Vodafone Network - In Theory, How Fast Is EDGE?

[SurfSilver]

I'm currently out in the boondocks of LE67 2SL, 3G coverage is no more than a fond hope and I guess I'm probably 2 miles from the nearest mast (I think the nearest would be in Ibstock).

Things are much better than they might be, though, because I can often get a very good Edge connection. In fact at the moment VMC says it's "Excellent". I've never seen that on the 3G connection at my home base in LE4.

I just wondered - only out of curiosity - what is the expected performance ceiling for Edge? For no particular reason, I'd assumed that it would be around 256k, but while doing some downloads in the dead hours of this morning, my Hootech NetMeter tool clocked the downstream rate at better than 256k for quite a lot of the time. (I did see one spike transient at over 512k, but I'm a little sceptical about that).

As I said, just wondered - it's a lot better than the basic 2G speed I used to get out here before Edge came along.

[Retired-Reidar]

Hello SurfSilver and thanks for posting.

That would be a difficult question to answer in terms of providing exact figures. Edge can often be defined as 2.5G, with GPRS being 2G, and 3G being....well...3G

Speeds of approximately 120-150kBit/s in good reception condition would not be unrealistic, but in all honesty this will fluctuate too. i would advise searching the internet for forums and further information on this as resources are plenty, just remember that it is not an exact science.


Thanks


Reidar


eForum Team

[JohnA]

The theoretical maximum is just 59.2 multiplied by the number of download timeslots your device can handle (most likely 4 or possibly 5) giving either 236 or 296 kb/s. Do you know what class your device is as this will tell you the number of slots?

512k isn't possible without evolved EDGE which isn't available so it looks like something is wrong with your transient spike measurements.