Another Carrier Speed Study....

[Dulanic]

Thats not offered on their site.

Wasn't aware that you could buy an unlocked device, and use the Straight Talk sim. How many people want to cough up 600 dollars upfront though?

I'm about to... it still saves me money even if I upgrade every 12 months. I mean let's see... buy a phone for $500 (gnex) and own it unlocked so higher resale value typically. Orrr spend $200 through the carrier + another $40 for "upgrade" fees and be locked for 2 years.

I actually made a spread sheet before deciding to do this Can change whats in yellow and it will adjust the cost

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Auz3ZvnCuqm4dHVmendxRnRoVWZhOHRQTVY0R0hTSnc

The calculations are setup for family plan.

 

[lothar]

Thats not offered on their site.

Wasn't aware that you could buy an unlocked device, and use the Straight Talk sim. How many people want to cough up 600 dollars upfront though?

Meh...
If you can afford to be paying a $100/month cellphone bill, you can afford it.
You don't need Suze Orman to tell you that.

The Galaxy Nexus was on sale for $430 last week for several days. Coughing up $600 not needed.

 

[Bateluer]

Meh...
If you can afford to be paying a $100/month cellphone bill, you can afford it.
You don't need Suze Orman to tell you that.

The Galaxy Nexus was on sale for $430 last week for several days. Coughing up $600 not needed.

I wasn't aware you could use the Straight Talk sim with a phone any GSM phone, I'm assuming it needs the right bands though.

Sounds like a good deal, really does. But dropping even 430 outright is a lot of money for some people. I've actually being trying to get some family members weaned off the AT&T, this might be a good route.

 

[Dulanic]

I wasn't aware you could use the Straight Talk sim with a phone any GSM phone, I'm assuming it needs the right bands though.

Sounds like a good deal, really does. But dropping even 430 outright is a lot of money for some people. I've actually being trying to get some family members weaned off the AT&T, this might be a good route.

You can use any AT&T phone (locked or unlocked) with their AT&T sim card, any t-mobile phone /w their T-Mobile sim card and any unlocked gsm phone.

If it's the quad band gnex for example you can pick either sim or if you said unlocked they will pick for you. So depending which coverage is better, it's best to pick that sim. In the case both are good, pick T-Mobile as it's faster and I hear their hidden cap is higher. The AT&T sim has a "secret" 2GB or so soft cap. The T-Mobile sim I hear is about 3GB.

 

[lothar]

Lol my sprint work phone is painfully slow.

How is straight talk with general gsm phones though. And what plan do they offer?

Thinking about the gnex on it if they have the ability.

There are enough threads talking about it.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2194734&highlight=straight+talk
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2210474&highlight=straight+talk
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2223633&highlight=straight+talk
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2238921&highlight=straight+talk (Most recent thread)

 

[Kelvrick]

Indoor tests at a starbucks huh. They should try being in the middle of a bigger store. As much as I like Tmobile, if service is less than 3 bars outside the store, I can expect no service anywhere but the outer edges of the store.

 

[zerocool84]

It makes me wonder why people still continue to use Sprint...

Unlimited data and for the price, it beats others for what you get. Having to pay for unlimited talk on Verizon or AT&T is expensive plus the low data caps keep me away. If you don't talk on the phone much then sure but I talk on my phone a lot.

 

[lothar]

Unlimited data and for the price, it beats others for what you get. Having to pay for unlimited talk on Verizon or AT&T is expensive plus the low data caps keep me away. If you don't talk on the phone much then sure but I talk on my phone a lot.

Not that much benefit in unlimited data when it's slow.
There are people here on Sprint that complain about getting 300kbps on 4G.
Search their posts.

Sprint is only competitive among the major carriers if you're doing "unlimited" everything.
At almost every other price point that I needed it at, it sucked.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32142051&postcount=22
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32142215&postcount=24

*EDIT*
Isn't T-Mobile's "unlimited" everything plan cheaper than Sprint's? What benefit does Sprint have over T-Mobile's "unlimited" everything plan?

 

[AstroManLuca]

Not that much benefit in unlimited data when it's slow.
There are people here on Sprint that complain about getting 300kbps on 4G.
Search their posts.

Hmm, I've complained about 300 kbps download speeds on Sprint, but that's on 3G. Their 4G is fast for me, actually much faster than the average as far as I can tell.

That said this discussion has been done to death in the past few days. I posted a thread about it, a few other threads cropped up as well that eventually got on the subject of Straight Talk.

 

[Aikouka]

It's not the speed you have to worry about with T-Mobile. 3g/4g is fast if there's coverage. It's the coverage part you have to worry about. That said, the coverage is pretty good in the major cities.

I was thinking about the whole LTE thing this morning. AT&T is probably the company you want to get LTE phone with right now rather than Verizon. LTE radio drains the battery like mad so you probably want to turn it off during regular use and only use it when you need it. With AT&T, you'll still get fast 3g with their HSPA+ network. With Verizon, you're stuck on their slow CDMA 3g.

I'm actually just about fed up with AT&T at this point. I've been a customer with them since they were Cingular (in 2005), but the state of their network in my city is just terrible.

1) Some towers don't work? - This is an odd issue that I have. I'll swap to a new tower, and my data connection absolutely refuses to work. I can have 5/5 bars and it acts like a dead connection. The other week, I went with a coworker to lunch, and I noticed my phone wasn't working. We were traveling back, and I watched as my phone started dropping bars.

It got to about 1 bar when it shot back up to 3-4. The sudden change pretty much meant that I swapped to a better tower (higher signal strength). I had a feeling that my phone was going to work again, and it did. I've had this same problem with various towers in my area. My phone will swap to the new tower but something is wrong with the connection that it makes and it never works until I force a reconnection (airplane mode).

