How long does it take to download a song on your phone?

A fun way to look at how far the cell phone industry has come in such as short amount of time is to compare download speeds for music. That is, if you took a typical 5-minute pop tune and downloaded it over the airwaves 10 years ago, 5 years ago or today, how long would it take?

A fun way to look at how far the cell phone industry has come in such as short amount of time is to compare download speeds for music. That is, if you took a typical 5-minute pop tune and downloaded it over the airwaves 10 years ago, 5 years ago or today, how long would it take?

In order to get a sense of the evolution in cellular download speeds, we spoke with David Crowe, wireless standards consultant for the Calgary-based Cellular Networking Perspectives Ltd. We asked how long it would take to download a 5-minute MP3 tune (about 3 megabytes) for each of the major phone generations. Here’s what we found out.

Oh, and click to read this decent article if you’d first like a backgrounder on the evolution in cell speeds.

How long to download one song?

1G: Yes, we know you couldn’t download music wirelessly back in the ‘80s, but if you could, you’d still be waiting for it to be finished.

2G: Downloading a 5-minute song on a 2.5G-capable handset in the ’90s would take about 10 minutes (and no, we’re not talking about Iron Butterfly’s epic "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida").

2.5G: With speeds roughly five times faster than 2G phones, you could download a 5-minute song in about 2 minutes at the turn off the century — though many phones today are still only at these speeds.

3G: Downloading a 5-minute song on third-generation phones, which are common today, could take about 25 seconds.

3.5G: Thanks to the fast HSPA network in Canada, supported phones can download a 5-minute song in 5 to 7 seconds flat.

Filed Under: Handhelds