This will no doubt have the conspiracy theorists crawling out of every nook, cranny and hiding place possible. AT&T’s EDGE network is now running faster than ever right before the iPhone launch. It’s a good thing too because most of the complaints about the iPhone centered on the slow speed of the EDGE network.

Maybe it’s because AT&T has begun shutting down their analog AMPS and TDMA networks that they have extra bandwidth to spread around or maybe it’s because it wants new iPhone owners to have the best EDGE experience possible.  Maybe it’s a little bit of both or someone finally hit the “on” switch for the Fine EDGE network.

Anyone with an EDGE capable phone will see the speed increase, not just iPhone users. The speed increase is not available in all locations but major cities are certainly seeing much faster speeds, in some cases, upwards of 200Kbps.  Discussions have begun on various forums; this information comes courtesy of the MacRumors Forum:

Based on data from HowardForums:

New York City: 184kb/s
Queens, NY: 186kb/s-230kb/s
Chicago suburbs: 160kb/s
S. Florida: 176kb/s-204kb/s
Washington DC: 196kb/s-207kb/s
Philly: 191kb/s-264kb/s
Marion, Indiana: 186kb/s-196kb/s
North Seattle: 190kb/s
Dallas: 160kb/s
Half hour north of Boston: 50kb/s
West of East Orange, New Jersey: 365kb/s

That’s just data from people willing to share the information. I’m sure other cities are seeing the speed increase as well. Go ahead, hop on the EDGE network and see if your area has received the upgrade. In this one case, it certainly pays to live in New Jersey.

Related:

Entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2007 at 6:10 am under Apple, Technology.

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.
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