I've been amazed by the number of emails I have had, too; from people saying, in effect: "This is true! I thought it was just me, and I must be thumb-fingered. Why does nobody raise an outcry?"

Edited by author 09-09-2003 07:35 AM
"I've been amazed by the number of emails I have had, too; from people saying, in effect: "This is true! I thought it was just me, and I must be thumb-fingered. Why does nobody raise an outcry?"

Which networks? I regularly hit my t-mobile GPRS account really hard and don't have any speed problems.

I'm having big problems with Orange. Once again, my target WAP page is unreachable on GPRS, fine with GSM diallup, fine with Opera/Win in WAP viewing mode :-(

In general, it's every day around 9am, 6pm, and all of Friday afternoons...

Network- wide, or confined to a particular area? Could be a BTS capacity issue if it's localised.

Edited by author 09-11-2003 07:22 AM
Connection speed tester at http://www.info-techs.com/speedtest says I'm getting 37.1 kbps on GPRS at the moment.

Try it (and post results) if you have suitable kit- this was using an Ipaq 3870 connected via Bluetooth to a nokia 6310i on t-mobile in St Albans. It would be interesting to see results from different places and networks- and at different times of the day.

I had a long conversation with Orange Data, and I seem to be (a) living in a cell that had (still has IMHO) a long-term transmitter problem, and (b) travelling to work which has a cell that appears to be groaning under the load and Orange have a load more planned. They have planning permission and are waiting to start work apparently. How unlucky is that ?! However, just for fun I had to go to London on the train the next day and did a GPRS test all along the route, and got about 70% usability. What did surprise me was that sitting in Starbucks off Oxford Street GPRS was again very poor. I think insufficient bandwidth is the cause here. I just want to get it sorted as I have landed some paid(!) development work and need to be able to use GPRS on a regular basis.

Generally speaking, people I talk to think things are getting worse. I'd quite like to look at the metrics of GPRS; if people actually used the data that the phone networks are dreaming about charging us for, how many new masts they'd need.

Edited by author 09-22-2003 04:04 AM
>if people actually used the data that the phone networks >are dreaming about charging us for, how many new masts >they'd need.

Depends on how much spare air interface capacity they have now, and how much voice capacity they're willing to dedicate to GPRS in order to guarantee throughput. The answer could be none or lots depending on what the BTSs look like. A simple spreadsheet driven 'we will need x more masts to support y GB of data usage' won't add up as it really depends on local loadings, overhead and BTS capacity.

Peter can you do some speed tests?

Can do.. Is there a WAP site where I can do this, otherwise I could try from home linking via my laptop.

http://www.info-techs.com/speedtest will do you on a laptop. Don't know about WAP sites, I'm sure it's possible but can anyone be bothered ;+)

Guy - turn the argument around, if people could actually use GPRS they'd make enough to pay for more masts etc very quickly, remember that it's far from cheap...

I find GPRS coverage and availability on Vodafone in SE England is appalling.

Coverage should be pretty much identical to GSM unless Voda have some severe interference problems. What's your voice coverage like?

Edited by author 09-22-2003 05:47 PM
Just managed to get on (in Alton), and the result is: 4.8Kb/second or 39 Kbps. If it's working tomorrow AM i'll try then. That was using a Tosh laptop with a USB connection.

Just tried another one after clearing the browser cache: 2.8 K bytes/sec or 23 Kbps - same hardware

One more thing - looking at the log for the Motorola GPRS manager, I notice that I set the Quality of service to "default - subscribed preference" in all cases, but lookig at the log it shows "Setting Quality Of Service - Minimum" - i'm not sure if this changes to something a bit higher once I get connected ..

Edited by author 09-23-2003 09:40 AM
Not too bad @ 39kbs- change in speed between the 2 tests is most likely down to load variations on the cell. What signal strength is your phone showing?

QOS- I'm not sure this is too relevant, depends if voda have implemented QOS in their network yet.