Fastest GPRS phone

Urban Weigl

What is the fastest/best GPRS capable phone with bluetooth? Currently have a Nokia 6310i, which as far as I know has 3 downstream and 1 upstream channel, however I read GPRS technically has a maximum speed of 170kbps, and Samsung showed it working at up to 121kbps in public tests/demonstrations.

spongebob

GSM 2 and 2.5Phones have data slots with a defined width. Channel if you will.

Originally there was one slot of 9.6k so GSM phones could handle 9.6k data.

Over the past few years that slot has been increased to 14.4k . In practise I have never seen that 14.4k slot go beyond 12k , even under a mast .

With GPRS and HSCSD (supported by the 6310i and some other phones as well if you are on Vodafone) the plan was to increase the number of slots the phone could take up in parallel. This is a bit like the 2 ISDN channels in Multilink.

At the moment the networks that support either HSCSD or GPRS will allow 3 in and one out , giving 43.2k Inbound and 14.4k outbound. In practise I find that the max inbound is about 33k with either GPRS or with HSCSD. As with Multilink ISDN there is an overhead involved with bonding the slots into the one.

HSCSD will not improve in speed AFAIR but GPRS can theoretically handle and aggregate more slots in both directions.

It will be up to the Mobile networks to allow the number of requested slots to increase and with it the speeds. I suspect that the slots themselves can be increased in size to 28.8k in conjunction with EDGE, (data thruput improvements) which has been 'imminent' for years.

Vodafone have a very helpful mobile data section who will tell you more if you ring them. O2 are useless, their staff refuse to put you onto anyone who knows anything about data whereas Meteor currently support neither GPRS or HSCSD and give you the one slot for data I suspect..

M

jesus_thats_gre

GPRS in theory should be able to reach 144kbps out of memory.. I don't think it will go beyong that though. EDGE in theory has a max rate of 384kbps i think and that wont happen.

The biggest jump will be with the introduction of 3G services. Handsets are being limited to 144 kbps but you should be able to 384kbps using a data card.

jesus_thats_gre

Correction, you are able to hit 384kbps.. I did 5 minutes ago

manchine

If you can find one, the Motorola T280 is pretty quick. It's a 4+2 device (can handle up tp 4 timeslots downlink and 2 uplink)
If you can get the network resources, it'll do about 50Kb/s on the downlink.
Of course it's a pain in the @rs3 for anything else

ASFIK no Nokias go above 3 on the downlink.

Urban Weigl

Originally posted by manchine
If you can find one, the Motorola T280 is pretty quick. It's a 4+2 device (can handle up tp 4 timeslots downlink and 2 uplink)
If you can get the network resources, it'll do about 50Kb/s on the downlink.
Of course it's a pain in the @rs3 for anything else

ASFIK no Nokias go above 3 on the downlink.

Do either Vodafone or o2 support 4 downlink and 2 uplink slots? I am planning to holiday on the Canary Islands (probably roaming with Vodafone), and need a reasonably fast always on connection to admin servers remotely while I am there (SSH/telnet).

Edit: I remember someone from o2 telling me that they supported up to 57.6kbps, which would indicate 4 slots. That was at a store though, and over a year ago. As such, I hardly think I could trust that information.

flywheel

Originally posted by Muck
Vodafone have a very helpful mobile data section who will tell you more if you ring them. O2 are useless, their staff refuse to put you onto anyone who knows anything about data whereas Meteor currently support neither GPRS or HSCSD and give you the one slot for data I suspect..

hmm - have had good and bad experiences with both O2 and Voda - found O2 support (Internet and WAP) to be on par with Voda data support - it can be a bit of a lottery with any operator who you get put through to when a call is made

Meteor recently launched GPRS but apparently only for WAP and MMS services, they didn't have a firm date when full internet service would be launched when I asked

BrianG

dublincastro

Hello,

The Motorola T280 is a 4+1 device. I have one and use it regularly with O2 Irelands optimisation software. This software compresses the data being both sent and received on the uplink and downlink, which provides quicker through put when web browsing and downloading files. The speeds achieved can vary depending on what you are downloading (i.e. depends on how compressable the information is) but this works well and provides an indicator as to what speeds you are achieving. This is available FREE from O2 if you request it from their support line.

