Realist LTE 4G download speed

[Dmaynard83]

What is a realistic LTE 4g download speed we will expect on the i5?

I live in Los Angeles and 3g speeds fluctuate from 180kb/s to 30-50kb/s.

I know what i5 is capable of, but what is the speed we should expect?

 

[physicsguy13]

In OC I get between 8 and 15 Mb/s on my Verizon LTE iPad.

 

[KenAFSPC]

In OC I get between 8 and 15 Mb/s on my Verizon LTE iPad.

I get 35-55mbps with my iPad3 on AT&T, depending on the time of day. Of course, throughput will almost certainly fall once the masses start activating the iPhone5.

In contrast, I get 2-3Mbps from the same location on my iPhone 4S.

 

[SeberrY]

Well, like all wireless networks, LTE speed is partially dictated by how many people are using it. Right now I get about 20mbps down on my Verizon LTE iPad, but I expect with the surge of iPhone 5s these networks will begin to feel the weight.

 

[Dmaynard83]

I'm not talking about speedtest.net

I want to know the realistic download speed you will be getting when you download apps, browsing safari, viewing youtube. I highly doubt you will be getting 30mb/s. More likely 1-2mb/s (at best).

 

[NM08SRT8]

I'm not talking about speedtest.net

I want to know the realistic download speed you will be getting when you download apps, browsing safari, viewing youtube. I highly doubt you will be getting 30mb/s. More likely 1-2mb/s (at best).

But that's what that app does, it measures the speed it takes to download the specific sized file to compose the test...

 

[GoreVidal]

I'm not talking about speedtest.net

I want to know the realistic download speed you will be getting when you download apps, browsing safari, viewing youtube. I highly doubt you will be getting 30mb/s. More likely 1-2mb/s (at best).

And how exactly do you expect people to measure that? You do understand how the internet works correct? It depends not only on how fast you can get data, but how fast the source can send it. So it's going to be all over the place.

 

[NM08SRT8]

Here.. Took this for another thread...

 

[physicsguy13]

From my home in N. VA (few miles from DC), I get 35-55mbps with my iPad3 on AT&T, depending on the time of day. Of course, throughput will almost certainly fall once the masses start activating the iPhone5.

In contrast, I get 2-3Mbps from the same location on my iPhone 4S.

There is no doubt that AT&T LTE is fast but I doubt it would be that fast in the LA area. I could be wrong though.

----------

I'm not talking about speedtest.net

I want to know the realistic download speed you will be getting when you download apps, browsing safari, viewing youtube. I highly doubt you will be getting 30mb/s. More likely 1-2mb/s (at best).

I have no buffering issues on Verizon LTE but I cannot say the same about the ATT 4G on my 4S. LA is also not uniform so it would help if you were a little more specific about what area you are in.

 

[Dmaynard83]

And how exactly do you expect people to measure that? You do understand how the internet works correct? It depends not only on how fast you can get data, but how fast the source can send it. So it's going to be all over the place.

It's not exactly reliable in giving an accurate download speed when you are browsing/downloading on average.

For example I get roughly 15mb/s using speedtest on wifi, but I realistically never get 15mb/s (more like 1mb/s) when downloading off of installous, appstore or anything else. Same goes when using a laptop/desktop.

 

[Fernandez21]

here in the Tampa area I get 20-35mb/s on my one x on at&t. I figure I will get similar speeds with the iPhone 5, though it may slow down with the number of people joining LTE soon.

 

[NM08SRT8]

It also depends on the servers you are getting the data from.. If they have a fast or slow connection, network traffic, etc..

 

[Dmaynard83]

It also depends on the servers you are getting the data from.. If they have a fast or slow connection, network traffic, etc..

Yes I understand all that.

But on average what download speed are people getting when browsing/downloading appstore/viewing youtube. If your using speedtest I think dividing the download number by 16 seems to hold true in giving an accurate download speed number.

 

[moobsies]

When I download a large file on LTE (Verizon) I get between 2MB/s and 3.5MB/s transfer rate, through it will momentarily go above or drop below those rates.

1 byte = 8 bits so:
2MB/s equals about 16mbps and 3.5MB/s equals about 28mbps

If I test my connection on speedtest.net guess what? It shows between 16mbps and 28mbps, sometimes spikes to 30mbps. I've always found speedtest.net to be accurate and correspond well to real world tests.

Now if we're talking simply browsing, most people probably couldn't tell the difference between 50mb/s and 1000mb/s (assuming latency is similar) because most websites just don't need that kind of speed to load. Does that mean the 1gb/s connection is any less worthy? No.

On my Mac, using my home 50mbps connection, I cleared cache and loaded news.bbc.co.uk. iStat tells me it spiked at 350KB/s when loading. That's a whopping 2.8mbps. Does that mean my 50mbps connection is really only 2.8mbps realistically? Certainly not.

On my home connection I let a 1080p YouTube video load and iStat shows numbers all over the place, from 400KB/s to 3.6MB/s. But if I download a large file with a download manager, it stays at a rock solid 6.8MB/s, or just above 50mbps.

So to answer your question, the realistic speed you can expect will vary based on what you're doing. Watching YouTube, downloading a large file, loading a simple website, downloading an app, or loading a website filled with 50 megabytes of pictures will all yield varying speeds because of many different factors. Speed all depends on what you're doing with your connection, and how the other end and everything in between performs as well. So I can't give any realistic figures, but to find out what your connection is capable of, speedtest.net will work just fine.