Being used to multi-megabit/s 3G speeds and a 25 MBit/s VDSL line at home I expected to have a real bad browsing and general Internet experience when I recently experimented with a 3G HSPA connection throttled down to 384 kbit/s in the downlink direction and 64 kbit/s in the uplink direction. I was quite surprised to experience the contrary.
Yes, the web pages are showing up with a bit more delay than I am used to but apart from that, the general experience was quite o.k. Youtube doesn't work though without buffering as the videos require a bit more bandwidth. Apart from that, just the 64 kbit/s in uplink hurt, uploading pictures took a while. But still, quite usable overall, much much better than I expected!
Sure, still there's little point in the throttled connection. I mean, it is not really that big a difference in terms of actual used bandwidth, is it? Most people have very light usage with 3G.
In Finland the trend seems to be full-rate 3G. My operator offers "up to 15 Mbit/s" starting from 13.90 eur/month with no specified traffic cap. Others have unlimited bandwidth starting at similar prices, including a operator locked modem.
My own usage has recently been in the order of 40 GB/month since I use 3G at home as my primary connection, with unlimited speed. Practical speeds vary from 500-800 kB/s down (peak 1000 kB/s), up 150-180 kB/s. Some improvement could be gained with HSPA+ capable modem, mine is limited to 10 Mbit.
384k is definitely usable, and starting at 5 eur/month for unlimited bandwidth without modem, it's definitely a no-brainer for anyone with a smartphone.
Posted by: Joonas Kortesalmi | May 29, 2010 at 09:39 AM