The iPhone was last year's news.  Every finger-in-nose geek has one.

The elite have keitais and do video calling.  ;-)

Leaving aside the obvious, which is that 3G technologies such as UMTS and
EV-DO will always be better than 2G technologies such as GSM and CDMA, it
really is impossible to generalize based upon empirical evidence.

The quoted article, although interesting, lacks the detail needed to
analyze the claims.  One important and obvious question is whether the
devices were locked to 3G (vs. being allowed to use 2G).

With all this said, at time T carrier X's 3G will be faster than carrier
Y's 3G in metropolitian area Z.  The fallacy is in assuming that X and Y
remain constant for varying values of T and Z.  Among other things, "3G"
itself is as variable as 2G was.

Put another way, when (not if) Verizon deploys an upgrade to their 3G in
New York City that puts it ahead of AT&T's 3G in NYC, it would be utterly
fallacious to claim that such dooms iPhone.

Carriers leapfrog each other.  Verizon beat AT&T to the punch on 3G.  It
would be stupid for AT&T to deploy a latecomer 3G that did not outperform
Verizon's long-standing 3G.  And it would be equally stupid for Verizon
not to work on upgrading their 3G to outperform AT&T's 3G.  And so on.

In Puget Sound, AT&T announced that they will only deploy 3G in the core
urban areas and that there are no plans for any 3G deployment in the
smaller cities or the suburbs.  And so it happened; the 3G indicator on
AT&T phones goes off outside of Seattle.

Verizon and Sprint are the only 3G carriers in the suburbs and smaller
cities.  In the rural areas, Verizon is the 3G monopoly.

It was funny watching the local AT&T store at the mall desperately trying
to sell their old iPhones (and they still have lots in stock!) telling
shoppers that there's no point in holding out for a 3G iPhone because
there won't be any AT&T 3G here.  Meanwhile, the Verizon kiosk is doing a
brisk business with data cards and 3G phones...  ;-)

Now, if only Verizon would offer a tethering option cheaper than $60/month
for 5GB.  I currently pay $42.50/month to AT&T for 50MB.  I would happily
fire AT&T if Verizon would sell less expensive tethering.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.