AT&T Wins Gizmodo 3G Bandwidth Test

ink writes "Gizmodo has completed a 12-city test of 3G cellular bandwidth speed. Verizon won four of the twelve, however AT&T scored higher with six: 'Let's get this straight right away: We didn't test dropped voice calls, we didn't test customer service, and we didn't test map coverage by wandering around in the boonies. We tested the ability of the networks to deliver 3G data in and around cities, including both concrete canyons and picket-fenced 'burbs. And while every 3G network gave us troubles on occasion, AT&T's wasn't measurably more or less reliable than Verizon's.'"

Comments

Re:What about sustained transfers?

[AliasMarlowe]

I find I can get a nice burst for the first couple of megabytes then Im throttled pretty badly. Id like to know which carrier doesnt do this. It doesnt look related to reception.

Short answer: it seems that all US carriers do this, either because (i) they underestimated demand and under-invested in infrastructure, or (ii) because they can maximize their revenues while minimizing their costs, and the customers are trapped into long term contracts.
This sort of throttling by carriers is unheard-of in more advanced countries, such as Finland or Sweden. None of the carriers do that here; if they tried it, they'd have no customers left within a month or two (terminating a contract is trivial, and does not entail penalties). There are no usage caps on 3G either - unlimited actually does mean unlimited.

Re:What about sustained transfers?

[yoyhed]

Also, try going to Gizmodo without Adblock on. Note ALL the AT&T "Better 3G Experience" ads - especially the one with fucking Luke Wilson that is masquerading as an ACTUAL FUCKING STORY. Yeah, I'm sure this is a completely unbiased test. And 3G is not slow for me, on Verizon I get sustained 150 kiloBYTE/s downloads. That was my cable internet speed a few years ago, but now I have it on my phone!