3g And 4g Wireless Service In 13 U.s. Cities

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3g And 4g Wireless Service In 13 U.s. Cities

#1 PCWorld

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Posted 16 April 2012 - 08:01 PM

Post your comments for 3G and 4G Wireless Service in 13 U.S. Cities here

#2 zeth006

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Posted 16 April 2012 - 09:12 PM

Hmmm. These speeds are pretty consistent with what I get on TM in Downtown SF, maybe 1mbps higher.

Kind of have to wonder what on Earth Sprint has been thinking. They might be cheaper, but they're sure as hell a lot slower than all the other carriers.

#3 waldojim

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Posted 16 April 2012 - 09:46 PM

I think there is something seriously wrong with your testing. I OWN a LTE modem, and live in the Dallas/ FT Worth area, and have NEVER seen speeds that low. I have people at work with Samsung, and HTC 4g phones that are never that slow either. You might want to try a different bit of hardware.

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#4 MarkSullivan

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Posted 16 April 2012 - 11:05 PM

waldojim: not sure which wireless service you're talking about, but you are probably running a test that pings a local server, which paints a rosy picture of speeds. because our tests try to replicate real life usage, we ping servers on both coasts, then average the results. this does yield slower speeds, especially with LTE service, but it's a much truer picture of the speeds you're getting when you're actually doing real tasks like shopping, photo sharing or watching video. hope that clears things up a little.

#5 MarkSullivan

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Posted 16 April 2012 - 11:10 PM

zeth006, on 16 April 2012 - 09:12 PM, said:

Hmmm. These speeds are pretty consistent with what I get on TM in Downtown SF, maybe 1mbps higher.

zeth006 -- what kind of a T-Mobile phone are you using? Do you find that your T-Mobile service is pretty consistant, speed-wise, around San Francisco? Thanks for reading. M

Kind of have to wonder what on Earth Sprint has been thinking. They might be cheaper, but they're sure as hell a lot slower than all the other carriers.

#6 zeth006

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Posted 17 April 2012 - 01:08 AM

MarkSullivan, on 16 April 2012 - 11:10 PM, said:

zeth006 -- what kind of a T-Mobile phone are you using? Do you find that your T-Mobile service is pretty consistant, speed-wise, around San Francisco? Thanks for reading. M

LG G2x, released sometime in late 2011. It was advertised as supporting 21mbps depending on which conflicting source you trust.

But really, T-Mobile 4G speeds are largely YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary). They vary based on time of day, proximity to towers, possibly sources of interference, etc. I think my fastest speed clocked here in Downtown SF is 8mbps. Otherwise, I get anywhere between 3-7mbps down and 1-2mbps up depending on my location. Speeds tend to drop to about 3mbps around Union Square.

Then there's the phone's modem. Some reviews show the Samsung Blaze 4G by T-Mobile clocking 25mbps. It's one of few phones in T-Mobile's lineup with a 42mbps-capable phone. Too bad it's outside my price range!

On a side note, here's to hoping T-Mobile's higher-ups know what they're doing in going after LTE-Advanced AND HSPA+ 84 in the near future. I have to wonder whether it's a good idea for them to be pouring cash into 2 different mobile internet standards and possibly foregoing the benefits of supporting a single standard that their phones would be able to support everywhere!

This post has been edited by zeth006: 17 April 2012 - 01:18 AM

#7 waldojim

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Posted 17 April 2012 - 05:49 AM

MarkSullivan, on 16 April 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

LG V600 LTE modem. It isn't the best modem on the market, but does quite well. Though, I have seen people rocking HTC Thunderbolts, and the Samsung Nexus hit speeds quite close to my results. I do know that speedtest will skew number when testing local servers, and that is why I don't bother testing there. I run all of my tests from Texas to Ohio. For a while I had those results in my Sig... may have to put them back in there.

