The following is an independently conducted, comprehensive test of packet data speeds for Telecom XT vs. Vodafone 3G, performed on Wednesday 4 August 2010 using an iPhone 4 tethered to a MacBook laptop.

DISCLAIMER

• This is NOT a test of which network is “best” or “fastest” out of Telecom XT and Vodafone 3G.
• This is an iPhone specific test, and should only be taken as such. It is a comparison of speeds using the  iPhone 4 device, on Wednesday 4 August 2010 in Dunedin.
• The test results should not be extrapolated beyond the scope of the test. However the results should be of interest to iPhone users in Dunedin, and to iPhone users generally. Your milage may vary if you use a different handset/device, or if you live in another city/town.
• I am not a telecommunications expert. I am simply an iPhone user with an interest in testing the claims of Telecom XT being “faster in more places”. I repeat – this is a hobby. I welcome any feedback about these results and will endeavour to correct any errors which have been made if they are pointed out to me.

Welcome to new readers, and welcome back to those that have taken interest in my previous speed tests:

• XT *Still* Faster in More Dunedin Places for iPhone 3G (March 2010 update)
• XT Faster in More Dunedin Places for iPhone 3G

Background

The XT launched in late May 2009 and boasted to be “faster in more places”. As an iPhone user that values speed, naturally I was attracted to XT by these claims of speed and since the launch of XT have conducted two independent speed tests of XT vs. Vodafone 3G to determine whether the results were consistent with the marketing claims. Of course this is the same network, which came crashing down in spectacular and now famous fashion in early 2010. Recently CEO Paul Reynolds introduced a “30 day risk free trial” to new XT customers as gesture of confidence in the current state of the network. The XT is a 3G only network which runs on the 850Mhz frequency.

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5 August 2010 – This test has now been superseded by my iPhone 4 Speed Test once again comparing Telecom XT with Vodafone 3G.

DISCLAIMER

• This is NOT a test of which network is “best” or “fastest” out of Telecom XT and Vodafone 3G.
• This is an iPhone specific test, and should only be taken as such. It is a comparison of speeds using an iPhone 3G device, on one day in March (16 March 2010), in Dunedin.
• The test results should not be extrapolated beyond the scope of the test. However the results should be of interest to iPhone users in Dunedin, and to iPhone users generally. Your milage may vary if you use a different handset/device, or if you live in another city/town.
• I am not a telecommunications expert. I am simply an iPhone user with an interest in testing the claims of Telecom XT being “faster in more places”. I repeat – this is a hobby. I welcome any feedback about these results and will endeavour to correct any errors which have been made if they are pointed out to me.

Geekzoners may recall that I performed a (crude) test of iPhone mobile data speeds at several locations around Dunedin last August which concluded that the iPhone 3G was “significantly faster in more Dunedin places on Telecom XT (compared to Vodafone 3G)”.

There has been various work done in recent times on the Vodafone network in Dunedin, which the company believes should improve iPhone data speeds on the network around Dunedin. Therefore I set out to perform a repeat test to compare speeds on the XT and Vodafone 3G networks at various locations around the Dunedin CBD.

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Telecom XT has made bold claims about their new mobile network being “faster in more places”, which has apparently been independently verified. I was interested to know how good performance in Dunedin was, as this is where I live, and I had heard of a lot of problems with Vodafone 3G coverage in Dunedin. As an example, a friend once told me that he could make a video call from one corner of his house, but loses 3G coverage anywhere else in his house. Coverage has probably improved since then, but having acquired an iPhone 3G after a long time using an original iPhone, I decided to test speeds around various locations in Dunedin City for comparison.

XT vs. Vodafone 3G Test Methodology

I took one iPhone 3G, running 3.0 jailbroken but without any jailbroken apps installed except for SBSettings. The iPhone had the XT carrier bundle installed, made by my good friends at iphonewzealand.co.nz. I used my Vodafone SIM card, and ran this against an XT SIM card, both on prepaid. I ran the speedtest.net iPhone app on one SIM, then switched SIMs and ran the test again, from the exact same location. Sometimes the Vodafone SIM was run first; other times it was the XT SIM. Before running the Vodafone SIM, I ensured that the 3G on the phone was reset in order to eliminate any problems the device may have switching from 2G back up to 3G after dropping back.

Click after the break for the results:

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SingStar players will already be aware that SingStar Pop introduced a “voice control” feature that allowed basic navigation of the game menus using the spoken voice into microphones. This was a nice little feature to trump Lips, which released with the wireless microphones that Sony said “could not be done”. Limited backward compatibility was available, but you always had to boot the game using SingStar Pop and then change discs to one from earlier in the series. Somewhat annoying when all you want to sing is ABBA, and it also meant that if you sold your Pop game, you would lose the feature entirely.

Today I popped in the ABBA disc and pondered whether it would be possible for the game to be patched to include this feature. As the PS3 downloaded a 50Mb update for SingStar that added Polish language of all things, I thought that surely voice control could be patched into the game if there was the will. An internet search soon revealed that such an update was in fact made available all the way back in April 2009. So how come I wasn’t voice controlling?

After the Polish update started, I sang a few songs and realised that I still wasn’t able to use voice control. So I had a play around in the SingStore, and found that hidden away in a less than obvious place, there was a “free” patch that I could “add to my cart” that would give me voice control. This defies all logic – an actually useful 4Mb update is put in some obscure location in the SingStore where I was unaware of it for months, while a 50Mb Polish language update is enforced upon me. I hate pointless updates.

Disclaimer: I have nothing against Polish people. I’m sure they are very nice.