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Six Major 3G and 4G Networks Tested Nationwide
adeelarshad82 writes "PCMag recently tested six 3G and 4G networks to determine which ones were the fastest (and slowest) in 18 different US cities. They focused on data, not calls, and used their own testing script and methodology, which combined various kinds of uploads and downloads. Using laptops, more than a dozen people ran more than 10,000 tests; they found AT&T is both the fastest national 3G network, and the least consistent. Sprint's 3G system was the slowest of the 'big four' carriers, but the most consistent. When the test results were broken down by regions, AT&T led on speed in the Southeast, Central, and West, but T-Mobile took the crown in the Northeast region. Sprint's 4G network was fast where it was available, but it was surprisingly slower than 3G in some cities. The fastest AT&T download seen, at 5.05 megabits/sec, was right behind Apple's headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, CA. The fastest connection in any of the tests was a blazing 9.11 megabits down on Sprint 4G in the Midtown neighborhood of Atlanta, GA. The slowest city, on average, was Raleigh, with average 3G downloads of 880kbits/sec."
I'm surprised at not seeing Verizon mentioned in the summary, as I've heard pretty much everywhere that they have the best network. Perhaps Verizon focuses more on phone service than data?
My other sig is clever.
Raleigh would be the slowest city on Verizon, which is where I live and the carrier I use.... Maybe these tests will urge Verizon to increase their speed here ;-)
It runs my home network, and I am very satisfied with it. So much so, that the Spring 4G EVO looks very attractive as an iPhone alternative. Too bad my contract runs out in December, and ATT jacked up surrender fees.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Assholes are running around the country with laptops trying to see how much bandwidth they can eat up for testing purposes.
in NYC and i have an iphone 3GS and a sprint blackberry. speedtests on the iphone average around 600 - 3500kbps download. even in midtown manhattan. depends on the exact location and time of day. and response is pretty good. the Sprint BB is like watching trees grow. Google maps is slow. and there are tons of deadspots around NYC. only time it's better is in one of the old factory buildings on the west side. last year when AT&T had problems i would listen to pandora and slacker on my BB.
with iphone OS 4 coming out next week i would throw the blackberry in the trash if it didn't belong to my employer
Yay Raleigh! We have IBM! We have Redhat! We have Cisco! We also have slow-as-hell 3G / 4G!
At least our Roadrunner cable service is pretty solid. Would hate to be in an area with great wireless while simultaneously being stuck with Comcast.
How about for a laptop "aircard" or such? Or a tablet.
Not a sentence!
The problem with AT&T isn't speed, it's latency. I often had to wait ten seconds or more for a data request to be met, and often the software would timeout before that happened (which meant I would get no data at all). Once a download actually started, it was very fast, but so what?
By what standard does 3G mean "GSM Network"? None that I have ever heard of. 3G is a term used to describe a variety of technologies that meet certain requirements established by the ITU. Verizon's 3G technology is EVDO. Which is the same 3G technology that Sprint uses for 3G. So even if you were correct is saying that CDMA carriers aren't 3G, then why would the post reference Sprint's 3g network?
Linky Article
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Wrong. All 3G (and beyond) is based on CDMA principles. In fact the 3G that ATT et al use is W-CDMA. There are differences in channel names and chipping rates and such. But at the end of the day anything beyond 2G is all based on CDMA.
"GSM" 2G is TMDA (time division) and just isn't adequate anymore.
LTE is an interesting beast. It uses CDMA but any user can get multiple channels (if available) at a time. The channel allocation is on a time interval.
"GSM" was dead after EDGE. If you are referring to the actual technology that was 2G GSM. However many people now use it interchangeably with UMTS/W-CDMA.. which causes lots of confusion.
Oh, and just to establish my credentials.. I'm a hardware engineer at a major cell phone chip company. I've built CDMA and UMTS base stations.
Second, why is Sprint 4G so slow? And they are not cheap either. Neither is T-Mobile. I remember when they would charge $45 for hot spot acess.
