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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 just jizzed in my own face. It was awesome!
-Gary Niger
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.
We're the best at being the worst.
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 ;-)
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.
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.
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?
Linky Article
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
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
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
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).
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.
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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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.
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
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 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.
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!
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