Analysis: The Elephant in the Room - EDGE on the iPhone?

There's no question that today's iPhone annoucement is huge news both for Apple fans and the wireless industry in general. Apple has beat my (and I suspect almost everyone else's) expectations in almost all areas, save one--the cellular technology they've chosen to integrate with the iPhone. For those of you who may not know EDGE is a so-called 2.75G technology and not one of the new 3G technologies now being rolled out by most of the big cell carriers. The upshot of this is much lower bandwidth than 3G standards like EVDO (on Verizon and Sprint and other CDMA providers) and UMTS/HSDPA (on Cingular and other GSM providers). The analogy many people use is that EDGE is more like dial-up and HSDPA is more like broadband. EDGE tends to get real world speeds in the range of 70Kbps to 135Kbps (on a good day), while wifi is of course much faster (real world is generally about half of the rated speed, so about 27Mbps for 802.11g).

The Keynote seemed to demonstrate pretty quick downloads on the iPhone, but the real question is how fast things will be on the EDGE network rather than via wifi. Obviously the inclusion of wifi mitigates the problem when you're in range of a base station, but I'm really curious to see how data intensive services like Google maps and web browsing really work when you're on Cingular's network.

A final question will be Cingular's data pricing: will there be an affordable all you can eat data plan for the iPhone?. We're so used to seeing Apple push the technology envelope in other areas, it really seems like a strange choice to integrate last generation wideband technology in its new flagship product. Of course, none of this is going to stop me from getting one. What do you think?

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Source: http://www.apple.com/iphone/internet/

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Macworld Analysis / Opinion iPhone

There's no question that today's iPhone annoucement is huge news both for Apple fans and the wireless industry in general. Apple has beat...

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Wry Cooter

wonder if there willbe apackage for att wifi hotspot accounts...

January 11 2007 at 2:22 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Wry Cooter

I wonder if it will tie into ATT wifi hotspot plans?

January 11 2007 at 2:20 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

James Dehnert

I'll get 2 right away (1 for me 1 for the wife) and when HSDPA comes out, if the battery life is good I'll get that and my kids will get the older units.

January 10 2007 at 12:04 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Braxton Beyer

I currently use Cingular with my Treo 650 and Google maps works great on it. Loads fairly quickly. Surfing inn the browser seems to be slower though.

January 09 2007 at 11:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jeff

I mean $50/month, not per year.

January 09 2007 at 9:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jeff

Nice product, but I don't see a compelling story here.

Why would I pay $599 PLUS sign a two year deal? Also, the phone will be locked, and no way to know whether or not it can be unlocked.

It's like selling a $600 iPod with a 2 year iTunes contract at $50+ per year........when you can ONLY use iTunes.

I think this is a bit of a miss.

January 09 2007 at 9:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

oki

im wandoring since for my treo i use medianet unlimited as my source as internet, (works just as good as the data connect, and i can goto anysite, stream music etc, and with a $40 difference) if u can do the same with iphone just run off medianet than might be ok for 2yr contract. hopefully they'll sell unlocked ones. if not than anyone here work at apple? internal orders are much much better with out contracts

January 09 2007 at 9:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

fuzzybassoon

I use an EDGE-based phone on T-Mobile, and its fine for optimized websites, but I can imagine it being a drag when using the safari browser.

On the upside, Windows Live Maps, very similar looking to the Google maps program on the iPhone works fine on EDGE.

January 09 2007 at 8:59 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mike A.

There are only two companies that have reliable HSDPA chipsets today - Nokia and Qualcomm (inside Samsung & LG). Both of these suppliers are not being considered for the iPhone for competitive reasons. Watch for other company's HSDPA announcements later this year. A 3G iPhone then a WiMAX version are definitely coming.

January 09 2007 at 8:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Allan White

Don't forget that this device still has to get FCC approval. I'm thinking that there's a convenient time lag in which we may see some improvements in features, battery life or power consumption.

My hopes are fading (nay, dashed) that we'll ever see an unlocked Apple phone for sale. I had hopes that Apple, with such an amazing gotta-have-it device, could supply the leverage to move phone networks away from long-term contracts.

January 09 2007 at 8:29 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply