Whats the point of having wifi when theres 3g?

[jasonb]

Since I live in an area with weak 1X and 3g signal, wifi is a must.

same here. highest i have seen at my house on a good day on 3G is around 1Mbps. on wifi at home i can get upwards of 12Mbps.

 

[mattygabe]

It's more of a gentleman's courtesy to enable wifi and use it. Not only is it faster, but wireless isn't exactly well equipped for massive data. Just ask AT&T.

So while Verizon can handle it better, they too may someday run into the same problems AT&T is experiencing in certain urban areas.

Take a look at all of the methods for wireless data transmission and then compare them to similar ones for wired data transmission, and you'll come to that conclusion for just about every wireless solution. Approximately 90% of the time the device is waiting before checking for collisions, and inevitably there are loads more collisions in the end anyways!

Here's the short and skinny: Why have Wifi? In terms of connection speed, it depends on what your Wifi connection is. For the majority of Droid users, they will have a fairly decent broadband connection that is faster than the average ceiling of 2 megabits per second (read: ~250 kilobytes/sec) that 3G offers near or at it's peak, and their broadband connection will typically allow anywhere from 3-12 Megabits per second (~380KB - ~1.5MB).

Now, my own home connection is a DSL line, and it taps out at 1Mb (~125kbytes/s), so Wifi is practically worthless for me. In situations similar to mine, the only use for Wifi would be if 3G coverage was spotty or nonexistent, or as someone mentioned if I went into a building that created a 3G deadzone.

On your computer, check SpeedTest.net to see where your connection's down and up speeds are. There's also a nice Droid app for SpeedTest.net as well that will test your 3G speeds, which depending on your cellular service will tell you how fast you can grab data where you're at. Check it out, it's fun to test at different areas.

 

[fgw]

Wifi might be available when there is no 3g!

I work part-time in a rural town where there is no cell phone service but there is wifi. Since I work for a Prosecutor, it is imperative that I be able to get email and voice mail. Where I live and work the rest of the time, the 3g signal is great but.... I have a definite need for both wifi and 3g.

 

[mattygabe]

I work part-time in a rural town where there is no cell phone service but there is wifi. Since I work for a Prosecutor, it is imperative that I be able to get email and voice mail. Where I live and work the rest of the time, the 3g signal is great but.... I have a definite need for both wifi and 3g.

The OP may not know this, but I believe the Droid phones were the first phones on the VZW network to allow simultaneous 3G/Wifi connections (someone please correct me here if I'm not remembering this correctly).

It's really amazing how much Verizon is opening it's network up, from the Android phones to the Skype app, etcetera. A lot of users don't realize this or simply take it for granted. Now, I realize they're still a business that makes bank, but hey, I'll take it. I was going to have to pay someone for a cellphone, might as well be for one as open as the Droid, right?