How fast is BT modem?!?!

[rr0123]

I have an EVDO card with Verizon and a RAZR phone with Cingular. I am considering getting another phone with either EDGE or EVDO that will have the sole purpose of serving as a BT modem for the 770. I am wondering if it is worth the $60/month (I am going to do it legit).

So, how fast is it? Can anyone compare to an EVDO card? I find the EVDO card quite acceptable despite its intermittent sluggishness. Am I going to be wishing I was carting around my U101 with EVDO card, instead of the 770 with BT modem, or will I be happy to lose the extra pounds?

[mattiescramz]

as long as your tethering through bluetooth you'll max out at 700 kbps, which is the liimit of bluetooth 1.2 so it probably wouldnt' matter if you use edge or evdo

[slackwaresupport]

i have a tre650 with cingular, and it sucks.

[eskin]

I have a Treo 650 with Sprint and it works great with BT DUN. What's the problem on Cingular?

[Gourmet]

Despite the fact that BT 1.1 (or 1.2) is given for 700 kbps it depends on the CPU horse power also.
The measures I made with my Siemens S65 gave more about 100 kbps. Same things with the 6230i (when it works).
db

[tnkgrl]

I'm getting about 300-400 kbps using EVDO over Bluetooth in the Bay Area (Motorola E815 with Verizon Wireless).

[djs_tx]

Two comments:
First, why would you buy a whole separate phone and data plan? Why not simply add a data plan to your bluetooth enabled razor?

Second, You're interested in total data throughput. The slowest link in getting data through your phone to your N770 is not limited by bluetooth but by the data rate from the towers to your phone. But there are a lot of links in the chain and if any one of them is a bottleneck you going to see slow data.

I've got to get a 3G Cingular phone soon...
David

[rr0123]

tnkgrl--how does that throughput feel on the 770, does it feel pretty responsive, or are you looking around while waiting for the page to load?

djs--my Razr doesn't have EDGE support; I don't think any of the Cingular ones do. I have tried GPRS before and it's too slow.

[michaelalanjones]

I have a Razr and the Cingular MediaNet Unlimited Internet plan, cost: $20/month. The speed blows; Cingular is doing something to govern the speed, which should be, and probably is, a crime. I only keep it because I can get and send my email anywhere, anytime, and also refresh RSS feeds. Web browsing is not really fun, unless you set Opera to View Images->Never, and it is still not super fast, only usable.

By the way, I used 5MB of wireless internet last month. The plans are:
MEdia Net Unlimited $20.00
MEdia Net 10 mb $14.99
MEdia Net 5 mb $9.99
MEdia Net 1 mb $4.99

So they 'got' me, last month. But before I had Unlimited, I once used by laptop via the phone for an entire weekend, and it cost me $50 in over charges. So if you are considering this plan, know that.

I figure that most of the time, I am at work, home, or somewhere there is a Wifi spot, so I only use this when I am in a remote location, or just to get my email easily.

Hope this helps.

[thoughtfix]

My RAZR on T-Mobile gets a whopping 43 kbits per second. Slower than dialup!
Graphs here:
http://thoughtfix.blogspot.com/2006/01/t-mobile-news.html

[slackwaresupport]

yeop, cingular just blows. and get this, i got a tmoble datacard a sony GC89 with a data plan. they say 400kbs.. WRONG! im better off on dialup. it took 2 days just for me to even get connected to the tmobile network, i sat on hold pratically all weekend with tech support. finally got connected after going to a tmobile store and putting the sim card in a phone, TWICE! with good signal, speed blows

[tnkgrl]

*rr0123*, it feels like 300-400 kbps, ie. it's marginally slower than using a WiFi connection, but totally useable (I often stream 128 kbps Internet radio with my EVDO via Bluetooth connection as well).

FYI, you have to enable DUN on the Motorola E815 (by quickly typing ##DIALUP once only - see http://howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=674803) for it to work, and you have to add the $15 V-cast plan to your voice plan for unlimited EVDO (although that's against the rules), or the $59 Broadband Access plan to your voice plan.

The original Motorola RAZR (V3 - a GSM phone, ie. Cingular or T-Mobile) features GPRS for data witch is limited to about 56 kbps, so that's why it's slow. My primary phone is a Sony Ericsson W800i (GSM with T-Mobile) and I only use it with my Nokia 770 as a backup because it only features GPRS, so it's also slow.

GSM phones with EDGE (Cingular & T-Mobile) are faster, but CDMA phones with EVDO (Sprint & Verizon Wireless) are currently fastest. GSM phones with UMTS and/or HSDPA are on the horizon (Cingular) that should match or exceed the performance of EVDO . That's what I'm waiting for so I can revert to using a single phone again.

[rr0123]

Thanks for the info tnkgrl. I am conflicted on this. I had initially decided to try sprint, just for the variety. But then I decided on Cingular, to try the more widely available edge. But then I decided I needed to get some "real life" comments on speed, so I made this post, and no one's said anything about EDGE yet.

[jaycee]

Second, You're interested in total data throughput. The slowest link in getting data through your phone to your N770 is not limited by bluetooth but by the data rate from the towers to your phone.Are we /sure/ about this?

And - even if it's true - does anyone have a forward-looking view on how quickly this will become /not/ true?

I did a bit of looking around a while ago for 3G/GPRS/etc data rates, but didn't find anything conclusive. Any pointers, anyone?

[UK users only: how the hell can I get a decent data plan on 3G? NO-ONE wants to give me one without claiming *far* too much of my paypacket each month!]

[rr0123]

Any other comments anyone? I have reviewed the threads here and at handtops.com, and while there are a lot of posts regarding phones that work, very few of them provide information on the real-life feel and responsiveness of the speed.