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Wireless Networking AT&T Network Verizon

2013 U.S. Wireless Network Tests: AT&T Fastest, Verizon Most Reliable 131

adeelarshad82 writes "For the fourth year running, PCMag sent drivers out on U.S. roads to test the nation's Fastest Mobile Networks. Using eight identical Samsung phones, the drivers tested out eight separate networks for four major carriers across 30 cities evenly spread across six regions. Using Sensorly's 2013 software, a broad suite of tests were conducted every three minutes: a 'ping' to test network latency, multi-threaded HTTP upload and download tests including separate 'time to first byte' measures, a 4MB single-threaded file download, a 2MB single-threaded file upload, the download of a 1MB Web page with 70 elements, and 100kbps and 500kbps UDP streams designed to simulate streaming media. Nearly 90,000 data cycles later, the data not only revealed the fastest networks (AT&T) and the most consistent (Verizon), but also other interesting points. The tests recorded the fastest download speed (66.11 Mbits/sec) in New Orleans and the best average in Austin (27.25 Mbits/sec), both for AT&T's LTE network. The tests also found T-Mobile's HSPA network to have the worst Average-Time-To-First-Byte, even when compared with AT&T HSPA network. Also according to the tests, Sprint's LTE network didn't even come close to competing with other LTE networks, to the point that in some cities its LTE network speed averaged less than T-Mobile's HSPA network speed."
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2013 U.S. Wireless Network Tests: AT&T Fastest, Verizon Most Reliable

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  • by Lucas123 ( 935744 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @03:25PM (#44042343) Homepage
    I don't like their service, pricing models or willingness to disclose my information to the prying eyes of the government, but in terms of mobile coverage, I guess you get what you pay for. And, I almost never drop a call.
    • And I don't like AT&T becauseCALL FAILED.

    • by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

      I dislike their total ripoff practices.
      To keep my plan I have to pay "full price" for the next phone. Yet, I get no discount. The full price is actually more than what they retail for if not bought from verizon.

      Not to mention their inability to provided/allow timely updates for non-fruit devices. My next device will not be on their network.

      • by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo ( 1000167 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @03:51PM (#44042607)

        I was looking closely at their month-to-month offerings, but their Android devices were all neutered versions of the contract versions. There is a lengthy process of converting an S4 or HTC One into a month-to-month phone but it requires a sacrificial lamb (a month-to-month device) and if Verizon catches wind of your rooting, you'll be dropped like a call on Sprint and be out the cash you spent on both devices.

        I'm sticking with T-Mobile and my Nexus 4. HSPA is fast enough for my remote browsing needs and in most places I'm surrounded by WiFi anyway. I admit that they're not the most reliable or the fastest, but they are the most consumer friendly.

        • by Ichijo ( 607641 )
          I'm on T-Mobile's $30/month prepaid plan with 100 minutes and unlimited data (the first 5GB at HSPA+ speed, after that it's 3G speed). Skype lets me avoid using my minutes while giving me HD quality audio.
          • by amiga3D ( 567632 )

            They have no problem with you using skype? That's interesting, I thought carriers frowned on that practice.

            • by enos ( 627034 )

              T-Mobile doesn't seem to mind what you do. The branded G2X even came with Android's mobile hotspot feature enabled. I spent many months tethering as my primary way to get internet at home, and a friend still does. Note that you need a good phone to have descent Skype, the G2X is too slow. It works much better with the desktop client going through the tether than the Android client.

              It seems faster phones give faster service as well. The G2X would top out at about 1 Mbps, but I've gotten 16Mbps/5Mbps (up/down

        • > if Verizon catches wind of your rooting, you'll be dropped like a call on Sprint and be out the cash you spent on both devices.

          No you won't. Verizon might be evil control freaks, but not even THEY will terminate you just for rooting your phone.

          That said, be aware that your likelihood of getting any phone not sold by Verizon to ever be fully-functional (especially EVDO and LTE), on Verizon is close to 'nonexistent'. People have occasionally found ways to reflash Sprint identical twins of Verizon phones

          • > if Verizon catches wind of your rooting, you'll be dropped like a call on Sprint and be out the cash you spent on both devices.

            No you won't. Verizon might be evil control freaks, but not even THEY will terminate you just for rooting your phone.

