How to test the data speed of your mobile phone?

From the earlier posts, we consider both the mobile phone and the data plan for mobile broadband plan.

Now, how do you know the speed of your data transfer of your mobile phone? Does it matter?

Of course, there are many factors that affect the transfer speed. If the transfer speed is slow, then you have failed to select a good mobile phone or you have signed a rip-off data plan. So what are the factors?

1. Mobile Phone
   
   1. Can your mobile phone support high speed transfer? I hope you get the right phone from earlier post.
      
   2. What browser are you using? Different browsers may affect the transfer speed due to their efficiencies.
      
   3. Are you running too many applications while running the test? I would suggest you to close all applications before running the test.
      
   4. What test sites are involved? Read on…
      
2. Data plan
   
   1. What is the promised maximum download speed? Higher speed means higher price but do you really need the extra mileage?
      
   2. What is the promised maximum upload speed? This speed is usually slower than the download speed and most of the telcos match their competition.
      
   3. How much are you paying monthly? You have to make sure every penny you pay delivers the promised speed.
      
3. Environment
   
   1. Are you testing in peak hours?
      
   2. Are you getting a 3G or 3.5G network?
      

Before we can answer the above, let's run the tests on these 2 websites from your mobile phone.

1. DSL Report - mspeed (http://dslreports.com/mspeed)
   

   

   The user interface is simple and you can start selecting 100k to run the test. You should get this result: "unstable/too fast a result (0.324s) please choose a larger file ". You will keep trying until you select "1MB" because the smaller files are too fast to show any latency during transfer. Eventually, you should get messages like below showing the kbps, Latency/Sz, Domain (if any) and the User agent (browser):
   

   "875 0.191s (1024k)
   elisa-mobile.fiHTC_Touch_Pro_T7272 Opera/9.50 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)" or
   

   "664 0.393s (1024k)
   tmodns.netMozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 1.5; en-us; HTC Hero Build/CUPCAKE) AppleWebKit/528.5+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Mobile Safari/525.20.1"
   

   Using the same file size (1024k), we can see that HTC Touch Pro (875kbps) has a faster transfer speed than Android (664kbps).
   

   You may need to run the test a few times to get an average. Make sure the network is consistent at 3G or 3.5G during your tests else the results may differ.
   

2. Webs-TV (http://speedtest.webs-tv.net) (in Chinese recommended by OCworkbench.com)
   

   This website is straight forward. Once you enter the web address, it will start to run and generate a report. If the smiley face is smiling, you are in business.
   

   
   

   Else, consider changing this plan when the contract expires. The speed is written in red located on the left of the smiley face.
   

I hope you can try out these 2 test sites and post your results here. Your results will help others in selecting the best valued mobile broadband from telco.

Which mobile phone should I buy for mobile broadband?

Many have bought a brand new latest expensive mobile phone but never fully utilize its functions. Ask yourself, if you are just using it for voice communication, then a S$60 phone is good enough for you. You do not need camera function, radio function, 8GB memory card and HSCSD support... not to mention mbb plan. Instead, you should look at size, weight, appearances, large keypad, battery life, big characters for easy viewing and durability.

However, manufacturers are packing tons of features into the phone to make it the best selling models. To best utilize mobile broadband (mbb) plan, there are some fixed and variable factors to consider and I list them for your considerations.

Fixed factors - Must have for mbb plan

• 3.5G support – There are many standards of data transfer. We are concerned on the maximum speed as listed below:

Technology	Generation	Theoretical speed (Mbps)	Practical speed (Mbps)
GMS	2G	0.0144	0.002
GPRS	2G	0.1140	0.056
EDGE	3G	1.0000	0.300
HSDPA	3.5G	7.2000	2.500

For mbb plan, this is the critical criteria of selection – HSDPA. Forget about GPRS and EDGE which are older technologies and cannot be utilizing the full bandwidth of the mbb plan. Visit GSM Arena for the list of mobile phone with HSDPA. Please note that the practical speed maybe even slower than stated due to network traffic. Therefore, it is pointless to select a mobile phone without HSDPA support. It just cannot make the mark.

For example, why Nokia E71 and not Nokia E63? Both have identical outlook. The former is HSDPA (3.6Mbps) while the later is UMTS (0.384Mbps)…nearly 10 times speed difference. So E63 is a bad choice and that's why it is selling cheap or given away free.

• Long battery life – Running applications can be torturing for the battery. Without a long lasting battery, you have to run to charge it every now and then. I would recommend a battery with stand-by time of minimum 300 hours for 3G.

• Reasonable large screen – We prefer to have the largest screen size so the words are bigger for viewing. However, the larger the screen, the more power consumed. It is best to balance battery and screen size after comparing the specifications.

