Is 4G fast?

[mammador]

Is 4G really as fast as they say? How does web-browsing compare to 3G?

 

[Deeko]

Depends. Verizon's LTE vs Verizon's EV-DO? Oh yea...world of difference.

T-Mobile's HSPA+ vs T-Mobile's HSPDA? Eh, its faster, but not THAT faster.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Verizon's LTE is seriously fast

just ran a speed test

ping 63ms
down 9.052mbps
up 7.022mbps

There is virtually no comparison.

AT&T's LTE is reported to be as fast in the rollout cities.

 

[gorcorps]

I'm still not sure what all the LTE vs. HSPA and stuff is... but I know that when I did connect to a "4G" spot on my Atrix it felt like a good wifi connection.

 

[Bateluer]

I'm still not sure what all the LTE vs. HSPA and stuff is... but I know that when I did connect to a "4G" spot on my Atrix it felt like a good wifi connection.

Makes a huge difference, LTE, HSPA+, WiMAX. The 4G on the Atrix is AT&T's HSPA+, not even in the same league as Verizon's LTE. I've hit 30Mbps down on that.

 

[RockinZ28]

Infinitely better than 3G. I just got done using my LTE for home internet for the last month. Didn't even notice a difference between LTE and FioS 25/25, besides not being able to dl/ul huge files. If it was truly unlimited and VZW didn't give a shit about tethering, I'd happily replace the landline permanently with LTE. Unfortunately that's not the case, so I got TWC installed today.

LTE:

FioS

Time Warner

 

[Pliablemoose]

Infinitely better than 3G. I just got done using my LTE for home internet for the last month. Didn't even notice a difference between LTE and FioS 25/25, besides not being able to dl/ul huge files. If it was truly unlimited and VZW didn't give a shit about tethering, I'd happily replace the landline permanently with LTE. Unfortunately that's not the case, so I got TWC installed today.

I tethered for my home connection the entire time the allowed free tethering and installed TWC as well when the grace period ended.

All that being said, for a phone, a good 3G connection is fine for just about everything at this point.

 

[gorcorps]

Makes a huge difference, LTE, HSPA+, WiMAX. The 4G on the Atrix is AT&T's HSPA+, not even in the same league as Verizon's LTE. I've hit 30Mbps down on that.

Yeah it doesn't matter too much to me. All I know is that it still felt worlds better than 3G so that's nice.

 

[RockinZ28]

I tethered for my home connection the entire time the allowed free tethering and installed TWC as well when the grace period ended.

All that being said, for a phone, a good 3G connection is fine for just about everything at this point.

Yea good being key. Verizon 3G coverage around LA seemed pretty terrible and was too slow for a good experience with just about anything streaming. LTE never skips a beat.

 

[Deeko]

Verizon's LTE is seriously fast

just ran a speed test

ping 63ms
down 9.052mbps
up 7.022mbps

There is virtually no comparison.

AT&T's LTE is reported to be as fast in the rollout cities.

I've read some tests of Verizon being as fast as 20 down. My Venue Pro on T-Mobile is no slouch, though - its not technically an HSPA+ phone, but I still pull 4-5 down.

 

[zerocool84]

LTE is awesome no comparison, WiMAX sucks though. It's faster than Sprint 3G which is already slow to begin with and can never get a good connection indoors. Even in the LA/OC area, WiMAX coverage is still spotty and rarely get over one bar but one bar of WiMAX 4G is still infinitely better than their 3G.

 

[Pliablemoose]

I've read some tests of Verizon being as fast as 20 down. My Venue Pro on T-Mobile is no slouch, though - its not technically an HSPA+ phone, but I still pull 4-5 down.

The ping times are awesome, LA has a lot of people on LTE already, was getting 20mb down, but it's slowed quite a bit over the last few months, might be the radio I'm using too, need to flash a new one again, see it it helps...

 

[her209]

I wish Sprint would just admit defeat and switch everything to LTE.

 

[amdforever2]

I wish Sprint would just admit defeat and switch everything to LTE.

Solid 3G is fine for almost anything I do.

Sprint and Verizon have never had solid 3G though because CDMA and all it's bastard children are just terrible all around.

My problem is my phone itself. A Bold 9700. The network could have eleventy billion mbps and the phone wouldnt know what to do with it.

 

[her209]

Solid 3G is fine for almost anything I do.

Sprint and Verizon have never had solid 3G though because CDMA and all it's bastard children are just terrible all around.