            That said, be aware that your likelihood of getting any phone not sold by Verizon to ever be fully-functional (especially EVDO and LTE), on Verizon is close to 'nonexistent'. People have occasionally found ways to reflash Sprint identical twins of Verizon phones with Verizon radio modems, but if you ever got a completely "alien" non-Verizon CDMA phone to do full-speed EVDO on Verizon, it would make headlines over at xda-developers.com. Radio modems are an entirely different beast from Android phones (which contain radio modems, but interact with them at arm's length).

            He wasn't suggesting simply rooting (something many many people have done without incident) but instead, rooting with the purpose of switching the IMEI and other low-level data on the handset to trick it into looking like a different phone on the network. This is something that network providers (as they should) take very seriously and will not hesitate to blacklist the offending device if they think it is anything but genuine.

            • IMEI-cloning isn't "rooting" -- it's "IMEI cloning", and if convicted, it's just about the most heavily-punished illegal thing you can possibly do with a mobile phone in America without causing somebody to die. And if you're caught, you almost certainly WILL be convicted, because all the prosecution has to prove is that you did it (no need to prove criminal intent). For prosecutors, it's a hole-in-one easy victory they can assign to their summer intern and let him score a guaranteed win.

              More importantly, th

      • Why do you want to keep you plan? Grandfathered unlimited data? The "discounted" phone is supposed to be the carrot that keeps you on a two year contract, not the contract being the carrot for the phone purchase.

        • by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

          Yup, grandfathered unlimited plan and far less minutes than they now offer.

          The point is if I have to pay full price I want a discount. I will want a new phone when my contract expires so I will go elsewhere.

          • by Cigamit ( 200871 )

            I am in the same boat. Verizon is the only carrier to have coverage in my area, so switching isn't an option. They have been dangling the upgrade carrot in front of me since 2011 (when my contract was up), but I haven't upgraded yet. Switching to the cheapest new plan with only 1GB of data is $20 more expensive per month than my current unlimited plan (and thats after my Employee discount). So its technically cheaper in the long run for me to buy a new phone outright and keep the old plan considering th

            • by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

              Where do you live that this is true?
              I find it hard to believe there is no other carrier at all. Have you tried getting a phone from another carrier to try? They normally have some trial devices or ones you can get for X days and return if you do not like.

              My contract expires in March and I am done with them then. It is actually more about lack of timely updates than money at this point. I hope VZW never gets another nexus device.

              • by Cigamit ( 200871 )

                I live out in farm country in Central Texas, NW of College Station, E of Temple, SE of Waco. The closest small "town" is ~7 miles away, most of that is down a dirt road. Its 45m - 1h to any major city to go grocery shopping (ironic considering the food is grown out here) and I only have 4-5 neighbors within a 5 mile radius. I had Sprint when I moved out here, but after their agent looked at their map they let me drop my contract for lack of service without penalty. I switched to Alltel (where I got my u

              • Unfortunately, there ARE a few places where Verizon IS pretty much your only viable option for wireless data that's faster than 250kbps indoors. Most of those places have solid AT&T coverage, but only have EDGE-speed data. Sprint is nonexistent in those areas (they just let you roam on Verizon & drop you if more than 50% of your use is roaming), and T-Mobile isn't even a wild fantasy.

                If I recall, the biggest area where this tends to be the case is hardcore-rural central Pennsylvania, extending down

      • I dislike their total ripoff practices.
        To keep my plan I have to pay "full price" for the next phone. Yet, I get no discount. The full price is actually more than what they retail for if not bought from verizon.

        Not to mention their inability to provided/allow timely updates for non-fruit devices. My next device will not be on their network.

        Sadly the only option to pay a "fair" price for your phone is with Tmobile, and as you can see in these tests, the way they give you this "Fairness" is by investing jack shit into their network. The Big 3 may be greedy, but they _are_ competing to have the fastest/widest network, just like we want them to. Now, I guess we can spend our time nitpicking the lack of choice in their contracts.

        • by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

          Hell, if they did not delay updates by 3+ months I might even pay their insane charges. My Not A Nexus Galaxy Nexus was the straw that broke the camels back. I will be buying my phone right from the company selling them next time.

          • Hell, if they did not delay updates by 3+ months I might even pay their insane charges. My Not A Nexus Galaxy Nexus was the straw that broke the camels back. I will be buying my phone right from the company selling them next time.

            From one certified geek to another, was running CyanogenMod or a similar AOSP based firmware really out of the question if the need is there? I spent a while doing this but eventually threw in the towel after realizing that it's just not that painful to have to put up with software that is months out of date. My Galaxy S3 with standard software does everything but "photosphere", is as stable as they come, and shipped a year ago with enough cpu/ram/flash to still handle any new app.

