NYC Droid Verizon bandwidth caps?

[floyd]

Live and work in Manhattan and often check 3G speed. Seems like it's capped at around 1 mbps down and .5 mbps up. Very solid however, with very little latency.

1 mbps is okay fast; the wait time seems to be primarily from the processing of graphics when you load a web page, no?

Would be interested to hear about other folk's experiences.

 

[xylene303]

works well in brooklyn and queens. the browser is a tad slow in my apartment.

 

[floyd]

I should have mentioned I use the free Speed Test app from the Android Marketplace. My Wifi gets up to around 5.75mbps, but the upload is still capped at 0.5 mbps.

Loving this gadget, anyway.

 

[Jeremy556]

Must be. I would expect better coverage in NYC than suburbs of Atlanta.

Can never get over 1mbps upload, but I think it is actually a limitation of the application, because it doesn't matter what the upload speed of the connection is.

 

[floyd]

Limitation of the Speed Test app? Highly unlikely. Gotta be hardwired into the phone.

 

[Jeremy556]

Limitation of the Speed Test app? Highly unlikely. Gotta be hardwired into the phone.

Could be. I think I will do a test and transfer some files over FTP and see if I can break 1 Mbps...

 

[Jeremy556]

I copied an AVI file from my Droid to an FTP server on my local network over 802.11G. The video file is 618,058,698 bytes and it took 376 seconds to transfer.

By my calculations, that is just a bit over 13 megabits per second, or just over 1.64 megabytes per second.

 

[anewday]

I get around 2Mbit download and 1mbit up all the time. Only time it's slow is when with a bad signal of 2 bars.

 

[takeshi]

Live and work in Manhattan and often check 3G speed. Seems like it's capped at around 1 mbps down and .5 mbps up. Very solid however, with very little latency.

There are a lot of factors that can affect speed (particularly in Manhattan). I doubt caps are the issue.

 

[kodiak799]

Well, it could be capped, although I frequently see speeds on the D1 of only 700kbps down in various parts of the country.

Also read where VZW was switching on another 15 towers in NY, all or mostly in Manhattan, I believe. LTE is also supposed to have better penetration (laterally and vertically) so that's a potential game changer in such markets.

 

[floyd]

After a year of using the OG droid in manhattan, I usually get between .75 and 2 mbps down and .75 and 2 mbps up, depending on location. Often my upload speed capability far exceeds the download.

When on Wifi at home on Time Warner cable, it's clear they are throttling the upload speed. You can see it being tamped down from 5 mpbs or so to .512 mbps.

Verizon is solid and I have no real beefs. I actually prefer them over cable for uploads. Time Warner is a disgrace, and it's clearly a conflict of interest to allow them to control both the media and the medium in terms of entertainment.

 

[jkhouw1]

not sure if they cap it but in general, my droid 1 & galaxy tab on VZW are generally 2x as fast as my ATT nexus 1 in the city. (and far more reliable - ATT in nyc generally sucks). VZW avg's just under 2mb down and 1mb up.

in Fairfield CT the roles are reversed, i get roughly the same numbers for VZW, but ATT is about 2x faster than VZW (when ATT has a signal at all).

 

[AtreyuRock]

I work in lower Manhattan, near City Hall. According to the speedtest app, my closest server is Secaucus, NJ. I'm clocking .95 Mbps DL, and .50 Mbps UL.

Just did it a second time, same location, 1.78 Mbps dl, .93 Mbps ul.

I was getting horrible results, then I turned my phone off and back on, and now am getting much better results.

 

[anewday]

Well, it could be capped, although I frequently see speeds on the D1 of only 700kbps down in various parts of the country.

Also read where VZW was switching on another 15 towers in NY, all or mostly in Manhattan, I believe. LTE is also supposed to have better penetration (laterally and vertically) so that's a potential game changer in such markets.

I only see 1 or 2 from the list in NYC.