Meteor EDGE Availability

oghran

So I heard that Meteor had made EDGE services available, over 99% of the country, and its faster than GPRS on Vodafone. Is that correct ? Does anyone have any further details about it ?

I'd be quite keen to ditch my Vodafone GPRS connection in favour of something a little quicker since I have no option of even 3G here in Leitrim.

I'm curious to know if it is as available as GPRS, if you need a datacard for it, how much it costs and any draw backs ?

I hope what I heard was right and someone can enlighten me further.

Thanks.

JNive

to use edge, your handset needs to support it, it is essentailly just an accelerated version of GPRS ( its 2G technology ).

I am not sure if Vodafone have EDGE coverage, but they could, and it may just be that your handset doesnt have the feature.

Sponge Bob

meteor are the only ones with edge , dunno where and what speed

niallb

I upgraded to an EDGE phone a few weeks ago - Sony Ericsson K550i, great phone.

I've had EDGE everywhere I've gone since.
Meath, Kildare, Laois, Tipperary and Dublin.

My data plan comes active on Thursday, so I'll keep you posted
with some speed tests when I can afford to run them!
I'm expecting around 200k.
It's way faster than GPRS for the few net sessions I've used until then.

The network isn't completely finished yet, but nearly there.
It's as available as GPRS ever was for me on Vodafone, and the only
drawback is that unlike 3G you can't make or receive a call while using it.

kaizersoze

Dear mother of god. I'm after checking the pricing.:eek:

http://www.meteor.ie/business_wdc.html

Sponge Bob

I think there is a somewhat better package than that for business users , search in the Mobile forum .

niallb

I'm getting a 10GB transfer allowance for €30 per month.
You need to be on Talk 400 or up to get that, but can still
get quite good deals on lower tariffs, doesn't have to be business.
That datacard allowance is out of date!

oghran

Thanks NiallB. It was Brian actually who mentioned it to me the other day that you'd been using it. I'll have to look into getting a card to test out, though I have no long term option for using the PCMCIA card unless it works with the Wireless-G router ?

Even if it works I'd be happy enough to return it and wait for a USB or router option at some point.

Sponge Bob

would someone confirm where edge is available if they are contacting meteor. About this time last year they were not supplying edge in Galway ....has that changed ??????

Most of county Galway has no 3g service.....it being concentrated along a few main roads and in the city itself . In certain cases people could use EDGE if available .....especially if the alternative is 12k dial up or poxy vsat

watty

Oh.. Edge. Roughly similar speed to 3G but on GSM network, about 4 to 5 times GPRS speed, but 1/10th of HSDPA.

I didn't think anyone was going to do that here. A pity eircom bought Meteor.

Also Meteor is 1800MHz I think. If you had this on O2's 900MHz GSM you would get better indoor coverage.

Any chance of O2 offering it on their GSM as a backup to their 3G/HSDPA?

Sponge Bob

No chance we will ever see EDGE from vodafone but as telefonica own o2 its now vaguely or remotely possible as distinct from no way José .

o2 never even offered hscsd when that was fast by mobile standards .

frankly they have always been the worst for data and seem set fair to continue in that vein .

Naturally I am permanently open to being pleasantly surprised ...even by o2 .

lucernarian

watty wrote:

Oh.. Edge. Roughly similar speed to 3G but on GSM network, about 4 to 5 times GPRS speed, but 1/10th of HSDPA.

I didn't think anyone was going to do that here. A pity eircom bought Meteor.

Also Meteor is 1800MHz I think. If you had this on O2's 900MHz GSM you would get better indoor coverage.

Any chance of O2 offering it on their GSM as a backup to their 3G/HSDPA?

I'm pretty sure meteor have 900 MHz spectrum. I'd need a meteor sim card to check this but that would mean handing money to an eircom subsidiary *cough*.

And O2's spectrum allocation seems to be poorer than Vodafone's. Vodafone have much lower channels within the 900 MHz spectrum.

center15

Sponge Bob wrote:

meteor are the only ones with edge , dunno where and what speed

Actually O2 have EDGE support also see this thread

Sponge Bob

As O2 have no EDGE price plan and as EDGE is 2g data not 3g data you will be mugged by o2 billing if you 'accidentally' try to use it.

Its at least 1c per kbyte ( €10 a Mb) so

1. assuming 200kbit speed in the wild ( nominal 240kbit)
2. assuming you bang away testing for 6 whole minutes

You will download 200kByte every 8 seconds or 1mbyte every 40 seconds.

Thats 9mbytes in 6 minutes.

Thats €90 worth of data in 6 minutes. That alone would explain why standard O2 branding moves the 'data connection' to the top right hand button on a Nokia ...so it can accidentally go off like .

I therefore ask you .....do you feel lucky Huh ????

center15

Sponge Bob wrote:

As O2 have no EDGE price plan and as EDGE is 2g data not 3g data you will be mugged by o2 billing if you 'accidentally' try to use it.

Its at least 1c per kbyte ( €10 a Mb) so

1. assuming 200kbit speed in the wild ( nominal 240kbit)
2. assuming you bang away testing for 6 whole minutes

You will download 200kByte every 8 seconds or 1mbyte every 40 seconds.

Thats 9mbytes in 6 minutes.

Thats €90 worth of data in 6 minutes. That alone would explain why standard O2 branding moves the 'data connection' to the top right hand button on a Nokia ...so it can accidentally go off like .

I therefore ask you .....do you feel lucky Huh ????

Or you could sign up to an o2 data price plan, which covers all data 3g or 2g.


Data Lite €5.00 per MB €0.0049 per kb
Data 10 €9.99 for usage up to 10MB €0.00098 per kb
Data 25 €19.99 for usage up to 25MB €0.00098 per kb

niallb

oghran wrote:

... I'll have to look into getting a card to test out, though I have no long term option for using the PCMCIA card unless it works with the Wireless-G router ?

I wouldn't bother getting a datacard just to test it out.
If you can find an unlocked phone or a meteor phone with EDGE
you'll be fine. I've done most of my tests on all networks
using an unlocked Nokia 6680 so that I can compare signals
and not the quality of cards.
This works fine except for the Three network, where it will only use 2G masts - very weird. It connects to 3G masts no problem with a Vodafone SIM.
That said, there's hardly any Three sites around anyway, but even
if I go to Dublin it still won't switch over. (and it is in dual mode).
An old phone with a USB cable should be cheaper than a datacard too.

The datacard should work fine with the Wireless-G router if the APN is set up on it. It's all the same to the router - it just tells the card to "dial default",
and if that's not enough you should be able to initialiase it any way you like.
I haven't used the more common one, but had a version from Top Global that worked really well.

@Watty, I see you pointing out quite rightly that the more penetrating frequencies are better for indoor use, but let everyone remember that every wall the signal can go through is another half mile of air it can go through too.
900MHz would be great, I'll see if I can find out what frequency I'm
using, but 1800MHz is still a lot better for distance than 2100MHz.