iPad My AT&T speed tests, are they normal?

[ron7624]

It's Sunday afternoon, got a few minutes to kill, so I thought I'd run the Ookla Speed Test on my iPads. The results are not clear to me. (HELP)
Using my iPad 3 and my iPad rMini I got very similar results in the wifi area, but the data area was surprising to me.

Ipad 3 ip::home wifi 70.139.xx.xxx Ping 44ms dl speed 6.69 Mbps upload speed 1.41Mbps
Ipad 3 ip::data Ping 37ms dl speed 2.46 Mbps upload speed 1.11Mbps

Ipad rMini ip::home wifi 70.139.4xx.xxx Ping 41ms dl speed 7.61 Mbps upload speed 1.43Mbps
Ipad rMini data Ping 57ms dl speed 27.72 Mbps upload speed 11.37Mbps

Speeds with data turned off and using my home wifi only were pretty much the same for both devices, but it appears the iPad rMini blew everything else out of the water, and the iPad 3 was sluggish at best using the free TMo sim. Also, I ran the test on my middle of the road Dell desktop and got the same results wired that I got on the iPads connecting wirelesly to the ATT network. Here is that result:

Home desktop ip:70.139.xx.xxx Ping 86ms dl speed 7.02 Mbps upload speed 1.42Mbps

--btw, my ATT internet connection is the slowest they sell.
Can any of you folks tell me if this looks normal... and if so, why doesn't Apple allow large downloads from iTunes using data, if I'm reading this right, my Mini is smokin...

 

[mellofello]

I assume your iPad 3 can't take advantage of whatever band of lte your provider uses. Until I recenty got fiber my lte was 4x faster then my home connection.

 

[ron7624]

I assume your iPad 3 can't take advantage of whatever band of lte your provider uses. Until I recenty got fiber my lte was 4x faster then my home connection.

I live in the Houston area. No fiber yet, the the iPad 3 doesn't have LTE cability. Even with the ATT sim in it, it's still a slug when using data only. But I only use it on my home wifi network anyway, and it performs just well as the others there. My question is about the wifi speeds mainly. Are they slower than average because my provider has me throttled down?

 

[mellofello]

With wifi and speed tests there are many variables. I even see many fluctuations on my hard wired imac. One moment i will get 50mbps, then the next I will get 45mbps. I would say 1mbps is within the margin of error.

Also quite possible that the newer ipad has a better wifi chipset. I remember back when I had a 3 that I was never blown away by it's wifi performance.

If you want to see bad wifi try a note 3. Best speed over wifi has been 30mbps, while the ipad air I'm typing on will pull down 40 or so mbps.

 

[alent1234]

your home wifi is in the same room

your cellular data will depend on where the tower is, how far away, the weather, geography, buildings in the area, the amount of users on that tower at the time you are testing, etc

 

[swordfish5736]

I live in the Houston area. No fiber yet, the the iPad 3 doesn't have LTE cability. Even with the ATT sim in it, it's still a slug when using data only. But I only use it on my home wifi network anyway, and it performs just well as the others there. My question is about the wifi speeds mainly. Are they slower than average because my provider has me throttled down?

the iPad 3 does have LTE, however it only supports bands for ATT and Verizon LTE not Tmobiles. The speed test you are running on the iPad over cellular is most likely 3g only not LTE, with a t-mobile sim card.

Your data plan is much more expensive than your home internet. Most ISP's will either not limit your usage monthly or cap you well above 100gb(or more, i believe my ISP gives me 450gb). With your cell service ATT just made it reasonable to get 10gb to share between all your device's.

If apple let you use cellular for large downloads you'd be asking why they let you burn thru your data plan in a few hours