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Study Finds AT&T and Verizon Have Slower LTE Speeds After Launching Unlimited Data Plans

The Cappy said:
So 2 were faster and 2 were slower and the headline naturally ignores the 2 that were faster.
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That would be a different topic and thus headline than whats being discussed in this article. Instead of :
Study Finds AT&T and Verizon Have Slower LTE Speeds After Launching Unlimited Data Plans
Being about these two carriers who this headline is talking about and why, it would be more like :

Study Finds Sprint and T-Mobile Have Higher LTE Speeds Than AT&T and Verizon Unlimited Data Plans
Then discuss how those two have surpassed the top 2 carriers in speed.

 
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My coverage and speed with Verizon is a lot better than what I had with Sprint. I really don't care if my speed is down 1 - 3 mbps (as a whole). I am able to still stream without buffering etc.

I think the only people that will be upset about the slightly reduced speed, are the number crunchers, who care more about being able to brag about speed tests scores, than admitting that streaming video at 10 - 20 mbps works just as well as 60mbps.
 
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RMo said:
At some point, cell companies might consider factoring speed and not (just? or at all?) data caps into the prices people would pay for plans--I'd gladly pay less or get more data for the same price because I don't need 10 Mbps or more on a cell phone.
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AT&T does that with the less expensive of the two unlimited plans that they offer, limiting the speed at 3 Mpbs.
 
My experience confirms this is 100% accurate. Never had an issue before with Verizon but lately they suck as far as speed goes. I keep telling my wife I am going to switch us to AT&T but I guess that isn't going to help.
 
Naturally....

If u don't cap uses, their not gonna be nice... It'll be an "All-you-can-eat' affair... Being ruthless to stay on top. Even capping them at 22Gig and saying "unlimited" is better.
 
star_nerdy said:
I wanted tmobile to be good and I gave them a shot, unless you're in a city with amazing coverage, they suck.

I went on a cross country road trip and the amount of times I had no signal was scary. I'm thankful I paid for a built in gps otherwise I would have been screwed driving across the US.

And even when you have coverage, there's no guarantee it'll be strong. There were times when I had 3-4 bars outside and then I'd go inside a dennys and get a window booth and I'd have no service.

Tmobile has excellent service, but their coverage is garbage. It's the only reason anyone puts up with att and Verizon blatantly violating net neutrality rules.
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This was my exact same experience in 2016 when we tried them. Absolute garbage.
 
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Glad to be with T-Mobile...my LTE has remained super fast. It's funny how the Verizon and ATT subscribers use to bash T-Mobile LOL. Oh yeah....poor Sprint :D
 
Download speed is not my problem. It’s upload, after unlimited came out my speeds have dropped significantly
 

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I blamed my SE, but I've felt like my LTE speeds have been slower than I remembered with my iPhone 6. Often getting only 3G speeds.
 
cmwade77 said:
That is not true, T-Mobile has eliminated data caps as well and has increased their speed, which proves it is possible, it is not that the frequency is overcrowded, the congestion is most likely happening at the cell tower side.
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you do realize AT&T and Verizon both have more customers then t-mobile, right?
 
I am on T-Mobile network since the iPhone 5S. The bottomline T-Mobile HQ is not far away.
 

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jamesrick80 said:
Glad to be with T-Mobile...my LTE has remained super fast. It's funny how the Verizon and ATT subscribers use to bash T-Mobile LOL. Oh yeah....poor Sprint :D
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I was with TMobile before. While their speed is excellent in metro area, their coverage is horrible when not in the metro area and frequent signal issues inside building. I switched to Verizon and never have any issues. Verizon is still the best carrier in US for overall service. I only use with the best carrier and it is Verizon.
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star_nerdy said:
I wanted tmobile to be good and I gave them a shot, unless you're in a city with amazing coverage, they suck.

I went on a cross country road trip and the amount of times I had no signal was scary. I'm thankful I paid for a built in gps otherwise I would have been screwed driving across the US.