            • by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

              That is not the point of a Nexus.

              I run CM on some other device and love it. That defeats the purpose of my buying a Nexus though. I have no interest in being that far out of date, because of what should be a dumb pipe.

        • Sadly the only option to pay a "fair" price for your phone is with Tmobile ...

          Not true -- there's also Ting (a Sprint MVNO), which has similarly good pricing and great customer service.

    • If my business didn't rely on reliable mobile coverage I would have left Verizon long ago. VoIP works surprisingly well on their LTE network.

    • As a long time Verizon Wireless customer I would have to agree. However, their hiring practices are illegal based upon what a friend's experience. I would not want to work for such an unenlightened and short-sighted company.

    • by amiga3D ( 567632 )

      It really depends on where you live and or work. At my house verizon is really flaky. AT&T is strong and raging fast. At work some places Verizon is better and some AT&T depending on which building I'm in. AT&T the company sucks but because nothing else works at my house I end up using them. The signal is good but the customer service is about a 1 out of 10.

  • Data Caps (Score:5, Interesting)

    by asicsolutions ( 1481269 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @03:25PM (#44042353) Journal

    I did read the article.
    I'm surprised part of the rankings didn't address this.
    I have Sprint and I have used upwards of 8GB in a month, something prohibitive with another carrier.

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      I have all three on various devices. Verizon on my iPad is often so slow as to be usable. I sometime have to go to my phone, which is on ATT, to get internet access. Verizon is often theoretically more available, but ATT often has better coverage. I just don't think that Verizon is worth the extra cost. My next tablet will probably not be Verizon.

      I have Sprint through virgin mobile. The 'unlimited' data is nice, but the coverage data sucks. Also, it seems as the month goes on and I get up into mult

      • I have all three on various devices. Verizon on my iPad is often so slow as to be usable.

        Use a terminal program with some buffering. It's not 1998 anymore.

    • by icebike ( 68054 )

      I think they referenced it in passing, but it probably didn't matter for the purposes of this article.

      They may have had to use multiple accounts to avoid hitting the datacaps, but as long as those caps only resulted in
      a bigger bill and not throttling it wouldn't affect the results.

      Also, you are in the minority, as most users never come near their cap. Those like you probably all
      choose Sprint for that very reason.

    • Seconded. I'm 25 days into my billing period and am at 9.19 GB.
  • by TWiTfan ( 2887093 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @03:26PM (#44042357)

    Seriously Verizon, $120+ for a basic data/voice plan?

    • by rsborg ( 111459 )

      Seriously Verizon, $120+ for a basic data/voice plan?

      Absent my equipment loans (ie, what a carrier subsidy should be - ie, limited duration, can pay of early to unlock completely, etc), I pay $110 for 5 lines. Each with it's own 500MB+tethering.

      I get HD Voice on my iPhone5s (great for me and the wife to actually hear each other on the commute home), and unlike AT&T customers, I had Facetime over cellular for the past 2 months.

      I used to pay around $100 for a single line on Verizon (wife paid same for AT&T).

      The *only* downside is that data in very large

      • Yeah, I was going to post the same thing, more or less. We've got four lines - we're paying $110 for that because I added 2GB/month to one of them.

        AND if you happen to go over your bandwidth quota, you just get dropped to EDGE - it's slow, but you still have data access.

      • by sootman ( 158191 )

        Yeah, I'm getting close to switching. With 3 smartphones on AT&T's old 200MB-per-month-per-line plan (and $15 each time you go over), 550 shared minutes, and unlimited texting, we're at about $155/mo. The T-Mo plan you describe (unlimited everything, 500 MB of 3G data+tethering, followed by EDGE speeds/no tethering when you pass that) is $50 for the first line, $30 for the second, and $10 for each additional. Plus some taxes and fees, and minus a discount for belonging to AAA, we could have all 3 lines

        • by Rich0 ( 548339 )

          The only downside: I'm testing them this month with an old iPhone 3G and I'm seeing EDGE as often as not. :-(

          I'm surprised that an iPhone 3G can connect to T-Mobile as anything BUT EDGE. ATT and T-Mobile use different frequencies for 3G (maybe that started to change when T-Mobile got all that spectrum as part of the failed merger). For the most part you'll need T-Mobile hardware to get 3G on T-Mobile. I think HSPA is more compatible between the two, and LTE might be as well once T-Mobile rolls that out. So you might be able to get 2G and 4G on both networks with the same hardware, but generally not 3G.

