AT&T LTE/HSPA+ is fast and all...but

cynics said:
Depends on area. Playing with a coworkers Att iPad 3rd Gen and the best we can get is 80ms. My Verizon android tablet is getting 41ms. This is like 50 test we tried until I realized how much data speedtest was eating up lol....thankfully I was on my Android tablet and checked data usage and is show specifically how much data each app eats up...

Edit : btw taken in Baltimore, MD....working weekend and holidays isn't a problem for me in the center of a grand prix track... :)
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Ping times on Android's Speedtest.net app is known to be very incorrect.
 
Intell said:
Ping times on Android's Speedtest.net app is known to be very incorrect.
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No they are not, but to check when run against wifi the ping is identical (+/- 5ms per test) regardless of Android tablet, iPad, iphone. Even if that was true its the att ipad with the crappy ping. AND I'm using the speed test app on my iPhone and using the tablet as a wifi hotspot just like in the above pic so its totally a moot point anyway.
 
cynics said:
No they are not, but to check when run against wifi the ping is identical (+/- 5ms per test) regardless of Android tablet, iPad, iphone. Even if that was true its the att ipad with the crappy ping. AND I'm using the speed test app on my iPhone and using the tablet as a wifi hotspot just like in the above pic so its totally a moot point anyway.
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Yes it is and it has been for years. It can give widely off numbers in both the fast and slow range, but it only happens through the cellular radio. Speedtest.net blames Android's handling and presentation of the ping data. Depending on how your Android tablet is setup, it will cache somethings on itself when it is being used as a WiFi hotspot and present those results to the WiFi clients. Yours is likely setup to do this as some are by default. This would explain the ping time being the same because it would present the same information to the WiFi clients as it would for itself.
 
Technarchy said:
It's a big country; thats a lot of ground to cover.

That said, I can drive for 2 hours in any direction and maintain HSPA+ service, which is far better than Verizon, or Sprint LTE/WiMax. I don't have enough experience with T-Mobile to comment on their HSPA+ coverage.
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You must never leave interstates. I can drive 45 minutes and be on Edge with AT&T. (I live in the heart of Dallas). It's all a matter of which direction you go.

And as far as being better than Verizon, no way that's true. When I drop to Edge on AT&T, I'm still on Verizon's 3G which blows Edge out of the water. If you ever go rural, Verizon is the way to go.
 
and ATT has launched in 9 new cities as well as including a list of cities that will have LTE by the end of the year

The nine cities:

Anchorage, Alaska
Bakersfield, Calif.
Bridgeport, Conn.
Jacksonville, Fla.
Modesto, Calif.
North Montgomery County, Md.
Syracuse, N.Y.
Omaha, Neb.
Northern N.J.

The additional markets:

Albany, N.Y.
Albuquerque, N.M.
Allentown, Pa.
Birmingham, Ala.
Boise, Idaho
Charleston, S.C.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Columbia, S.C.
Columbus, Ohio
Denver-Boulder, Colo.
Detroit, Mich.
El Paso, Texas
Fayetteville, N.C.
Ft. Myers, Fla.
Gary, Ind.
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Green Bay, Wis.
Harrisburg, Pa.
Hartford, Conn.
Hawaii
Knoxville, Tenn.
Lancaster, Pa.
Little Rock, Ark.
Louisville, Ky.
Memphis, Tenn.
Milwaukee, Wis.
Nashua, N.H.
New Haven, Conn.
Philadelphia, Pa.
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Portland, Ore.
Providence, R.I.
Reading, Pa.
Rochester, N.Y.
Sacramento, Calif.
Salinas-Seaside-Monterey, Calif.
Seattle, Wash.
Springfield, Mass.
Toledo, Ohio
Tucson, Ariz.
Tulsa, Okla.
Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Wilmington, Del.
 
Those who are on AT&T, and are in a majority of cities that do not support LTE, are you upgrading to the LTE iPhone w/AT&T.

TBH, I am not sure that I will now.
 
