A Day in the Life of 3G - PC World Tests 3G's Reliability

[w00master]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/167391/a_day_in_the_life_of_3g.html

A must read. Notice, in nearly *every* instance, AT&T underperforms in terms of reliability.

Can't wait for Apple to add another network.

w00master

 

[[G5]Hydra]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/167391/a_day_in_the_life_of_3g.html

A must read. Notice, in nearly *every* instance, AT&T underperforms in terms of reliability.

Can't wait for Apple to add another network.

w00master

You'll be waiting a very very long time. One problem for ATT is they have millions of the most data consuming phones around, the iPhone, all on their network. Sprint has been losing subscribers by the boatload which actually helps service too. All these things add up to ATT being just more congested than its competitors. Verizon would be having the same troubles and Sprint would probably just have a network collapse if they had to service even half of ATT's iPhone user base.


Looking at the chart ATT wins hands-down in upload 10 of 13 tens with Sprint and Verizon splitting the other 3. This makes me think they are just getting a bit overwhelmed by all those iPhones. If you have good enough signal to win 10/13 upload tests but only win a couple of dl ones that appears to be the case.

 

[w00master]

You'll be waiting a very very long time. One problem for ATT is they have millions of the most data consuming phones around, the iPhone, all on their network. Sprint has been losing subscribers by the boatload which actually helps service too. All these things add up to ATT being just more congested than its competitors. Verizon would be having the same troubles and Sprint would probably just have a network collapse if they had to service even half of ATT's iPhone user base.


Looking at the chart ATT wins hands-down in upload 10 of 13 tens with Sprint and Verizon splitting the other 3. This makes me think they are just getting a bit overwhelmed by all those iPhones. If you have good enough signal to win 10/13 upload tests but only win a couple of dl ones that appears to be the case.

AT&T may win in download speeds, but what I was referring to was reliability which imho is far more important.

VZ has the largest wireless network and the most subscribers in the US. I highly doubt they would have the same issues as you infer that Sprint would. I would even go on to bet that they would be doing a far better job than AT&T. Why?

Compare AT&T's *EDGE* map to VZW's 3G Map. Notice anything? VZW's coverage exceeds even AT&T's EDGE service. Pathetic.

Perhaps Apple won't be including VZW anytime soon, perhaps never. However, to assume that Apple will only stay with AT&T forever is extremely short-sighted.

w00master

 

[wr1020]

Problem with verizons 3g is its slow as hell, before i got my 3gs i was on verizon and it was extremely slow. Loading simple web pages took forever.

 

[w00master]

Problem with verizons 3g is its slow as hell, before i got my 3gs i was on verizon and it was extremely slow. Loading simple web pages took forever.

*shrugs* For my job a year ago, I used a VZW's 3g EVDO usb connection on my Macbook Pro. Yes, it was nowhere near as fast as wifi, but it did it's job and websurfing was quite comfortable. This is true regardless of what city I was in. We recently switched our service at my company to AT&T exclusively. All I can say is that though speeds are better, reliability though? Terrible. This was true in NYC, Atlanta, Boston, LA, SF, Chicago, & Austin (These are the cities that I frequent).

I'm even contemplating on going with VZW's mifi and entirely avoiding AT&T's 3G service all together.

w00master

 

[Morn]

Congestion should only mean it drops calls and loads data slowly, I would think.
A more fundamental network problem will show up as dropping out signal and low number of bars.

I think the real problem with AT&T is most of their 3G network is on 1900mhz, which is a very poor spectrum.

I live in Australia, and we have the iPhone on all the major carriers. Telstra's 3G is entirely 850mhz and you can really tell the difference to the other 2100mhz carriers. It works far better in skyscrapers and car parks. And even works well in the middle of no where in the outback, iPhone is nearly always 5 bars 3G on Telstra. Who have the world's best 3G network with 99% coverage of the population of the country and speeds up to 21mbit currently being upgraded to 42mbit, and this is important because in outback 3G is many peoples only broadband option.
So I can say with a lot of confidence, the problem in the US is AT&T.

 

[GoCubsGo]

umm
I can't take an article like this seriously when they call Phoenix "central" US.