Saying Goodbye to Verizon

For about the last year I have used a Verizon card for access to data when I could not get wireless. I maintain a Tmobile hot spots account because that seems to be very handy. But I have decided to drop the Verizon service.  That came about because of a couple of factors.  First,  I found I did not use it as much as I thought I would - open wireless (802.11) is much more available than it was a year ago.  Second, I bought an iPhone. FInally, compared to Tmobile's Hot Spots it is pretty pricey.

Understanding speed involves three measures - the speed at which a file is uploaded, the speed for a download and the time it and latency (the time between when you do something and when you actually see it happening). The latter is done in miliseconds. But even with that close measure you can see the difference with much higher latencies (or at least you have the perception that it is happening).

To give Verizon its due there were a couple of things I liked about the network. It was ubiquitous. I do not think I found very many places in the US where it was not available. There were some perceptions of differing times do get things done depending on the strength of the signal (Latency) but it mostly lived up to its advertising.

The rap against the iPhone is the Edge network.  So before I signed off I wanted to do a comparison of speed.

Here is what I found: 

For my office network the speed is pretty good - consistently at 1100 KBPS download and about 650 upload with a latency of 37-50 ms.  For my home network, which is Comcast, the down is just over 700 and the up just over 400 with a latency of 95. For Verizon the download is about 900-990 but the upload slows to between 110 and 120.  And the latency is a whopping 320-350 MS.

The speeds on EDGE are in the 175 range both ways with some latency - although I have not found a measure on my iPhone which can do that. So what I found is that for the kinds of things you are going to use the iPhone for, the speed is acceptable but especiallt for uploads not all that bad. As I have used the phone so far it has been for email - where you download only part of the message and send things in short bursts. Some very limited web surfing - which is admittedly not fast. And maps - which is just fine.

When the iPhone was pre-release there was a lot of techie talk that AT&T and bumped the network a bit. I suspect that is true - but the next generation will probably be a lot better. I am not sure how much more speed can be wrested out of the existing system.