Intell said:
AT&T's LTE network may not be as big as Verizon's, but it is faster and has a smaller ping time.
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Not so sure about that, I get 45 down and 20 to 30 up with pings in the 35 to 50. I think it depends where you are, to make a blanket statement is wrong.
 
At&t

I was just about to post on this topic. My wife and I plan on buying the new iphone neither of us has a smartphone. She has verizon and I AT&T both of our contracts are up. I want to stay with AT&T I live an hour outside of Philadelphia. I can't find out when LTE will be in my area. I am tempted to switch to VERIZON...any one know the LTE schedlue for Philadelphia area??
 
chakraj said:
Not so sure about that, I get 45 down and 20 to 30 up with pings in the 35 to 50. I think it depends where you are, to make a blanket statement is wrong.
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Let me rephrase it then, independent testing has shown AT&T's LTE network to have a smaller ping time and faster network speeds on average when compared to Verion's LTE network.
 
Spectrum Abuser said:
EDGE was a breakthrough data only network protocol. It allowed broadband like speeds on a GSM cellular connection. You're thinking of GPRS. That protocol provided dial-up speeds over the airwaves and is very unusable today.
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No I'm not. GPRS is completely useless these days but EDGE is just about only good for email. Try loading any "web 2.0" website on EDGE (even a mobile version). It will take minutes, if it loads at all.
 
DrakeMcEachern said:
AT&T still has parts of the country sitting in EDGE territory. I realize there are only a few areas, but it's 2012 and AT&T still hasn't completed a 3G rollout. Grant you, I don't live in a very rural area. I live in a city of 7,000 or so in northern Louisiana. Come on AT&T, all I want is 3G. Anyone else out there still stuck on E with their iPhone?
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What part of LA are you in because Shreveport is good I always see 4g on my iPhone and 3G on my iPad
 
physicsguy13 said:
That isn't really surprising since Verizon has more LTE devices on their network right now. My guess is that the AT&T speeds will be dropping around the 21st of September.
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That is a fallacy. The reason ATT's network is faster has nothing to do with how many people are on the 'network'. It all has to do with data throughput or 'backhaul'. How many lines they got going to the tower. Yes more people will bring down speeds, but there will be probably more on ATT since their LTE network is smaller, the higher the strain is on the towers. Less towers more strain it is on each tower, they have to do more work.

More LTE towers means less strain on each tower. Verizon has a advantage there. More LTE towers the less the strain on each tower. And the higher the speeds. The more LTE towers ATT puts the faster their speeds will be on each tower.

In NewYork two years ago, ATT 3G was not even usable. Not enough towers. They added more towers, now the speeds are decent.

You have it backwards my friend.

Since ATT has to have more backhaul for each tower due to the fact LTE, HSPA+, HSPA, and EDGE all run off the same tower. They each share the same main lines. More data avail to each. More avail the higher the throughput.

Verizon on the other hand has no lines going to the tower as big or as wide and hence their throughput is lower. Lower raw data going to the tower, the slower the speeds. Verizon has CDMA, and LTE on the same tower, but use different lines. They cannot take advantage of shared lines, because they are two different technologies.
 
DrakeMcEachern said:
AT&T still has parts of the country sitting in EDGE territory. I realize there are only a few areas, but it's 2012 and AT&T still hasn't completed a 3G rollout. Grant you, I don't live in a very rural area. I live in a city of 7,000 or so in northern Louisiana. Come on AT&T, all I want is 3G. Anyone else out there still stuck on E with their iPhone?
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Then switch to a carrier that has 3G in your area. It's not AT&T fault for you choosing to stay with them.
 
tigres said:
Those who are on AT&T, and are in a majority of cities that do not support LTE, are you upgrading to the LTE iPhone w/AT&T.

TBH, I am not sure that I will now.
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I'm upgrading because it's the iPhone 5 and not because of LTE. My AT&T 4S performs very well in my market to begin with, Philly metro area. I'm sure the iPhone 5 will perform just as well.

I've compared my AT&T 4S with side by side comparisons with VZW LTE devices and there isn't a significant difference 'to write home about'.

I would say those that have iPhones on VZW are wanting the LTE iPhone way more than AT&T iPhone users.
 