And third, I wish cricket would sell a box for home internet. I am surprised that their speeds are so good. Kind of makes you wonder if the tests are totally wack. The lame wireless carriers, ATT and Cricket are on top. In any case, for $40 unlimited you can't beat the deal. I would switch from DSL to them.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
You're right and wrong. It has nothing to do with CDMA or GSM, 3G is literally the third generation of mobile telecommunication technologies. 3G doesn't actually mean GSM in the slightest. WiMax is technically "4G" because it's a part of the fourth generation, along with LTE. Also, this has nothing to do with phones, more and more people are using these data technologies for laptop tethering. WiMax has been sold on Sprint for a while, for use with aircards, but the EVO 4G is the first phone to actually integrate it.
For what it's worth...
I was in Chicago for a couple of months at the beginning of the year. While there, I subscribed to Clear Internet (http://www.clear.com) - a 4G provider with (I think) Sprint backing it.
My results were absolutely horrible - on average, I was getting 51k download speeds. This was as measured on the modem itself (no router/firewall/PC - right from the status screen on the modem). There was nothing I could do to improve this and the people at Clear were completely baffled by this. According to the Clear folk, I was about 1/10 mile from the nearest tower. I was getting excellent signal and PSNR.
In my mind, either Clear was totally messed up or 4G has a lot more hype than delivery.
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
Typo... not "TMDA"... TDMA.
People should stop using the term "3G". It means nothing, It is confusing. Even DECT6 (a cordless phone technology) is classified as "3G" by the ITU.
Your phone is either EVDO, HSDPA or WiMAX. Don't know what it means? Then just say you have a 3.1 or 7.2 Mbps phone. Simple. No phone should be marketed as 3G or 4G.
Even more confusing: here in Canada, Bell and Telus have 2 networks (EVDO and HSPA+). Both of them are "3G", but they only refer to the new one as such.
1 megabits/s should be enough for everyone
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I find cell phone technology acronyms to be worse than NASA's. When I try to look up information about one set of standards or technologies, the information is riddled with more acronyms to which all seem to lead to even more.
Do you have any good resources to help me better understand what the hell you just said? :)
Kind of reminds me of:
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
(Bill Gates, 1981)
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
3G has come to mean "GSM network".
Bullshit. You can't just redefine terms because you don't understand what they mean.
For the painfully ignorant:
1G was analog voice
2G was digital voice
"2.5G" was an attempt to piggyback data onto voice channels
3G is purpose-build digital data.
EV-DO (verizon 3G) is definitely a dedicated data network, and definitely 3G (multi-megabit) caliber.
The way you use terms like "CDMA" and "GSM" makes them meaningless. GSM is a widespread, 2G, voice-only standard. HSDPA is not GSM. LTE is not GSM. CDMA is a channel control protocol that underlies lots of protocols, from IS-95 (2G voice) to HSDPA.
You're partially right. CDMA as a modulation technique is used by UMTS networks as well as CDMA networks. CDMA2000/EVDO is an end to end technology used by "CDMA Networks". GSM networks which CDMA modulation are much different.
With regards to LTE you're completely wrong: LTE uses OFDM.
So the indirect conclusion is if you want a best balance of speed, consistency, coverage and price... in a major city, go T-Mobile. Especially when they get HSPA+ running.
Of course, T-mobile has had it's share of privacy problems or losing data (Sidekick incident).
Or tethering.
Part of the East Bay is a 4G testing area. I just picked up a Sprint Overdrive, and it connects at 4G. The speeds are okay (3-4mbps) but not out-of-this-world like I was expecting.
The reason it was worth it is the unlimited data @ $60/month on 4G as opposed to the same price for 5gigs on 3G.
Sony ha
Why am I not suprised this isn't a black spot for AT&T coverage. I bet they have a transmitter aimed directly at Steve Jobs' head.
Don't tell me what I do and don't need out of my phone. YOU may not need a 5Mbit connection; and you're probably right to assume that most people also don't need a connection that fast. But maybe I'm deploying an emergency patch to my server that I have to upload from my tethered laptop; that extra bandwidth could make a real difference. Hell, maybe my business absolutely needs me on a video conference, and 1Mbit won't do the trick.
