Verizon's 4G Blows Other Carriers Away

[jntdroid]

There has been a lot of discussion recently about 4G / LTE / WiMax - whose 4G is "real" 4G? Whose isn't? Whose is faster? Whose has the most potential in the long run?

The way I see it, none of that really matters, and is mostly semantics (I get that there are technical differences as well, but the typical end user doesn't care). What does matter is whose 4G lives up to expectations and does it consistently, and early tests (in the Seattle area only) are showing that Verizon is starting off strongly in the lead.

A couple of excerpts from an article on wired.com:

"Their findings showed that Verizon’s LTE network performed at a 100 percent data-success rate. Its average data speeds were between four and 14.5 times faster than competitors, and average upload speeds were between 4.7 and 49.3 times faster.

The phone models tested included the HTC Thunderbolt (Verizon), HTC Inspire (AT&T), HTC Evo (Sprint) and Samsung Galaxy S (T-Mobile). RootMetrics’ CEO Paul Griff said that the smartphone model and its hardware had very little to do with 4G performance — that performance is almost all network related."

"RootMetrics was careful to point out that merely achieving high data speeds doesn’t mean much unless it happens on a regular basis, though. It found that Verizon’s 4G download speeds were greater than 10 Mbps about 90 percent of the time, and their upload speeds were between 5 and 10 Mbps 100 percent of the time."

"And Verizon’s average upload speeds were faster than every other carrier’s average download speeds by 37 percent.

A graph of how often each 4G service achieved a certain range of download speeds (from 0-500 Kbps to greater than 10 Mbps) shows Verizon dominating the high end, AT&T spending most of its time in the lower half, and Sprint and T-Mobile’s services ranging widely throughout."

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In my personal opinion, the fact that Verizon is consistent is just as, if not more important than the fact that it's the fastest. What good are high speeds if it's inconsistent?

See the full wired.com article here: Verizon’s 4G Network Leaves Other Carriers in the Dust | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Link to the actual test and results (not working real well, but is legit): http://rootmetrics.com/pr/reports/2011/20110320_Seattle_4G_Study.pdf





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[Jaxidian]

Great speeds! Too bad that it amounts to only ~1 hour's worth of data before you hit the cap they're supposedly implementing in the next day or two.

 

[jntdroid]

Great speeds! Too bad that it amounts to only ~1 hour's worth of data before you hit the cap they're supposedly implementing in the next day or two.

cap? 10 characters

 

[jroc]

I dont care about the speeds. Building penetration, better reception is what I wanna know about. I the things I mentioned are no better than what we have now, I have no need for a LTE, 4G phone.

The only reason I'm this close to leaving Verizon for AT&T is cuz AT&T has better reception in my area.

 

[jntdroid]

I dont care about the speeds. Building penetration, better reception is what I wanna know about. I the things I mentioned are no better than what we have now, I have no need for a LTE, 4G phone.

The only reason I'm this close to leaving Verizon for AT&T is cuz AT&T has better reception in my area.

You know that's a good point. I thought LTE was supposed to penetrate buildings better b/c it's on a lower frequency, but the second I walk in my door to my building, LTE is done - doesn't even come close to coming back.

 

[Jaxidian]

Great speeds! Too bad that it amounts to only ~1 hour's worth of data before you hit the cap they're supposedly implementing in the next day or two.

cap? 10 characters

A few stories floating around point to this:
Unlimited 4G ending on Thursday - xda-developers

Drod was tweeting about it too (that's what brought this to my attention).

[Edit] I have absolutely no idea how valid this claim is or who the person claiming this is. Just know that it's been chatter lately and, as best as I can tell, this post is the source of it. I could be wrong on that, though. Source could be elsewhere.

 

[jntdroid]

Great speeds! Too bad that it amounts to only ~1 hour's worth of data before you hit the cap they're supposedly implementing in the next day or two.

cap? 10 characters

A few stories floating around point to this:
Unlimited 4G ending on Thursday - xda-developers

Drod was tweeting about it too (that's what brought this to my attention).

[Edit] I have absolutely no idea how valid this claim is or who the person claiming this is. Just know that it's been chatter lately and, as best as I can tell, this post is the source of it. I could be wrong on that, though. Source could be elsewhere.

interesting - well if it comes true, based on that post, at least i'll be grandfathered!

 

[New2u]

cap? 10 characters

A few stories floating around point to this:
Unlimited 4G ending on Thursday - xda-developers

Drod was tweeting about it too (that's what brought this to my attention).

[Edit] I have absolutely no idea how valid this claim is or who the person claiming this is. Just know that it's been chatter lately and, as best as I can tell, this post is the source of it. I could be wrong on that, though. Source could be elsewhere.

interesting - well if it comes true, based on that post, at least i'll be grandfathered!

If that happens, there is no point in getting LTE. I'll just stick with 3g and be done with it. It seems very stupid to advertise a phone that can do netflix and all this other streaming if they will cap you no matter what, and give no unlimited plans. If that's the case, i don't care how good the LTE is, i will go on board with another company. People can say that i'm just acting like i'm entitled to something... no, no i'm not, if you advertise something and the reasons to get LTE and then you limit the ability to use that service to only 1-3 hours a month, then there is no point to dealing with it. I don't think many people realize how fast 5GB of data will go when you can pull at 5-12 Mbps.

 

[jntdroid]

A few stories floating around point to this:
Unlimited 4G ending on Thursday - xda-developers

Drod was tweeting about it too (that's what brought this to my attention).

[Edit] I have absolutely no idea how valid this claim is or who the person claiming this is. Just know that it's been chatter lately and, as best as I can tell, this post is the source of it. I could be wrong on that, though. Source could be elsewhere.

interesting - well if it comes true, based on that post, at least i'll be grandfathered!

If that happens, there is no point in getting LTE. I'll just stick with 3g and be done with it. It seems very stupid to advertise a phone that can do netflix and all this other streaming if they will cap you no matter what, and give no unlimited plans. If that's the case, i don't care how good the LTE is, i will go on board with another company. People can say that i'm just acting like i'm entitled to something... no, no i'm not, if you advertise something and the reasons to get LTE and then you limit the ability to use that service to only 1-3 hours a month, then there is no point to dealing with it. I don't think many people realize how fast 5GB of data will go when you can pull at 5-12 Mbps.

You're exactly right. And it's not necessarily about being entitled, it's like you said, it's about how they're advertising it. Heck, I even find it a bit off-putting when the carriers advertise "unlimited" data on 3G, when it's really not - even if 99% of the population won't hit their cap.

 

[Hugh Jass]

You know whats great though, these statistics don't mean ANYTHING because Verizon can't get any decent technology to take advantage of it. Nearly every flagship phone before the droid and since the Droid has gone across the isle to AT&T or Tmobile (and now even Alltel, wtf?) so I don't care how great Verizon's 4G is, I'm going where the tech is. It seems like all the major manufactures are boycotting Verizon now, what the hell is going on here?:icon_evil:

[/disgruntled user]