The Fastest Mobile Networks 2011

[poofyhairguy]

Here is the nationwide results:

From:

http://www.pcmag.com/Fastest-Mobile-Networks-2011

Reason why I am sticking with AT&T:

AT&T's nationwide 3G network still offers the best balance of speed and performance outside major cities

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Too bad Im in LA. Sprint is horrible. Im making the switch to Verizon.

 

[vshah]

and the last place guy is trying to buy #2. great.

 

[pm]

I'll admit that AT&T's speeds are generally pretty good - and their service is decent when I'm travelling. But the two local towers to me are totally overloaded and at least one out of every 3 calls drops for me. Plus I frequently get "network is too busy please try again later", and a lot of data connection errors. So AT&T has been incredibly frustrating for me - I pay a lot of money and I have really horrible service within the area that I generally call in (around my house and where I work, which is just up the street). AT&T acknowledges the problem - the reps will tell me that they are working to improve service and they want to give me one of those 3G repeaters that uses my internet connection to improve AT&T's quality (no thank you). I'll be switching as soon as my contract runs out on one of our two family plan phones, will pay the ETF and will move to one of the others (Sprint probably).

I was thinking - our cell phone bill (which is $90/month for my wife, daughter and I) is my single largest recurring bill. It's more than our mortgage (I paid it off), it's more than our car insurance (individually anyway), it's more than our electricity, water, or heating bills (if calculated annually instead of per month), it's more than our internet bill ($40). And it's a bit sad that our cell phone service is by far the worst of all of them... our water doesn't shut off 1/3 of the time, I don't have connection problems with I plug in my electrical appliances. And I'm stuck in a contract that will cost me a lot to get out of because I didn't know 18 months ago that AT&T was going to sell too many cell phones to people near me.

 

[kubani1]

I was thinking - our cell phone bill (which is $90/month for my wife, daughter and I) is my single largest recurring bill. It's more than our mortgage

damn, i wish my lowest recurring bill was only $90/month. and if that is $90 for all three of you, thats not that bad.

 

[Aikouka]

and the last place guy is trying to buy #2. great.

Psst, it's in alphabetical order.

 

[pm]

damn, i wish my lowest recurring bill was only $90/month. and if that is $90 for all three of you, thats not that bad.

Yeah, I agree, I think I pay a fair price to AT&T (I get a 20% discount from my employer, and we are on the cheapest rate plans). It's just the flaky service that gets me. To be honest, if I could somehow pay more (like 30% more), for a better tier of service I would.

 

[ImDonly1]

Yeah, I agree, I think I pay a fair price to AT&T (I get a 20% discount from my employer, and we are on the cheapest rate plans). It's just the flaky service that gets me. To be honest, if I could somehow pay more (like 30% more), for a better tier of service I would.

Chances are your employer gets discounts with all of the cell phone companies. No reason to stay if you have bad service.

 

[Fingolfin269]

I was reading this via my EVO (Sprint) in LAX and my 3G immediately died. Seriously.

 

[CurseTheSky]

My fiancee and I recently switched from Verizon to AT&T after Verizon royally pissed us off (repeatedly gave us problematic phone replacements; my boss was getting pissed).

A few things I've noticed:
- Verizon does have better / more service in general, HOWEVER, when there's no (or ridiculously low) service on Verizon, it usually displays one or zero bars rather than "No Service." It will lag when trying to make a call, but generally won't notify you that you simply have no service. AT&T, on the other hand, will simply display "No Service."

- AT&T's 3G speeds are roughly 1.5 to 2 times faster than Verizon's in most areas. It still comes down to who has more bars in a given area (if AT&T only has 1 bar / 3G in an area and Verizon has 4 bars / 3G, Verizon will usually be faster), but I've found AT&T to have the upper hand in most areas. Provided, I was comparing my Verizon Droid X to my AT&T Atrix.

- If tethering is what you care about most, AT&T seems to be the better deal. I'm paying $25 / 2GB of mobile data, plus $20 for another 2GB of tethering data. $45 total, and the entire 4GB can be used for tethering. On the other hand, Verizon was $30 for "unlimited" (~5GB) of mobile data, plus $20 for 2GB of tethering data. $50 total, only 2GB for tethering.

