Am I weird for preferring HSPA+ over LTE at this point and for the near future?

[CZroe]

Despite my qualms with AT&T, I am supremely satisfied with the speeds of HSPA+ and have to wonder why anyone would prefer a current LTE device with similar speeds, poor battery life, and awkward implementation (no LTE voice calls; simultaneous radios for voice + data, etc). Considering that an LTE call hand-off to and from traditional GSM 3G has only finally been demonstrated under test conditions, it's going to be a long time before any of this "awkwardness," which leads to poor battery performance with merely comparable bandwidth, changes. [Even when integrated into the same chipset,] I figure that LTE devices will have significant disadvantages compared to HSPA+ until at least mid 2013 and I'm not sure why anyone would continue to rail against T-Mobile for being "deceptive" as the latest DailyTech article clearly states. I would consider selling a current LTE device as anything more than an LTE modem + phone equally or more "deceptive." Failing to mention that it's not a native LTE telephony device and calling it "4G" is just as bad, IMO.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

agreed, I'm perfectly happy with my faux-G ATT SGS2. Why people would need faster internet at the expense of battery life is beyond me. 3.5G allows me to do everything i need to, i dont see any benefit from a faster internet connection on a phone.

The only thing i can see is if maybe your in a bad area that has a really congested 3G network. Where i live this isnt a problem and my internet speeds are really fast.

I'm really looking forward to the SGS3, but im almost hoping it wont have 4g, or will at least let me disable it if i want to.

 

[smartpatrol]

I'm on T-Mobile's 21Mbps HSPA+ and I'd definitely take this speed over LTE speed with crappy battery life. (I just ran a speed test: 110ms ping, 8817kbps down, 2411 up. . . not bad!)

It looks like the next generation of SOCs will have built-in LTE modems. Hopefully that will provide a nice increase in energy efficiency.

 

[basslover1]

I would guess, because on Verizon at least, their 3G speeds are pathetic. Even with a strong signal, getting over 3mb/s down is a challenge, for me anyway.

 

[Red Storm]

I love Verizon's LTE. I travel across DC, MD, and VA throughout the week and it's very nice to see I'm always under LTE coverage. It's fast, which is very nice for me as I'm always streaming some media on the go. Battery life hasn't been an issue with my Nexus and honestly it's overblown. Those who talk about LTE being a battery killer never seem to include the fact that you can always toggle LTE if you need/want it (I don't do this as my phone has no trouble lasting me the day).

Not to mention Verizon's coverage is far greater than T-Mobile's. I can use my phone way down in underground Metro stations. Wasn't able to do that with T-Mobile.

16624kbps down and 10475 up here at work, and that's actually on the lower end of what I normally get (18-20 mb).

 

[sjwaste]

HSPA+ does everything that I need. I came from Sprint and had Wimax coverage where I lived/worked (sometimes), and after a while I just stopped using it - the battery drain wasn't worth the bandwidth.

I'm sure some of the newer LTE handsets don't have as much of the battery issue, but I've never found myself on my SGS2 wishing I had more bandwidth than HSPA+ allowed me.

 

[Anubis]

I would guess, because on Verizon at least, their 3G speeds are pathetic. Even with a strong signal, getting over 3mb/s down is a challenge, for me anyway.

TBH IDK if ive ever seen over 2mb down on VZW 3G with full bars

 

[CZroe]

I'm on T-Mobile's 21Mbps HSPA+ and I'd definitely take this speed over LTE speed with crappy battery life. (I just ran a speed test: 110ms ping, 8817kbps down, 2411 up. . . not bad!)

It looks like the next generation of SOCs will have built-in LTE modems. Hopefully that will provide a nice increase in energy efficiency.

Unfortunately, it will still be using two radios at once so it still won't match HSPA+.

I love Verizon's LTE. I travel across DC, MD, and VA throughout the week and it's very nice to see I'm always under LTE coverage. It's fast, which is very nice for me as I'm always streaming some media on the go. Battery life hasn't been an issue with my Nexus and honestly it's overblown. Those who talk about LTE being a battery killer never seem to include the fact that you can always toggle LTE if you need/want it (I don't do this as my phone has no trouble lasting me the day).

Not to mention Verizon's coverage is far greater than T-Mobile's. I can use my phone way down in underground Metro stations. Wasn't able to do that with T-Mobile.

