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How fast is 3G

  • 07-04-2009 11:21pm
    #1
    boardswalker
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 460 ✭✭


    Hi,
    I am coming up to an upgrade and I'm wondering how fast 3g is. I am currently with vodafone and I am looking at theirs. There's also the possibility of moving to one of the others. Would 3g be good enough for voip? Some phones have 3g only, not wifi. I know wifi should be ok for voip but is 3g good enough?
    Thanks


Comments

  • #2
    Brian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,699 ✭✭✭Brian


    Hmm, my 3G modem gets 3 Mbps download but quite a bit less than 1Mbps upload, so I'm not sure how well it would work..
    I have used it for a video call on MSN Messenger, and it did work but it was quite laggy. That was with video too though, so calling only might be OK.


  • #3
    Rsaeire
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,888 ✭✭✭Rsaeire


    boardswalker wrote: »
    Hi,
    I am coming up to an upgrade and I'm wondering how fast 3g is. I am currently with vodafone and I am looking at theirs. There's also the possibility of moving to one of the others. Would 3g be good enough for voip? Some phones have 3g only, not wifi. I know wifi should be ok for voip but is 3g good enough?
    Thanks

    To be honest, it's all relative. Wi-Fi will no doubt give a more lag free experience, whereas with 3G, performance will vary depending on several factors, e.g. the amount of people connected to the network where you are, the handset you are using, the speed of the network etc.

    To answer your inital question, Meteor's network supports speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps, although there are currently no devices capable of supporting that speed, O2 and Vodafone are capable of speeds up to 7.2 Mbps and 3 are capable of speeds up to 3.2 Mbps.


  • #4
    towel401
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,917 ✭✭✭towel401


    the most i ever got out of it was around 2mbit down and 400kbit up

    its rarely that fast though. expect speeds of 1mbit and lots of lag


  • #5
    towel401
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,917 ✭✭✭towel401


    boardswalker wrote: »
    Would 3g be good enough for voip? Some phones have 3g only, not wifi. I know wifi should be ok for voip but is 3g good enough?
    Thanks

    i tried this before and it was terrible. 6 seconds of lag, the VoiP ate up all the upstream bandwidth anyway.

    the lag might be induced by filters though, ya know so you don't cheat the network out of vital revenue to Build for the Future.


  • #6
    blaz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 590 ✭✭✭blaz


    towel401 wrote: »
    i tried this before and it was terrible. 6 seconds of lag, the VoiP ate up all the upstream bandwidth anyway.

    the lag might be induced by filters though, ya know so you don't cheat the network out of vital revenue to Build for the Future.

    You were probably using the G.711 codec, so no compression. The latency on 3G (500 ms and above) kills it and gives you unacceptable delay.

    If you use the appropriate codec for you VoIP call (G.729 or preferably AMR, if your VoIP provider supports it), your VoIP call over 3G will sound very similar if not better to a classic mobile phone call.


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  • #7
    robinph
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,101 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    However it the "voip" of which you speak is Skype then using Three and their Skype client it does not make any difference how fast a 3G connection you have at the time as the data is only used to update your online presence. The Skype calls from the Three client are made as regular mobile calls to the UK where they then become internet based, you are not charged for those mobile calls though.


  • #8
    IIMII
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,366 ✭✭✭IIMII


    blaz wrote: »
    You were probably using the G.711 codec, so no compression. The latency on 3G (500 ms and above) kills it and gives you unacceptable delay.

    If you use the appropriate codec for you VoIP call (G.729 or preferably AMR, if your VoIP provider supports it), your VoIP call over 3G will sound very similar if not better to a classic mobile phone call.
    Would you know how this would apply to blueface for example?


  • #9
    blaz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 590 ✭✭✭blaz


    IIMII wrote: »
    Would you know how this would apply to blueface for example?

    No experience with blueface unfortunately. The difficulty with VoIP providers is that even if they do support compression, the preferred codec might be a non-compressed one and it will be selected by default during call setup.

    If your phone is Nokia S60 (f.e. N95, E65, etc.), then you can use the Nokia SIP VoIP Settings tool to remove the PCMA and PCMU (G.711) codecs from the list of available codecs. This will cause your phone to support only the compressed codecs and if your provider (i.e. blueface) supports it you will be able to make a call. If your provider does not support compression you will be unable to make a call, but at least you will know you need to choose a different provider ;)

    Nokia SIP VoIP Settings Tool

    By default Nokias don't allow you to make VoIP calls over 3G as they only show Wi-Fi access points in the list of available access points. With the above tool you can modify your VoIP profile to also show 3G access points.


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