 

[shortylickens]

Thats fine but I shant be paying Verizon prices.

 

[zerocool84]

Ugh Sprint's speeds which I can attest to but at least it really is the last major carrier to have unlimited data. That and the prices for what you get are still unbeatable. Also since I have the Nexus S, no charge for tethering.

 

[vshah]

Psst, it's in alphabetical order.

should have clarified - i was referring to download speeds of the big 4

 

[Bateluer]

Sprint's 4G UDP success rate seems a bit . . . low?

 

[OBLAMA2009]

i have verizon and i pretty consistently get 2mbps here in the bay area. but according to this sprint wimax gets less than that:

http://www.bgr.com/2011/04/01/verizon-4g-lte-blows-away-sprints-wimax-in-1000-speed-tests/

what kind of "4g" is that? no wonder sprint is switching to lte. surprisingly best buy is advertising wimax on their laptop demos, i guess intel is still hoping it will catch on

 

[zerocool84]

i have verizon and i pretty consistently get 2mbps here in the bay area. but according to this sprint wimax gets less than that:

http://www.bgr.com/2011/04/01/verizon-4g-lte-blows-away-sprints-wimax-in-1000-speed-tests/

what kind of "4g" is that? no wonder sprint is switching to lte. surprisingly best buy is advertising wimax on their laptop demos, i guess intel is still hoping it will catch on

WiMax sucks mainly because of it's horrible ability to penetrate anything thicker than a twig. The only way to get a decent connection its to literally be in close direct line of site of a tower.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

WiMax sucks mainly because of it's horrible ability to penetrate anything thicker than a twig. The only way to get a decent connection its to literally be in close direct line of site of a tower.

that would really be bad for me since im in tall buildings all day. sounds like yet another reason to go with lte

 

[Oyeve]

I like my TMO speed and plan. I average 3-5 down and 4-7 up. 2 lines, grandfathered data plan price (15) and 1000mins, 1000texts for less than 100 bucks. In NYC TMO is pretty damn good on 3g. I played with their 4g and it seemed pretty quick but im waiting for a 4g tmo phone that does netflix natively.

 

[swanysto]

This test is pretty much useless to me. I had ATT where I live and it was horrible. I have sprint and it is fast as can be. My gf has verizon and it flies. My parents have ATT where they live and it works great. The speed depends on a lot of things, and changes wherever you go.

 

[ImDonly1]

WiMax sucks mainly because of it's horrible ability to penetrate anything thicker than a twig. The only way to get a decent connection its to literally be in close direct line of site of a tower.

This has nothing to do with WiMax, but the frequency it is deployed at. Sprint is using it at around 2.5Ghz, while Verizon is using LTE at 700Mhz. Lower frequency = better penetration. This is also why Sprint can offer unlimited data. It has a lot of spectrum around 2.5Ghz. While the 700Mhz spectrum is limited and pricey.

Changing to LTE will not make a difference for Sprint for penetration. In its presentations it showed it wants to deploy LTE in the 1.9 and 2.5Ghz range. It will be the same as WiMax.

Later on when they get rid of their Nextel customers and free up some spectrum in the lower Mhz range, they might deploy some WiMax/LTE in there.

The only benefit of Sprint going LTE is maybe it can roam on the other networks and more handsets available.

 

[alent1234]

used to be on verizon until the iphone came out

my wife wanted the 3G so we switched to AT&T. it's about the same in NYC. out of the 3 phones my wife had on VZW, 1 was crap in the connection department. i get a corporate discount on AT&T and i'm on a family plan so switching is going to cost over $1000

for most people it doesn't really matter who is faster since you can only view websites so fast and most email comes in while you're not using the phone. LTE and newer technologies are for the carriers because they save them money

 

[corkyg]

It really depends on where you are. In my location, AT&T barely gets 1 bar - and a connection is usually lame. As a result, it usually reverts to 1XRTT speed.