          In any f

          • T-mobile is refarming their 3G network to the same frequency as AT&T

          • by rsborg ( 111459 )

            I think HSPA is more compatible between the two, and LTE might be as well once T-Mobile rolls that out. So you might be able to get 2G and 4G on both networks with the same hardware, but generally not 3G.

            I'm on TMO with an iPhone5 and I see LTE, 4G, 3G and very occasionally, (E)dge on my top ribbon. However, this is with a model A1428 that's been retooled to work with TMO's 4G network (ie, bought after APR12).

            I also have an unlocked ATT iPhone4 that gets 3G where we live. Haven't tested speeds - mom is using it and she hardly needs to mobile usage.

        • by rsborg ( 111459 )

          Yeah, my wife was paying the "data overage" every other month. Insane, $30 for 400MB of data, where it's essentially free for her now.

          I put our old AT&T iPhone4 to use as my mom's daily driver and it's doing fine (San Jose) for getting 3G (which tmo/att call 4G) speeds. Hopefully when t-mobile moves over it's spectrum to use more of the 1900 PCS for 4G, coverage will get better. This doesn't help older devices like the iPhone OG/3G/3GS which were pretty much stuck on using AT&T frequencies - onl

    • by garcia ( 6573 )

      I have Verizon (I have had T-mobile and various rebranded AT&Ts over the years as well) and have found the Big Red to be the best overall for a few reasons:

      - Coverage
      - Data sharing
      - Cost

      I think my wife and I pay about $150 for our two lines which include unlimited voice and text with 4GB of data shared between us and our chosen devices.

      AT&T was less money (about $130/month) however we had 450 anytime minutes/1000 night/weekend with rollover and no SMS plan. Being that my wife is using around 1000 SM

      • by Rich0 ( 548339 )

        For two lines on T-Mobile WITH data (which will never cost you more regardless of how much you use) and unlimited voice you could be around $80/mo these days I think. T-Mobile is significantly cheaper. The last time I switched contracts I found that going to ATT would have doubled my costs to start, and would have put me at risk of overage costs depending on usage. Only catch with that is that if you want a new flagship smartphone you'll be paying an extra $20/month or so for 18 months. I just paid $350

    • by mendax ( 114116 )

      Well, it depends upon what you want. I pay $50/month for unlimited voice/data/text with Verizon... but I don't use a smartphone. I use a plain ordinary Samsung pay-as-you-go phone at Target for $20 which included a $10 credit. It depends upon what you really need a phone for. I need a phone for voice stuff. When I want the Internet I use my MacBook. Who needs a smartphone or a pad when you have a portable REAL computer.

    • Seriously Verizon, $120+ for a basic data/voice plan?

      I'm on Verizon and I pay $100 a month for grandfathered unlimited data and a subsidized phone. I have enough minutes that I don't bother keeping track. I find it reasonable.

      • I'm on Verizon and I pay $100 a month for grandfathered unlimited data and a subsidized phone.

        Yeah, just wait until you try to upgrade. You're in for some serious sticker shock.

  • by mu51c10rd ( 187182 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @03:28PM (#44042369)

    AT&T - Fastest
    Verizon - Reliable
    TMobile - Cheapest
    Sprint - Service

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      AT&T - Fastest
      Verizon - Reliable
      TMobile - Cheapest
      Sprint - Service

      And compared to European vendors...
      AT&T - Slow. Expensive. Unreliable.
      Verizon - Slow. Expensive. Unreliable.
      TMobile - Slow. Expensive. Unreliable.
      Sprint - Slow. Expensive. Unreliable. :(

      • by LiENUS ( 207736 )

        Arent the european networks avoiding LTE at the moment? so it should be
        Compared to European vendors...
        AT&T - Expensive. Unreliable.
        Verizon - Expensive. Unreliable.
        TMobile - Expensive. Unreliable.
        Sprint - Expensive. Unreliable.

    • Last job we had AT&T. When I left and started my own company, Sprint was the only one with sensible deposit as I wasn't going to do a personal guarantee on advise of the attorney filing the incorporation paperwork. AT&T wanted $1,000 per line deposit and Verizon was $700 IIRC. Sprint was $150 per line (phone & mobile hotspot). I forgot about the deposit until my phone bill arrived this year and it had a negative balance. I had a year of good payment history and this year they credited those

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      You forgot:

      All - Shit

  • I use Straight Talk / Net 10 for $45 a month unlimited everything. I also regularly tether my devices to my phone and haven't had any issues. I've heard this service piggybacks on the major network's hardware , but I can't understand why the major networks would allow this - does anyone know?

