Why the 3G Speed on iPhone 3G is Capped at 1.4Mbps |
|
  A resounding cheer could be heard all across the nation (and possibly the globe) when Steve Jobs took to the stage and officially unveiled the 3G iPhone to the world. He promised a wireless data connection that would be a full 2.4x faster than the EDGE found in the first iPhone, but why can't the iPhone 3G go even faster?
As it stands, AT&T is only going to let the iPhone 3G connect at a maximum of 1.4Mbps. Contrast this to the 3.6Mbps downstream that the AT&T HSDPA network can handle and the 7.2Mbps connection that AT&T is promising by the end of the year. If the 3G iPhone is truly capable of being this fast, why would they want to limit your mobile experience? Well, the biggest hurdle is battery life. If you go through data at the top end of HSDPA, your phone isn't going to last more than a couple of hours. As it stands, you can only achieve five hours of wireless surfing, so you can imagine how bad it would be at 7.2Mbps.
Secondly, while AT&T says that they'll be able to handle the bigger data draw, they don't want to deal with the increased cell site congestion and backhaul. "It's not like the pipe is unlimited", so it's better to throttle the connection (and keep it reliable) than to let all hell break loose (and have connections dropped).
Via gizmodo.com
|
 Reader Ratings |
|
| This article has been rated 80% by 6 user(s).
|
|
Recent Headlines
What I Want from Nintendo DSi for North America- posted on Wednesday November 19, 2008 3:10 PM CST
New iPod Shuffle Gets Fashionable as Bangle- posted on Wednesday November 19, 2008 11:52 AM CST
Video: How Fast is Asus P565 Smartphone with 800MHz CPU?- posted on Wednesday November 19, 2008 11:43 AM CST
Multitouch Arrives on HP Touchsmart TX2 Convertible Laptop- posted on Wednesday November 19, 2008 11:29 AM CST
Microsoft Zune Gets Cheaper, Updated for the Holidays- posted on Wednesday November 19, 2008 11:19 AM CST
Noise-Canceling iPod Earphones Plug into Dock Connector- posted on Wednesday November 19, 2008 11:05 AM CST
Nintendo Wii Sits On Top of Buy.com's Holiday Gift Picks- posted on Tuesday November 18, 2008 3:35 PM CST
Will the Chevy Volt Get Canned Without a Govt Bailout?- posted on Tuesday November 18, 2008 3:25 PM CST
Video: Hands-On and Feature Walkthrough of Verizon BlackBerry Storm- posted on Tuesday November 18, 2008 2:14 PM CST
Windows Mobile-Powered IcePhone Triple Flips to Greatness- posted on Tuesday November 18, 2008 2:08 PM CST
Telus Getting iDEN BlackBerry for PTT After All?- posted on Tuesday November 18, 2008 1:55 PM CST
REVIEW: iLuv iSP100BLK Portable Speakers for iPod and iPhone- posted on Monday November 17, 2008 5:03 PM CST
First Look: Mid-Range Sony Ericsson Xperia Smartphone- posted on Monday November 17, 2008 12:39 PM CST
LTE-Equipped BlackBerry Coming from RIM?- posted on Monday November 17, 2008 12:08 PM CST
Cryptic Message Transmission with Japanese Morse Code Watch- posted on Monday November 17, 2008 11:53 AM CST
Rogers Confirms Pending Release of Nokia E71- posted on Monday November 17, 2008 11:26 AM CST
The World's Fastest Smartphone Unveiled by Asus- posted on Monday November 17, 2008 11:15 AM CST
Feature: Broadening the BlackBerry Brand- posted on Friday November 14, 2008 2:59 PM CST
Interested in a BlackBerry Pearl Flip for Under 25 Bucks?- posted on Friday November 14, 2008 12:37 PM CST
Dell Vostro A860 Business Notebook Features 16:9 Screen, Low Price- posted on Friday November 14, 2008 12:28 PM CST
Samsung Pixon Jumping to T-Mobile as T929 Leica- posted on Friday November 14, 2008 12:20 PM CST
Video: Unboxing Sony Xperia X1 Windows Mobile Smartphone- posted on Friday November 14, 2008 12:09 PM CST
iPhone Gets Voice Search by Google- posted on Friday November 14, 2008 11:50 AM CST
News Briefs: Cell Phones, Memory, and Blenders?- posted on Thursday November 13, 2008 3:27 PM CST
Official BlackBerry Storm Launch Info for Verizon Announced- posted on Thursday November 13, 2008 12:36 PM CST
|
|
|
|
XML Feed