Filed under: Macworld, Analysis / Opinion, iPhone
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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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Sven Bocklandt said 5:56PM on 1-09-2007
I agree... EDGE is fine using Opera mini with lots of server-side compression. But for full web browsing, it's aweful. Especially with Cingular as a launch partner, they have no good excuse for not adding HSDPA. Any chance they'll throw that in by June?
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Adam said 5:59PM on 1-09-2007
Yea it would obviously be best if it had HSDPA though not everything can be perfect.. I could only imagine that when it comes to plans it will be similarly priced to the Treo, and not some of the WAP phones. In other words, $40 for a cheap voice plan, $40 for full HTML browser, and more for text-messaging, it will be interesting if they charge you another $10 for push-email. In other words though I am sure it will stack up for the two-years they have you locked in, and I wonder how it will attract non-business customers. I wouldn't be too surprised if we saw a non-phone version before Holiday '07.
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Jeffrey said 6:00PM on 1-09-2007
There is a pretty good excuse for not having 3G, it's called battery life. The iPhone is already going to be a monster on battery life, 3G would make it 10x as worse.
Ever heard of the Samsung Blackjack? Due to the 3G capability in that smartphone, they ship it with 2 batteries... it eats batteries for breakfast with 3G active. Won't even last a single day in standby with 3G on.
Trust me, Wi-fi is a much better choice than 3G.
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Justin said 6:08PM on 1-09-2007
An interesting question, and one that immediately jumped out at me when I was reading multiple sites keynote coverage. It is more disappointing than surprising as 3G has yet to roll out in many Cingular areas. My bet is that is will be a minor drag for a year followed by a 3g update in early 08. As with many Apple products it may be worth waiting on the second version.
I am more upset about the price being with contract since I already have a new Cingular Phone (a 3g LG CU500) and a 2 year contract with only three months gone by. What will I have to pay to get the phone?...hopefully not the typical increments of $100 per year you skip on the contract! That would make it $699-$799. Forget about it then. I will wait for the second version as stated above.
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Steve said 6:05PM on 1-09-2007
TUAW, first enjoyed your play-by-play today.
I have to agree with this. While I am also a die hard verizon user for their network and customer service, using a technology that is already dated is not true to Apple form. Perhaps the thought process is that you will only use the iPhone's higher bandwidth hungry applications in a wifi environment? One of the rumors that I really hoped would be true, would be unlocked phones sold directly from Apple for all North American platforms.
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Thomas said 6:03PM on 1-09-2007
NEW LINK:
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d52oo/event/
THE KEYNOTE
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Jeffrey said 6:04PM on 1-09-2007
I'll also just mentioned that because it has Wi-Fi, you can pretty much forgo any of the expensive data plans. 3G or not, Cingular charges up to $40 per month for that "feature". Wi-Fi can be found free almost anywhere in a big city or at your own work/home.
I thank Apple for including Wi-Fi otherwise I would not be picking one of these up.
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John Laur said 10:10AM on 1-10-2007
Well I can tell you this: Without going through a recompressing proxy of some sort (RabbIT, Opera Mini, etc), EDGE is dog slow even when it is going "fast". God help you if you're downloading email (or i guess now, voicemail) while you are trying to pull up google maps in hybrid mode!
The real problem here is that by June, it's very likely that any of the other smartphones available from Cingular will be screaming along with UMTS while being less expensive than the iPhone. I think the decision to buy an iPhone will be a bit harder in June than it seems like it will be today.
It's also a possibility that this will hit the market with UMTS capability also. 6 months is quite a while.
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phlavor said 6:07PM on 1-09-2007
You are raining on my parade with all of your facts.
My heart says this is perfection in your palm and soon it will be in my palm. I have quite literally waited for 2 years for this announcement and I am blown away with what they came up with. And if you think it's cool now, wait until the 3rd party and shareware guys get their hands on it.
So take your facts and go home, fact boy.
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James said 6:08PM on 1-09-2007
I remember reading (I apologize but the source is evading my memory, atm) that the reason for using EDGE rather than HSPDA was due to the size of the electronics required to run on either network. The EDGE technology is smaller than the current HSPDA technology, and as well all know, form factor is VERY important to Apple.
I do not doubt that we will see 3G and beyond in the future versions of the iPhone. Apple just realizes that time is not yet here.
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Alex said 2:04PM on 1-10-2007
Isn't the other elephant in the room VoIP support? Did Apple agree with Cingular to cripple the ability to run Skype over Wi-Fi or will we be able to do it?? I'm hoping the latter...
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Bryan said 6:10PM on 1-09-2007
Well I think they assume technology will move forward with wifi, in terms of WiMax, blanketed cities, etc. Portland (my home city) is setting up a free city-wide wifi network already... and I assume it will just grow from there.
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phlavor said 6:11PM on 1-09-2007
Oh, and San Francisco is rolling out city wide Wi-Fi so I don't really care if it's Edge or not.
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wahoo scott said 6:12PM on 1-09-2007
it's called - reason to wait for the rev.b model.
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Jeffrey said 6:13PM on 1-09-2007
3G is certainly only in very limited markets.
The Samsung Blackjack is about the same size as the iPhone so I don't think "form factor" is a reason for not having 3G available.
Again, Wi-Fi is key here. There is only one other device on Cingular's "network" right now that supports Wi-Fi and it's a Windows Mobile device which costs the same at the $499 iPhone.
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Jeremy said 6:16PM on 1-09-2007
For those of us on other networks, stuck in contracts, a few questions. Will other carriers eventually pick up the iPhone, or will this be Cingular exclusive? If so, will they release a non-phone version (iPod Nano + large screen + OS X) any time in the future? I think it could succeed greatly as the 6G iPod, just using the iPod, video and non-phone essentials (could still keep wifi for widgets/browsing).
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Daniel said 6:13PM on 1-09-2007
Ya i think that cingulars data plan will be much like that of Tmobile, come out to about $39 with texting/data. If they were really nice they would go ahead and do sort of a Sidekick Data plan which is $29 for everything unlimited (besides phones)...ill be looking forward to this but i doubt it will exceed $40 with data and some texting plan plus ur minutes
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Amit said 6:18PM on 1-09-2007
I think Apple is looking more into the future of citywide wifi rather than the cellular networks. The fact that the phone will seamlessly transition from EDGE to wifi is extremely positive. If I were to pick a cell plan i'd go for just a regular phone plan for talktime, a little EDGE plan, and something like a t-mobile hot spot plan. I just hope Apple signs some deal here in Canada before June or offers the phone unlocked.
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Matt V said 6:24PM on 1-09-2007
I've been using T-Mobile's EDGE & GPRS for a couple of years with my Treo 650.
For syncing E-Mail it's generally fast enough.
For web browsing, though, it's slow, downloading the NY Times front page would take a minute or more.
My beef is Cingular's crazy pricing for data. T-Mobile's data plan is $20/month, why is Cingular charging $40?
I really want an iPhone but an $80/month+ phone bill before taxes is nuts.
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Ondroo said 6:27PM on 1-09-2007
Geez, i wouldn't complain too much! Here, Australia's affordable ($30/month 256kb) broadband plans generally fetch realistic speeds of about 103kbps! You American's are lucky with your internet :(. It's not like I live in the bush! (Population of 100,000 here!)
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