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Six Major 3G and 4G Networks Tested Nationwide

Posted by timothy on from the actually-tested-locally dept.

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."

3 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Now i know why my 3G connection has been slow by mrsteveman1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Assholes are running around the country with laptops trying to see how much bandwidth they can eat up for testing purposes.

  2. What about latency? by Benzido · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?

  3. Re:Verizon isn't "3G" by ThermalRunaway · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.