    • The terms of service for Straight Talk prohibit you from tethering, and they tend to get really cranky if you use more than 2GB of data (even though they say they are unlimited). Depending upon which type of SIM you grabbed when you signed up, you are either on AT&T or T-Mobile's network. Source: I used Straight Talk for a few months back in 2012 and found it to be a decent enough experience.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    The drivers weren't running the tests. Software ran the tests while the drivers drove the cars.
  • by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @03:41PM (#44042503)

    T-Mobile's LTE roll-out is about to get serious, and they claim they'll have around 200 million people in the U.S. covered by the end of the year (with rumors of my beloved Seattle area getting it by the end of this month). Sprint's LTE roll-out is also chugging along.

    The landscape will look very different by year's end.

    • I get T-Mobile LTE on UW's campus already.

      • Did you do a speedtest?

        • Nope.

          I tend to think of speed tests as largely pointless. When I'm connecting to some site or server, there are too many other culprits that can (and do) affect the transmission of data back and forth between my device and the remote one. It's not generally the network I'm on, unless I'm on EDGE.

      • Yes, but we'll be getting even faster wireless speeds on campus soon, that will make the LTE from both T-Mobile and AT&T look pitiful.

        (caveat - I get the AT&T service)

    • the test is done every year
      • the test is done every year

        Nevertheless, right now, this year, it's an especially bad time for it, as it gives a very misleading idea of what's going on. Most years you don't see much change, but 2013 is going to be a big turning point.

        • by bonehead ( 6382 )

          It's only misleading to people who are stupid enough to think that the way things are today are going to matter in 6 months.

          For the rest of us people with a little common sense, it's an interesting bit of anecdotal info.

    • The landscape will look very different by year's end.

      This can be said at any point since the invention of the cell phone. These are the facts as of today, and those are the ones that matter in a purchasing decision.

      • The landscape will look very different by year's end.

        This can be said at any point since the invention of the cell phone. These are the facts as of today, and those are the ones that matter in a purchasing decision.

        Most years, the networks in the U.S. don't change that much. This year is HUGE, though, and basing a purchasing decision on things right now would be a gigantic mistake.

        • The landscape will look very different by year's end.

          This can be said at any point since the invention of the cell phone. These are the facts as of today, and those are the ones that matter in a purchasing decision.

          Most years, the networks in the U.S. don't change that much. This year is HUGE, though, and basing a purchasing decision on things right now would be a gigantic mistake.

          But again, the same could be said of any year, especially in recent memory. 2011-12 was when AT&T deployed most of its LTE network; any tests done then would be unfair to AT&T. 2008-09 was Verizon's time for LTE; same there. 2013-14 is T-mobile's turn, and 2015-2017 is when the real synergy effects from the T-mobile/MetroPCS merger, when the MetroPCS spectrum will be finally integrated into the T-mobile network.

        • by adolf ( 21054 )

          Really?

          About 20 years ago, people still sometimes had to use dialing codes to make a phone call to a cellphone. We had a list in the kitchen next to the telephone of some common ones. "I think Mom said she'd be in Cleveland today...let's try that one first."

          This was AMPS, of course. Things have improved a bit since then.

          Oh, and then D-AMPS happened. And CDMA2000 1xRTT. And EVDO. And 3G. And LTE. Coverage has gone from "it usually works if you're near a highway" to pretty much just being expected to

  • by Entropius ( 188861 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @03:48PM (#44042575)

    Sprint is the only cellphone company that has treated me like a person. But -- here in Washington DC -- their service is garbage. It's so bad that I have to constantly ask voice callers to repeat themselves because of dropped frames. At home I have to pick up the phone with "Let me call you back on skype".

    There is LTE service randomly in random places, but never consistently or predictably.

    • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Cities are hard. Multipath distortion can cause very problematic handoff situations even when there's a moderately strong signal. This, in turn, can cause the sorts of glitches you're experiencing. My advice would be to complain to Sprint and ask if they'll set you up with a free picocell for your home. That should completely eliminate the problem.

