Other pages in the review
3G, GPRS and the rest.
Since the launch of 3G in 2005 the four major telcos tested here (3, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone) all offer wireless broadband services on the 3G network, which will switch back to GPRS when out of range. Faster services are currently quite limited in Australia with Vodafone’s 3G access limited to major capitals plus a few airports; Telstra’s EV-DO (3G network) is more prevalent but still limited to major centres. The other two service providers, iBurst and Unwired, operate on their own separate networks. Both are currently working on expanding their coverage—as we were putting this review together Unwired opened four more towers in Melbourne.
While providers such as Optus, Unwired and iBurst are concentrating on providing services in capital cities (see our coverage table on the next page) there are efforts to provide access to higher speed services in smaller regional cities. Telstra offers ED-VO in many regional areas and AustarNet intends to roll out a WiMAX service to serve its regional clientele.
Until then you can expect switching from 3G to GPRS to be a regular occurrence, which should occur automatically unless the device is otherwise configured. The changeover means a significant reduction in speed, taking you down to a dial-up speed (ie 56kbps). Potential buyers must, therefore, be willing to accept lower data speeds on those occasions where the 3G service is not available. Such a decision is going to involve some very careful thought about where the user is going to travel with comparision to the coverage maps for a given service provider.
In some cases switching can also have significant cost considerations as not all providers support both telecommunication modes. This means a loss in 3G service might result in a change over to a second carrier at a much higher dollar rate. While costs associated with wireless broadband cards should be comparable with the charges associated with mobile phones some carriers charge significantly more for data. That said, many telcos now have very attractive 3G/GPRS data bundles with decent amounts of data included.
Quality of service
GPRS, and even 3G, may provide convenient roaming but neither compete with 802.11 wireless services (let alone Gigabit Ethernet) in terms of speed. When connecting to a wireless modem rated at 108Mbps you can expect connection speeds in the order of 20 to 30 Mbps (50Mbps if you’re lucky); 3G, on the other hand, is only rated at 384Kbps. (Of course many notebooks now come with access to all of these services and therefore can take advantage of the best available speed or convenience as required at any given time.)
Bear in mind that rated data speeds tend not to indicate the actual speed of data transfer—as proven in our testing. Both wired and unwired transmissions are subject to a variety of factors which reduce actual speeds from the theoretical values. These factors include the workload on computer processors and the speed of modems at both ends of the connection. Just because you have a 2Mbps satellite connection doesn’t mean there isn’t a 256Kbps connection at the server you are downloading a web page from. What’s more, the source server may be further constrained by multiple access attempts being made simultaneously.
Sometimes an ISP cannot properly serve its complete customer base which can result in the ISP’s hardware being clogged with serious speed reductions, particularly at peak times. On the other hand we have often observed wireless Internet services where the speed provided was greatly in excess of that which was specified by the plan (particularly with regard to uploads). This would indicate a small client base under utilising the ISP’s infrastructure—unfortunately some of these providers are also somewhat erratic in their service provision.
Wireless connections also suffer from environmental conditions which interfere with signal transmissions. Such interference may come from physical barriers such as hills and buildings—even relatively thin metal barriers can be a serious issue. Our mobile phone reception is relatively poor in our office due to the metallic film on our windows!
As you may well have noticed, two rooms in one house can have very different reception levels. Weather conditions may further reduce data transfer efficiencies. All these factors mean less bars appear on your mobile phone or broadband card dashboard. Whenever data is lost due to electrical interference or poor signal strength the information must, of course, be resent, creating reductions in effective speed.