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AT&T LTE in CHICAGO: BEWARE!!!

M

MattMJB0188

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 28, 2009
2,032
583
Not sure if too many people are aware of the fact that AT&T only gave the Windy City 10 mhz of spectrum, while many other markets received 20 mhz. This means that theoretical download speeds are not that of 100 mbps. They are much slower. With a Galaxy Note, I received download speeds of 15mbps down in a suburb or Chicago. Speeds in the city itself will be much less. Best I could get was 24mbps in a very low populated area.

Anyone have any info if AT&T plans to up the spectrum in the Chicago land area with the iPhone 5 launch?
 
i don't think anyone has ever reached anything close to 100 mb/s. the best i've seen have been in the 50s, so i'm sure chicago is fine.
 
What he means is AT&T LTE speed in Chicago with the network getting hammered in new LTE iPhone users. U may not get the 20-25 mpbs u would normally see.

Usually LTE speeds means a guarantee of over 5-12 mpbs even in congested areas.

Verizon has more spectrum so can handle increased congestion on their LTE towers.

So as more users get on LTE. Verizon can still support reasonable LTE speeds. Whereas AT&T LTE towers may not.
 
MR1324 said:
i don't think anyone has ever reached anything close to 100 mb/s. the best i've seen have been in the 50s, so i'm sure chicago is fine.
Click to expand...

Many people are able to hit above 50Mbps down in markets with 20Mhz. You are right that no one will hit 100Mbps, or even 90, but with 10Mhz theoretical speeds are much lower.

Many people in Dallas can pull 60Mbps down. That's not the case in the Chicago land area.
 
i believe i am in a 20mhz market (sf bay area). the best i've seen is 30 mb/s due to all of the traffic. i assume in any dense area, it will be like this.
 
MattMJB0188 said:
Many people are able to hit above 50Mbps down in markets with 20Mhz. You are right that no one will hit 100Mbps, or even 90, but with 10Mhz theoretical speeds are much lower.

Many people in Dallas can pull 60Mbps down. That's not the case in the Chicago land area.
Click to expand...

I'm located in a southwest Chicago suburb myself. What suburb are you located in, exactly? I'm from Naperville/Plainfield area, and am wondering how this will affect me.
 
zbarvian said:
I'm located in a southwest Chicago suburb myself. What suburb are you located in, exactly? I'm from Naperville/Plainfield area, and am wondering how this will affect me.
Click to expand...

I'm in Northwest, Indiana and there is no AT&T LTE here yet, but I was referring to areas like, Chicago Heights, Sauk Village, Homewood, IL. With my Galaxy Note I was pulling about 10-15mbps. That's not bad, but when others are pulling 60 down, that's horrible.
 
I'm doing some research on this topic now. I live in the south suburbs of Chicago... 30 minutes away max- 5-7 minutes near the border of Indiana.

I'll update this post when I find out anything, if I can find out anything.. at this point, the agents are not aware of the MHz in Chicago or anywhere else for that matter.

m
 
LePigeonBleu said:
I'm doing some research on this topic now. I live in the south suburbs of Chicago... 30 minutes away max.

I'll update this post when I find out anything, if I can find out anything.. at this point, the agents are not aware of the MHz in Chicago or anywhere else for that matter.

m
Click to expand...

Its just a weak LTE market. AT&T won't give you any answers. What we need are people to post their LTE speeds. Then compare those on average with cities who have 20Mhz of spectrum.
 
This explains it.

http://gigaom.com/mobile/atts-chicago-problem-why-lte-slows-down-in-the-windy-city/

chicago-datagraph-0512-1024x697.jpeg
 
They're not screwing over their customers, they just don't have the spectrum. It was why they wanted to buy T-Mobile...they wanted their spectrum.
 
MattMJB0188 said:
Its just a weak LTE market. AT&T won't give you any answers. What we need are people to post their LTE speeds. Then compare those on average with cities who have 20Mhz of spectrum.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're right. AT&T is full of it.

Here's the main portion of my chat:

Allison: The only information we have is AT&T is using 700MHz and AWS (1700 and 2100) frequencies for LTE deployment. The Width of the MHz is not something that we provide due to proprietary and security information. You can however contact our developer page and they can get you that information after running a form. www.developer.att.com and what they can do is contact you and get you that information.

EDIT: Link should be http://developer.att.com

So, I'm going to try to do more research and see when it will be upgraded. Granted, LTE stand for Long Term Evolution, so maybe AT&T is taking advantage of the "Long Term" part. :D

m
 
Last edited:
miami also only got 10 . the highest ive ever been able to do on my LTE ipad is 19mb down. im really not looking foward to all these new iphone 5s with LTE
 
ljx718 said:
miami also only got 10 . the highest ive ever been able to do on my LTE ipad is 19mb down. im really not looking foward to all these new iphone 5s with LTE
Click to expand...

