I recently enabled iPhone Tethering, and was expecting it to solve my problems of having to use a separate mobile broadband dongle – since it does the same thing. However, I ran in to two problems:
- poor network coverage where I’ve been travelling to
- the initial connection of the iPhone to the network for data seems slow and unreliable
Now of course the first of these problems is purely network-related – in this case O2. But the second of these problems is a funny one – the iPhone appears to pick up the tethering to the MacBook very quickly, but data rates you get once you key in say a website are very low indeed. This is in both areas of good and bad coverage, and trying it out I’ve been able to compare it with a dedicated O2 broadband dongle (by Huawei as it happens). The dongle outperforms the iPhone every time actually, both with speed of connection to the network, and then data rates.
Having said all of this, I’m not the biggest fan of the iPhone when it’s connecting to the network by itself with it’s Mail client, or Safari – whether on EDGE or 3G, it does seem to take a while to get that initial burst of data through. So what’s the problem?
Well it’s either the iPhone software stack responsible for connecting to the network, or it’s the network itself not providing resource in a simple fashion for the iPhone to connect to. Which exactly I can’t say for sure, but I’m sure other devices I’ve had on O2 have been quicker to the punch as regards data.
What are your experiences with the iPhone and it’s data connection to (various) networks? I’m keen to hear if any of you have a better time of things!