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Comparing 3G Networks
bsk_cw writes "Brian Nadel got hold of cellular network cards from AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, and tried them out with a Lenovo ThinkPad X300 notebook. He watched videos on commuter trains, worked with e-mail at cafes, listened to Internet radio at the airport, and downloaded large files while in a moving car. AT&T came out on top in his tests in the New York area (summary here). Some of the reader comments report different conclusions, so a YMMV is in order."
What about costs, caps?
Could you be more specific? Or did you not elaborate on purpose because it is common knowledge what large files get downloaded on fast connections? Hmm?
It seems like the high end is $60-$80 with a 5GiB cap. ATT and Sprint have lower end plans with a insane limit of 4-5MiB, Verizon 50MiB.
The lower end plans seem so limited as to be useless. How much Google maps usage can you fit into 4MiB before it is $1-8 per extra MiB?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
I have found the exact opposite to be true: Verizon is typically the best of the three in terms of reliability and data throughput, and AT&T is the worst.
Maybe AT&T's network is GREAT around Computerworld's offices and crappy everywhere else. Who knows.
Theoretically, UMTS and EV-DO should be comparable, with EV-DO Rev. A having a slight edge in uplink speeds to the UMTS revs currently in deployment..
However, maybe AT&T's routing of packets through NSA secret rooms slows it down or something. *shrug*
and that cost a lot less.
My big question would be: what's the lag?
The last time I tried to use a cell network for internet access, the lag was horrid (300+ms) compared to real broadband. How is the lag on these systems? I'd rather have the responsive 450kbps connection than the unresponsive 1.5mbps connection.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Philadelphia's muniWiFi network goes dead next month when Earthlink pulls the plug.
Oddly, the telcos start allowing metered access of their 3G networks; no all-you-can-eat plans anymore. In megabyte increments in one case.....
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
If you made it through American Public education you know that they'll let you on their public network no matter where 'there' is.
Where I live in North Texas, I lose calls on my AT&T 3G phone all the time, as it drops down to a different service level. I've even gotten the dreaded "Emergency service only" a few times on various days. Considering the town/city I live in has over 100K people and 2 pretty large universities, it has been surprising how poorly their 3G coverage is.
Considering my cell phone is my work phone (I work from home), this is not a good thing. The only reason I use AT&T is because at the time, there was no other carrier that had a decent plan that includes Canada in one flat rate. I call Canada several times a day, as my Dev team is there for the software I support.
They don't offer that plan anymore, so I keep my service level the same, and they don't change me 3 arms and 2 legs to keep it going. But with the current service levels, I'm considering a switch anyways.
I used Sprint EVDO as my only broadband (with SecondLife), streaming a few gigs each day from mid 2006-2007 on their unlimited plan. Always listened to music, and sometimes watched movies too... Now seeing what other services offer (rather, limit) I love Sprint even more! -Randy
This comparison doesn't take into account both Verizon and Sprint's EV-DO revA networks, which are faster than the rev0 networks he was using. He may not live in a revA market, though.
Mine is Good
I don't think the reviewer did a very fair comparison. Most significantly, he should have used similar data cards- preferably using cards over USB. The AT&T and Verizon cards were larger, and probably able to pick up weaker signals better. They also included built-in batteries, which greatly impacted the laptop battery life test.
I'm also a little skeptical of his bandwidth testing method. I've never heard the Alken site, and the tests I did right now on my own system aren't even close to my actual performance (although, maybe they're justing getting slammed with traffic). It would have been interesting to see if signal strength played a factor as well.
In any case, most people I've heard from have had exactly the opposite results. Usually Sprint is the fastest, with Verizon not far behind and AT&T bringing up the rear. Sprint also has considerably more 3G coverage than the other two carriers. Without saying anything about their customer service, I think Sprint is the clear choice when it comes to data plans.
What happens if your not on this list?
You're boned.
Sig this!
Aah, but in the future, when there's 3g iPhones, you'd expect these things to have changed somewhat.
In reality, there is no comparison. Unless you live in a MAJOR metropolitan area, GSM 3G is non-existent. On the other hand, Verizon offers EVDO in many areas of NORTH DAKOTA, where the largest 'city' has fewer than 100k people. When any GSM carrier can claim coverage in a significant portion of this state, I'll give them some consideration. Until then, they're about as useful as an asshole on an elbow.
