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To all those people waiting for the evo 4g wimax holy grail...

hefeglass

hefeglass

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 21, 2009
760
423
I went over to a friends house last night and he was fortunate enough to receive a new sprint overdrive unit from his new job that he is allowed to use at home and on install jobs.
I was very excited to see what this "4g speed" is all about.

We are located in raleigh NC and we get nice 4g coverage in our area...in fact, when we turned in the unit, it was connected to a 4g network in a few seconds.
We proceeded to go to YouTube and loaded up some videos to see how the transfer speeds were. Well...after repeated slows and stalls in the download of several clips...I decided to try a comparison between the overdrive 4g and my 3GS running mywi over AT&T 3G network.

I was blown away by the speed difference on everything i tried streaming or downloading. Att's network blew the sprint 4g away! I was able to stream and load things over twice as fast....i am even able to stream netflix and abc player at full quality without any interruptions...
I went online to research and i found that others have compared all of the available mobile networks in the us and AT&T was consistently on top..

I just wanted to share my experience, because i know a lot of people are waiting for this evo 4g to come out and they are probably expecting it to be much faster than their current 3G on AT&T. Well, from my experience, in a fully supported 4g city....the speed difference just isn't there....in fact it is much much slower than AT&T network.

Guess i cant complain too much about AT&T anymore....i never really drop any calls and the quality of the network is very good in my area..
I think we'll really see the improvements when lte comes out..
 
It has always been this way... it's just Verizon fanboys and paid Verizon gulls in the media attack AT&T without any real hard evidence.

When I mean hard evidence I mean, "Oh but I heard AT&T was bad and my Verizon phone is good, blah blah blah". Hard evidence is you tried AT&T for 30 days.

Also, OP, AT&T's speeds are about to get better with the new fiber + ethernet backhauls that AT&T is currently deploying.
 
jav6454 said:
It has always been this way... it's just Verizon fanboys and paid Verizon gulls in the media attack AT&T without any real hard evidence.

When I mean hard evidence I mean, "Oh but I heard AT&T was bad and my Verizon phone is good, blah blah blah". Hard evidence is you tried AT&T for 30 days.

Also, OP, AT&T's speeds are about to get better with the new fiber + ethernet backhauls that AT&T is currently deploying.
Click to expand...

It hasn't always been this way. For much of the last 10 years AT&T was behind. Admittedly in the past 2 years they made some changes and overtook Sprint and Verizon in data speed.

But that doesn't do me much good....when I keep loosing signal.

Edit: Hearing this news kinda sucks. Although I've never been a fan of WiMax. Perhaps because it's early on and they have some tweaking to do? Let's hope LTE has a much better showing.
 
Wimax has a very short range. One of it's big downfalls. Sure your friend had a decent signal?
 
Lets be realistic hear, we all know 4g speeds are faster and/or have the potential to be faster, than 3g networks. So your friends experience aside, people can rest assure that they will have fasters speeds with 4g or LTE..
 
Oh and the other new thing i hate about Verizon if you wanna get a non smart phone basicly all of Verizons phones require a internet plan I'm really surprise at&t or any one else hasn't gone after this
 
macfan881 said:
Oh and the other new thing i hate about Verizon if you wanna get a non smart phone basicly all of Verizons phones require a internet plan I'm really surprise at&t or any one else hasn't gone after this
Click to expand...

Because in comparison, AT&T isn't in need of the extra revenue Verizon looses when someone abandons them for an iPhone.
 
corriewf said:
Wimax has a very short range. One of it's big downfalls. Sure your friend had a decent signal?
Click to expand...


The display screen on the overdrive box showed a full 4 bars connection and said it was connected to 4g network.

There is no better conditions to test this than what we had when we tried it....even if the wimax/4g has the potential to be faster...it's very unlikely that you will get any better download speeds than the current AT&T 3G network.

Also, LTE isn't the same as wimax and you cant group them together....the 4g name is somewhat misleading because the network rarely performs better than current 3G offerings.
 
