gigahurtz
Premium
join:2001-10-20
Palm Coast, FL
clubs: | Surprised?
Why am I not surprised? |
|
baineschile
2600
Premium
join:2008-05-10
Sterling Heights, MI | Kinda scary to think whats going to happen when ATT launches LTE; and the problems they will face with that.
Just another testament on why Apple should move to VZW |
|
dlewis23
join:2005-04-18
Boca Raton, FL
| Kinda odd!!!
It's kinda odd why they only break 1000 Kbps on there chart twice with AT&T but several with Verizon. That is the complete opposite from what I see in the real world.
I have been to 5 cities over the past 2 weeks on business and in all I had no problems getting over 1 Mbps with AT&T, and in some had no problem getting over 1.5 Mbps. |
|
knightmb
Everybody Lies
join:2003-12-01
Franklin, TN
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| said by dlewis23  :It's kinda odd why they only break 1000 Kbps on there chart twice with AT&T but several with Verizon. That is the complete opposite from what I see in the real world. I have been to 5 cities over the past 2 weeks on business and in all I had no problems getting over 1 Mbps with AT&T, and in some had no problem getting over 1.5 Mbps. I see similar speeds as well, just wish they would quit advertising it as 3.6 Mbps because I've never seen it get even close to that speed and I'm within sight of the tower. I've tried it at 2:00AM, tower within sight, -20 db signal, no go.
--
Fight Insight Ready (Was NebuAD) and the like:
Click Here to pollute their data |
|
ShellMMG
join:2009-04-16
Grass Lake, MI
 ·Alltel Axess
| On one strange evening I actually got a 3.3 down from my Alltel/Verizon tower. I'm 3.5 miles away, in "fringe" territory and usually get between 65K-1.50M down. It was for one hot second and I nearly fell out of my chair.
So THAT'S what it's capable of! Why I've never seen that again I don't know. |
|
Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| reply to gigahurtz
Re: Surprised?
said by gigahurtz :Why am I not surprised? AT&T has a huge problem with their network that they need to address. Look at those reliability number for AT&T, good lord they are awful. Much worse that I would have guessed, but I don't do much that requires a continuous 1-minute of connectivity. |
|
Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
 ·Comcast
| reply to dlewis23
Re: Kinda odd!!!
said by dlewis23 :It's kinda odd why they only break 1000 Kbps on there chart twice with AT&T but several with Verizon. That is the complete opposite from what I see in the real world. I have been to 5 cities over the past 2 weeks on business and in all I had no problems getting over 1 Mbps with AT&T, and in some had no problem getting over 1.5 Mbps. IMO, Florida is AT&T's best 3G market. I constantly see above 1Mbps on my 3G speedtests.
--
CheckSite.us | YourIP.us | Reverseip.us |
|
Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| reply to baineschile
Re: Surprised?
said by baineschile :Kinda scary to think whats going to happen when ATT launches LTE; and the problems they will face with that. Just another testament on why Apple should move to VZW Once VZW adds 30+ million iphones to their network, I'm sure you'll see a slow down too.
--
CheckSite.us | YourIP.us | Reverseip.us |
|
Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| said by Rob :said by baineschile :Kinda scary to think whats going to happen when ATT launches LTE; and the problems they will face with that. Just another testament on why Apple should move to VZW Once VZW adds 30+ million iphones to their network, I'm sure you'll see a slow down too. I don't think that would occur. It's my understanding that CDMA and EVDO are inherently more efficient than GSM/HSDPA. Additionally, you can roam on any CDMA/EVDO tower whereas AT&T (for the most part) has to go it alone. Verizon has the luxury of roaming among Alltel (now Verizon) and Sprint towers.
It's not like this is new to AT&T anyway. I performed a HUGE migration of worldwide users to a BlackBerry system and I had numerous people returning AT&T Blackberries because their service was awful. |
|
Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| said by Matt :said by Rob :said by baineschile :Kinda scary to think whats going to happen when ATT launches LTE; and the problems they will face with that. Just another testament on why Apple should move to VZW Once VZW adds 30+ million iphones to their network, I'm sure you'll see a slow down too. I don't think that would occur. It's my understanding that CDMA and EVDO are inherently more efficient than GSM/HSDPA. Additionally, you can roam on any CDMA/EVDO tower whereas AT&T (for the most part) has to go it alone. Verizon has the luxury of roaming among Alltel (now Verizon) and Sprint towers. It's not like this is new to AT&T anyway. I performed a HUGE migration of worldwide users to a BlackBerry system and I had numerous people returning AT&T Blackberries because their service was awful. I really can't disagree since I don't have a very good understanding of the technologies.
But it's something we'd have to wait to see.. 2010.. maybe.
--
CheckSite.us | YourIP.us | Reverseip.us |
|
Cod
join:2000-07-05
Greensboro, NC
| reply to Rob
Re: Kinda odd!!!
