wired and a good hosts file. The speed did not bother me it was the constant disconnects each time the power went out that drove me nuts.
27KB/s with EDGE
Ah, now i understand, there are elements on a web page which if they dont get loaded then the page does not come up at all. This is why i suggested a hosts list, it knocks off the ad servers so the page loads faster. You need to run a miin-webserver though.As i said before, the browsing is crap, nothing to do with the bandwidth. and it doesn't seem to be the dns, because i've tried a few free dns servers. sometimes pages don't even load at all for a long time. downloads however, are another matter. once a connection is established it works awesome. this seems to be running at the max capacity of edge too ~236kbps. and there's no cap of any sort, just that it's properly capped when on a 3g signal at 240kbps.
one big difference i've found is with the latency. >200 ms on 2g and <100ms on 3g.
27KB/s with EDGE
30KB/s with 3G
10% speed increase with 3G
You pay Rs.245 for EDGE. How much more does 3G cost ?
Ah, now i understand, there are elements on a web page which if they dont get loaded then the page does not come up at all. This is why i suggested a hosts list, it knocks off the ad servers so the page loads faster. You need to run a miin-webserver though.
The latency might be playing a role here as well, there is no way around that.
Sorry, I didn't quite get what you mean
Right, so to get 10% speed increase you have to spend over 3X more for the same data.Aah, I should have been clearer. This is the same 2g/edge/gprs data plan. 245 for 10gb. on a 2g signal its ~27kB/s but when connected on a 3g signal it's faster. same 2g plan. An actual 3g plan is something like 252 bucks for 1.25GB/month. 10GB of 3g data would cost Rs. 1,099. The 3g signal is extremely poor - about 10% where I live, speeds were ~1mbps, but not sure now, haven't used their 3g packs for a while now.
Yeah, been trying to figure this one out and cannot get an answer.What i figure is there are too many packets being lost somewhere and the servers keep kicking my connection because of that.
But the way you phrased this makes me think otherwise.I use about two of these in a month, 20-22GB transfer. speeds are not too bad, about 27kB/s download on a 2g signal, and a steady 30kB/s if i connect to a 3g signal (with steady battery drain even when connected via usb)/
But 3G speeds in india is another big joke just like broadband speeds in our country.
I get around 1-1.2 mbps in my area on vodafone with occasional signal drops as well which is plain bull**it :annoyed:
When Vodafone first introduced 3g I was getting 10Mbps on my android. After the recent price drop on 3g package by both Vodafone and airtel the speed has dropped to around 1Mbps. They have capped the speed on purpose.
Right, so to get 10% speed increase you have to spend over 3X more for the same data.
I agree that 2G is the VFM option here.
Thing is you say the browsing with 2G is bad.
If one needs browsing more than data, it would appear that 3G is the option to have. That is provided one actually can get 3G in the area of operation to begin with.
Subscribing for 2G and then trying to switch to 3G allows one to evaluate what the 3G experience will be while only paying for 2G. If it turns out better the company will bill appropriately anyway.
Why bother subscribing for 3G at all in that case ?
Yeah, been trying to figure this one out and cannot get an answer.
If you ping servers which do not come up do you see lots of packet loss ?
that would explain the mediocre browsing experience.
More 2G towers for cheaper means more people on 2G which means overloaded network and higher latency for everyone. That is to say those with latency sensitive apps are not well served on 2G.
But the way you phrased this makes me think otherwise.
You say 'a steady 30kB/s' if on 3G, implying that the 2G isn't steady. If 2G isn't steady then you have a fluctuating bandwidth and that will also adversely affect browsing. Reading a paper on GPRS, i got the impression it isn't so much packet loss but the fluctuating bandwidth that affects the overall experience.
For downloads this isn't a problem but browsing and that too browsing sites that aren't optimised to deal with somebody accessing from a mobile connection means you may need a mobile optimised browser. Say like Opera that can fool the website by sending requests for all the page elements as simultaneously as possible.
Though this might provide some improvement the real limit is the website itself, if it expects a steady stream of requests it just won't handle a 2G connect as well.
The problem isn't 2G in this case but the website
That's the part i'm trying to figure out. Once you have a download going the variation is just 10%. If there was a bandwidth shortage i'd have expected it to vary by as much as 50%. But that isn't happening and i take it there aren't too many disconnects.It has nothing to do with specific sites/servers. Just that after some use, all packets are lost. But any connections already established and especially p2p traffic like torrents which directly communicate with user IPs via tcp or udp, work at full speed. It's just time related really. In this same state, if it was a proper 3g connection browsing would be better simply because the higher (mbps) bandwith would load pages quickly, probably before the connection decides to take a coffee break.
Provided one happens to be in the area with their towers nearby. But I will have no control over my location, if i'm on the road and want to browse.Another thing i should mention is that when i was using vodafone 2g at this same location earlier (there was and is no vodafone 3g coverage here, the only one apart from bsnl is idea and even that is a <10% signal), i could make viber calls clearly. I can't do that even on bsnl's 3g. Which means vodafone's 2g has very decent quality. The only reason i'm not using it now is because they don't have a cheap high GB plan like i'm using now.
yep, very small and hopefully not too many disconnects.By steady i meant that on the 2g signal, the transfer fluctuates between 25-27kB/s. I'm using bwmeter for analysing my transfers, so i'm not talkign about what's shown in the download box or in my torrent client.
Good, that confirms the connection might fluctuate a little but on the whole it is stable.If this helps clarify, on the 2g signal, i can download about 80, max 90MB in an hour, on the 3g signal, it's about 107-108MB.
Power consumption is another factor, it limits the time one has. I'm thinking a good 2g network would be best, if one can find the right provider. This is going to take some experimenting.I use the 3g signal only when I need something really fast, or if i have some important browsing to do. At other times i'm fine with the 2g signal because the 3g drains my battery faster than the usb can charge, The phone will fully discharge in about 8-10 hours. Note that this is because of the especially weak 3g signal here, if it's above 50% or so i don't think the battery will drain at this rate.