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From: Fred on 21 May 2010 14:49
Hi,

I was looking to buy a new phone and was reading the specs on some web
sites and saw it mentioned that the phone had "EDGE".

I didn't know what this was, so I looked it up on a famous online
encyclopedia and it says that "EDGE is considered a 3G radio
technology and is part of ITU's 3G definition."

and continues "it is an upgrade that provides more than three-fold
increase in both the capacity and performance of GSM/GPRS networks. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Data_Rates_for_GSM_Evolution

But the phone in question is not advertised as being a 3g phone, so
what is edge? Is it something halfway bewteen 2g and 3g?

Is it that a phone with edge is not as fast as 3g but faster than a 2g
phone without edge?

Is edge or the lack of it, worth getting excited about?

TIA
From: Theo Markettos on 21 May 2010 17:54
Fred <fred(a)no-email.here.invalid> wrote:
> But the phone in question is not advertised as being a 3g phone, so
> what is edge? Is it something halfway bewteen 2g and 3g?
>
> Is it that a phone with edge is not as fast as 3g but faster than a 2g
> phone without edge?
>
> Is edge or the lack of it, worth getting excited about?

EDGE is probably best described as 2.75G... faster than GPRS but slower than
UMTS (real 3G). It runs as part of GSM 900/1800MHz, as opposed to UMTS which
uses a separate 2100MHz band.

There's not too much EDGE coverage in the UK (though the iPhone 2G
encouraged networks to add it) so I wouldn't get excited about it. Indeed,
all the time I had an EDGE phone I never once had any EDGE signal. If you
want to use it for data, buy a 3G phone. EDGE is really a waste of time
these days.

Theo
From: Jon on 22 May 2010 04:03
In article <b7ldv5lrfdfadicq586ron519t5lmjo5k1(a)4ax.com>, fred(a)no-
email.here.invalid says...
> Hi,
>
> I was looking to buy a new phone and was reading the specs on some web
> sites and saw it mentioned that the phone had "EDGE".
>
> I didn't know what this was, so I looked it up on a famous online
> encyclopedia and it says that "EDGE is considered a 3G radio
> technology and is part of ITU's 3G definition."
>
> and continues "it is an upgrade that provides more than three-fold
> increase in both the capacity and performance of GSM/GPRS networks. "
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Data_Rates_for_GSM_Evolution
>
> But the phone in question is not advertised as being a 3g phone, so
> what is edge? Is it something halfway bewteen 2g and 3g?
>
> Is it that a phone with edge is not as fast as 3g but faster than a 2g
> phone without edge?
>
> Is edge or the lack of it, worth getting excited about?

In terms of speed it goes like this:

dial-up (no longer widely used)
GPRS
EDGE
3G
HSDPA

EDGE - Enhanced Data rate for GSM - is a upgrade put into 2G base
stations where deploying 3G would not be cost effective. It's a quick
fix.
--
Regards
Jon
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