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Lte Is underwelming in Chicago
- Thread starter SilentLoner
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There are pockets of crappiness throughout Chicago, but generally its great for me on at&t. I've been with them forever, and i know that there are certain spots they just refuse to fix for some reason.
West Rogers Park is just F'd up beyond repair. Unless you've got US cellular, dont plan on making any calls on ANY carrier.
Here in Norwood Park-ish, i get between 18 and 25 Mbps, and then about 30 late at night.
Everywhere i've been across the city and burbs that i have remembered to do a speed test, i haven't seen below 10 Mbps.
Except Rogers Park, but that place is excluded.
West Rogers Park is just F'd up beyond repair. Unless you've got US cellular, dont plan on making any calls on ANY carrier.
Here in Norwood Park-ish, i get between 18 and 25 Mbps, and then about 30 late at night.
Everywhere i've been across the city and burbs that i have remembered to do a speed test, i haven't seen below 10 Mbps.
Except Rogers Park, but that place is excluded.
Ive had signal in rogers park on verizon but man the speeds can be slow generally on LTE. I have seen an improvement over the last couple of weeks.
I work downtown and live in university village. With sprint and their working towers I get 12 dn 6-8 up. When I visit family in Darien I get better than that when on LTE. Plenty fast for me. I stream pandora about 4 hrs a day without a problem
Certain nooks are probably ok. And if you're talking about outdoors, then yes.
But specifically california and devon, go indoors with any carrier BUT uscellular, and its no mans land.
terrible! I can't tell you how many times i've argued with at&t, tmobile and verizon. I have my theories on why things are the way they are, but i can't talk about them here.
If you know the area, you can maybe understand the "forces" that i speak of that would want to block out the cellular signal from the area. lol
My last trip to Chicago back on 4th of July, my network was going fine.. and there were TONS of people down there for the firework show.
On Wifi....
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Man, I feel bad for you guys. Don't know why they wouldn't have more infrastructure in the large cities. Guess I should be thankful that they don't put all their resources into said areas.
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Great, Life is underwhelming, cell coverage sucks, and my wife is currently stuck in the airport...
Seems that all these activations of iPhone 5s have put a ton more people into the 4G spectrum here, causing gradual congestion.
http://9to5mac.com/2012/10/18/verizon-sold-3-1m-iphones-in-q3-21-were-iphone-5/
21% of all verizon iphone activations in Q3 were iPhone 5s, and that's with the phone only being out for the last 10 days of the quarter.
People are slowly but surely getting their iPhone 5s.
http://9to5mac.com/2012/10/18/verizon-sold-3-1m-iphones-in-q3-21-were-iphone-5/
21% of all verizon iphone activations in Q3 were iPhone 5s, and that's with the phone only being out for the last 10 days of the quarter.
People are slowly but surely getting their iPhone 5s.
Wife's parents are on the border of Aurora/Naperville and I was up there visiting a couple weeks ago. AT&T LTE was sitting between 15 and 18 mbps consistently.
LTE in Chicago has been hit and miss for me. In the western burbs, particularly in AM and evenings, its better than my home connectivity (easily 25 down/3-4 up religiously). Along the UP-West Metra line, I'm lucky to not shift into Edge territory during much of the route. Downtown, totally hit and miss.
Most of the other areas of the country I frequent often (Dalls, Houston, Austin, New Mexico/Arizona, Denver, Ohio, Florida, etc.) I get more reliable LTE speeds. So ultimately....think its congestion on the towers.
Still far better than what I had from AT&T for past 5 years. At least I never drop voice calls now, whereas I used to drop calls 50%+ of the time. I'm still one of those guys that talks more than surfs so voice quality is more important to me than speed consistency.
Most of the other areas of the country I frequent often (Dalls, Houston, Austin, New Mexico/Arizona, Denver, Ohio, Florida, etc.) I get more reliable LTE speeds. So ultimately....think its congestion on the towers.
Still far better than what I had from AT&T for past 5 years. At least I never drop voice calls now, whereas I used to drop calls 50%+ of the time. I'm still one of those guys that talks more than surfs so voice quality is more important to me than speed consistency.
But calls don't use the LTE network. Are the 3G networks less congested now that data is routing through AT&T's single LTE channel? BTW, that's probably the real reason LTE speeds are sketchy. AT&T has half the spectrum of Verizon.
In Manhattan, I range from about 5-10Mbps in Midtown during the day to as high as 40Mbps in the Upper West Side during the evening. I do a fair amount of travel and somewhere in the range of 10-15Mbps is normal.
Am in the western 'burbs, Plainfield-ish area. Typically in my house I can get 30 down and 10 up. One test I did I got 41 down and 12 up. Amazing. Way better than my home wi-fi.
I work a little closer to the city in the south/southwest suburbs, and at my desk I've got 3-4 bars of LTE but am getting just 3 down and 2 up. My desk/office is located in a notoriously bad "dead zone" for all cell phones, so I'm glad I get something.
Most places I visit in the 'burbs speeds are terrific for LTE on AT&T. At my house, I couldn't get more than 1 bar of Verizon so have stuck with AT&T.
Every time I go downtown (Chicago) though, it's awful. Concerts, NFL games, NHL games, or even walking the Magnificent Mile...can get 4-5 bars of signal, but am lucky to get even a text message thru. Curse of the big city. I'm anxious to try out LTE downtown. Doesn't sound promising though.
I work a little closer to the city in the south/southwest suburbs, and at my desk I've got 3-4 bars of LTE but am getting just 3 down and 2 up. My desk/office is located in a notoriously bad "dead zone" for all cell phones, so I'm glad I get something.
Most places I visit in the 'burbs speeds are terrific for LTE on AT&T. At my house, I couldn't get more than 1 bar of Verizon so have stuck with AT&T.
Every time I go downtown (Chicago) though, it's awful. Concerts, NFL games, NHL games, or even walking the Magnificent Mile...can get 4-5 bars of signal, but am lucky to get even a text message thru. Curse of the big city. I'm anxious to try out LTE downtown. Doesn't sound promising though.
You are right, calls today don't use the LTE network. And while I suppose you could be right that congestion has lessened on the 3G side of the fence, my understanding from AT&T reports was always that the reason my voice calls dropped so frequently had far more to do with the inelegant way AT&T had implemented switching/call handoffs between towers, and not so much to do with congestion in the first place. In fact there's another thread on this subject saying basically the same thing.
I'm no RF engineer, so only have a users perspective. And that is, I get great voice quality and dependable (if not always consistent speeds) LTE coverage with Verizon than I ever had with AT&T.
Great to see lakeview mentioned. I live there. Specifically Sheridan/Belmont. I get 15mb peak times 25-30 off peak.
The loop is always congested but at least I can always make and recieve calls and the speed is still "fast" it's just not wow faster than home network fast
The loop is always congested but at least I can always make and recieve calls and the speed is still "fast" it's just not wow faster than home network fast