Ok how about a silly answer: "because they are not crappy Samsungs" lol. Seriously, I believe there is a 8707v that was recently released for the European 3G market & I think there is something in the works for the US but it's a CDMA device for Verizon. As to why the 3G BB are not here already, I am sure one of the many Blackberry experts on the board will be able to offer the right explanation.
My Verizon 8703e has EVDO - which is 3G as I understand it. It actually says 1XEV (an older term for the same thing) on the screen when it sees the 3G signal. I haven't tried to tether and measure the data rate. There may be more examples, but I'm certainly not an expert on the BB product line. SW
Not sure, is 3G offered yet by the carriers in the US? I believe some of them do. I was under the impression that the 8100, and now the new 8800 were going to be released as 3G, but were not. But maybe 3G is not ready for prime time yet. Where I live, Cingular offers EDGE, but T-MO only has GPRS available, and T-Mo claims they are in the process of upgrading thier networks to 3G, at least the sales people claim they are. So not sure
Well lets put it this way. There is one BB that is 3G which is the 8707 and is only sold outside the US so it is a 2100 only G in the US we have the VZW and Sprint 8703 which are EVDO. Now the way it looks as to why BB is not 3G is more so of how the BB network handles the traffic as it has its own compression which makes it faster (using its own browser). I will give you an example, I had a picture as an attachment to one of my emails and the actual size was over 1 meg, it compressed it and downloaded it in less than 30 seconds, the final Pic size on my BB was around 16K. So in a sense it is fast loading as compared to regular plus the new ones being EDGE that makes it faster. I did a test on CNET on my BB for the speed test and it came back with 480 plus download speed. I think this is one reason why most BB user don't think much about the 3G factor on BBs. However, there seems to be some talk about a 3G (GSM wise) where there will be an ultimate BB which would have it all including G, WiFI, GPS and plus more. The one thing is the issue of tethering which i have not tried and since I never needed to I never ventured into it. On that side, I read that some people got around the 140 mark for tethering. So device wise only it is good but tethering wise is a so so but better than normal.
hf1khal, thank you for the great and detailed explaination of how the Blackberrys "tick". I am glad Joe asked this question, I went from knowing nothing about them to a good understanding of the BB network.
Thank you also hf1khal , the explanation was very helpful. And thanks to everyone else who replied, much oblidged
Yes thanks hf1khal, your explanation makes a lot of sense. Having gone from Cingular Edge to T-Mo GPRS (they don't have edge in my area yet) was a little concerned, but the BB has never missed a beat. The thing does send, receive and browse really fast. Example, on occasion I will send something to my BB (files, links etc.) and after hitting send, almost before the screen has changed on the computer my BB's alert is going off letting me know a new message has been received.
Yes, EVDO is 3G. Actually EVDO & WCDMA are 2 of the 3G systems, with EVDO being applicable to CDMA & WCDMA is GSM. Both Sprint and Verizon came in after Cingular to deploy 3G and they are ahead both in coverage and available devices. I think both hf1khal & Joe were strictly speaking about WCDMA and not 3G. My Blackjack shows "3G" and not "W" so I guess us GSMers are too used to saying 3G as opposed to WCDMA (or UMTS) As you know explaining things in writing is not one of my strong points & as they say "a picture is worth a thousand words" so here it is. I hope by posting this picture I will open it up to a lot more discussion of this.
So there aren't any GSM 3G Blackberrys in the US? I didn't know that. I've never had a problem understanding you. I think the diagram is interesting in that Wikipedia represents CDMA2000/1xRTT as not-quite 3G. One of those 2.6667 G things we were discussing a long time ago. Not a big issue, but sometimes even experts don't agree. SW
Email on a BB is compressed, but browsing is not. Tethering also is not compressed. This is a big reason why I ditched my 8700c for a BlackJack. I love tethering over bluetooth to a HSDPA connection. I get over 500kbps down and 200kbps up.
Correct, the only 3G GSM Blackberry at present is the 8707 and as hf1khal mentioned it is 2100 and so for the European market only. The diagram is interestion but not 100% accurate which is why I am hoping more discussion gets generated from my posting it. I found an interesting statement from your link "1xRTT is considered by some to be a 2.5G (or sometimes 2.75G) technology. This has allowed it to be deployed in 2G spectrum in some countries which limit 3G systems to certain bands."
Browsing on the 8703e is pretty fast, although since I moved my LG CU500 to T-Mobile, I don't have a 3G GSM connection to compare it to. More speed is always better, but I haven't had any problems reading CNN or using Google Maps. SW
Actually browsing is compressed with the BB it has to go through the BB APN which compresses for lower data rates. I tired the same page on the BB browser and the Opera Mini and the difference was big. This is why on BB we get the initial hesitation in opening a browser page. Funny part,y I just got back from the mall where I passed by my Friend (cingular store manager) and was very curious as the speed difference between the 2 and I opened the same page (the Blackjack was in an edge area so was the 8525. The BB was a bit faster while the Blackjack and the 8525 were neck and neck. Now as to what you said before and what I saidm I purposly made mention of the EVDO as we all know its speed and for some outside the states, which Charlyee mentioned, have a thought that 3G is what UMTS is for us so I wanted to make a bit of differentiation. Sorry if I was not clear enough. Now one question, can you compare the 8703e vs the CU500 and tell me the difference in speed (hopefully it is 3G vs 3G)?
hf1khal, I don't think Steve can do that. As he mentions below he ported his CU500 to T-Mibile and so does not have 3G anymore.
That's interesting, because Opera Mini compresses a lot (they go through their servers). How big was the difference?
