while you are correct in stating that signal bars do not mean speed of access, you will never get full capabilities with a low signal. It seems that iOS has updated signal to also take into account low SNR, since i've seen anywhere from 2-4 bars with signals reading -85. It has become less of a signal strength meter, and more of a signal quality meter (which i'm also noticing I spend a lot less time at full signal now than I did before), thus being a good indicator of a quality problem.
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Carrier AT&T LTE network so slow compared HSPA+.
- Thread starter BlueMoonForever
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while you are correct in stating that signal bars do not mean speed of access, you will never get full capabilities with a low signal. It seems that iOS has updated signal to also take into account low SNR, since i've seen anywhere from 2-4 bars with signals reading -85. It has become less of a signal strength meter, and more of a signal quality meter (which i'm also noticing I spend a lot less time at full signal now than I did before), thus being a good indicator of a quality problem.
My iPhone 5 with iOS 6 gets a much better signal than my iPhone 6 running 8.1.3. I also noticed it hangs onto LTE in areas where my mom's iPhone 5S is on 4G.
yep, I can't pinpoint exactly when the change to the signal meter happened, but I'm thinking it's sometime during the iOS 8 updates it started taking into account signal quality also. I experienced the same thing with iOS6, and i'm pretty sure iOS 7 showing very good signal, when the SNR was actually low. The way it's done now IMO is much better.
I used to... retired now. I can tell by your comments that you don't, and never have.
So, the complexity of taking my money, and providing sub-par service is less important than purchasing more spectrum that they can't use for the next 5 years? Charging me a premium amount for a premium service should provide premium results.
I don't care what kind of complexities they are dealing with, when it's been over a year since I've had even Cricket level of speeds, they obviously don't care about their customer base. At this point, I would jump up and down for joy to see 5/2 all day long across this city, and many others I travel to on a regular basis. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon.
Also, based on my speed tests normally providing good pings, I'm going to assume it's the lack of backhaul that's causing my issues, not tower overload. That is something that can be fixed relatively easy, and in a hell of a lot less time than a year.
This isn't a true Apples to Apples comparison though. It would be closer if both were running the same baseband. There are radio differences that could be contributing to this as well.
I can't go into a ton of details, but I can tell you this definitively when it comes to the carriers.
Regional issues could very well be because of regional politics. It's well established that AT&T had many many issues adding more towers San Francisco due to the aesthetics of the devices.
An additional issue is situational surges. Major malls in a metroplex area will have a surge in people leading to over saturated towers. While the signal strength may maintain the backhaul may not be provisioned enough to cover it. Depending on the cell site adding additional capacity could be as simple as turning a dial on a tower to provision the backhaul. If the mix of users on that tower is diverse enough it can lead to congestion no matter what.
Adding additional backhaul is always a great solution. But this is all a weighted variable equation.
Good network performance is a matter of signal strength, number of people on a tower, and backhaul. Theres variances with things like whether it's LTE or HSPA+ or heck even WiMax. Then theres spectrum which can play a notable difference in highly populated areas.
Signal Strength, People, Backhaul. Everything else will contribute more towards latency then bit to the device (generally speaking)
No political issues here, Verizon and Sprint both have much better coverage. It's not like this is a situation where AT&T needs more towers, and can't get them added. They need more carriers and/or backhaul, it's as simple as that.
Evansville is a 5x5 Band 17 market, and a few 5x5 Band 4 cells out there. While we don't have the capacity of other markets (and i'm still unsure of why they haven't started using Bands 2 and 5 here), ping times would seem to indicate that capacity is not the issue.
Also, this is not just "at the mall", this is everywhere around town. As I've posted before, I live 10 miles north of town, in a very suburban area with little population density, and still can't break 5mb even after midnight. Drive another 5 miles north, same population density, but a tower with better backhaul (due to being closer to the interstate), and 25+ is easily obtainable, even on the same 5x5 Band 17 spectrum.
STL, Indy, and Louisville are all 10x10 Band 17 markets, and all have the same experience. We have a couple of Band 2 and Band 5 markets close, both 5x5, and they also have the same slow speeds. This is simply AT&T not wanting to pay for additional capacity in these markets, while leaving the good speeds to the heavier populated markets.
Sprint and VZW are both capable of 30+ in this market, with VZW holding 20+ everywhere around town I've been...
Have you thought about switching carriers?
I personally love Verizon. I dropped AT&T because in NYC, Orlando, LA, and Las Vegas if you are indoors and look at a wall I dropped calls and couldn't check email.
I have thought about it...very hard right now really. The biggest reason I've stuck with AT&T is the lack of dropped calls. My wife is a real estate agent, and there are times when both Sprint and VZW would drop calls for her as she traveled, but with AT&T, she has never dropped a single call, and I have only once in the last year.
Not to mention, the voice quality is MUCH better in this market with AT&T than it was with Verizon. Sprint had great voice quality also, but she has come to rely upon simultaneous voice & data now that she has it to check on listings while she's on the phone. With Verizon, she could do that with an iPhone 6, but Sprint has no option for both simultaneously until they switch to VoLTE.