Its great to be connected and say you're using a 4G netowrk only to be pulling average 3G speeds.
Sprint and their Wimax have a very long way to go.
Instead of improving and expanding their 3G they went on a premature 4G release....
 
dgree03 said:
Lets be realistic hear, we all know 4g speeds are faster and/or have the potential to be faster, than 3g networks. So your friends experience aside, people can rest assure that they will have fasters speeds with 4g or LTE..
Click to expand...

Oh...of course..

"Even though you had poor connection speeds with 4g, everyone else should expect better speeds than 3G"
......that makes tons of sense.

We have full 4g wimax support in my area....sprint claims that we should be getting the full benefits of 4g...but it's completely untrue.

Just because they call it 4g doesn't mean you are going to get better speeds..

I'm not sure how exactly you came to the conclusion that you did....seems like you prefer to believe whatever you want...i am sharing real-life experience and if you do some research..you'll see that others are getting the same results..


We also compared it to sprints current 3G service using a laptop sprint card....the speeds were about the same as the overdrive was giving us...actually a bit faster in some cases..
 
Applejuiced said:
Its great to be connected and say you're using a 4G netowrk only to be pulling average 3G speeds.
Sprint and their Wimax have a very long way to go.
Instead of improving and expanding their 3G they went on a premature 4G release....
Click to expand...

Think they were trying to trump all the other carriers. They did a good job w/ the 3G rollout....but looks like they miscalculated this time. I think I read they are now debating LTE. Sucks for them as this puts them behind Verizon for their LTE rollout. Don't know about AT&Ts plans for LTE.
 
Geckotek said:
Think they were trying to trump all the other carriers. They did a good job w/ the 3G rollout....but looks like they miscalculated this time. I think I read they are now debating LTE. Sucks for them as this puts them behind Verizon for their LTE rollout. Don't know about AT&Ts plans for LTE.
Click to expand...

Yep, most international carriers are not really ready for it either and it shouldnt be something that should be rushed into just to say we're the first and only IMO.
 
Proof is always in the pudding according to your particular area.

I've read numeros reports of people using the Overdrive and having fantastic speeds in their area.

The only real test is to try the 4G device where you live and see the results.

Sprint gives you 30 days to try it out.

I will definitely be trying out the EVO!
 
Alchematron said:
Proof is always in the pudding according to your particular area.

I've read numeros reports of people using the Overdrive and having fantastic speeds in their area.

The only real test is to try the 4G device where you live and see the results.

Sprint gives you 30 days to try it out.

I will definitely be trying out the EVO!
Click to expand...

You definitely make a great point. I have tethered 3g in a handful of locations and in someplaces, Sprint absolutely trumps AT&T, while in others, AT&T is 3 or 4 times faster.
 
It would be nice if you can get couple pictures of the phone and maybe a video clip like you did on your 3gs. This thread is useless without proof.
 
To the op you sir are full of crap. I just moved to Raleigh from Greensboro and use a Sprint Overdrive to run my Ipad as well as my PS3 for online gaming. I have never had a problem with speeds. In fact, I will upload pics from speedtest.net showing 6-8 Meg download speeds. So, your friend either doesn't have something installed right or he has a weak signal.
 
As a former ATT employee, I feel that I need to weigh in on the matter. While Sprint's WIMAX tech(11 mb/s limit) has the potential to be faster than ATT's 3G WCDMA tech(7.2 mb/s limit), and much faster than Verizon's laughable 3G (1.4 mb/s-verizonwireless.com). It all depends on the load that the network is experiencing, what kind of building you are in, how many trees there are, how the towers are doing, etc. There are a TON of variables. Bottom line is, in an ideal world, WIMAX is faster than ATT 3G.
 
hefeglass said:
I went over to a friends house last night and he was fortunate enough to receive a new sprint overdrive unit from his new job that he is allowed to use at home and on install jobs.
I was very excited to see what this "4g speed" is all about.

....
Click to expand...

