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The iPhone 6 is my first phone with LTE and I'm not impressed with my carrier

In general (across entire US), the fastest network is AT&T followed somewhat closely by Verizon. A step down is T-Mobile. And then if you keep going lower....

And lower...

And still lower...

And still even lower...

Reached rock bottom....

Keep going...

And going...

And still going...

And here is Sprint.

They're sprinters, not marathoners.
 
ozshadow said:
I know some carriers have great LTE performance. Sprint recently completed upgrades in my area and with 3-4 bars and the LTE lit up I get a wopping 2 Mbps up and down. Actually up is slightly faster.

I wonder if they have some form of caps in place or if that is as good as their hardware in this area is?

We have the unlimited data, any mobile, any time family plan.
Click to expand...

Yeaaaah. I gotta say Sprint is awful. As I've said before in this forum, unlimited everything means nothing if you can't do anything.
 
SnowLeopard2008 said:
In general (across entire US), the fastest network is AT&T followed somewhat closely by Verizon. A step down is T-Mobile. And then if you keep going lower....

And lower...

And still lower...

And still even lower...

Reached rock bottom....

Keep going...

And going...

And still going...

And here is Sprint.

They're sprinters, not marathoners.
Click to expand...

Pretty funny... :) but wrong. T-mobile has the fastest LTE network in the country.
 
The iPhone 6 is my first phone with LTE and I'm not impressed with my carrier

It really depends on your area. If you're in a sprint spark rated area you can (and often do) get 30-40 down. When I lived in Dallas I regularly got 20+ down and that was on my current phone - iphone 5 - and it isn't compatible with most frequencies these days and that was before the days of spark.

Your mileage will DEFINITELY vary depending on where you live, of course. I wouldn't recommend Sprint if you don't live in a major metro within close proximity of a tower. I hear Spark is better so far as not having to be in close proximity but I'll find out about that when my phone shows up.
 
iMi said:
Pretty funny... :) but wrong. T-mobile has the fastest LTE network in the country.
Click to expand...

No. AT&T is. T-Mobile has a less-congested network, but not faster. I'm talking about overall. If you compare location by location, it varies. AT&T has had LTE far longer than T-Mobile. Verizon has had LTE the longest... but CDMA is what limits them. It's an inferior technology compared to GSM.
 
Any smart cell user would use wifi 90% of the time. No reason to use cell data when wifi is free at most everywhere you go. 2 phones on my account use about 1g data a month. Most ever used was about 4 and we were on vacation in wifiless areas for a week.
 
You should try the tmobile test drive. It's free and you get to try out their service with an iPhone 5s for a week. And believe me, it's fast.
 
It all depends on where you are, how the carrier's backhaul is and sometimes even the device you're using. (an iPad Air will get much better LTE speed on Verizon than an iPhone 5 in the same location, at least for me anyway).

Though I have to say, I've never seen Sprint with good speeds on any technology, except back in the early to mid 2000s on 3G.
 
Why would anyone use Sprint?

Seriously do people actually pick the worst carrier in the U.S. thinking they are beating the system or something by not going with AT&T or Verizon??
 
Slimmyhendrix said:
Any smart cell user would use wifi 90% of the time. No reason to use cell data when wifi is free at most everywhere you go. 2 phones on my account use about 1g data a month. Most ever used was about 4 and we were on vacation in wifiless areas for a week.
Click to expand...

I was just away for the weekend and used 18 GB being in a "wifiless" area.
 
mattroman246 said:
Do not 'sprint ahead'
Click to expand...

haha rough man...you should take that show on the road!

OP: Sprint is the issue. Satisfaction with them seems fairly limited in my eyes based on people I know who have that carrier. Can you switch somehow?
 
Sprint used to be the best in the 3G days. AT&T and especially Verizon got their acts together while Sprint with some bizarre choice called wimax. It's been one bad decision after another with Sprint. Even crappy Tmobile is kicking their tail because they know how to market.
 
SnowLeopard2008 said:
No. AT&T is. T-Mobile has a less-congested network, but not faster. I'm talking about overall. If you compare location by location, it varies. AT&T has had LTE far longer than T-Mobile. Verizon has had LTE the longest... but CDMA is what limits them. It's an inferior technology compared to GSM.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure where you got this information. Please share. A quick Google search confirms various reports over the past few months showing T-mobile as the fastest LTE network in the country... Last article cited here takes about AT&T incorrectly advertising itself as the fastest network. But apparently both OpenSignal and Ookla show T-mobile ahead of everyone else. Individual locations will obviously vary but we're talking overall.

http://opensignal.com/blog/2014/04/02/us-lte-performance-t-mobile-fastest-verizon-best-coverage/

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Spee...fastest-4G-LTE-pipeline-in-the-nation_id51188

http://www.cnet.com/news/sorry-at-t-t-mobile-says-it-has-fastest-wireless-network-in-us/
 
Somewhat hard to believe that Sprint is still around given how many complaints there are about their data service.
 
iMi said:
I'm not sure where you got this information. Please share. A quick Google search confirms various reports over the past few months showing T-mobile as the fastest LTE network in the country... Last article cited here takes about AT&T incorrectly advertising itself as the fastest network. But apparently both OpenSignal and Ookla show T-mobile ahead of everyone else. Individual locations will obviously vary but we're talking overall.

http://opensignal.com/blog/2014/04/02/us-lte-performance-t-mobile-fastest-verizon-best-coverage/

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Spee...fastest-4G-LTE-pipeline-in-the-nation_id51188

http://www.cnet.com/news/sorry-at-t-t-mobile-says-it-has-fastest-wireless-network-in-us/
Click to expand...

AT&T has the larger network. I did not know T-Mobile improved that recently. I did know they were performing upgrades to their network though.
 
Slimmyhendrix said:
I went from 4s to 5c and lte is insane fast on sprint where I am. It was actually faster than wifi at my work with t1 line on secure non customer network.
Then again sprint owns the lte network in Rochester so that might be why.
Click to expand...

Aren't T1 speeds around 1.5 - 3 Mbps?
 
Slimmyhendrix said:
Yes but you can have like 20 lines connected doing that speed at the same time. Bigger pipe flows more at the same speed than smaller pipe with one flow but smaller pipe can flow faster
Click to expand...

isnt T1 fiber? So that wouldn't be a bigger pipe. That would be many smaller pipes.
Regardless of why T1 is what it is, the comment of LTE being quicker than T1 is completely understandable since T1 has a 1.5Mbps speed.
 
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