Unfortunately, i'm kind of stuck with a hard decision. Do we pay a little more for a little less data, and a good possibility of more dropped calls, or do we pay half of what we are now, get better data coverage, what i'm told is much better call service, but lose simultaneous voice/data.
I'm surprised to hear that you have issues with AT&T in Orlando. We visit there quite frequently, and my experience was the exact opposite, since VZW has no cellular 800 coverage anywhere in Central FL. LTE seemed to work ok, anywhere around the Mall at Millenia or I-Dr was slow, but voice coverage was almost non existent indoors. Our condo is about 2 miles from Millenia, and we couldn't hold a phone conversation inside for anything. With AT&T, we get excellent voice coverage, and data is acceptable. But...it has been a few months since we have been down, things might have changed by now.
I did notice that Ft. Walton Beach and Destin do not have LTE coverage at all with AT&T, but even T-Mo had it!
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Well, that explains a lot. Obviously you're quite out of touch with the current situation. Otherwise you wouldn't make blanket statements like claiming that the bottleneck was "100% the backhaul". That's simply not true. All operators in the US are spectrum starved in many locations. That's why adding additional spectrum (including unlicensed spectrum) is such a priority for 5G, and why small cells are a big topic in the industry.
It's really quite simple to understand: All users in a cell share the same spectrum. If there are too many users, the only solutions are to either acquire additional spectrum (which is a rare commodity), or to reduce the size of the cells (which obviously requires more base stations if you want to cover the same area). The backhaul has generally kept up quite well with the increase in bandwidth (in metro areas it's usually transported over fiber and/or microwave, which can handle high bandwidth).
I have no idea what you are trying to say with this sentence.
The fact is that without the enormous increases in bandwidth that the evil operators have achieved in the last few years, none of the mobile appications that you and I enjoy and that companies like Apple and Google handsomely profit from would be possible. All of this costs huge amounts of money and engineering efforts. Most people have no idea how complex modern mobile networks really are. The operators have far lower profit margins than, say, Apple and many of the big OTT Internet companies. And yet, people happily pay inflated prices for Apple devices while at the same time doing nothing but complaining about the operators. I realize providing wireless service is not "cool", but IMO it is really remarkable how rapidly mobile networks have advanced in just a few years. If you compare it to the situation, say, 5-10 years ago, it is quite breathtaking, and the next generation, which will bring another round of big advances, is already in the works ...
If you have an iPhone 5, that means the only 2 at&t LTE band that that phone can operate on is band 17 or 4. Most markets have 17, and only a very few places have band 4. at&t now operates on more bands and you do need a newer phone to handle those new at&t bands. The iPhone 5S supports bands 2, 4, 5, 17. Band 2 is pretty much ubiquitously deployed on the at&t network in densely populated areas such as cities and suburbs. Less people are on band 2 and thus you should be able to get much faster speeds on a band 2 enabled device. In addition, carrier profiles on the iPhone are set to search for band 2/4 first and hang on to it until it reaches 2 bars then it drops down to band 17. With the iPhone 6, it has carrier aggregation that allows the phone to combine a low band with a high band such as band 17 paired with 2 to allow you to have a combined 20Mhz of downlink bandwidth to gain faster speeds.
The iPhone 6 also has band band support for future at&t LTE band 29 which is downlink only configured as 5Mhz nationwide or 10Mhz in LA,SF, NY metro areas. and this paired with with either band 2 or 4 will allow another 15-20Mhz of combined bandwidth.
At&t also has plans to deploy their WCS spectrum as band 30 LTE soon. A couple of the android devices already have band 30 and this will provide a 10x10 supplemental network. This band should most likely be available iPhone 6S. This band can also be paired with another band for more bandwidth. At&t actually just started building out their band 30 network this year and should be starting to come online later this year in major markets with capacity issues.
And looking even deeper into the future, at&t recently acquired 10x10 Mhz of AWS-3 spectrum in most markets nationwide. This spectrum still needs to be handed off to at&t and at&t will need to test this before deployment. This band should be available on the iPhone 7 in 2016.
So there you have it, at&t has a lot of spectrum that will be deployed soon and your speeds should increase as the network is upgraded. Here is a list of the amount of spectrum each carrier has deployed on LTE in the the downlink direction in major markets(more spectrum = more speed)
at&t: ~20Mhz
Verizon: 30Mhz
Sprint: 10Mhz (30Mhz in spark areas)
T-Mobile: 15-20Mhz
The iPhone 6 also has band band support for future at&t LTE band 29 which is downlink only configured as 5Mhz nationwide or 10Mhz in LA,SF, NY metro areas. and this paired with with either band 2 or 4 will allow another 15-20Mhz of combined bandwidth.
At&t also has plans to deploy their WCS spectrum as band 30 LTE soon. A couple of the android devices already have band 30 and this will provide a 10x10 supplemental network. This band should most likely be available iPhone 6S. This band can also be paired with another band for more bandwidth. At&t actually just started building out their band 30 network this year and should be starting to come online later this year in major markets with capacity issues.
