How fast should Vision be??

Sally Shears wrote:
> 5-6kBytes/sec is about 60kbps which is about what I get. The
> service is "up to 144kbps" and we're getting about half that.

Sprint VM4500 (Sanyo 5500). Using the text.dslreports.com/mspeed
site, I have measured wildly different results. Same phone,
same location (home, very close to a tower), different times
and days. Results have varied from 17 kbps to 305 kbps.
Is that much difference expected?

Latency is virtually always around 2 seconds. That's not just
huge, it's astronomical. dslreports says that for ethernet
it's around 0.3 ms. Old fashioned modems are around 100 ms.

---

› See More: How fast should Vision be??

I consistently get 300-400 Kbits per second.
"ll" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Sally Shears wrote:
>> 5-6kBytes/sec is about 60kbps which is about what I get. The
>> service is "up to 144kbps" and we're getting about half that.
>
> Sprint VM4500 (Sanyo 5500). Using the text.dslreports.com/mspeed
> site, I have measured wildly different results. Same phone,
> same location (home, very close to a tower), different times
> and days. Results have varied from 17 kbps to 305 kbps.
> Is that much difference expected?
>
> Latency is virtually always around 2 seconds. That's not just
> huge, it's astronomical. dslreports says that for ethernet
> it's around 0.3 ms. Old fashioned modems are around 100 ms.

> Now on to Vision... I've never had a Vision phone before, so I don't
> know what to expect as far as communication speeds go.

Cellular transmission speeds are nearly as controversial as politics.

First, in your post, you used 'kiloBytes' as the measure. My experience with
cellular is they talk in terms of kilo-bits.

Unless Sprint has changed >base< transmission speeds in the last six months,
they transmit at 144Kb (bits). It's my understanding voice packets get
preference over data, so under loading of peak voice periods, data rates
will slow. Don't expect the same rate at 8am and 5 pm as 3 am. I see 5pm
speeds fall to as little as 29Kbs as people call home for the grocery list.

The CEO of Qualcomm gave a presentation a Sprint conference in June 2003. He
stated that there is hardware compression applied during transmission. At
that point in time, my Hitachi G1000 averaged about 108Kb/sec.

Customers of mine that have bought Connection Cards report varying rates but
about the same that I get with a Connection Card and G1000. If I am sitting
still with 3 bars of strength, my G1000 in a non-peak period, will sustain
~308Kbs.

When traveling, the quality of the signal and hand-off between towers causes
degradation. Clients report to me an average of 208Kbs while traveling
80mph. I report to them, don't drive and transmit. One client drove Dallas
to Carmel, CA to Oshkosh to Dallas. Not only was he able to sustain 208Kbs
but could manipulate his servers via VPN.

In about August and September of last year, a tech support person told me
two improvements were made. On PDAs, a layer of software for transmission
was removed and a more efficient hardware algorithm was provided. To take
advantage of both in a connection card, most of the cards have to be
'reflashed'. I successfully did that on my notebook with a cable modem link.
Some have had to take their card to a Sprint technical support center.

Since the upgrade, during non- peak periods, I frequently receive at 408Kbs
via http://www.texan.net/speed.htm.

One other item I have noticed; devices with vertical external antennas
normally have an extra bar of signal strength. An inventor working in
Washington State has received patents for metal in plastic designs so the
whole case is an antenna. Until those are available I would not buy a
cellular device without an external antenna. Since the broadcast antennas
are vertical, best reception is while the handset/Connection Card is
vertical.

Thurman wrote:
>>Now on to Vision... I've never had a Vision phone before, so I don't
>>know what to expect as far as communication speeds go.
>
>
> Cellular transmission speeds are nearly as controversial as politics.
>
> First, in your post, you used 'kiloBytes' as the measure. My experience with
> cellular is they talk in terms of kilo-bits.

In general, Internet transfer speeds ARE in kilobits, regardless of whether
it's wireless Internet or not.