16624kbps down and 10475 up here at work, and that's actually on the lower end of what I normally get (18-20 mb).

Verizon EvDo 3G doesn't compare to HSPA+ so it's not the same situation at all. I agree: Verizon *should* be rolling out LTE and 4G LTE phones as fast as possible, but AT&T and T-Mobile can afford to let it mature until it can carry and hand off calls. Until then, HSPA+ phones would actually be BETTER for the vast majority of their customers (portable hotspots with no voice being the only LTE application that makes sense). Also, backend bandwidth is the main problem for HSPA+ 3G and LTE. LTE only improves it when remote towers don't have another higher speed connection to fall back on and essentially bridge LTE clients to the rest of the networks with an LTE backend connection. Obviously, that's the last leg of a full nationwide rollout and will not be realized anytime soon except to finally get the backend upgraded enough for today's 3G clients.

 

[bearxor]

I'm happy enough with HSPA on my iPhone 4. I can pull 3-5Mbps down in most spots and it's more than fast enough for my phone browsing.

Now, if I was on Verizon, I'd definitely want LTE. If I was on Sprint 3G at this point, I'd definitely want LTE and would wait until it's in my area.

But, for AT&T and T-Mobile, I'm not quite convinced that the benefits to LTE are really as pronounced. Once LTE starts hitting over 50Mbps maybe (though I understand AT&T's implementation is hitting in the mid-40's but Verizon's is in the mid-20's). And of course, I think we all expect LTE to be a serious contender for home internet replacement once bandwidth issues are resolved. I'm most anxious to see that but I know I won't get LTE in my area through AT&T until 2016 or so.

 

[Aikouka]

Doesn't LTE have better latency (~50ms)? One situation that I would like it for is a possible back-up Internet hotspot since Comcast can be unreliable at times. :|

Hmm, I just checked and supposedly we have HSPA+ in my area now. I never actually noticed any difference in speed.

 

[CZroe]

I'm happy enough with HSPA on my iPhone 4. I can pull 3-5Mbps down in most spots and it's more than fast enough for my phone browsing.

Now, if I was on Verizon, I'd definitely want LTE. If I was on Sprint 3G at this point, I'd definitely want LTE and would wait until it's in my area.

But, for AT&T and T-Mobile, I'm not quite convinced that the benefits to LTE are really as pronounced. Once LTE starts hitting over 50Mbps maybe (though I understand AT&T's implementation is hitting in the mid-40's but Verizon's is in the mid-20's). And of course, I think we all expect LTE to be a serious contender for home internet replacement once bandwidth issues are resolved. I'm most anxious to see that but I know I won't get LTE in my area through AT&T until 2016 or so.

When LTE speeds increase like that, I'm pretty sure that you'll need a new phone to take advantage of it so it still shouldn't factor into your network and handset choice today for carriers with HSPA+. Also, I upgraded to an HSPA+ Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY 4G R800at and it is WORLDS faster than my iPhone 4 when buffering or downloading anything. That said, it is pretty much equivalent to LTE speeds, so there is even less incentive.

 

[dguy6789]

Doesn't LTE have better latency (~50ms)? One situation that I would like it for is a possible back-up Internet hotspot since Comcast can be unreliable at times. :|

Hmm, I just checked and supposedly we have HSPA+ in my area now. I never actually noticed any difference in speed.

It does have better latency but 50ms isn't really likely in most cases.

For phones with less than stellar LTE battery life, you don't exactly have to have LTE on the entire time. You can run it in 3G mode and get ~1-2mbps(and get great battery life even out of phones like the Thunderbolt) and then when you feel you could benefit, flip a switch and get 10-20mbps for when you need it. It's not very complicated. There's also extended batteries and the Razr Max that have battery life good enough to have LTE on 24/7 and get better battery life than any HSPA+ phone at the same time. Then later this year there will be much smaller LTE radios which should have comparable power consumption to current 3G technologies.

 

[Oyeve]

on hspa+ on my sgs2 on tmo I average 10-13mbps. On crummy signals, 1-2 bars, I still get 3+mbps. Battery lasts pretty much all day on heavy use.

