HSDPA update

I have been testing the Sierra Wireless 881 Aircard for my needs for the past few days. The speeds in the HSDPA coverage area have been great. 2102/317 kbs. That’s about what I get with my DSL connection. Of course, the latency is greater (about 150-400 ms), but I can live with that.

The EDGE network is much slower. Sometimes I get decent transfers (>160kbps), but it is usually much slower. I’m wondering if maybe the more people that make phone calls at a particular time, the more the system throttles back on speed. Since the card is a class 12 device, I understand that it can use up to 4 timeslots on download, so I’d imagine that’s taking up way more bandwidth than a phone call.

I’m pretty happy with the card. Now, I’m just hoping that 3G coverage expands to my town, and when it does, hopefully it will have HSUPA included. Then my upload speeds would be even faster.

The primary purpose of the Aircard is so I can get work done. Usually I would want both download and upload speeds to be as fast as possible.

I usually recommend AT&T; to people. One advantage I’ve found in my area is that I still can take advantage of the two frequencies they use. When AT&T; was Cingular, and they had not merged with AT&T; Wireless (confusing, I know), Cingular operated an 850Mhz system here, and AT&T; Wireless operated a 1900 Mhz system. When the two companies merged, switching between towers started to happen. Now, after a few years of this transition, it is almost seamless. I noticed earlier this week that my phone was switching occasionally between the 850 and 1900 Mhz systems. I found the field test mode for my phone, and this is where I found the information. Otherwise, there really isn’t an easy way to know which band your phone is on. Because they have kept both systems running in this area (and both had good coverage before the merger), it allows for more reliability.

I used to not like AT&T; (and Cingular), but after the move to GSM, my opinion changed. They have done a very good job getting a reliable system working in this area.