--
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Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"In case anyone was wondering, that big glowing globe above the Victor
Valley is the sun." -Victorville _Daily Press_ on the unusually large
amount of rain the Southland has gotten this winter (January 12th, 2005)

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 14:46:58 -0800, Steve Sobol <[email protected]>
wrote:

>> First, in your post, you used 'kiloBytes' as the measure. My experience with
>> cellular is they talk in terms of kilo-bits.
>
>In general, Internet transfer speeds ARE in kilobits, regardless of whether
>it's wireless Internet or not.

Internet Explorer (as well as every FTP program that I've used to this
point) report file transer speed in kBytes/sec, or Bytes/sec. Since I
used IE to download the test files, I reported the transfer speeds in
kBytes/sec, which is how IE reported them to me.

Joseph Huber
[email protected]

"Steve Sobol" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In general, Internet transfer speeds ARE in kilobits, regardless of
> whether it's wireless Internet or not.

I totally agree with you but this is the 2nd time in my 43 years in the
computer/communications business that computers and telephones have merged;
each with their own vernacular.

The Sprint CEO casually uses the term 'POP' as a normal part of his
think/speak.

I was stunned when he said they had 24 millions POPs, so I questioned it.

A POP to me was a local 'point of presence' for a dialup ISP/ASP connection.
In Sprint world, it's each one of those little send/receive antennas.

I wasn't trying to correct you, just make sure we synched for an answer.

I think you will find that the technology used by Sprint for their
Vision service will allow maximum data rates of 153.6kbps. As pointed
out kbps stands for kilo bits per second. 144kbps tends to be a speed
only used by Marketing/Advertising teams.

Requests by a device to make a voice call will be treated as a higher
priority than a request from another device to make a data call, if
these requests arrive at the base station (cell tower) at the some time.
The base rate for a data call is 9k6bps. A data session will request
more bandwidth (radio resources if available). Data rate steps are; 9k6,
19k2, 38k4, 76k8 and 153k6bps. These steps are assigned based on buffer
fill rate at either mobile device or base station.

During a busy period data rates slow because either there are lots of
voice calls on a cell site or there are other data users competing for
the "bandwidth that is left".

The easiest way to explain this is to imagine that there is a fixed
maximum bandwidth per cell site. Lets say 400kbps. Lets imagine that
each voice call takes up 10kbps and each base rate data session also
takes up 10kbps. Our imaginary cell site can have up to 40 instantaneous
calls, a mixture of voice and data, for this example we'll say we have
10 data sessions and 10 voice sessions. This will mean that the voice
sessions take up 100kbps leaving 300kbps for the data sessions to share.
If another voice call comes along then the data sessions will only have
290kbps to share, and then another voice call will leave only
280kbps,... until there are 30 voice calls and 10 calls which makes the
cell site full.

Yes this is a simple explanation and for those cellular engineers out
there I have ignored a number of important issues such as Dormancy, and
power control.

The only way to achieve data rates of more than 153.6kbps is to
implement compression technologies. Compression technologies do not
actually increase the data rate. What they do is send less data. If you
send a binary file over a data link that has compression technologies
enabled you will not see any difference in the data rate. This is
because binary files cannot be compressed. Once of the tricks that
compression technologies use is to change the resolution of images so
that it looks like your 200Kbyte image is arriving faster where in fact
your image may have been reduced to 20kbytes.

