Wednesday, November 12, 2008
3G Throwdown: IT&E vs. DOCOMO
In the interest of science, good journalism and responsible geekery, I'm comparing wireless broadband Internet access from IT&E's EVDO network and DOCOMO Pacific's (formerly Guamcell) 3.5G service. You'll recall how I happily extolled the virtues of both telecomm companies for finally launching wide-area mobile broadband service. It's been sorely needed.
I've been Twittering my results for both IT&E and DOCOMO, bouncing pings off of a San Diego POP on SpeedTest.net from my dual-boot XP Pro/Ubuntu 8.04 laptop (since neither company supports a Linux dialer at the moment, we'll stick with Windows). So let's put both to the test.
IT&E
Modem: Verizon UM150 EVDO USB Modem
Throughput: 737Kbps download, 291 Kbps upload
Client dialer: AllTel QuickLink Mobile
Pros: USB modem doubles as storage device, easy to setup, desktop client runs lean, available for Windows and Mac OS; I've been connected for more than 2 hours, and even during periods of dormancy, I've experienced no dropouts
Cons: coverage for the moment is VERY spotty and limited
DOCOMO Pacific
Throughput: 741 Kbps download / 194 Kbps upload
Client dialer: BandLuxe Connection Manager
Pros: being a PCMCIA device, the modem fits snugly and doesn't jut out; USB adapter available, too, so there's flexibility in connecting. The dialer is very light and doesn't eat up much memory.
Cons: the PCMCIA peripheral uses a large activity indicator light that's multicolor and illuminates with any type of transmission/status change, so the BandLuxe card arguably draws more power than the USB modem. I've also been told the service is avaliable for Windows-only at the moment. The service also kicked me offline a couple of times (maybe because of inactivity), but quickly reestablished my connection.
Who wins?
Both providers use network interface devices capable of handling 7.2Mbps throughput levels, but both services promise somewhere closer to the range of around 3.7Mbps. Not bad. Unfortunately, I have yet to see speeds anywhere near that benchmark. Ben's testing too, from Yigo, saying he's getting around 1.4Mbps. Lucky duck.
As far as who's best, I hate to end this with a cliffhanger, but overall it's too early to say who takes the cake. Both mobile broadband services displayed comparable speeds, suitable for most recreational web browsing. I used some bandwidth-intensive web apps (Google Docs, Yahoo! Maps, Google Earth, Flickr, AJAX web desktops, YouTube clips, Flash games, remote desktop access, republishing my entire 1,400+ post blog - I obviously had nothing to do tonight), with no significant slowdown. I wouldn't rely on either just yet to do any heavy lifting as far as uploading serious payloads of data.
I'm going to stress test each later tonight during off-peak hours with a couple of P2P file-sharing services, virtualization clients, some BitTorrent, podcatchers, and web and FTP servers constantly listening for new requests and see how each holds up.
How much?
Since I'm a two-way beta tester, I've no idea what pricing looks like. I'd say that based upon my brief toying around session, I'd be willing to pay $40 per month, and maybe a bit more if the throughput could be upped sufficiently.
Kudos to both IT&E and DOCOMO...having truly islandwide portable Internet access is something we've needed for a very long time.
UPDATE:
Right when I was about to power-down my laptop and call it a night, my IT&E service jumped to 1.6Mbps. Karma, man...
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