Obviously that's unlikely, but don't say "nobody" unless you understand the requirements of the entire world.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
3G has come to mean "GSM network". Verizon is still CDMA. They're moving to LTE, which is basically the new version of GSM, and is what people are calling "4G".
Verizon DOES have, by far, the best coverage. No, you aren't going to get 5 megabit/sec downloads on your phone, but you don't NEED to. Nobody does. A phone doesn't do anything that needs that kind of bandwidth. 1 megabit/sec is PLENTY of bandwidth for a phone.
What if you are tethering wifi? The EVO that Sprint is releasing next week has two camera, one for HD video, the other rear facing for video conferencing, a 1Ghz processor, a higher definition screen, a GPS receiver....etc. Who knows what kind of bandwidth apps will require in the very near future.
Don't get me wrong, today, you are correct. No one needs more than 1Mb/s to a phone... right now. However, reading your statement reminded me of a famous quote concerning 640k.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
How is this "Insightful"?
3G means "3rd generation" and 4G means "4th generation". It's that simple.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
"1 Mb ought to be enough for anybody"?
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
In case anyone is confused on the proper designations, please refer to this chart. Just replace K's with M's.
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If you think the advertised acronyms are bad then you should work for a telco, particularly AT&T. ALL of their billing systems are nothing but acronyms and you have to know all of them or know where to look them up before you make a single change to the service. I don't know how many times I've seen variants of LTG6X for PRI/DID circuits.
you are fired
That's the issue. Loosely, "3G" tends to indicate that service has serious provision for data but is still largely voice, while "4G" indicates a service is data-oriented. There's huge overlap between all the competing systems in bandwidth, coverage, latency and features (e.g shared voice+data). Hell, even "2G" (GSM) can be faster than "4G" when your 4G signal is very weak. The current AT&T vs Verizon spat is pretty much dictionary definition Strawman.
It's most obvious when you talk about Verizon and, well, pretty much everyone else's "3G". They're not even running the same modulation scheme or protocols. And sadly it seems the same will happen with "4G" as there's WiMax competing with LTE.
The funny thing is this is almost entirely a US-only issue. I'm sure there's some outliers, but otherwise the entire of Europe, and I think most of the rest of the world uses UTMS/HSPA for 3G and is going LTE for 4G. I can't think of anywhere else apart from the US (and strangely, Iraq due to, ahem, presidential order, despite every surrounding country using an incompatible system) that uses CDMA2000, EVDO, or WiMax (except 1 carrier in Sweden?)
It's pretty much only possible in the US due to the tight carrier-vs-phone contracts you get.
Assuming you had an app that could take advantage of AT&T's 5 Mb/s peak speed, you would hit your 2 GB cap in 53 minutes of streaming.
You won't be streaming too many movies to your 3G iPad anytime in the near future.
My city is smaller than the ones they talked about in the article - e.g., we have Verizon and AT&T 3G, but nothing more than 1xRTT on Sprint - but my Droid is plenty fast enough to tether with. I won't confuse it with my home cable connection any time soon, but it's just fine for on the road surfing. (Haven't tried it with Netflix yet.) Wifi tethering of the Droid is also faster than USB tethering from my wife's AT&T Blackberry via PDANet.
The tests were not run nationwide, they were run in select major cities. This happens to be a major sticking point if you're like me and don't live in one of the few 3G ATT or TMobile markets. I personally hate ATT, only because they're such liars. They can play Nick Drake all day, their coverage still sucks. And their commercials shouldn't say "3G not available in all areas" it should say 3G not available in MOST areas.
LRN 2 SWM
Apparently those supposed heavyweight credentials he was swinging around don't mean shit!
Sure, most web surfing/e-mail doesn't need more than 0.8-1.0 Mbps. Depending on the sites, even those speeds might be overkill. However, tethering to use for streaming video ups the requirements. You definitely need better than 1.0 Mbps average for something like Hulu, for instance, or if you download large files.