Kinda like AT&T saying, HAHAHA this is how we'll get even since you all didn't want us to buy T-Mobile.

They should give each city the same amount of spectrum or wait until they have 20mhz, not skimp with 10.
 
CDutch said:
They're not screwing over their customers, they just don't have the spectrum. It was why they wanted to buy T-Mobile...they wanted their spectrum.
Click to expand...

Partly - they are not using all of their AWS spectrum they have. AT&T could easily use it to supplement areas where they have less 700.
 
LePigeonBleu said:
where did you find this out?


EDIT: I googled and saw articles relating to the 10 mhz, but how accurate are they is my question.
Click to expand...

It's accurate and common knowledge. Besides Chicago, Charlotte, Los Angeles and Raleigh are all markets in which AT&T has 10Mhz for LTE:
348163-spectrum-att-10mhz.jpg


The chart is from PC Magazine.

A market with 20Mhz is going to be potentially faster than 10Mhz but in the real world, it also depends on a lot of other factors like number of users. PC Magazine's own testing showed that AT&T LTE download in Chicago actually exceeded on average Verizon's LTE with 20Mhz (Verizon has 20Mhz bandwidth in the entire country). They don't speculate why but presumably AT&T LTE has a lot less users in Chicago than Verizon's. Is this going to hold true for the future? I wouldn't use one person's speed results to cast judgment on an entire market but I do wonder what's going to happen when an AT&T LTE 10Mhz market gets flooded with iPhone 5 LTE users. It may be fine but it could get ugly.

Here's the entire PC Magazine speed test from June 2012 covering many cities:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405596,00.asp
 
from the author of the gigaom article.

They do have 12 MHz but they have to deploy it as 5×5 MHz carrier. Verizon’s in the same boat. It has 22 MHz in the upper C-block, but uses its as 10×10. As for the Qualcomm spectrum, AT&T has to wait until carrier aggregation is on the LTE menu before it can start adding that capacity to its network.
 
Living in Northern McHenry Co. I hope I get a slice of the LTE pie. Although, wherever I travel in the chicagoland area has LTE, so I'll be alright. I just hope I'm not left in middle as I'm not close enough to get it. Although, that being said, family members 5 minutes away have LTE.
 
LePigeonBleu said:
Yeah, you're right. AT&T is full of it.

Here's the main portion of my chat:

Allison: The only information we have is AT&T is using 700MHz and AWS (1700 and 2100) frequencies for LTE deployment. The Width of the MHz is not something that we provide due to proprietary and security information. You can however contact our developer page and they can get you that information after running a form. www.developer.att.com and what they can do is contact you and get you that information.

EDIT: Link should be http://developer.att.com

So, I'm going to try to do more research and see when it will be upgraded. Granted, LTE stand for Long Term Evolution, so maybe AT&T is taking advantage of the "Long Term" part. :D

m
Click to expand...

*********. You can look it up on the FCC's website if you really want to know. Chicago has a crapton of AT&T users, and IIRC, they started with a single 5x5 for LTE, but Chicago is the first market that was running on both AWS and 700. Most AT&T markets nationwide don't have AWS live yet, they are starting with a single 700 deployment.

The OP is ridiculous, as he's expecting to get 50mbps. Looking long term, the total spectrum is all that matters, as the networks will be loaded down, and overall capacity matters over top speed, i.e. 3 5x5s will be better than a 10x10.
 
BiggAW said:
*********. You can look it up on the FCC's website if you really want to know. Chicago has a crapton of AT&T users, and IIRC, they started with a single 5x5 for LTE, but Chicago is the first market that was running on both AWS and 700. Most AT&T markets nationwide don't have AWS live yet, they are starting with a single 700 deployment.

The OP is ridiculous, as he's expecting to get 50mbps. Looking long term, the total spectrum is all that matters, as the networks will be loaded down, and overall capacity matters over top speed, i.e. 3 5x5s will be better than a 10x10.
Click to expand...

NO the OP is not ridiculous. I was not expecting to get 50 down in the city. No one will achieve that unless maybe its 3 in the morning. However, in the burbs where there is less population one could easily pull that if the spectrum allowed it.

With 10mhz those of us in burbs will average around 20mbps down when those in 20mhz will probably pull 40-50 down in their suburbs.
 
ixodes said:
If you say so. I'd be smart enough to use Verizon as I do now.
Click to expand...

Never. I wouldn't want to get raped by their prices. Not to mention, an individual line HAS TO be on a mobile share plan. That's just stupid.

Oh and better yet, when not in a 4G LTE area, one only gets the very slow EV-DO. At least with AT&T i can pull 5-6 mbps down on their 3G (HSPA)
 
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