Greensboro, NC AT&T 3g test from 5 minutes ago. |
|
glinc
join:2009-04-07
New York, NY | reply to gigahurtz
Re: Surprised?
They key is in investing money in their infrastructure. If AT&T is not dishing money to improve their towers/networks they will go down. |
|
Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
Premium,MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI
 ·Site5.com
·AT&T Midwest
·Comcast
1 edit | Further proof that its all about location
I really get frustrated when I hear people complaining that (insert provider here) sucks because of bad service. At least most people are finally coming around to the fact that its all about where you live or where you are going to use it. For some locations, one provider may be the best while another may suck. For other locations, that provider that was good in the previous area may suck in the new one.
The key here is to use the service in that location and make a decision with your wallet. There is no universal provider that is going to score 100% in every category in every city.
--
My domain - Nightfall.net |
|
VansHSI
join:2005-01-29
America
| My Observations
ATT - oh boy... i guess i can upload pics faster on your network than others
Sprint - the most reliable barely edging out Verizon on an overall basis. Upload speeds are a bit disappointing in some markets.
Verizon - by far the fastest download speeds. But the markets where they perform the best are the markets where they are the CLEC so they should be performing the best.
Overall I'm not surprised how Verizon performed considering in many of the markets tested they are CLEC. Controlling your own lines to your towers can REALLY help out in getting the proper amount of bandwidth needed. It's somewhat surprising how well Sprint performs considering they aren't the CLEC provider at all in any markets. Remember, Sprint has to go through Verizon and ATT in almost all of the markets listed with the exception of Denver(Qwest) for access. So whenever they do win out on speed it's a compliment to them on how hard they work. And being the most reliable is a huge credit to them. ATT is just so disappointing... even in the markets where they are the CLEC they still don't win out. Does anyone believe their marketing anymore?
The results are best viewed on a market by market basis though. Rounding out and finding averages as I did isn't the best way to judge unless you're a big road warrior. One should really find their home market and judge accordingly. |
|
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO
| Bandwith to where?
I linked to and read the "specific testing approach" page from this thread's article. However, I couldn't figure out what test site they used to derive the numbers.
I have three speed tests on my iPhone: DSLReports, Ookla and SpeedTest. DSLReports and Ookla let me choose the destination server. Due to Internet "weather" and packet routes, I have found that the destination server can have a huge impact on performance. For instance, I'm located in St. Louis and sometimes I achieve significantly higher performance (1.3Mbps vs. 500Kbps) by choosing a Chicago-based server over a St. Louis-based server.
While I have no problem with them using a laptop for the tests, they claim that they use it over a smart phone because of the "high processing requirements" of the test application. That makes me pause because I don't think a bandwidth test should require substantial processing power. For nearly ten years DSLReports has offered a Java benchmark test. As a "virtual" language Java requires more resources than a native application. Still, I've never known the DSL Reports Java benchmark to require vast quantities of memory or processing power... even on PCs from five or six years ago.
Bottom line -- I think we need more information about how the tests were conducted to draw meaningful conclusions. As my graduate-level statistics professor always said, "In descending order of trust, there are liars, damn liars and statisticians." |
|
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO
| reply to VansHSI
Re: My Observations
While I'm not willing to complement Sprint for a "job well done", I agree with most of your assertions. Without more information about the destination test servers, the route through the Internet to reach these servers could have a huge impact on performance. If any provider has bad routes to a particular server in some of these markets, that would increase latency and put them at a huge disadvantage. |
|
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
·Comcast
·Qwest.net
 ·magicjack.com
·BeeCreek Communica..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| No Dallas? Low Sprint?
Interesting that there were no results in the table from Texas. Nothing from DFW, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso...even though I'm pretty sure all three carriers route traffic through Dallas on some of their tests (most likely the Denver one).
As for Sprint, I'm in Florida for vacation and speed tests tend to hit 1200/300 most of the time. AT&T was also good last I checked (last summer) down here...1200 kbps down, 500-700 kbps up. Then again, I'm not in a full-on metro market.
The upload and reliability numbers on AT&T were expected though...I like the upload speed on ATT HSPA but the connection isn't the most solid I've used. Sprint and Verizon, as I expected, were quite reliable connection-wise.
Who's gonna bet that Verizon uses the PCWorld study to back up their "nation's most reliable 3G network" claim?
Lastly, I wonder what modems were used in the tests. The Sprint download numbers seem a bit low. I can outdo 'em on my HTC Touch Pro on WMWiFiROuter, and it isn't even an MBB card  |
|
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Click on the "testing approach" link in the article. It discusses the modems they used. They claim they used the latest recommended by each provider. |
|
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO | Thanks for making me read the article. Looks like the test results are legit. WOuldn't expect anything less from PCW though  |
|