Neal


Thurman wrote:
>>Now on to Vision... I've never had a Vision phone before, so I don't
>>know what to expect as far as communication speeds go.
>
>
> Cellular transmission speeds are nearly as controversial as politics.
>
> First, in your post, you used 'kiloBytes' as the measure. My experience with
> cellular is they talk in terms of kilo-bits.
>
> Unless Sprint has changed >base< transmission speeds in the last six months,
> they transmit at 144Kb (bits). It's my understanding voice packets get
> preference over data, so under loading of peak voice periods, data rates
> will slow. Don't expect the same rate at 8am and 5 pm as 3 am. I see 5pm
> speeds fall to as little as 29Kbs as people call home for the grocery list.
>
> The CEO of Qualcomm gave a presentation a Sprint conference in June 2003. He
> stated that there is hardware compression applied during transmission. At
> that point in time, my Hitachi G1000 averaged about 108Kb/sec.
>
> Customers of mine that have bought Connection Cards report varying rates but
> about the same that I get with a Connection Card and G1000. If I am sitting
> still with 3 bars of strength, my G1000 in a non-peak period, will sustain
> ~308Kbs.
>
> When traveling, the quality of the signal and hand-off between towers causes
> degradation. Clients report to me an average of 208Kbs while traveling
> 80mph. I report to them, don't drive and transmit. One client drove Dallas
> to Carmel, CA to Oshkosh to Dallas. Not only was he able to sustain 208Kbs
> but could manipulate his servers via VPN.
>
> In about August and September of last year, a tech support person told me
> two improvements were made. On PDAs, a layer of software for transmission
> was removed and a more efficient hardware algorithm was provided. To take
> advantage of both in a connection card, most of the cards have to be
> 'reflashed'. I successfully did that on my notebook with a cable modem link.
> Some have had to take their card to a Sprint technical support center.
>
> Since the upgrade, during non- peak periods, I frequently receive at 408Kbs
> via http://www.texan.net/speed.htm.
>
> One other item I have noticed; devices with vertical external antennas
> normally have an extra bar of signal strength. An inventor working in
> Washington State has received patents for metal in plastic designs so the
> whole case is an antenna. Until those are available I would not buy a
> cellular device without an external antenna. Since the broadcast antennas
> are vertical, best reception is while the handset/Connection Card is
> vertical.
>
>

If speed of vision is limited, why do I routinely achieve 350 kbps using the
speed test at http://text.dslreports.com/mspeed