There are a few handsets / data cards, which provide 4+2 functionality (Novatel / Merlin Data Card but the maximum still supported by Nokia is 3+1.

HSCSD is available with Vodafone & Meteor. This works on a maximum of 3 timeslots on the downlink at 14.4kbps (or 2+2 for uplink & downlink). Although the standards allow for greater speeds on HSCSD the maximum implementation developed by manufacturers has been to a maximum of 3 timeslots.

This works ok for HSCSD as long as the network will provide the timeslots. GPRS networks (packet) can share timeslot resources where HSCSD (circuit) only allow one call to use a timelsot at any one time making them less efficient than GPRS networks.

In relation to speeds this is based on standards implementation. Pretty much all GSM/GPRS operators have implemented CS2 (13.4kbps), which provides a theoritical maximum speed of 53.6kbps but this does not take into account the normal associated data overheads.

You would expect each time for HSCSD to give you a data payload (actual data being sent) of about 12kbps (x3=36kbps).

For GPRS you based on CS2 you would expect the data payload (actual data being sent) of about 10kbps (x4=40kbps).

Based on these speeds and the more efficient nature of a packet based network GPRS is a better option for non-relatime data services.

In order to achieve greater speeds network operators would need to implement the higher coding schemes (CS3 / CS4) and these would also need to be supported by the handset manufacturers, only then would you be able to achieve the theortical speeds set out in the standards.

In relation to EDGE we will have to see how this develops.

3G will provide increased speeds over those offered by GPRS & HSCSD but with the lack of devices and relatively new networks just like HSCSD & GPRS these will take time to mature but you should not expect to see 2MB downlinks.

flywheel

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
What is the fastest/best GPRS capable phone with bluetooth? Currently have a Nokia 6310i, which as far as I know has 3 downstream and 1 upstream channel, however I read GPRS technically has a maximum speed of 170kbps, and Samsung showed it working at up to 121kbps in public tests/demonstrations.

171.2 kbps is the academic/math max you can get in Coding Scheme 4 (CS4) using the full 21.4 kbps per slot and all 8 time slots. However on our networks using CS 2 allowing for 13.4 kps per slot with a handset that has 3 download slots available you get a 40.2 kbps max.

So you need to take into account the Coding Scheme in use, the Multi-Slot class of the device and other network factors all determining what speed you actually get (rather than the math max.)

and be prepared to shell out a small fortune for roaming on GPRS

BrianG

dublincastro

I would agree with you.

The CS2 4+1 reference I made was more aimed at the Motorola T280 device and other similar 4+1 devices.

I have a Nokia 6310i (3+1), which I use for web browsing connected via a USB bluetooth add on and I see an average speed (of real data payload) of approx 30kbps but again more using the optimisation software.

As for roaming.....well that's another days work!!!

BigMoose

When using my mobile connect card to the Voda ISP APN, it claims to connect at 57.6 - but I have no idea in reality what speed transfer I get since I dont use it for anything at the mo.

jesus_thats_gre

http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/

BigMoose

That claimed:

Speed
32.6 kilobits per second

Communications 32.6 kilobits per second
Storage 4 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 4.3 minutes
Subjective rating Slow

Info
Date & time Friday, November 28, 3:02AM*
Test type IDT4 Free
Connection type Wireless: GPRS
Region Europe
Data size 200KB

So I'm guessing the 57.6 claim was a bit optimistic!

dublincastro

Hello,

This speed seems about right although a little slow.

I believe this card is a 4+1 device, which should give you a real data payload (once overheads are excluded) of approx 40kbps (10 kbps per timeslot).

flywheel

yup - it's based on the Option Globe Trotter GPRS card - Multislot Class 10 (4 dn, 2 up, max 5 a session i.e. 4+1 or 3+2)

there is a a handy list on GSM World listing out GPRS Handsets / Terminals which give Multi-slot Class info...

BrianG