LRN 2 SWM
Maybe something already exists, but wouldn't it be cool if there was some kind of app that people could install on their laptops that would upload metrics to a central server and make it available to review?
The app could tie into the 3G card and pull your approximate location, your carrier, and your average speed and upload it all to a server. As long as it doesn't also upload personal data, or your IP, etc, I can't foresee privacy issues (and it would be opt-in anyway).
With enough people running an app like this, the data could come together quite nicely and allow people to view a map overlayed with the different networks and average performance.
And I bet such a site could be supported by ad revenue. (3: Profit)
-David
I used AT&T for several months along the East coast, and thought it was crappy. I ended up paying the early termination fee just because I got better service from free wireless points, and hotel wireless.
I am open source, and Linux baby!
I want to know if there are carriers that will provide data service and not completely rape me when I travel overseas. Usually when I ask a US carrier about international anything (rates, service, whatever) they have nothing but blank stares to offer.
How do you get data service overseas?
ditto. i'm using my Q9c tethered to my laptop via bluetooth several hours a day on secondlife and never has my bill gone over. I pay $40/mo for unlimited data and tethering from sprint. $40/mo more for 450 minutes of voice. so for what i was paying for a cable modem and vonage, i now have the same service but portable. I used the verizon air card for a few years with the same results, but sprint was cheaper and allows me do voice on the same device... less crap to carry on the road.
Let me know when those hotspots work on the Boston commuter rail. Until then, I'll trudge along with a cellular data card.
In the USA is yankee doodle dandy, but what I'm wondering is which aircard has the best coverage internationally. I have customers who use there aircards overseas, especially in New Zealand which seems to be the biggest trouble area. I have heard using aircards internationally is atrocious (I have not ever left the lower48).
As an IT manager for a consulting business, 80% of my workforce is on the road 80% of the year. Broadband cards are absolutely critical to our success. We field test all over the nation and offer all three options. Our people have decided on 2 Verizon cards, 6 dozen Sprint cards and nobody has opted for the ATT card.
Our consultants are regularly in NYC, Philly, Houston, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver and Dallas.
If it helps anybody, Sprint is weak in New Jersey and parts of the Dallas area. Verizon picks up New Jersey nicely and this is where both of our Verizon cards are primarily deployed. Verizon and ATT are both not superior in Dallas so perhaps something else makes them all less than perfect.
One last thing...as soon as iPhone 2.0 comes out, and sells like hotcakes, the ATT network is going to be overburdened...you watch.
I've been looking for one, but with mixed results.
I've had the mobile broadband service from Sprint for well over a year and have felt it worth the money. First off, I pay $60/month for unlimited usage. No bandwidth caps. Secondly, the speed isn't bad at all. I can reasonably play UT with decent (100 or so) pings. Speed: 642k down, 210 up to SpeakEasy in NY from Ohio. 624/147 to LinkLine in LA. I live in a rather rural area which (up until recently) had no DSL and definitely has no cable access. Coupled with the fact that I'm constantly on the road as an audio engineer, the service has been well worth the price.
Anyone thinking of trying out AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon should check their coverage maps carefully. I have great difficultly in getting a reliable connection here in Australia.
Example: Metro North commuter train in NYC:
Notes about using Sprint Mobile Broadband:
- Sprint somewhat supports linux -- I was able to get the Pantech PX-500 card working on my linux laptop in no time using documentation from the Sprint web site
- don't expect blazing speeds -- realistically get several hundred kbps, which is more than fine if your expectations are reasonable
- latency is good enough -- I do e-mail with a shell account, and latency is generally no problem
- coverage is quite good -- every reasonable location I have tried has had reasonable coverage, including a farm in upstate New York
SUMMARY: I had a bias against being a Sprint customer, but coverage and linux led me there, and I have been quite satisfied with Sprint Mobile Broadband.It was not clear to me how in-depth the testing was at given times during the day, night, week, month, etc.
I would imagine that actual performance is significantly impacted by the number of users - not only of the data service, but all of the folks using their mobile phones as phones at the time(s) tests were conducted.
Voice and data is fighting for the tower's attention, and I would assume most carriers would start ratcheting down data speeds/capacities if their towers were seeing a lot of voice calls.
A long term study examining the most common network performance factors (i.e. latency, throughput, etc.) using the following would prove useful:
Time of day
Weekday, weekend
Population
Tower density
Rural (few buildings over 5-6 stories) vs. Urban (skyscrapers, dense buildings)
What's with the prices?
