iPhone EDGE over 3G choices re-hashed... why?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 26 February 2008 17:27

Your IT - Mobility

The fact that 2G hardware is cheaper than 3G hardware is also well known, heck – it’s obvious.

The fact that 2G iPhone owners would upgrade to a sexy new 3G iPhone – which Steve Jobs will probably find some way to make slimmer than the current 2G iPhone anyway – is also a no-brainer. I mean, how many iPod owners upgrade to the new model?

How many iPhone owners already own several iPods? I know I do. Again, hardly some grand revelation.

And the fact that 3G data is likely going to cost more than 2G data is not because you can get the data faster. It’s because faster data means you’re likely to use a lot more of it. And that greater usage is what AT&T and other telcos fear.

It’s much harder to suck up gigabytes of data when you’re stuck on a 2.5G EDGE network than a 3.5G HSDPA connection (as we have here in Australia) capable of up to 1.5Mbps download speeds on 2100Mhz 3.5G devices, and up to 7.2Mbps on 850Mhz 3.5G devices.

The 850Mhz 3.5G HSDPA network is what AT&T is building, it’s the same network our version of AT&T, called Telstra, built a couple of years ago already in Australia, covering 98.9% of our population.

I’m not sure where Weintraub is going with these ‘genius’ revelations, perhaps his longer article will shed some light that I’ve been previously unaware of.

3G and better still, 3.5G is where it’s all at. And is 3G really that much of a battery hog, or is that all really just hogwash? Please read onto page 3.