"Neal" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>I think you will find that the technology used by Sprint for their Vision
>service will allow maximum data rates of 153.6kbps. As pointed out kbps
>stands for kilo bits per second. 144kbps tends to be a speed only used by
>Marketing/Advertising teams.
>
> Requests by a device to make a voice call will be treated as a higher
> priority than a request from another device to make a data call, if these
> requests arrive at the base station (cell tower) at the some time. The
> base rate for a data call is 9k6bps. A data session will request more
> bandwidth (radio resources if available). Data rate steps are; 9k6, 19k2,
> 38k4, 76k8 and 153k6bps. These steps are assigned based on buffer fill
> rate at either mobile device or base station.
>
> During a busy period data rates slow because either there are lots of
> voice calls on a cell site or there are other data users competing for the
> "bandwidth that is left".
>
> The easiest way to explain this is to imagine that there is a fixed
> maximum bandwidth per cell site. Lets say 400kbps. Lets imagine that each
> voice call takes up 10kbps and each base rate data session also takes up
> 10kbps. Our imaginary cell site can have up to 40 instantaneous calls, a
> mixture of voice and data, for this example we'll say we have 10 data
> sessions and 10 voice sessions. This will mean that the voice sessions
> take up 100kbps leaving 300kbps for the data sessions to share. If another
> voice call comes along then the data sessions will only have 290kbps to
> share, and then another voice call will leave only 280kbps,... until there
> are 30 voice calls and 10 calls which makes the cell site full.
>
> Yes this is a simple explanation and for those cellular engineers out
> there I have ignored a number of important issues such as Dormancy, and
> power control.
>
> The only way to achieve data rates of more than 153.6kbps is to implement
> compression technologies. Compression technologies do not actually
> increase the data rate. What they do is send less data. If you send a
> binary file over a data link that has compression technologies enabled you
> will not see any difference in the data rate. This is because binary files
> cannot be compressed. Once of the tricks that compression technologies use
> is to change the resolution of images so that it looks like your 200Kbyte
> image is arriving faster where in fact your image may have been reduced to
> 20kbytes.
>
> Neal
>
>
> Thurman wrote:
>>>Now on to Vision... I've never had a Vision phone before, so I don't
>>>know what to expect as far as communication speeds go.
>>
>>
>> Cellular transmission speeds are nearly as controversial as politics.
>>
>> First, in your post, you used 'kiloBytes' as the measure. My experience
>> with cellular is they talk in terms of kilo-bits.
>>
>> Unless Sprint has changed >base< transmission speeds in the last six
>> months, they transmit at 144Kb (bits). It's my understanding voice
>> packets get preference over data, so under loading of peak voice periods,
>> data rates will slow. Don't expect the same rate at 8am and 5 pm as 3 am.
>> I see 5pm speeds fall to as little as 29Kbs as people call home for the
>> grocery list.
>>
>> The CEO of Qualcomm gave a presentation a Sprint conference in June 2003.
>> He stated that there is hardware compression applied during transmission.
>> At that point in time, my Hitachi G1000 averaged about 108Kb/sec.
>>
>> Customers of mine that have bought Connection Cards report varying rates
>> but about the same that I get with a Connection Card and G1000. If I am
>> sitting still with 3 bars of strength, my G1000 in a non-peak period,
>> will sustain ~308Kbs.
>>
>> When traveling, the quality of the signal and hand-off between towers
>> causes degradation. Clients report to me an average of 208Kbs while
>> traveling 80mph. I report to them, don't drive and transmit. One client
>> drove Dallas to Carmel, CA to Oshkosh to Dallas. Not only was he able to
>> sustain 208Kbs but could manipulate his servers via VPN.
>>
>> In about August and September of last year, a tech support person told me
>> two improvements were made. On PDAs, a layer of software for transmission
>> was removed and a more efficient hardware algorithm was provided. To take
>> advantage of both in a connection card, most of the cards have to be
>> 'reflashed'. I successfully did that on my notebook with a cable modem
>> link. Some have had to take their card to a Sprint technical support
>> center.
>>
>> Since the upgrade, during non- peak periods, I frequently receive at
>> 408Kbs via http://www.texan.net/speed.htm.
>>
>> One other item I have noticed; devices with vertical external antennas
>> normally have an extra bar of signal strength. An inventor working in
>> Washington State has received patents for metal in plastic designs so the
>> whole case is an antenna. Until those are available I would not buy a
>> cellular device without an external antenna. Since the broadcast antennas
>> are vertical, best reception is while the handset/Connection Card is
>> vertical.

Sally Shears wrote:

> In article <[email protected]>, JackF
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> "Joseph Huber" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>
>> > Now on to Vision...
>> > ... Things like checking scores on ESPN or checking email
>> > really don't seem that much faster than with Wireless Web.
>> >
>> > I then fired up #777 and
>> > got speeds of about 5-6 kBytes/sec. Is this normal, or should I be
>> > getting faster transfer speeds? Just based on things I've read, I was
>> > expecting 10 kBytes/sec or better.
>> > Joseph Huber
>> > [email protected]
>
>> Looks like your bandwidth question was answered....
>
> Joseph, JackF is right...
>
> Your 5-6kBytes/sec is about 60kbps which is about what I get. The
> service is "up to 144kbps" and we're getting about half that.
>
> From another tip on this newsgroup, the latency is not too bad if you
> keep sending bits one way or the other. But, let it go quiet and then
> there's a longer pause (a second or so) to get started again.
>
> I use #777 for occasional email when I don't have a better option.
> Sprint now says #777 is against their terms of service, but from
> comments here they are not bothering people who do not abuse this
> feature. For example, keeping a connection alive all day under
> "Unlimited Vision" would be abuse.
>
> -- Sally
>
Not necessarily. The network has a feature that makes your connection go
dormant after a few seconds. The extra latency is the delay of waking it
back up. As far as being connected all the time, this is not abuse since
now ndis drivers are offered that make it act like a network connection and
is always on as long as the computer is on. I had Spcs for a year with a
Merlin and without a dormant state, my latency was between 299 and 700
milliseconds, not good! The real abusers are running servers on the network
and so forth.
--
Dave