My problem is my phone itself. A Bold 9700. The network could have eleventy billion mbps and the phone wouldnt know what to do with it.

Sprint's 3G network is slow!!!!

On this Samsung Epic 4G Touch review, its pulling down at abysmal speeds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMWk0o1g6cY#t=8m45s

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Is 4G really as fast as they say? How does web-browsing compare to 3G?

Yes.

It compares like a P4 Rambus platform against a Sandy Bridge 2500K platform.

Sent from my Droid Bionic

 

[ultimatebob]

The only "4G" phone I've had a chance to use has been an AT&T Inspire 4G so far.

It's pathetic. My old iPhone 3G posted faster download and upload speeds.

The LTE phones look a lot better, but I won't be getting one of those for awhile.

 

[zerocool84]

The only "4G" phone I've had a chance to use has been an AT&T Inspire 4G so far.

It's pathetic. My old iPhone 3G posted faster download and upload speeds.

The LTE phones look a lot better, but I won't be getting one of those for awhile.

AT&T allowed the iPhone special preference on their network compared to other phones. Even disabling certain things on other phones that make their uploads slower compared to the iPhone.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

i dont have a 4g phone yet but when ive compared my droidx to the 4g phones downloading side by side on common webpages, in practice they download at almost the same speed. pulling up a heavy page like huffingtonpost, they are literally the same speed. but when you run speedtest, there is no question that verizons 4g scores very high-- 14Mb down, 7Mb up around the bay area vs. 3Mb down/1Mb up. so i guess for things like streaming video that would be noticeable. someone else here also said he gets 4g service in places he cant get 3g, so that may be another advantage, greater range from the towers, but i dont know this firsthand

 

[purbeast0]

my coworker got the bionic last week and we were testing out the LTE with the speed test app. was getting 22mb down pretty consistently. i forget the up speed though.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Sprint's 3G network is slow!!!!

On this Samsung Epic 4G Touch review, its pulling down at abysmal speeds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMWk0o1g6cY#t=8m45s

Story of my life with Sprint for the past year.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Verizon's LTE is seriously fast

just ran a speed test

ping 63ms
down 9.052mbps
up 7.022mbps

There is virtually no comparison.

AT&T's LTE is reported to be as fast in the rollout cities.

Verizon's LTE in Seattle tends to test at around 18mbps down/6mbps up for me. I've hit 24 down on a couple of occasions in the Bellevue/Redmond area. It's ridiculous. Being grandfathered in on an unlimited data plan is very nice with LTE.

ZV

 

[Bateluer]

i dont have a 4g phone yet but when ive compared my droidx to the 4g phones downloading side by side on common webpages, in practice they download at almost the same speed. pulling up a heavy page like huffingtonpost, they are literally the same speed. but when you run speedtest, there is no question that verizons 4g scores very high-- 14Mb down, 7Mb up around the bay area vs. 3Mb down/1Mb up. so i guess for things like streaming video that would be noticeable. someone else here also said he gets 4g service in places he cant get 3g, so that may be another advantage, greater range from the towers, but i dont know this firsthand

Most mobile pages are designed to be light and small, web browsing does feel pretty similar on 3G/4G on my T-bolt. Until you move to desktop web pages, then the 4G is clearly faster, but the pages are difficult to navigate on the smaller screen. Bring in streaming media, Netflix, Youtube, BitTorrent, etc, and LTE is amazing. Although, it will drain the battery fast. Very fast.

I just flashed the T-bolt radios from the newest GB RUU today, so I'll be doing some more testing with those over the next week. I'd been using the radios from the last official OTA, still Froyo based. I can say that the radio updates have definitely improved the T-Bolts network performance, battery life, and 3G/4G transitions/stability over the crap it was released with.

 

[jpeyton]

The consensus is:

LTE: Yes

WiMAX: Maybe

HSPA: No

I have no LTE devices.

My Atrix 4G gets between 1-2Mbps down and 1Mbps up.
My iPhone 4 would get about 500-1000kbps down and 500kbps up.
My WiMAX hotspot gets about 3-6Mbps down and 2Mbps up.

Verizon's 3G in my city isn't any faster than AT&T, but they do have better coverage. Verizon LTE went live in my city about 2 months ago and it blazes, but I'm not going back to Verizon when I can get unlimited everything on AT&T's network for $45/month.

 

[hans007]

I've gotten 25 mbps on lte in the bay area. In la up to mid teens a few times. I used to have T-Mobile and a g2 in "4g" and you'd be lucky to get 3 mbps