 

[soccerballtux]

Despite my qualms with AT&T, I am supremely satisfied with the speeds of HSPA+ and have to wonder why anyone would prefer a current LTE device with similar speeds, poor battery life, and awkward implementation (no LTE voice calls; simultaneous radios for voice + data, etc). Considering that an LTE call hand-off to and from traditional GSM 3G has only finally been demonstrated under test conditions, it's going to be a long time before any of this "awkwardness," which leads to poor battery performance with merely comparable bandwidth, changes. [Even when integrated into the same chipset,] I figure that LTE devices will have significant disadvantages compared to HSPA+ until at least mid 2013 and I'm not sure why anyone would continue to rail against T-Mobile for being "deceptive" as the latest DailyTech article clearly states. I would consider selling a current LTE device as anything more than an LTE modem + phone equally or more "deceptive." Failing to mention that it's not a native LTE telephony device and calling it "4G" is just as bad, IMO.

under high cell tower load scenarios I believe LTE will have the advantage? Just last weekend it seemed the tower was loaded heavily and I would get about a 0.6 second timeshare every 7 or so seconds where the bandwidth was mine to load. Perhaps this is poor optimization on At&t's part but I would think we should all be constantly loading the webpage at once, not being TDMA'd. Perhaps this is due to the maximum # connections At&t's oversubscribed towers can provide.

 

[CZroe]

It does have better latency but 50ms isn't really likely in most cases.

For phones with less than stellar LTE battery life, you don't exactly have to have LTE on the entire time. You can run it in 3G mode and get ~1-2mbps(and get great battery life even out of phones like the Thunderbolt) and then when you feel you could benefit, flip a switch and get 10-20mbps for when you need it. It's not very complicated. There's also extended batteries and the Razr Max that have battery life good enough to have LTE on 24/7 and get better battery life than any HSPA+ phone at the same time. Then later this year there will be much smaller LTE radios which should have comparable power consumption to current 3G technologies.

Once again, the same phones would get better battery life and similar speeds with HSPA+ REGARDLESS of how good or acceptable it is with LTE. The ~1-2mbps 3G is not what we are comparing. There is no need to flip anything on or off with HSPA+: It just works and works faster and gets more done in less time than HSPA or earlier 3G tech which FURTHER saves battery life. HSPA+ vs. LTE seems like a no-brainer: Get an HSPA+ device until LTE is mature enough to move BEYOND simply being built into the same chipset and is capable of carrying calls and handing off with only one radio active. Most people consider the integration into one chip to be the only thing they are concerned about before it will replace HSPA+ but having two radios active STILL means that HSPA+ has the advantage, at least until LTE evolves faster speeds. Once again, faster speeds means new handsets, so it's still irrelevant to the current "HSPA+ vs LTE" decision.

 

[CZroe]

under high cell tower load scenarios I believe LTE will have the advantage? Just last weekend it seemed the tower was loaded heavily and I would get about a 0.6 second timeshare every 7 or so seconds where the bandwidth was mine to load. Perhaps this is poor optimization on At&t's part but I would think we should all be constantly loading the webpage at once, not being TDMA'd. Perhaps this is due to the maximum # connections At&t's oversubscribed towers can provide.

If you finish more of your DL in that .6 second time slice, you will be done sooner and free it up just as quickly as an LTE device getting a similar slice as long as the speeds are comparable (they are). The more HSPA+ client devices, the better in that respect as well, as long as it isn't bottlenecked on the backend, which LTE could do just as easily. I can see that LTE wouldn't compete for the same timeshare but that it only a transitional benefit that only exists if they ensured excess capacity in the first place.

 

[soccerballtux]

If you finish more of your DL in that .6 second time slice, you will be done sooner and free it up just as quickly as an LTE device getting a similar slice as long as the speeds are comparable (they are). The more HSPA+ client devices, the better in that respect as well, as long as it isn't bottlenecked on the backend, which LTE could do just as easily. I can see that LTE wouldn't compete for the same timeshare but that it only a transitional benefit that only exists if they ensured excess capacity in the first place.

I think LTE towers don't have the same limits to # connected users at one time that HSPA+ towers have, but I'm pulling that out of my tail. IE AT&T's is something like 256 users at once (phonecalls and data connections) combined. Just to be clear I am speaking of a limitation in the Physical Layer (OSI model) of the radios installed on the towers.