And even when you have coverage, there's no guarantee it'll be strong. There were times when I had 3-4 bars outside and then I'd go inside a dennys and get a window booth and I'd have no service.

Tmobile has excellent service, but their coverage is garbage. It's the only reason anyone puts up with att and Verizon blatantly violating net neutrality rules.
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The above opinion is so true.
 
Wait, so you're saying people actually use more of something when they're not paying for it directly?

Who knew? :rolleyes:
 
MacRumors said:



In its semi-annual State of Mobile Networks report this week, OpenSignal claims that both AT&T and Verizon have experienced a decline in 4G LTE speeds since each carrier reintroduced an unlimited data plan in February. OpenSignal blames the slowdown on an increase in data demand now that caps have been removed.

verizon_att_down-800x152.jpg

From April through June, AT&T's average LTE download speed was 12.92 Mbps, while Verizon averaged 14.91 Mbps, according to crowdsourced data from thousands of users with the OpenSignal app for iOS or Android.

By comparison, OpenSignal's last report measured average LTE speeds for AT&T and Verizon at 13.86 Mbps and 16.89 Mbps respectively, based on crowdsourced data collected from 169,683 users with the OpenSignal app for iOS or Android installed between October 1 and December 31, 2016.

August 2017 Report

AT&T: 12.92 Mbps
Verizon: 14.91 Mbps
Sprint: 9.76 Mbps
T-Mobile: 17.45 Mbps
February 2017 Report

AT&T: 13.86 Mbps
Verizon: 16.89 Mbps
Sprint: 8.99 Mbps
T-Mobile: 16.65 Mbps
T-Mobile was declared as the fastest network in the United States during the testing period. The carrier's average LTE speed was 17.45 Mbps, up from 16.65 Mbps in OpenSignal's last report. Sprint's average LTE speed also rose to 9.76 Mbps, up from 8.99 Mbps in the previous study.

AT&T or Verizon remained the fastest network in select U.S. cities, including Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Diego, and San Francisco.

OpenSignal says its data is collected from regular consumer smartphones and recorded under conditions of normal usage, be it indoors, outdoors, in a city, or in the countryside. For this particular report, it said 5,073,211,200 data points were collected from 172,919 users between April 1 and June 30, 2017.

Article Link: Study Finds AT&T and Verizon Have Slower LTE Speeds After Launching Unlimited Data Plans
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The above article is true but TMobile has the worst coverage in the US and worst signal issues inside building including elevator, basement, etc. that is why T-Mobile could give a good deal and a lot of promotions to entice people and customer to compensate any downsides of their horrible network coverage. T-Mobile customers get what they pay for including all T-Mobile network downside.
Fastest speed is not enough if the coverage is not there.

When I planned to join T-Mobile, the first question I was asked was where I lived and my zip code to ensure their coverage was in my city. After 1 year experiencing bad signals and coverage issues, I ditched T-Mobile and got Verizon and I have never had any issues with Verizon. The coverage is outstanding and I never loose coverage. Speed is outstanding, same as T-Mobile. I do not have to be worried of not getting coverage like I was with T-Mobile when at certain zip codes in the city, no signals occurred. I do not have any "no" signal issues anymore with Verizon.
 
iMi said:
T-mobile is awesome.

They are really impressive when you touchdown in a foreign country half way across the world and get a welcome text letting you know that all your web and texting is FREE and calls are only $0.20 a minute. All before you even reach the gate.

Love it.
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When I landed at Frankfurt after a flight from JFK 3 years ago, my plane didn't even leave the runway before I got that welcome text (forgot to put it into airplane mode). Always had a good signal when traveling through Germany, Switzerland and Denmark, sometimes LTE, sometimes just 3G (reduced speed but still useful/fast enough most of the time). Staying connected almost anywhere in the world from the moment you arrive until the moment you leave should be a standard feature with all carriers in this country without having to go through any hoops.
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democracyrules said:
The above article is true but TMobile has the worst coverage in the US and worst signal issues inside building including elevator, basement, etc. that is why T-Mobile could give a good deal and a lot of promotions to entice people and customer to compensate any downsides of their horrible network coverage. T-Mobile customers get what they pay for including all T-Mobile network downside.
Fastest speed is not enough if the coverage is not there.

