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Follow UsThis may seem an odd footnote for a PCQ issue on 3G and its virtues and performance. But hang on with me awhile...
After waiting ten years (while happily using 3G across Asia and North America, blowing up half my pay on data roaming charges), you might imagine I'd rush into it when it finally came home. Two days late, I called Airtel. Information was fuzzy (“No unlimited plan”, said she, but I learnt much later that there was a plan that was close enough). It took me three more days to activate 3G, thanks to wrong instructions.But anyway, on day 5, I had 3G running. And so at last, when my three-year-old would wriggle out of her seatbelt and try to change the gears on our drive back from her play-school, I could quieten her for four minutes with Shakira doing the Waka Waka on YouTube.Or so I thought. “Look, Baba, she is stucky,” my daughter observed, one minute into the dance. She was right: the lissome Colombian had frozen up like deer in headlights. “Now Uncle Freddie?” But We Will Rock You didn't fare much better, getting stucky even quicker.So my attention-deficit daughter got back to fiddling with the gearshift and getting thwacked. And by the end of the short drive, my fully-charged phone battery was half down.And the few calls I got on that drive...they all dropped like hot potatoes.In fact, in my apartment complex in Gurgaon, I could complete very few calls when on 3G.And then I tried switching back to 2G, which is easy to do from the BlackBerry's home screen. The two 3G signal bars jumped to five signal bars on 2G. I tried this out for a few days on both my Nokia E51 and my BlackBerry Pearl: alternate 2G and 3G, every other day.
Results:
- One da y of use on a full charge on 2G. Only half-day on 3G.
- Frequent call drops on 3G -tough to complete a voice call from my apartment. Or from my office conference rooms (basement). No problems on 2G: calls drop only every 20 minutes or so.
- Data is fast on 3G, but it gives up after a few minutes as the signal bars dance around. With 2G, it's slow, but stable.
Since then, I've stuck to 2G, switching to 3G only for the few minutes that I want to download an app, or get directions on Google Maps, or browse. Most of my non-voice use continues in 2G: SMS, email, and Google search (I mostly use voice-assisted search on my phone).
I guess I am Airtel's ideal customer. I pay for a service that I keep switched off.
Why? Well, it's good to know I have the speed available in
reserve, for when I need it (and when I can afford the battery power). And I am hoping that 3G will, someday, improve to the point that it becomes usable.
But don't get overwhelmed by advertised speeds, or even the peak 5 Mbps speeds that our testers clocked for this issue. (Hey, I've seen 4G clock 34 Mbps peak speed in a demo van in Gurgaon. Doesn't mean diddly-squat.)
You do need 3G for your notebook or iPad, and I do recommend you take it. Just be aware that for the forseeable future, your real experience with 3G could be pretty lousy.