 

[Red Storm]

The thing is this comparison doesn't factor in things like Verizon just having much better coverage overall. If both companies covered the same areas equally, then I would agree that HSPA+ would be the better choice. But, they don't. Better coverage + LTE > lesser coverage + HSPA.

 

[soccerballtux]

The thing is this comparison doesn't factor in things like Verizon just having much better coverage overall. If both companies covered the same areas equally, then I would agree that HSPA+ would be the better choice. But, they don't. Better coverage + LTE > lesser coverage + HSPA.

When's the last time you've been out of coverage?
AT&T's network is large enough now IMO. This is coming from MetroPCS's network though so I don't have the highest expectations, but I've had at least EDGE everywhere I've wanted data.

 

[Deeko]

I would guess, because on Verizon at least, their 3G speeds are pathetic. Even with a strong signal, getting over 3mb/s down is a challenge, for me anyway.

That's part of it - if you have Verizon, you desparately want LTE, because EV-DO is horrible. If you're getting 21+ HSPA on T-Mobile or AT&T, you can probably live with it until the technology improves.

 

[bearxor]

Doesn't AT&T and/or TMobile have better HSPA+ coverage than Verizon does LTE?

 

[Red Storm]

When's the last time you've been out of coverage?
AT&T's network is large enough now IMO. This is coming from MetroPCS's network though so I don't have the highest expectations, but I've had at least EDGE everywhere I've wanted data.

I was comparing T-Mobile to Verizon. I personally can't even consider AT&T, on three separate occasions they doubled my monthly bill (no explanation), and they once tried to charge me with an ETF for an item I returned one day after buying. Their service was shit back in the iPhone 3G days, and it doesn't matter how much/little they've improved, I just don't care about them anymore.

 

[CZroe]

The thing is this comparison doesn't factor in things like Verizon just having much better coverage overall. If both companies covered the same areas equally, then I would agree that HSPA+ would be the better choice. But, they don't. Better coverage + LTE > lesser coverage + HSPA.

That's part of it - if you have Verizon, you desparately want LTE, because EV-DO is horrible. If you're getting 21+ HSPA on T-Mobile or AT&T, you can probably live with it until the technology improves.

Exactly. Once again, we weren't comparing Verizon 3G to LTE. We were comparing HSPA+ to 4G as far as what technology is most appropriate for a particular user on a hypothetical network that has both, though that lines up with T-Mobile and AT&T here in The States. This whole thought process excludes Verizon, Sprint, MetroPCS, Cricket, etc and takes issue with promoting LTE over HSPA on the same network as if there were some tangible advantage to consumers on those networks today.

 

[smartpatrol]

Once again, the same phones would get better battery life and similar speeds with HSPA+ REGARDLESS of how good or acceptable it is with LTE. The ~1-2mbps 3G is not what we are comparing. There is no need to flip anything on or off with HSPA+: It just works and works faster and gets more done in less time than HSPA or earlier 3G tech which FURTHER saves battery life. HSPA+ vs. LTE seems like a no-brainer: Get an HSPA+ device until LTE is mature enough to move BEYOND simply being built into the same chipset and is capable of carrying calls and handing off with only one radio active. Most people consider the integration into one chip to be the only thing they are concerned about before it will replace HSPA+ but having two radios active STILL means that HSPA+ has the advantage, at least until LTE evolves faster speeds. Once again, faster speeds means new handsets, so it's still irrelevant to the current "HSPA+ vs LTE" decision.

I don't see what the big problem is. If a next-gen 32nm SOC with an LTE radio built in can give me battery life on par with, say, my Galaxy Nexus (international version), I honestly don't give a damn whether it can make calls over LTE.

Razr Maxx already has enough juice where you can leave the LTE radio on all the time, use the phone however you want, and not have to worry about battery life. If next-gen SOCs can perform similarly with a battery ~2/3 the size of the Razor Maxx's, then heck yeah I would choose LTE over HSPA+.

 

[CurseTheSky]

I have to agree. Until LTE is really widespread, where I can reliably connect to a 4G network in a majority of the places that I regularly stay at, I'm perfectly satisfied with AT&T HSPA+.

I switched from AT&T (dumb phone) to Verizon (smartphone) in 2008, and back to AT&T (smartphone) in 2010. Verizon's 3G isn't much to write home about speed wise. Their coverage is good, but AT&T has come a long way in the past several years, at least in my area.