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"Those who are on AT&T, and are in a majority of cities that do not support LTE, are you upgrading to the LTE iPhone w/AT&T."

Nope..I'm going Verizon in spite of the fact that I dropped them years ago because of poor coverage in my area. In fact, their CS told me to go to ATT because they could not improve my connection and were tired of discussing it with me.

However, the lack of LTE from ATT, and not even an estimate of the planned service, says I must go. Why pay the same for a phone and service and get less? Doesn't make sense.

This new LTE iPhone is certain death for ATT unless they drop prices to compensate the unserviced.
 
ggmissmolly said:
"Those who are on AT&T, and are in a majority of cities that do not support LTE, are you upgrading to the LTE iPhone w/AT&T."

Nope..I'm going Verizon in spite of the fact that I dropped them years ago because of poor coverage in my area. In fact, their CS told me to go to ATT because they could not improve my connection and were tired of discussing it with me.

However, the lack of LTE from ATT, and not even an estimate of the planned service, says I must go. Why pay the same for a phone and service and get less? Doesn't make sense.

This new LTE iPhone is certain death for ATT unless they drop prices to compensate the unserviced.
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I disagree. The iPhone 4S on AT&T compared to VZW LTE devices holds up very well. In fact not a significant difference 'to write home about'.

Ok a VZW LTE device loads desk top version of NY Times a second or 2 faster than my 4S. Not something to 'write home about'.

Ok a VZW LTE device will load a you tube video or second or 2 faster than my AT&T iPhone 4S, big deal.

Of course you're region might be different. However in my region my AT&T iPhone 4S holds up well against real life side by side comparison to VZW LTE devices. Yes VZW is faster but not significantly faster like 'holy crap VZW LTE totally blows away my AT&T iPhone 4S'.

Speed tests to me don't really tell you anything. Side by side comparison shows real life experience like loading up desk top versions, streaming audio/ video, accessing email etc, Facebook which requires lot of data etc.

Look at the poll , AT&T leads the polls 'iPhone 5/which carrier'.
 
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mpossoff said:
I disagree. The iPhone 4S on AT&T compared to VZW LTE devices holds up very well. In fact not a significant difference 'to write home about'.

Ok a VZW LTE device loads desk top version of NY Times a second or 2 faster than my 4S. Not something to 'write home about'.

Ok a VZW LTE device will load a you tube video or second or 2 faster than my AT&T iPhone 4S, big deal.

Of course you're region might be different. However in my region my AT&T iPhone 4S holds up well against real life side by side comparison to VZW LTE devices. Yes VZW is faster but not significantly faster like 'holy crap VZW LTE totally blows away my AT&T iPhone 4S'.

Speed tests to me don't really tell you anything. Side by side comparison shows real life experience like loading up desk top versions, streaming audio/ video, accessing email etc, Facebook which requires lot of data etc.

Look at the poll , AT&T leads the polls 'iPhone 5/which carrier'.
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Same experience here. I was with Verizon and went to them for LTE and found out afterwards their coverage, prices, and speeds were terrible. AT&T. Has way higher LTE speeds and the 4g speeds were as fast as Verizon LTE speeds.

So Verizon let me out of my contract with no etf on all three lines and I went back to AT&T.

AT&T will get to your area soon. Just be patient. All edge towers are being upgraded to 3G/4g/LTE because they are shutting down edge eventually and need the spectrum.
 
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I'm pretty sure it's very well known at this point how AT&T's speed test superiority translates nothing to real life data loading speeds and reliability.

You'll find two 3G devices (iPhone 4S) and the Verizon will always respond quicker and download faster.

You'll find two 4G devices (iPad LTE) and the Verizon, again, wins out in a head to head loading speeds.

Not sure why the speed tests are discrepant.
 
I don't see why everyone has good luck with Verizon. I have more 3G on ATT than Verizon. I have been stuck on 1X for miles, and miles, and miles, in NC, where I have 3G on ATT.

ATT 3G is faster than Verizon also, in my opinion.

And Edge is way better than 1X...., so I would rather have those few Edge areas than a lot of 1X
 
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