#8 thecsb

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Posted 17 April 2012 - 01:15 PM

Comparing T-Mobile 3G and 4G makes little sense. They both use the same air interface (UMTS); just that your "4G" version of TMobile bonds two of the 21Mbps channels together. You should have labeled it by air interface (CDMA2K Rev.A, HSPA+ 14.4/21/42Mbps, WiMax, and LTE) not by 3G/4G.

Also, TMobile's UMTS network has a much heavier load than ATT/Verizon LTE.

#9 devildothack

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Posted 17 April 2012 - 09:34 PM

So let me get this straight: tmo consistently placed first place in most test and additionally they are by far the cheapest carrier?? and people still complain when gas goes up a few dollars and yet they dont mind overpaying for cell phone usage..

#10 MiSoFine

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Posted 18 April 2012 - 07:04 AM

I'm sure AT&T is fast in Dallas, I wouldn't know since they throttle me so hard that I have no choice but to seek wi-fi in every location if I want to touch the web. I'm moving over to Big Red. Everyone I have seen with VZW has 10-20mbps.

#11 MarkSullivan

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Posted 18 April 2012 - 11:39 AM

thecsb, on 17 April 2012 - 01:15 PM, said:

Thanks for the suggestion, but if you look closely we never really call either service 3G or 4G. We only use those terms to describe the set of service they're competing against. M

#12 EludiumQ36

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Posted 18 April 2012 - 07:51 PM

I ran the Speedtest in the Northern VA area (Reston/Herndon) today (overcast, rain) and with my Galaxy S2 on a Wimax connection I clocked 12Mbps down, nuff said.

#13 MichaelAlbatrosov

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Posted 18 April 2012 - 08:56 PM

I don't get how in the world you guys get such slow speeds. Here in Jacksonville, FL. On an HSPA+21 phone, i routinely get 15mbps.

#14 DaleE

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Posted 22 April 2012 - 07:12 AM

There are 4 missing charts; one chart for each carrier displaying speeds in each city.

Second, with such a differences between cities for one carrier, there are other factors which need to be explored.

Third,with such differences between carriers on the same technology (or are they), there are other factors which need to be explored.

Why the differences?

#15 joey301

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Posted 23 April 2012 - 03:32 AM

I live in the DC area. Forget download and upload speed, I can't access my Verizon data plan half the time. I have complained until I finally gave up. Read the forums, its a huge problem around here.

#16 mlrichardson

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Posted 23 April 2012 - 08:52 AM

The San Francisco Airport must fall into the area covered by AT&T's 4G service. I was recently waiting in the cellphone parking lot for a relative and used my Motorola Atrix to get the latest information on her delayed flight. The response was so fast I would have to compare it to using wifi off my AT&T U-verse (G-class) router at home! I live where we'll probably be overrun by glaciers before 4G is available (Santa Cruz, CA), so this was a first experience. Pretty impressive.

#17 ncsu71

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Posted 23 April 2012 - 04:43 PM

Looks like AT&T is smokin everybody on 4G.

#18 ncsu71

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Posted 23 April 2012 - 04:44 PM

Looks like AT&T is smokin everybody on 4G. I'm in Atlanta and have gotten 16 mkb/sec download speeds.

#19 mcsedave

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Posted 24 April 2012 - 07:31 AM

Very unsatisfactory article

#20 StephenMaciel

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Posted 18 July 2012 - 09:00 AM

Ran my own test last week using verizon:

Test Date: Jul 10, 2012 11:59am
Connection Type: Lte
Server: Los Angeles, CA
Download: 32976 kbps
Upload: 19701 kbps
Ping: 54
Phone: Rezound

Ran side-by-side tests last week against a Samsung Galaxy S3. The S3 averaged 17,9** kbps. Also, ran the HTC Thunderbolt in a similar setting. Thunderbolt averaged 17,*** kbps.

Never thought I would say this but, Waldo Jim may be right [on Mon Apr 16 22:46:33 PDT 2012 he posted to your site]

This post has been edited by bcappel: 18 July 2012 - 09:08 AM