Hmmm. Where in this do you talk about a phone? What about the Evo?
 
macfan881 said:
Oh and the other new thing i hate about Verizon if you wanna get a non smart phone basicly all of Verizons phones require a internet plan I'm really surprise at&t or any one else hasn't gone after this
Click to expand...

Well any non - flip phone that AT & T makes is required to have the $20 for 2/y messaging plan, then the smartphones require the $30/m plan which doesnt include texting.

Although I agree I find myself liking AT & T, if they have coverage in your area its blazingly fast.
 
shadrap said:
To the op you sir are full of crap. I just moved to Raleigh from Greensboro and use a Sprint Overdrive to run my Ipad as well as my PS3 for online gaming. I have never had a problem with speeds. In fact, I will upload pics from speedtest.net showing 6-8 Meg download speeds. So, your friend either doesn't have something installed right or he has a weak signal.
Click to expand...

What would i possibly gain by lying about this? I'll try to get over to his house tomorrow and take videos to show you what I'm seeing.
We set the overdrive to 3G only and the speeds were twice as fast.
Using 4g with 3 bars connection, we hit 56KB down...but setting it to use 3G and getting 3 bars, it got about 100KB down.
Using my jail broken 3GS and mywi I got 230KB down...
With the overdrive, going outside raised the speeds dramatically(the speeds I listed were all done with it outside)...
I posted this to share my experiences...I just feel that even with a weakish signal, the 4g should at least be comparable to the AT&T 3G speeds...but unfortunately they aren't in my area.
I'll try to get some videos or at least screenshots if i can...anyone claiming that I am lying or whatever: what exactly do you think am getting out of this?
I was personally interested in the evo 4g because of the wimax support, but after seeing the speeds and comparing to my AT&T 3G speeds I am defintely going to stay with AT&T and get the new iPhone. I knew there were others in the same boat as me so i thought i would share my experience..
Maybe there's something wrong with his overdrive....we've tried many different settings. If anyone has any suggestions, please share!
 
AT&T's network is garbage in densely populated areas, like NYC specifically where I live. In my area Sprint's 3G network destroys AT&T during most times of the day, at night they are about equal. When it comes to big cities like this AT&T's network has been embarrassing, but it has improved lately so I credit them for that.
 
jav6454 said:
It has always been this way... it's just Verizon fanboys and paid Verizon gulls in the media attack AT&T without any real hard evidence.

When I mean hard evidence I mean, "Oh but I heard AT&T was bad and my Verizon phone is good, blah blah blah". Hard evidence is you tried AT&T for 30 days.

Also, OP, AT&T's speeds are about to get better with the new fiber + ethernet backhauls that AT&T is currently deploying.
Click to expand...

Here is your hard evidence. Taken in a 100% AT&T and Verizon EVDO coverage area in Jacksonville, FL. My Droid against my buddy's iPhone 3GS.

cimg1701o.jpg
 
well....maybe im finding the sprint 4g to be so slow compared to my att speeds because my att service around here is so good...

as the person above me stated, just because you got a higher speed than your friends phone on one test doesnt mean very much.

your upload speeds look really quite impressive...but your download speeds on VZW are still not as fast as mine on ATT.
ill get screen shots using the overdrive setup tomorrow...im at my house now and i just ran the speed test on my 3gs using att 3g..seems like different areas have different speeds (as expected)


i realize that bigger cities have more problems with att, but i personally cant complain about the speeds I am getting here in Raleigh, NC. I also ran the tests in Knightdale, NC and got similar results...
 

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jav6454 said:
It has always been this way... it's just Verizon fanboys and paid Verizon gulls in the media attack AT&T without any real hard evidence.

When I mean hard evidence I mean, "Oh but I heard AT&T was bad and my Verizon phone is good, blah blah blah". Hard evidence is you tried AT&T for 30 days.

Also, OP, AT&T's speeds are about to get better with the new fiber + ethernet backhauls that AT&T is currently deploying.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we have no hard evidence. Get a clue next time.

You sir, have just been OWNED.
 
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