Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Wireless, iPhone
3G or not 3G: WHERE is the question
With all of the excitement about the 3G iPhone, one question you should ask yourself is "Am I actually in an area with AT&T HSDPA 3G service?" After all, a 3G iPhone will only poke along at EDGE (or even, God forbid, GPRS) speeds unless it is in a 3G service area.
Fortunately, AT&T Wireless has a list of the major markets that have HSDPA service. Unfortunately, you have to go through the list by state and city name before you can actually click on a map and see if your house or office is in a zone of 3G love. My house, which has sucky AT&T service at this time, is allegedly in a 3G-happy area (blue on the screenshot). That's the good news. The bad news is that I'm right near the border of one of those orange zones, which indicate no 3G service.
My sister currently enjoys EDGE service in her home town of Richland, WA, but is anxious to get her iPhone connected with 3G service. I hate to tell her that she's not on the list.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
moo083 said 6:03PM on 5-22-2008
Since you posted this, AT&T has brought the Coverage Viewer webapp down for maintenance. Oh well....
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zachary miller said 6:31PM on 5-22-2008
The whole site is down, not just the Coverage viewer, but i still hope they are updating it.
Eckofish said 6:17PM on 5-22-2008
Lets hope they announce the iPhone 2.0 with WiMax. That'll sure catch people off guard.
Then we can all be equally angry at coverage that amounts to 0%.
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Galley said 6:39PM on 5-22-2008
It's a good thing I didn't hold out for the 2G iPhone. The only city listed in South Carolina is Columbia. Aaargh!
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blalor said 10:07PM on 5-22-2008
My *state* isn't even listed! (New Hampshire)
Paul said 9:42AM on 5-23-2008
If you look at the map, Myrtle Beach is covered too. That makes no sense though. THey cover the third and fourth most populous areas in South Carolina leaving one (G'ville/Sparklevegas) and two (ChuckTown) out? That's especially surprising considering that Charleston is getting the first Apple store in the state (not that AT&T is beholden to Apple's retail strategy). I assume this will eventually be resolved, but as of right now, neither my home in Florida, nor my "second home" in South Carolina is covered, so I guess I'll hold off for a bit. (Of course this could change by the time the iPhone 2.0 is out.)
Blaktornado said 6:45PM on 5-22-2008
Let's hope your sister doesn't read TUAW...
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Jacob Deane said 6:52PM on 5-22-2008
Surely at home, your iPhone will connect to your home wireless network, regardless of whether or not you live in a 3G area, you should be more interested in where 3G is when you are out and about!
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austin said 7:01PM on 5-22-2008
exactly.
why do you care if your house is in 3G area?
wifi is faster than HSDPA. and most likely you have wifi in your house.
punkassjim said 8:09PM on 5-22-2008
Thank you. That's the only reasonable comment. Who cares if one can get HSDPA at home or the office? It ain't gonna be available where I need it most.
Funny thing is, people are gonna cry about getting knocked back down to EDGE when they're out in the sticks, whereas that's kinda always been the case. Problem is, now that the iPhone exists, more people actually use the mobile internet.
Anyway, the big story today was that AT&T announced their goals to beef up 3G coverage areas hugely by end-of-year.
Tony said 3:41AM on 5-23-2008
Normally on a 3G phone you'd disable wifi as it's a battery hog.
If another comment is right and the wifi on the iphone tops out at 1.8Mbps then 3G is going to be quite a bit faster anyway (I'm in a 3.6 area at home and a 7.2 area at work.. waiting for 14.4 rollout next year!).
Matthew Bray said 7:09PM on 5-22-2008
I'm hoping AT&T expands their coverage a bit north of Tampa, FL. I live 45 minutes north (EDGE only) but spend a bunch of my time in the 3G zone. Put me down as a "WAITER" for the 3G iPhone.
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Stephen said 7:12PM on 5-22-2008
Am I correct in guessing that 3G service will have zero effect on signal for plain old voice calls? Currently, I live in an AT&T dead zone in a rural area known as New York, NY. The current iphone gets no bars for voice in my apartment. I'm thinking the 3G model won't do any better...Thoughts?
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Ryan said 7:29PM on 5-22-2008
All this hype and smype about the 3G iphone, and there are only a limited amount of cities that support it. That is funny. What do you guys want to do anyways? I mean if I want to do some heavy web-extensive stuff, I would rather use a computer with a cable connection instead of try to hunt and poke on my 3G iphone. Yes, certain things like streaming music/movies on 3G might be nice, but then your battery life takes a dump.
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John said 7:41PM on 5-22-2008
Steven, you live in a land of parks...
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Big John said 8:02PM on 5-22-2008
Thanks for letting me know that when I pick up the next iteration of the iPhone, I won't be seeing 3G speeds ;)
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wildcardd said 8:11PM on 5-22-2008
Steven
You live in Highlands Ranch? So do I. Just a little further south on your map. I was suprised to see that area on the screen cap.
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LBDG said 8:20PM on 5-22-2008
I'm more or less exactly on an Orange/Blue borderline according to the map :(
My understanding is this technically a separate network, so you may see differences in signal strength. But then again, for the most part the 3G and 2G antennas will share the same cell towers location-wise, so the difference is unlikely to be drastic.
Based on the map, it seems it's more likely your signal will get worse rather than better since there are less 3G areas rolled out.
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adam said 8:38PM on 5-22-2008
Not sure how many of you have had both an EDGE (2.5G) and a 3G device, but let me clear a few things up in case anyone is wondering:
GPRS is the 2G service with a top download speed of 40kbps (40,000). Older phones like the Motorola V3 Razr use this data service
EDGE also referred to as 2.5G with a top download speed of 234kbps (234,000) is enhanced GPRS. The Apple Iphone uses this data service
A Quad band GSM phone like the Iphone still uses data that goes through the voice service. This is why you can't acces Safari or your e-mail in a phone call, unless your on WIFI.
When it comes to 3G there are 2 different versions.
UMTS: a starter/older 3G speed. Nokia is currently the only company AT&T uses that still runs UMTS. It's top download speed is 400-700kbps (400,000- 700,000).
HSDPA: is High Speed Data Packet Access. All of AT&T's 3G data service will be HSDPA enabled by the end of June. There are currently 3 versions of HSDPA; 1.8MBPS, 3.6MBPS and 7.2MBPS. The version indicates its top download speed. The Apple Iphone 2 is rumored to have HSDPA, but its not clear what version its going to have. Most of AT&T's current 3G phones have HSPDA in either the 1.8 or 3.6 versions, except 3G Nokias as noted above.
3G and Voice are completely seperate services. Unlike EDGE and GPRS share the same connection as your voice service. 3G can use voice and internet at the same time. For example, you can be on a call and check your favorite website AT THE SAME TIME
Your 3G device is still going to work great in a non-3G area; your going to have a longer battery life, a smoother data connection to the EDGE or GPRS data services, and will still be able to voice and internet at the same time.
The only disadvantage of 3G, is it does hurt battery life in a 3G Enabled area. Hope that helps anyone
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Gary said 12:58AM on 5-23-2008
Actually it should be you will have a much shorter battery life in a non-3g area. UNLESS you disable 3g, otherwise the phone will connect via edge, but constantly try to find a 3g connection and suck your battery dry in the process.