2) Constantly dropping to Edge - I switched jobs, and at my new job, I only get about 1-3 bars. The issue is that I can be at 3 bars with my phone on my desk (i.e. I'm not touching it -- no attenuation), and it suddenly switches to Edge. Now, I don't mind slower speeds, but frankly Edge doesn't work. I assume this is because AT&T is phasing out their 2G services, which means no data over Edge?

This gets really irritating when I'm using the phone, and I notice the app becomes unresponsive. I look at my connection, and it dropped to Edge. I have to put the phone into airplane mode just to get it to reconnect to the tower. It will always reconnect with a 4G connection.

Honestly, when the new iPhone comes out, I'll probably just go with Verizon and pay the ETF with AT&T for my iPhone 4S. Verizon has LTE in my area anyway.

 

[alent1234]

i have a 4S on AT&T and once in a while the 4G connection drops and comes back in a few seconds. i think the issue is that it chooses the least congested tower instead of the closest one. apple and AT&T set it like this in the phone software

 

[saratoga172]

i have a 4S on AT&T and once in a while the 4G connection drops and comes back in a few seconds. i think the issue is that it chooses the least congested tower instead of the closest one. apple and AT&T set it like this in the phone software

Lulz the iphone doesn't have 4g....

 

[shortylickens]

My Tmobile coverage must suck cuz I dont get anywhere near those speeds.

 

[alent1234]

Lulz the iphone doesn't have 4g....

really?

but it just magically appeared with the latest iOS update

 

[Dulanic]

really?

but it just magically appeared with the latest iOS update

I don't believe 4G means what you think it means. Apple & AT&T can lie and say it is 4G but it is not. Though technically none of the carriers have "true" 4G they just all use the label.

That is not to say the speeds aren't good, they are and in many cases better than Verizon's 4G LTE. However, the iPhone does not support 4G LTE.

Edit: My mistake.... AT&T doesn't even say the iPhone is 4G, only Apple does. If you go to AT&T's site the iPhone is listed under "fast" 3G. I can't believe Apple seriously changed the icon to a 4G icon to fool their users.... that is so.... Apple.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I don't believe 4G means what you think it means. Apple & AT&T can lie and say it is 4G but it is not. Though technically none of the carriers have "true" 4G they just all use the label.

That is not to say the speeds aren't good, they are and in many cases better than Verizon's 4G LTE. However, the iPhone does not support 4G LTE.

Edit: My mistake.... AT&T doesn't even say the iPhone is 4G, only Apple does. If you go to AT&T's site the iPhone is listed under "fast" 3G. I can't believe Apple seriously changed the icon to a 4G icon to fool their users.... that is so.... Apple.

Meh, T-Mobile refers to their HSPA+ as 4G too.

When you think about it, if Sprint can call their 2 Mbps average WiMax "4G" then it's not crazy for anyone to refer to HSPA+ (which is just as fast) as 4G as well. I suppose 4G should properly only refer to new technologies (Wimax, LTE) rather than evolutions of existing technologies (HSPA+), but if the speed is still roughly the same, what's the difference?

EDIT: Wait, NONE of the carriers have true 4G? Does LTE not qualify? And if LTE isn't 4G, what is it?

 

[Dulanic]

EDIT: Wait, NONE of the carriers have true 4G? Does LTE not qualify? And if LTE isn't 4G, what is it?

I don't know if it ever got changed but I know back when Wimax was released there was a huge argument about it not being true 4G and that LTE etc wasn't either.

A quick glance at wikipedia.... I guess they got it changed to include LTE...

From wiki:

In March 2008, the International Telecommunications Union-Radio communications sector (ITU-R) specified a set of requirements for 4G standards, named the International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (IMT-Advanced) specification, setting peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 megabits per second (Mbit/s) for high mobility communication (such as from trains and cars) and 1 gigabit per second (Gbit/s) for low mobility communication (such as pedestrians and stationary users).[1]

Since the above mentioned first-release versions of Mobile WiMAX and LTE support much less than 1 Gbit/s peak bit rate, they are not fully IMT-Advanced compliant, but are often branded 4G by service providers. On December 6, 2010, ITU-R recognized that these two technologies, as well as other beyond-3G technologies that do not fulfill the IMT-Advanced requirements, could nevertheless be considered "4G", provided they represent forerunners to IMT-Advanced compliant versions and "a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third generation systems now deployed".[2]

 

[AstroManLuca]

"a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third generation systems now deployed".

LOL, I guess that's why HSPA+ is also referred to as 4G.

 

[Dulanic]

LOL, I guess that's why HSPA+ is also referred to as 4G.

Even AT&T stopped calling HSPA+ 4G... I am guessing due to the fact they are pushing strong into LTE now, so they want to say hey! we have LTE 4G, T-Mobile and other's don't! Of course that doesn't work for Apple so I guess they just said meh whatever it's 4G for us.

 

[ImDonly1]

I'm actually just about fed up with AT&T at this point. I've been a customer with them since they were Cingular (in 2005), but the state of their network in my city is just terrible.

1) Some towers don't work? - This is an odd issue that I have. I'll swap to a new tower, and my data connection absolutely refuses to work. I can have 5/5 bars and it acts like a dead connection. The other week, I went with a coworker to lunch, and I noticed my phone wasn't working. We were traveling back, and I watched as my phone started dropping bars.

It got to about 1 bar when it shot back up to 3-4. The sudden change pretty much meant that I swapped to a better tower (higher signal strength). I had a feeling that my phone was going to work again, and it did. I've had this same problem with various towers in my area. My phone will swap to the new tower but something is wrong with the connection that it makes and it never works until I force a reconnection (airplane mode).

Happens a lot to me with straight talk using att sim. Websites won't load at all even if you have signal. Pretty annoying.