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giper54

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 30, 2012
27
0
Whose LTE network will be crippled the most with an LTE iPhone AT&T or Verizon? I would like to hear peoples' professional responses, not AT&T/Verizon sucks. Please talk about the technology and how the increased number of LTE phones will affect their networks.
 

MattMJB0188

macrumors 68020
Dec 28, 2009
2,032
583
Whose LTE network will be crippled the most with an LTE iPhone AT&T or Verizon? I would like to hear peoples' professional responses, not AT&T/Verizon sucks. Please talk about the technology and how the increased number of LTE phones will affect their networks.

More than likely Verizon's. They have what, 8 million more customers than AT&T? AT&T also doesn't have the LTE coverage Verizon has. This will allow more customers to benefit from the LTE.

Of course the downside to this in general is that the LTE networks on both carriers will see much much more traffic in the coming months. Poor Android users will see degraded speeds.

Of course the good thing is AT&T's HSPA+ network will have less congestion.
 

hunterheath33

macrumors regular
Jul 15, 2012
191
0
Well I think AT&Ts 4g LTE network might be a little more crippled than Verizon's as Verizon has lots of LTE phones operating on their network but Verizon's 3G network was crippled when the iPhone came in 2011. So I think that each will be crippled, but not as bad as Verizon's 3G originally was and they will probably fix their network within a year or so and everything will probably be pretty close to back to normal.
 

kas23

macrumors 603
Oct 28, 2007
5,629
288
Obvious, AT&T. They were caught with their pants down with the iPhone 3G. Then they went on a big damage control campaign by blaming the huge amount of bandwidth the iphone customer consumes. Geez, they couldn't even handle MMS when the first 2 iPhones came out.
 

Indy21

macrumors 6502
Mar 24, 2008
376
0
I would say Verizon will take the biggest hit, with all these people claiming they're jumping ship from AT&T.

Hehe, I hope most of them leave for Verizon, that will leave less congestion for me on AT&T. Of course it has to reach my area first.
 

rman726

macrumors 6502
Oct 15, 2007
415
0
I would say AT&T. Verizon has already been going through growing pains with LTE (multiple LTE outages have occurred in the last year). I think AT&T may find those growing pains when a lot of people suddenly switch to LTE. I hope I'm wrong of course. ;)
 

Spectrum Abuser

macrumors 65816
Aug 27, 2011
1,377
48
Why are y'all claiming AT&T or Verizon? Sprint's in the worst position right now with their extremely limited LTE coverage and overly-saturated 3G network. Unlimited data won't be enough to cover the mess that they're in.
 

Dennis187

macrumors regular
Jun 26, 2010
223
2
below you
Anywhere there's a huge party tearing down a neighborhood and especially LTE towers involving thousands of people.
 

bszelda

macrumors newbie
Aug 26, 2012
24
0
It's hard to say but probably Verizon since they are ahead of the LTE tech. I had Verizon once and I couldn't get any reception in my town even though my current phone with ATT gets full bars. Otherwise, I'd probably get Verizon with the new iPhone... :p
 

Agent-P

Contributor
Dec 5, 2009
2,502
23
The Tri-State Area
Obvious, AT&T. They were caught with their pants down with the iPhone 3G. Then they went on a big damage control campaign by blaming the huge amount of bandwidth the iphone customer consumes. Geez, they couldn't even handle MMS when the first 2 iPhones came out.

Didn't the first iPhone not even get MMS until waaaay later?
 

Dominicanyor

macrumors 65816
Apr 1, 2012
1,229
253
Florida
More than likely Verizon's. They have what, 8 million more customers than AT&T? AT&T also doesn't have the LTE coverage Verizon has. This will allow more customers to benefit from the LTE.

Of course the downside to this in general is that the LTE networks on both carriers will see much much more traffic in the coming months. Poor Android users will see degraded speeds.

Of course the good thing is AT&T's HSPA+ network will have less congestion.

What is lte?
 

james92se

macrumors 6502a
Jun 21, 2010
818
27
Dallas, TX
Didn't the first iPhone not even get MMS until waaaay later?

Dude, the first iPhone NEVER got MMS. :eek:

I'm using my original iPhone until the 5 comes out, and I had completely forgotten it never had MMS. But I can unequivocally confirm it never had MMS as I'm suffering with it now.
 

Agent-P

Contributor
Dec 5, 2009
2,502
23
The Tri-State Area
Dude, the first iPhone NEVER got MMS. :eek:

I'm using my original iPhone until the 5 comes out, and I had completely forgotten it never had MMS. But I can unequivocally confirm it never had MMS as I'm suffering with it now.