When I planned to join T-Mobile, the first question I was asked was where I lived and my zip code to ensure their coverage was in my city. After 1 year experiencing bad signals and coverage issues, I ditched T-Mobile and got Verizon and I have never had any issues with Verizon. The coverage is outstanding and I never loose coverage. Speed is outstanding, same as T-Mobile. I do not have to be worried of not getting coverage like I was with T-Mobile when at certain zip codes in the city, no signals occurred. I do not have any "no" signal issues anymore with Verizon.
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As someone who had Verizon/Bell Atlantic from 1996-2014, my coverage was usually good to great here in NYC/New Jersey. My coverage currently with T-Mobile is just about as good. The only difference is I'm paying about $40 less a month with more benefits and unlimited calls/text/data. In 2014 before switching to T-Mobile, with Verizon I paid bet. $125 and 135 a month with taxes/fees included for two lines for a limited number of phone calls/text messages and 1GB data at 1-2mbps down on my iPhone 4S. The price often fluctuated, unlike with T-Mobile which has remained the same or very close to it. I switched to T-Mobile, got a new 5s (now 6s) and I can definitely say I've been very satisfied with T-Mobile for the past three years. That's my story.
 
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Braderunner said:
The real takeaway here is how much Sprint sucks. Even though their speed increased, they are still way behind. And, they are not making enough money to invest what is needed to bring them up to par anytime soon. By the time they are near the current speeds of the other 3 carriers, those 3 will be even faster. Sprint has never been a well ran company.
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I don't use sprint but I'm rooting for them; you need a company like sprint to be in the top 4- just like you need a company like T Mo. those two keep the greedy at&t and Verizon in check.
 
T-Mobile absolutely sucks compared to Verizon.Our family almost switched as most of my friends and co workers went to T-Mobile.

T-Mobile is amazing in good weather out side and will go from 60mb download speeds to 2 if you take 3 steps to the right or left.its amazing how nobody talks about this.

Also the second you go inside a building 5 feet from the door that 60mb speed goes to freaking 3g and is the same exact way as outside.

You take 5 steps left or right and your bouncing from 2g to 60mb lte and is a complete fing joke.

We have tested it with 5 friends at different locations and saw the same exact results every time.

Take 5 steps any direction and the speed fluctuates 30-60mb and will hunt for lte every freaking 4 min depending if your near a building or just entering one.

We were so close to switching and kept our 300 dollar Verizon bill as we didn't think saving 60 a month was worth the service being worse.

My Verizon phone NEVER gets out of lte. T-Mobile can spin there bs anyway they can but there signal using the high bands absolutely sucks ass in real life.its amazing speed when you are near a tower or out in the open with no buildings near you and goes to crap the second you walk 5 steps in any direction.

This is why the CEO keeps bragging about buying a huge chunk of the 600 mhz band because they need it so bad to penetrate into buildings.

Guess what moron Verizon couldn't give two ***** about the 600 mhz band because they have had the 700mhz band for the last 15 years and completely destroying everyone because of it.

I'm inside a building right now with 1 bar on Verizon (really low signal) and just hit 25mb download.on T-Mobile I would be at 2
Screenshot_20170806-091520.png
mb and it would be switching from 2g,3g and lte and it would bounce around depending on where in standing in the building.

On Verizon it's low signal but a sold consistent performer.
 
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techwhiz said:
The differences in those numbers is not statistically significant. One person can run the same test and get differing numbers from minute to minute. They measure average usage and while it's a lot of data points the data points between tests in Feb and Aug are different. For the vast majority of people it does't matter.

I sit here at my desk in Silicon Valley and I just ran a speed test on Verizon.
I am getting a 23ms Ping, 70.26 Mbps down and 26.18 Mbps up.
Next test 26ms, 78.12Mbps, 25.77Mbps.
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That's better than wifi speeds where I live...are you sure you aren't running that with wifi lol
 
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