The way I see it, cell phones via 4G have the potential to replace home broadband (and cable/satellite eventually) just like they're well on their way to replace landlines. If they can provide reliable 5M/500k D/U at a reasonable price, why bother with (cable/FIOS/satellite) modems at home?
I have the Clear service, (the USB dongle and the Motorola Base station). My experience with it has been mixed. It works at 2+ to 4MB on the USB dongle at my work, which is in Carrollton TX 75007.
However it has been unreliable at home (where I need it). Some times it runs at 3 or 4 MB but 50% of the time it is sub 1MB or zilch.
Clear (part owned by Sprint) has promised that 2 more towers are due for activation in the area of my home. The date on this has slipped and I hope that it is not an empty promise.
However to be fair and honest when I purchased the system the coverage map (some type of GOOGLE earth overlay was accurate and I knew that coverage was spotty in my home neighborhood.
I am not in love with it but am not willing to abandon it yet.
I do not have the FIOS available where I live (75218) and My DSL is a long way from the concentrator I am limited to about 1.4 to 1.5 MB on it. (AT&T). U-verse is not available (distance)
The drag about this is that across the street the DSL runs fast and the U-verse is available, oh well
"I'm a hardware engineer at a major cell phone chip company. I've built CDMA and UMTS base stations."
Have you ever heard of TDMA?
I tell everybody how bad the AT&T coverage is near Apple headquarters and no one believes me.
I live 3 miles NE of them. My last job was 2 miles SW. There is no AT&T coverage, in either place, for anybody. Phone calls last 30 seconds and are dropped unless you quickly run outside and find a hilltop.
What's hilarious is seeing snooty iphone owners in Silicon Valley rush outside all the time whenever their iphones ring. They dart down the stairs and don't even answer until they're almost out into the parking lot. I think at Apple they have their own five watt cell tower next to Steve Jobs's office and when their phone rings they run inside.
Oh, and just to establish my credentials.. I'm a hardware engineer at a major cell phone chip company. I've built CDMA and UMTS base stations.
Not intending to troll, just testing my understanding: since UMTS is 3G and all of 3G is CDMA, isn't the last statement somewhat redundant, as in "I've used computers and Macs"?
http://www.cdmauniversity.com/cdma/
Some great classes from these guys. If you thought those acronyms were bad.. go look up the channel names in the UMTS spec.
OFDM is based on CDMA. The point of CDMA is using orthogonal codes to separate users that are all in the same frequency space.
OFDM is an extension of this that offers more features, data throughput, etc. You can easily visualize LTE as many small CDMA channels where users get one or more of these channels during a time interval.
I doesn't much matter what happens outside the air interface, and it has no bearing on the rest of the network. Its all high speed backhaul anyway. You can plug in whatever you want.
Hell I can plug a Verizon femto cell into my Comcast connection and it becomes a small CDMA node. I hardly think you can call this an end to end technology that uses CDMA.
TDMA is what GSM 2G is based on. Users get a channel for a specific time interval and they are the only user on that channel.
CMDA lets all users transmit simultaneously and are sperated not my *time* (TDMA) but by orthogonal codes (CDMA and beyond). Go look up wash codes.
This should have been CDMA2000 and UMTS. Different specs. And actually UMTS is a 2g + 3g package that uses WCDMA for the 3g portion.
So really this should have been CDMA2000 and WCDMA
Lol... I work for Qualcomm. We invited all this shit. Pretty sure I know what I'm talking about.
Or would you like to compare patents you are on vs patents I'm on in the wireless technology field?
It might be worth noting that up here in Ontario I'm able to get 7.2 megabits/sec on a good night, with averages between 4.5-6.5, with latency between 75 and 95ms. And this is literally in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields and trees. In fact, because of where we live, we use something called a Rocket Hub as our primary internet access device, and it uses the cell network. $60/month for 10 gigs, with $5/gig overage. We may not be the best in the world by any stretch, but it's not bad!
