China Unicom Ups 3G Speeds to 42 Mbps, But We Have Our Doubts

China Unicom has been upping its 3G speed right and left recently, adding HSPA+ support that supposedly raised connection speeds to a possible 21 Mbps, and now the company is rolling out another update it claims will give its 3G connections blazing speeds of up to 42 Mbps. This network update is already in effect in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and a few other key cities, with updates rolling out to other locations over the next few months.

In practice, though, it appears that the “up to” in “up to 42 Mbps” is very important. Despite excellent signal reception in my apartment in Beijing, my Unicom 3G service has never been very fast. In light of this speed update, I decided to try a speed test to see what effect the new 3G network has had on my connection speeds. Gaze ye upon my results, and despair:

Yes, it appears that while 3G users in Beijing theoretically can experience speeds of up to 42 Mbps — perhaps in the same way one theoretically can win the lottery while getting struck by lightning — I would be lucky to hit 2 Mbps. It’s not an anomaly either (I ran this a couple times, and tried it out on my wife’s phone as well); China Unicom’s 3G is just slow. Even though it’s apparently now ridiculously fast.

I called China Unicom to get some clarification on this, but the rep I spoke to appeared to be about as confused as I was. At one point, she told me that the fastest speed I was likely to see via 3G in Beijing was 500 Kbps — that’s really slow — and finally said there was no real way to be sure about speeds as it depends on the network of the area you’re in and, to a lesser extent, also the phone itself.

I guess the moral of the story here is that China Unicom’s speed pronouncements are pretty much meaningless. If you were hoping to actually experience blazing fast 42 Mbps downloads on your phone, don’t hold your breath.

[Metropolis Bulletin via Sina Tech]