I read the complaints about EDGE speeds here in the states more and more now that iPhone users are suffering with it. I’ve used EDGE for years, and have adapted my browsing and application habits to fit into it, so I tend not to subscribe to most of the complaints. Sure, 3G is much better, but I’m on Long Island, and don’t get 3G out here. Plus, when I used to go into 3G areas with my Blackjack, I often forced it to EDGE to give me more than twice the battery life.

However, it appears that I’ve been remiss by discounting all these complaints. I was in Manhattan today for some meetings and was demoing on the iPhone and other devices over EDGE. Out here on Long Island, things load pretty well, but they fell flat on their face in the city. So I used the DSLReports Mobile Bandwidth Test to compare Manhattan’s EDGE service with the service out here in the suburbs of Long Island.

It’s obvious that loaded networks will be slower, but I thought AT&T mitigated things like that with better infrastructure in dense areas, and the difference wouldn’t be drastic.
Well it’s actually quite sad. In Manhattan, I averaged about 85kbit/sec with a 1.5 second latency. On Long Island, I averaged about 156kbit/sec with a .996 second latency. In practice, that averaged out to a user experience that felt over twice as slow.

So I have a new found appreciation for you urban EDGE complainers. Though we don’t have any HSDPA out here, so it kinda balances out.

What are the speeds like in your city? Is New York a worst case scenario? Do you notice a drastic change in speed based on the time of day?

As a side note, I realized that DSLReports have a new iPhone / JS-enabled device Test. It will probably be more accurate with client-side assistance, so if you’re on an iPhone or have a Javascript-capable device, use that to test instead of the basic one.