I seriously question you being a professional in the field. I suggest reading about LTE, GSM and EDGE on wikipedia to correct your most flagrant claims.
1. GSM is TDMA/FDMA
2. LTE uses OFDM/SC-FDMA (OFDM but with an extra DFT/IDFT layer). Channel allocation is on a time and carrier basis.
3. EDGE is an extension of GSM. A new modulation and packet protocol within the existing radio channel. Also adds a new node to the GSM network.
If you're indeed a hardware engineer at a major cell phone chip company, may I suggest evening courses at the telecommunications department of a local university?
OFDM uses orthogonal carriers, not orthogonal codes. It has coding but that's not for orthogonality. CDMA is frequency spread and multiple access through the code. Individual OFDM carriers are *not* code spread.
I certainly hope your CTO doesn't see what you're writing. You seem to not understand what even "multiple access" and "code division" means.
More specifically, UMTS uses W-CDMA as an underlying technology. Its structure is very similar to GSM and has also been refered to as "3GSM," hence the evolution to UMTS instead of CDMA2000, which is the 3G progression of CDMA. Verizon very obviously employs 3G technology, as do the others mentioned in the original story.
GSM sort of goes to 2.75G (or whatever)...which gets you to Evolved EDGE territory. Funnily enough, even plain EDGE is considered a 3G technology, as far as ITU is concerned; plus Evolved EDGE will end up noticeably faster than first "true 3G" networks.
While that still doesn't lift GSM from "2G" territory (and luckily; designations would become even more meanigless), it's far from "voice-only standard" nowadays. Plus, what people in practice call "GSM", means ususally "the tech from that one consorcium"; LTE networks will get swept under it too.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Those nice little names also come with real minimum performance requirements, so if something claiming to be, say, 4G, and it actually isn't 4G (like Sprint's offerings - just WiMAX), then that's an issue.
EDGE is considered to be 3G by ITU (is comfortably in the range of early "true" 3G speeds anyway), Evolved EDGE will at least double its speed; and all this on non-CDMA underlying radio technology, in supposedly "dead" and "not adequate" GSM network (heh, I guess that's why vast majority of the world relies on it; has chosen it often as their first accessible way of communication even when alternatives were readily available; with EDGE carrying at least large part of data traffic)
LTE is not based on CDMA much more than on TDMA...
Sure, a lot of it is what happens when marketing meets technology - but "GSM" is much more neutral, it was from the beginning basically a name of the consorcium; people using it as "the tech from that one consorcium"...which was carried over. Probably will be mostly carried over to LTE.
In contrast, some marketing genius had the "bright" idea to call their network on the basis of fundamental underlying tech revving up everywhere (after early start and already long run for "TDMA 2G"); the result of people associating that underlying tech with particular network provider is much bigger of a confusion.
One that hath name thou can not otter
it's going to be a long time before latency is remotely competitive. Which means that any gamer is going to rely on tethering to a cell.
Well I need 1 Gbps wireless service at all points within the continental United States. That doesn't mean that all the cell phone companies that can't provide that are providing crappy service. If you need higher speed than you can get with Verizon, choose someone else FFS.
Let's just hope you can drive to somewhere that has signal so you can make that upload. Why the hell did they let you out of the office so soon after upgrading to a custom kernel anyway? Why aren't you at least at home for the weekend where you have good connectivity? And why should they believe you'll make this patch correctly when you screwed up the kernel code? And decided to install it on a Friday afternoon? That's it! <mr_spacely>Yoooooou're Fiiiiirrrred!</mr_spacely>
Support SETI@home
Purely OFDM can be used without code division. However if you look at the spec for WiMax and LTE it actually uses OFDMA... which is based on CDMA... where you use coding to operate users.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_multiple_access
Using code division increases spectral efficiency as well as helping immunity to fading.
I'd suggest two things.... read the 3GPP spec for LTE.... and stop being an anonymous coward if you are so knowledgeable regarding wireless technology.