Well, that's even worse. I had jailbroken it and enabled MMS as soon as I could at the time. As a side note, how is your original iPhone holding up? It's been a long run for it.
 

b166er

macrumors 68020
Apr 17, 2010
2,062
18
Philly
I'm curious how we will even truly know what signal we are getting when using AT&T. An iPhone 4S on AT&T already displays the '4G' icon. How will we know if it is true 4G or just the fake 4G we get now?
 

acorntoy

macrumors 68000
May 25, 2010
1,997
2,211
I'm curious how we will even truly know what signal we are getting when using AT&T. An iPhone 4S on AT&T already displays the '4G' icon. How will we know if it is true 4G or just the fake 4G we get now?

The new iPad says -LTE- next to the carriers name when it's connected to LTE, I assume the next iPhone will do the same.


+ To answer the original question I think sprint will be hit the hardest, having no devices connected to lte then a TON ( if you count the next iPhone and all the android devices already selling ) all at about the same time can't be good for network speeds.
 
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CallOfDuty

macrumors 6502
Jun 23, 2012
330
2
No. Carriers will not be severely affected by the LTE iPhone when it runs on its own LTE network.
LTE is considered a big improvement over 3G, where network capabilities and capacities are much higher and larger than what 3G can do.
The reason why carriers are moving customers towards 4G LTE is because LTE is simply capable of handling much more customers than what 3G does. LTE has up to 4 times more bandwidth and capacity than 3G, not to mention enormous speed improvements.

Hence, to reduce the 3G network's load, carriers are moving customers to LTE. This shows that carriers have absolutely not much of a problem with more and more customers on 4G. 4G, in fact, is a technology that should have realistically came much later, maybe starting next year assuming there is breakeven usage. However, due to more and more customers demanding for data services, 4G is quickly pushed around the world, such that even carriers are actually calling 3G HSPA+ networks 4G :confused:

In the worst scenarios, we can expect some slowdown in data speeds. But data speeds will always be much faster than what you get from 3G
 

willmtaylor

macrumors G4
Oct 31, 2009
10,314
8,198
Here(-ish)
My vote is for AT&T taking the biggest hit, and this is just pure speculation based on user polls here on MR. What I mean is, there seem to be far more AT&T power users who are willing to upgrade every year and throw away their money to have the latest tech; or users who are wanting to keep unlimited data in exchange for paying full price for a phone. Whereas more VZW users seems to be upgrading on the 2-year cycle. Just a thought.


Why are y'all claiming AT&T or Verizon?

B/c that's what the OP asked for


I can't speak for any carrier, nor do I care to guess. :)

Thanks for your helpful contribution, per usual. :)
 

mattopotamus

macrumors G5
Jun 12, 2012
14,665
5,879
I really don't feel like either company will suffer any crippling effects. That is the main reason they did away with unlimited (or throttle). The 5% that were insane users were crippling their network using something like 80% of the data.
 

Lord Zed

macrumors newbie
Aug 26, 2012
7
0
Verizon's coverage is so vast and widespread i doubt they will even be affected with the 5 on LTE. Whats the worst that could happen? My 12 mbps down to goto 10? Wow... Scary :D
 

tbobmccoy

macrumors 6502a
Jul 24, 2007
967
216
Austin, TX
Well, that's even worse. I had jailbroken it and enabled MMS as soon as I could at the time. As a side note, how is your original iPhone holding up? It's been a long run for it.

I too have reverted to my original iPhone until the 5 comes out.... and it has held up pretty damn well. Only a few dents on the aluminum frame. It sure lasted a lot better than my iPhone 4's case, which was cracked and pretty crappy by the end of it's life. I'll be sad when AT&T kills the EDGE network, since it'll practically cripple my iPhone OG (original generation). ;)
 

kas23

macrumors 603
Oct 28, 2007
5,629
288
Didn't the first iPhone not even get MMS until waaaay later?

Exactly. Maybe I wasnt as clear. First few iPhones not getting MMS were due to AT&T's inability to handle it.


I'm curious how we will even truly know what signal we are getting when using AT&T. An iPhone 4S on AT&T already displays the '4G' icon. How will we know if it is true 4G or just the fake 4G we get now?

Hey, remember during antennagate Apple resized the signal bars? Maybe they'll try such nonsense again. LTE will have higher, fatter, bluer bars.
 
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