I pay $44.95 for unlimited data w/Verizon.
My total bill for 2 phones sharing 1400 mins and unlimited data on my XV6700 is $150.
stompbox
is an OSS Mobile 3G/WiFi Router Project.
I work for a signage company that uses about 70+ Verizon Broadband devices (as well as about having 15+ employees laptops equipped with them) so i can speak more to reliability then data speed.
In general the experience with Verizon has been very good. Coverage is excellent for the most part across in country in any major to mid major city. We have very very rarely not been able to grab data signal and we put them in some odd places like subway systems. Also i am noticing most places i sign onto now personally shows RevA coverage. The 5Gb limit has been harder to hit then i thought it would (only one bit-torrenting former employee pushed it)
What my Verizon rep told me is that when you breach the limit you get flagged, and then they have a closer look at your traffic pattern. Creepy, but it was all the torrent traffic that caused them to cut his card off for the month. I have gone over it with heavy use just browsing and haven't run into an issue.
For anyone looking for reliable remote access i can highly recommend Serra Wireless Raven, or anything from Digi International. They cost but they get online and stay online. Very low dropped call frequency.
He must be the exception, form our tests sprint and Verizon have the best coverage and speed, we have over 30 users that are on the road constantly up and down the east coast from Florida to NY.
We used to use ATT but switched over to sprint and some Verizon due to the coverage factor, and when 3g is not available we can use 1xRTT which is by far still faster than EDGE.
UK readers may be interesting to read something similar for Vodafone & T-Mobile here: http://www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk/20080423438/vodafone-mobile-connect-t-mobile-usb-stick-iii-7.2mbit/s-mobile-broadband-modems.html. That page also has a link to a look at the deals offered by all UK mobile broadband providers.
Hi.
My provider is not mentioned in this article's list, it is called "Centennial de Puerto Rico".
I have just tested their service back at speedtest.net and got: DL 1023kb/s, 559kb/s, and 137ms latency, to their Miami, FL. server.
At some other time it tested like 1500kb/s download, and I have seen, according to Linux, downloads of up to 200KB/s (if only for a few seconds).
Pinging Google gives the following, all in ms: 102.00, 99.5, 102.00, 138.00, 108.00
The modem they gave is an Axesstel, CDMA 1xEV-DO Rev A, MV400i series, MV430LITE.
The only problem is that sometimes the connection to the outside sort of freezes (all machines connected to it, as it has 4 ethernet ports, can connect to each other just fine, however), and I have to turn the modem off and back on to fixit. Their technical support is, as usual, useless when asked about this particular.
I am using Ubuntu 8.04. I have tested this with Windows 200 proffeional, and the modem seems to work reliably, but I have not tested it long enough to be completely sure.
The AT&T card he tested, a Sierra 881U, does have a GPS receiver in it, but AT&T's connection utility doesn't provide access to it. Don't hold your breath, but it's possible a future software update would add GPS functionality. Sprint's GPS features were unavailable to Macs until very recently.
I work in IT in the city but live in a rural area on a small farm with no broadband service available (cable, dsl, etc...). I have tried Verizon and Sprint mobile broadband cards and the Sprint was far superior.
With the Verizon card I was seeing around 200-300ms lag when browsing the web. With the Sprint card I am seeing around 100-200ms lag with the average being closer to 100ms.
I put the Sprint card in a Linksys router, placed a large marine antenna on the roof of the farm house, and connected that to the router. Now the whole family can surf from all over the farm.
Linksys, among others make a wirelress router box that will accept one of these cards. Disclaimer: I haven't used one, so I don't know if it fits the characteristic of "easy to use."
Additionally, some PDA smartphones can run the app WMWiFiRouter, which will share its data service through ad-hoc WiFi connections. I once set this up through my HTC Mogul (Sprint) and served up a connection to two laptops simultaneously. Unfortunately, the data connection dropped every time the voice portion of the phone was active.
Believe it or not, in K&R C, argument and return value types did not have to be explicitly declared, and defaulted to int. The really interesting thing is that modern compilers still accept K&R C without warnings...
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Yes, they do exist - the Linksys WRT54G3G, the D-Link DIR-451/E, and (for the DIYers), the alix6b2. Each has their uniquely frustrating foibles, but they work for the most part. YMMV