• Good Operating System (OS) – There are a handful of OS in the market dominating by few players. A good OS will minimize hanging issue that disrupts routine use of mobile phone.

Deciding factors – Deciding applications

Deciding factors are the 2^nd most important key in selecting your mobile phone for mbb. The more features you have, the more applications you can run with your mbb. Therefore, it is important to select as many factors as possible from the list below.

1. Wifi – VOIP calls and local connection thereby saving battery life
   
2. Global Positioning System (GPS) – Location based service
   
3. Internet Radio – Use of internet radio can save some battery life over conventional radio using antenna
   
4. Communication services – Support of emails, RSS, messaging services
   
5. Web browser – Use for browsing the web
   
6. Games – for leisure and in between work/study.
   

Optional factors – Desirable and good-to-have

Though are optional, they make the phone fun and complete.

1. Bluetooth – for transfer between phones
   
2. Video Camera – for video call
   
3. Memory card slot – for data storage
   
4. USB connection – for data transfer
   

Soft factors – personal preferences

1. Size and weight
   
2. Form factor (bar, flip, swivel or slide)
   
3. Colour
   
4. Touchscreen/QWERTY
   
5. MP3 ringtone
   

Lastly, I feel these features are of little significances – camera flash (drain battery life), infrared port (replace with Bluetooth), WAP (replace with standard html).

Generating the list

Apart of the clone and doubtful quality china-made phones, I run a list of my criteria above from HERE and below are the results:

Screening	Nokia	Sony Ericsson	HTC	Samsung	LG	O2	Apple	BlackBerry	Total
Fixed	20	34	15	27	7	4	2	1	110
Deciding	13	6	15	9	1	3	2	1	50

Namely,

Nokia: 5730 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, 6260 Slide, 6710 Navigator, E55, E71, E72, E90, N78, N79, N85, N86, N97

Sony Ericsson: Aino, C905, G705, W715, W995, XPERIA X1

HTC: Advantage X7500, Advantage X7510, Dream, Hero, Magic, P6500, S740, Touch Cruise, Touch Cruise 09, Touch Diamond2, Touch 3G, Touch HD, Touch Pro, Touch Pro2, TyTN II

Samsung: G810, i550, i7110, i780, i8510 INNOV8, i8910 Omnia HD, i900 Omnia, i907 Epix, S8000 Jet

LG: KM900 Arena

O2: XDA Orbit II, XDA Serra, XDA Stellar

Apple: iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS

BlueBerry: Bold 9000

From the above table, we can see that manufacturers made mobile phones but compromise on key features such as GPS and Wifi capabilities. Only 45.5% of the phones are qualified for our next round of review. A total of 50 mobiles phones qualified for mbb plan. Note that some of these may not be available in Singapore.

Narrowing the choices

The key to find the right phone likes in how much you are willing to pay for it. Older models are cheaper when new models are launched in the market. Out of these 50 sets, 4 are new models (Nokia E72, E55, 6710 Navigator and SE Aino) which have yet to be launched.

After considering the optional and soft factors, you will zoom in to a handful of models. For instance, if you further set below criteria:

1. Standby time - 400 hrs
   
2. With radio
   
3. Minimum 2.2 inch touchscreen
   
4. Form factor - slide
   

The final choices are Nokia N97, SE XPERIA X1, HTC Touch Pro or O2 XDA Serra. Happy shopping!

Singapore’s BEST 3.5G broadband for mobile phone Plan (Jul 09)

Time flies and prices just got cheaper and we are talking about 3.5G plan with more 3.5G phones readily available in the market.

Again, the conditions for comparison must be stated before we proceed further:

1. We aim to identify the BEST VALUE plan - broadband for mobile phone (not mobile device or notebook).
   
2. Monthly data transfer is UNLIMITED. Those plan not included in this review are purely rip off plans to slaughter so-called causal or low-end users.
   
3. Typical broadband mobile access speed of 3G and 3.5G phone are limited to 384 kbps and 3 Mbps (max) respectively.
   
4. The minimum download speed is fixed at 2Mbps to optimize the capability of 3.5G mobile phone.
   
5. Plan must support data and voice in the SAME sim card.
   
6. We are focusing on ONE (1) SIM card for voice and data to explore the full functionalities of 3G/3.5G mobile phone.
   

Someone mentioned that my table is too complicated to compare. So I have broken them into stages for your easy viewing.

STAGE 1 - 100 minutes free incoming plans

Let's look at what is available for mobile broadband + voice (both data and voice) for 100min free incoming plan. This target segment consists of low-end voice users.