      BTW, if you think Sprint's glitch rate is bad, you should see how much worse AT&T is. Admittedly, I'm not in D.C., but at least here on the opposite coa

      • It's that cities are hard, Sprint literally has no LTE coverage in DC...at all. They're busy rolling it out to great bustling places like Chattanooga, but not the fscking nations capitol. If you look at their coverage maps for the DC region, Baltimore is mostly covered, the I-81 corridor to the west is covered, south is covered, but DC and suburbs? Not a drip of anything decent.

        Our contract is up in a couple months and Verizon is looking pretty good depending on the deal I can get. I'm happy to pay f
        • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          I doubt LTE has anything to do with your voice call glitches. AFAIK, except for very limited testing by Sprint and T-Mobile, LTE is not used for voice calls by any of the U.S. carriers except MetroPCS. The reason for this is that (unless something has changed fairly recently) there's no mechanism for a call handoff from VoLTE/SRVCC to CDMA, so if you are using VoLTE, the moment you leave LTE range, you'd get a hard call drop. For this reason, you shouldn't expect widespread deployment of VoLTE until the

          • Think maybe you replied to the wrong comment. My voice calls are fine, it's data that's abysmal.
            • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

              Ah. I assumed you were the person I'd originally replied to. My "cities are hard" comment was talking about the original poster's voice call service dropouts, not the data service performance problems. Data performance problems are usually just caused by inadequate backhaul bandwidth.... :-)

    • by Isca ( 550291 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @04:27PM (#44042961)
      Expect Sprint to get a lot better very soon.

      On June 30th the nextel iDen network will be shut down. This operates in 5 mhz chunks in the lower half of the 800mhz range nationwide. In many rural areas they have already transitioned most of their services to the same range and have kept 2 chunks of frequencies in the 800mhz range for iden customers but in urban areas they still had a Million customers on iden as of May 1 and they can't convert any part of those frequencies over. Especially in DC with all kinds of government contracts.

      Once these are shut down they can start freeing using that bandwidth for LTE or CDMA. In most areas of the country they have already preconfigured equipment to use the new frequencies after this shutdown happens and will be enabling this with just a software load on the new equipment.
    • by Smerta ( 1855348 )

      Sprint is the only cellphone company that has treated me like a person. But -- here in Washington DC -- their service is garbage.

      Funny, I had exactly the opposite experience with Sprint (this was several years ago, in Los Angeles). Their service was reliable and inexpensive (relatively speaking), but their customer service wasn't worthy of sitting in my toilet bowl.

      I'm generally a patient guy, but their shit customer service brought me to a boil. I'd detail my harrowing experiences with those fuckers, bu

  • ... The speed test is NOT YOUTUBE!!!

    • That actually may be due to a caching service of their own rather than AT&T itself. Try surfing with a different DNS server, like Google or OpenDNS. Verizon had this problem too on FiOS and the only solution was to use a different DNS server. They finally upgraded their aging Youtube caching servers though.
  • ...if you don't have a connection? I'd rather sacrifice some speed for reliability.

  • Doesn't most reliable make your network the fastest? What's the point of having 20% extra speed if you lose 50% of the packets?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • As a long time Sprint customer who uses them strictly for their lower prices, I can tell you that Sprint's 'network' is imaginary. It does not exist. There is no data network. In fact it's so pathetic that there are hundreds of blogs and forums dedicated solely to identifying the tiny random pockets of signal in 'rolled out' markets. Here in Raleigh NC for instance not only is there no LTE and they're closing down WiMax, the phone voice service is slowly coming apart as well. If you see someone standing out

  • Not when AT&T is throttling me. Seriously, they are luck I'm too lazy to change providers and they'll cut a month's bill when they irritate the shit out of me to make up for it so I stay on their network. Thank god I live in the city now, living on the edge to the sticks or in the sticks sux. AT&T had zero coverage in BFE.

  • Wouldn't it be better for testing to use different phones to test. It may be that one phone works better on one network while the other works better on the other. With DSL this is certainly the case.
  • I'd like to see their data charges for each network while running these tests.

    Also, I'd like them to come up here to Canada and re-run the tests. No, wait, I'd dread them doing that, it would show how awful our cellular networks really are...

  • Rogers (way up North here in Canada) ran a contest a year or so ago asking people to post their fastest LTE downloads. A lot of them were over 90 Mbps (Rogers theoretical LTE limit is 150 Mbps). Granted, that was all in the Toronto, ON area, but it was consistent.

    Out here in the West, I got a consistent 50 Mbps in the Vancouver area. And co-workers get 70-odd Mbps on Bell in Kamloops.

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