Android Overtakes iPhone Sales in Q1

kirkmc · **#21**

fwiffo wrote:

kirkmc wrote:

(Here in France, there is less choice, and the total you can pay is around $100.)

Less choice? You don't have choice of cable companies in the US, which often means you don't have choice of broadband providers. At least, I've never lived anywhere that has more than one cable provider. That's part of why broadband access, cost and bandwidth is so terrible in the US. Of course, we've had no technology policy at all in this country, so it's no surprise.

There's pretty much no cable in France; everyone gets their TV by satellite (or ADSL now). There's only one satellite provider, after the two that existed merged (or, more correctly, one bought out the other). There's not even the equivalent of HBO or other additional paid channels like in the US.

OTOH, broadband is substantially better and cheaper in France. I'm in a village of 2000 people, and I get 6 mbps.

Inmare · **#22**

kirkmc wrote:

That's pretty cheap for a data plan compared to the costs here in France, but there are two caveats: first, it's only UMTS and not 3G, and second it's limited to 200 MB, which isn't a whole lot if you do a lot of web surfing, or any streaming at all.

UMTS is a synonym for 3G here (I don't know if there are even other 3G services offered). As this contract is faciliating the 1800 Mhz network I can get up to 3,6 MBit/s with HSDPA.

I never reached the 200MB limit (you get SMS notifications), but then I use DSL via WLan when at home and work and I'm not that much into video streaming. And the 200MB limit is not a 'hard' limit, it just get's slower after that. I used the net with GPRS speed for quite some time - since mid last year up to a few weeks ago. I had a phone that was not UMTS capable... worked well enough, even with things like Google maps or such (or KGS via tethered netbook ^^). Raising the (soft!) limit to 5 gigabyte is just another 10 € per month, totalling 20 €.
Additionally there are 'day flats' with 1 gigabyte at UMTS speed (i.e. HSDPA/HSUPA) available at 2,50 € (after that GPRS speed) if you only need mobile internet rarely.

Using Opera mini as browser on the phone when surfing helps a lot; it uses a compression service which keeps data usage low and page loading speed high.

No, the limitations are not a problem for me. The provider is Telefonica O2, which is doing business not only in Germany; don't know, how their rates in other countries are.

kirkmc · **#23**

Inmare wrote:

kirkmc wrote:

That's pretty cheap for a data plan compared to the costs here in France, but there are two caveats: first, it's only UMTS and not 3G, and second it's limited to 200 MB, which isn't a whole lot if you do a lot of web surfing, or any streaming at all.

UMTS is a synonym for 3G here (I don't know if there are even other 3G services offered). As this contract is faciliating the 1800 Mhz network I can get up to 3,6 MBit/s with HSDPA.

I never reached the 200MB limit (you get SMS notifications), but then I use DSL via WLan when at home and work and I'm not that much into video streaming. And the 200MB limit is not a 'hard' limit, it just get's slower after that. I used the net with GPRS speed for quite some time - since mid last year up to a few weeks ago. I had a phone that was not UMTS capable... worked well enough, even with things like Google maps or such (or KGS via tethered netbook ^^). Raising the (soft!) limit to 5 gigabyte is just another 10 € per month, totalling 20 €.
Additionally there are 'day flats' with 1 gigabyte at UMTS speed (i.e. HSDPA/HSUPA) available at 2,50 € (after that GPRS speed) if you only need mobile internet rarely.

Using Opera mini as browser on the phone when surfing helps a lot; it uses a compression service which keeps data usage low and page loading speed high.

No, the limitations are not a problem for me. The provider is Telefonica O2, which is doing business not only in Germany; don't know, how their rates in other countries are.

I don't think UMTS is a "synonym" for 3G; they are different technologies.

ChradH · **#24**

kirkmc wrote:

I don't think UMTS is a "synonym" for 3G; they are different technologies.

Seeing is believing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umts

Inmare · **#25**

kirkmc wrote:

I don't think UMTS is a "synonym" for 3G; they are different technologies.

No. 3G is a shortcut for 3. generation communications technologies; it is not a technology per se but a collective term. UMTS is one of the 3G technologies available; in mobile communications in Europe it is the most popular one. 3G-CDMA and Wimax don't play a major role here.

Android Overtakes iPhone Sales in Q1

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