Telco	Singtel	Starhub	M1		Singtel
100min plan	iOne Plus	Powervalue 100	Sun Saver		3G Flexilite
Free minutes	100	100	100		100
Basic charge	25.68	25.68	25.68		39.00
Unlimited data plan	37.00#	38.72	27.10		500MB^
100 min	62.68	64.40	52.78		39.00
150 min	70.46*	72.43	60.81		46.78
200 min	78.23*	80.45	68.83		54.55

*Singtel charges excess minute at S$0.204 (peak) and S$0.107 (off peak). For simplicity, we take the average at S$0.1555.

#Singtel offers 50GB limit for mobile bb plan. We presume there will not be any excess usage above the limit.

^This new plan is included for comparison but 500MB can easily be exceeded in view of the heavy traffic that the current applications are running.

On first look, there seems to be a conspiracy between the 3 telcos offering similar plan at the magic number of S$25.68. However, due to the cheaper mobile broadband (bb) rate offered, M1 becomes the best plan in our first stage selection for unlimited data use.

STAGE 2 – 300 minutes free incoming plans

For the mid-end users for voice, we compare more plans offered by the telcos.

Telco	Singtel	Starhub	M1
300min plan	iTwo Plus	Powervalue 300	Sun Saver Plus
Basic charge	48.15	48.15	48.15
Unlimited data plan	37.00#	38.72	27.10
300 min	85.15	86.87	75.25
500 min	116.25*	118.97	107.35
700 min	147.35*	151.07	139.45

#Singtel offers 50GB limit for mobile bb plan. We presume there will not be any excess usage above the limit.

Again, M1 offers the BEST value plan for Stage 2. For high-end users, you can see that it is also M1 who offered the best since it has the lowest mobile bb charges.

STAGE 3 – Other mobile broadband plans

Singtel has introduced new new plans to capture bb market. But are they worth the money? Definitely not, the plans launched are not competitive with M1 V2Mbps plan.

Telco	Singtel	Singtel	Singtel	M1
Plans	3G Flexi	3G Flexi Plus	Plus	V2Mbps
Free minutes	200	500	300	0
Basic charge	48.15	95.00	48.15	27.10
Data limit	50 GB	50 GB	1GB	Unlimited
100 min				35.10
200 min	56			43.10
300 min	70.10		62.08	51.10
500 min	101.20*	95.00*	93.18*	67.10
700 min	132.30*	188.30*	124.28*	83.10

STAGE 4 – Evaluation

In this evaluation stage, we take the best plans from the above and combine them into this table. They are all benchmarked against only 1 plan (M1 V2Mbps).

Free minutes	Telco	Plan	Data (GB)	Charges (S$)	Saving over the 2nd best plan
100	M1	Sun Saver	Unlimited	52.78
	Singtel	3G FlexiLite	0.5	39.00
	M1	V2Mbps	Unlimited	35.10	50.37%
200	Singtel	3G Flexi	50	56
	M1	V2Mbps	Unlimited	43.10	29.93%
300	M1	Sun Saver Plus	Unlimited	75.25
	M1	V2Mbps	Unlimited	51.10	47.26%
500	Singtel	3G Flexi Plus	50	95.00
	M1	V2Mbps	Unlimited	67.10	41.58%
700	Singtel	iTwo Plus	1	96.86
	M1	V2Mbps	Unlimited	83.10	16.56%

It is no surprise that M1 V2Mbps stands out as the clear winner in all categories from 100 to 700 min free incoming calls. Where is STARHUB in the final comparisons? No idea. They are totally not in the bb league.

STAGE 4 – Conclusions

Since M1 V2 plan beats all categories, is there any catch? Yes, there are. We list them below for your reference and consideration:

1. Why we are not including V4Mbps or V7.2Mbps? The answer is obvious. Most of the 3.5G mobile phones have a maximum download speed of only 3.6Mbps. So V2Mbps is the optimal plan in this selection.
   
2. SMS uses are not factored into our discussion. My question to you is - Why use SMS when you have MSN?
   
3. M1 V2 plan is a per minute billing and not per second billing.
   
4. There is no discount on 3.5G mobile phone as compared to regular sign-up for new mobile plan. A brand new 3.5G mobile phone may cost S$450 - S$1300. Do not get a 3G phone for mobile bb plan because the maximum download speed is limited to 0.384Mbps (for example Nokia E63).
   

Despite its shortcomings, we still consider M1 V2Mbps plan to be the BEST valued 3.5G mobile bb plan for a 3.5G mobile phone. So after selecting the plan, what 3.5G phone should be purchased and what are the applications to tap the full capabilities of the bb plan? We shall discuss next time.

References

• Singtel (voice)
  
• Singtel (mobile bb)
  
• Starhub (voice)
  
• Starhub (mobile bb)
  
• M1 (voice)
  
• M1 (mobile bb)