And looking even deeper into the future, at&t recently acquired 10x10 Mhz of AWS-3 spectrum in most markets nationwide. This spectrum still needs to be handed off to at&t and at&t will need to test this before deployment. This band should be available on the iPhone 7 in 2016.
So there you have it, at&t has a lot of spectrum that will be deployed soon and your speeds should increase as the network is upgraded. Here is a list of the amount of spectrum each carrier has deployed on LTE in the the downlink direction in major markets(more spectrum = more speed)
at&t: ~20Mhz
Verizon: 30Mhz
Sprint: 10Mhz (30Mhz in spark areas)
T-Mobile: 15-20Mhz
I'm currently using an iPhone 6, and have seen plenty of Band 2 and 5 in other markets, but not here. We have 5mhz 17 and 5mhz 4. Sprint has 5mhz 25 and 5mhz 26, with 20mhz 41 starting to pop up on some towers. VZW has 10mhz 13 and 10mhz 4. T-Mo is a joke around here.
With that said, AT&T = Sprint here. Except for the fact that Sprint is actively working to upgrade their service. AT&T, not so much.
It's pretty simple, they sell themselves as a premium carrier, charge each user a premium price for premium coverage, yet offer subpar speeds in quite a few of their markets. They have 4 different LTE bands they are attempting to use across the country, 2 more they are talking about deploying, and spending a ton of the money we all give them every month to buy another that they won't be able to use for quite some time.
What they should be doing, is fixing the network they have right now. Fix backhaul issues, add more density in metro areas, and support the users they have now, instead of trying to plan for the future that could change before they get there.
The vast majority tend to agree that AT&T voice is better than VZW voice, but the opposite can be said for the data network. VZW has released a fix for their voice network with VoLTE (which AT&T also has, but has half-ass deployed), when will AT&T work on a fix for their data network?
I haven't been to Orlando since the last part of 2012 so it may have improved.
Dallas is AT&T Wireless headquarters. There's large swaths of high way that I prepare to redial someone because I know the signal will drop. I don't know of many in Dallas that don't deal daily with At&ts dropped calls.
Verizon has been incredibly solid for us. In our family plan we have 3 iPhones (iPhone 5c, 2 iPhone 6) and 3 iPads (1 iPad Mini 2, 1 iPad Mini 3, 1 iPad Air 2) and I'd go as far as to say that we don't get dropped calls at all. Doesn't seem to matter on it its separated in the Bahamas, trying to meet her family for last minute dinner or whatever else. We've been beyond happy with Verizon.
If it helps Verizon supports Volte now on the 6, and it works great.
I have hounded AT&T for months on this issue over twitter. I've compared their speeds with that of T-Mobile and Verizon and AT&T is no longer the fastest or even close. They told me that LTE for them means between 5-12mbps down. That's terrible. I used to live in Dallas. It's a great city btw!!!
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At least they tell you to send them an email, where another customer service idiot that has no clue what's going on tells you they will look into it. Then, they reply back with "we are working on it".
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From day one roll out in my area, some of the best spots have leveled off. But, some that were lower are now a lot better. Not sure if they changed things to even it out. My LTE on ATT much better on iPhone then my S4.
I usually average 10-25mbps. Surprisingly my worst area is the lower right corner of inside my house. But, I am in a valley, so to speak.
And coverage for me way better then TMO here and all the way back to SE PA.
YMMV
I usually average 10-25mbps. Surprisingly my worst area is the lower right corner of inside my house. But, I am in a valley, so to speak.
And coverage for me way better then TMO here and all the way back to SE PA.
YMMV
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In Boston Att is fine, they just launched LTE2 in addition to LTE17. Coverage and speed get better. T-mo is also strong in Boston netro area. I like that a lit of people like Mr. Legere's company and run there. The more people switch, the faster and may be cheapet service I have
Att vs Vzw: Vzw has a lot of dead spots in north MA. For example Glouceter, MA. I think Att is a bit better here.
T-mo doesn't work for me since if is dead in NH and north MA. Under "dead" I mean spotty coverage. Very bad coverage on Cape Cod.
I agree that Att is very slow with volte and no vowifi. Also they were very slow in NYC, I heard it is better now.
I had no problem in Orlando at all, parks coverage even getting better.
Att vs Vzw: Vzw has a lot of dead spots in north MA. For example Glouceter, MA. I think Att is a bit better here.
T-mo doesn't work for me since if is dead in NH and north MA. Under "dead" I mean spotty coverage. Very bad coverage on Cape Cod.
I agree that Att is very slow with volte and no vowifi. Also they were very slow in NYC, I heard it is better now.
I had no problem in Orlando at all, parks coverage even getting better.
Looks like a lack of capacity on AT&T. In many large markets their LTE network has slowed down quite a bit as they've been unable to keep up with the usage on their network, often falling behind VZW and TMO. The AWS they recently won should help about 3 years from now.
FWIW AT&T has an app "mark the spot" that you can report slow data drop calls etc... I imagine if enough people report in the worst areas they will eventually respond. If you're paying attention to the news AT&T is paying billions in spectrum auctions which will translate into better speeds down the line.