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Sony Ericsson GC82 Cellular PC CardPerformanceGSM cellular carriers are now offering faster EDGE data service. But how does it fare against Wi-Fi? We test the GC82 card to find out. |
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| By Brian Jepson (Updated 10/3/08) |
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JiWire Lab Test Results
The GC82 Manager, like cellular phones, displays a signal meter that tells how strong the signal is that you're getting from the cell tower. Actual throughput will depend on the quality of the signal (the signal-to-noise ratio, which is not reported by the GC82 Manager) and how many users are actively using the cell tower that you're connected to.
Download performance varied from as little as 50 Kbps in Atlanta, similar to dialup speeds, to a healthy 154 Kbps in Providence. Upload speeds did not vary as much, ranging from 27-33 Kbps. If you frequently need to send large files, cell data service is probably not a good choice.
| City | Download Speed | Upload Speed |
| Providence, RI | 154.32 Kbps | 33.48 Kbps |
| Boston, MA | 126.21 Kbps | 32.8 Kbps |
| Cambridge, MA | no usable signal | no usable signal |
| New York, NY | 75.12 Kbps | 31.44 Kbps |
| Atlanta, GA | 50.61 Kbps | 27.4 Kbps |
How We Tested
Our real-world performance tests measure actual throughput (upstream and downstream) in commercial buildings in several cities along the East Coast. We performed three downloads of a compressed file and took the average of the reported download speeds. For the upload speed, we performed two uploads of the same file and took the average.
