PCWorld: AT&T 3G 67% Faster Than Competitors

[antilycus]

Okay so PC WORLD was paid off...never buying their magazine again.

 

[kdw75]

I have and iPhone 3GS and I live in a small city an hour away from Kansas City. I get download speed of 2-4 Mbps. I have to admit though that sometimes it sits without doing anything then boom loads almost immediately. Packet loss? Latency? Overall though I am very happy.

 

[diablocricki]

This is too funny. Verizon funboys are so active...could it be from the adrenaline released while waiting for a download to finish?
I wish I could find the last year's article to look through comments and see what they were saying about PC WORLD back then. I bet the same PC WORLD was "the best magazine" when Verizon came out on top. Childish and...TOO FUNNY!

 

[omnimodis78]

This doesn't really make AT&T look any better than before it just says that they have faster speeds. Why all the AT&T hate?

 

[kdw75]

I don't hate Verizon just because they have terrible coverage in my area. I just choose someone who has good coverage.

 

[thorimmortal]

[citation][nom]ATT ALL DAY pt2[/nom]also i would like to add that with at&t i'm gettin' speeds over 3000 kbps! can verizon do that, huh fanboys? show me one speed test from verizon where they have gotton over 3000 kbps! http/68.142.200.12/us.f382.mail. [...] L9ObbLFw--http/68.142.200.12/us.f382.mail. [...] X_k1.qsw--[/citation]

LOL turn off your wifi, I have no reason to be tied to one provider or another, who ever provides the best service for the money gets my vote,

 

[alextheblue]

[citation][nom]railgun1369[/nom]Umm...if you have 877kbps on, say, 10ms latency, and you have 1410kbps with 20ms latency, I'd take the latter. It's still faster. Look at what you're saying. Your throughput is still higher. For raw data, who cares what the latency is. Unless you're playing the market or ebaying, latency from a mobile perspective 1) is going to suck anyway and 2) isn't that important.[/citation]Latency, packet loss and overall reliability are the biggest things for gamers. Online gaming on the go would be KILLER if we could improve on those. I could get by with a 500kbit connection even for an MMO, as long as the above issues are taken care of. Won't happen anytime soon though...
[citation][nom]ckthecerealkiller[/nom]CDMA needs to step up to 4G soon. It's getting to be very slow considering current bandwidth requirements.[/citation]3G's /speed/ is fine, the problem is 3G coverage, and network capacity. 4G might help the coverage issue, but it is only going to make the network capacity issue even more apparent, especially in major metro areas at peak usage times.

BTW, CDMA isn't getting upgraded to 4G, it's getting replaced. Everyone is going to LTE for 4G, looks like.

 

[thegreathuntingdolphin]

I like how people are quick to talk crap about AT&T, if you don't have it why are you talking crap about, if you do have it and hate it drop it and move on, you can keep cellphone numbers between providers.

I talk crap about them because I have used them pretty much since they started. Service was always subpar, however, not terrible. That is, until I got the iPhone and moved. Calls dropped like a mofo and in my area the minute I went out of my city the 3G dropped and I had Edge. Also, there was no service in my home (completely dead, had to get a freakin land line!). So I dropped AT&T for Verizon and I am happy to say I haven't looked back! I have reception in my home, I get 3g every where I go, and I have no more dropped calls!

Having the fastest 3G speed doesn't mean crap if you have to use Edge, have no service at all, or weak service.

To tracyfearson:

Yes speedtest.net uses flash; however, their is an app for it for some phones. I use a speedtest app for my droid.

 

[nebun]

go AT&T, keep it up. i have never had any problems with them. i guess verizon does suck after all, lol

 

[orionantares]

AT&T claims more service area than they actually have. Zoom in on some of the areas outside the "major" cities and you'll see their coverage start to break up on the map. AT&T barely covers the area I need to use my phone in with their voice service let alone their data or even 3G service. Doubling up the towers in some of the 3G areas they already cover is a nice way to trick the bandwidth tests but in practical use AT&T coverage is terrible. Sprint and T-mobile have limited coverage as well but those two don't try to market or price themselves to pretend they have expansive coverage the way that AT&T tries to do. AT&T is a ripoff and the only thing propping up the carrier was their exclusive deal with Apple. Now that there are iPhone clones out there and with the coming possibility for the iPhone to move to other networks, AT&T is not going to be able to rely on Apple to prop them up anymore.

 

[Mr_Man]

I think what most of the above comments are missing is that this is a new thing. AT&T has built a lot of towers and increased speeds just in the last year, so most of these complaints of downtime and slow speeds are old news.
The customer service may still be the same, though.

 

[thebigt42]

[citation][nom]railgun1369[/nom]Umm...if you have 877kbps on, say, 10ms latency, and you have 1410kbps with 20ms latency, I'd take the latter. It's still faster. Look at what you're saying. Your throughput is still higher. For raw data, who cares what the latency is. Unless you're playing the market or ebaying, latency from a mobile perspective 1) is going to suck anyway and 2) isn't that important.[/citation]

The problem is that you don't know what your talking about. Latency is the time it takes to start downloading the next web page when you click a link. Its been a while since we tested ATTs latency but when we did it was over 200ms response time. (Not to mention crappy coverage) That is too slow. That is why my company uses Verizon and Sprint If you are doing a lot of downloading get a cable modem or some other dedicated Internet Connection

 

[antilycus]

um i have Cricket/leapfrog. I get unlimited everything (text, video messaging, picture messaging, UNLIMITED INTERNET, long distance, and 30 mins of roaming (its a CDMA technology)) for 40 bucks a month. INCLUDING MY DATA PLAN. Can you guys say the same?

 

[diablocricki]

[citation][nom]Antilycus[/nom]um i have Cricket/leapfrog. I get unlimited everything (text, video messaging, picture messaging, UNLIMITED INTERNET, long distance, and 30 mins of roaming (its a CDMA technology)) for 40 bucks a month. INCLUDING MY DATA PLAN. Can you guys say the same?[/citation]

LMAO. Go Cricket! Unlimited everything if you are one of the 10-20 super lucky customers that can get reception
I should be selling wireless plans : "DIABLONet SuperLightningSPEED" offers unlimited wireless, internet and french fries for only $1.99/Mo. Too bad you're not lucky enough to be in our coverage area

 

[Railgun1369]

[citation][nom]thebigt42[/nom]The problem is that you don't know what your talking about. Latency is the time it takes to start downloading the next web page when you click a link. Its been a while since we tested ATTs latency but when we did it was over 200ms response time. (Not to mention crappy coverage) That is too slow. That is why my company uses Verizon and Sprint If you are doing a lot of downloading get a cable modem or some other dedicated Internet Connection[/citation]

I know what latency is. You said you'd rather have "877 kbps with low latency over 1410 kbps with high latency." Over one second, guess which one has received more data. Over time, the latter is faster. I didn't say ANYTHING about how long it takes to start receiving data. kbps is a measurement of data over time. Don't take what I said out of context nor should you argue with a network engineer.

 

[thebigt42]

nor should you argue with a network engineer.

A network engineer that does not know what he is talking about!

 

[thebigt42]

[citation][nom]railgun1369[/nom]I know what latency is. You said you'd rather have "877 kbps with low latency over 1410 kbps with high latency." Over one second, guess which one has received more data. Over time, the latter is faster. I didn't say ANYTHING about how long it takes to start receiving data. kbps is a measurement of data over time. Don't take what I said out of context nor should you argue with a network engineer.[/citation]

So I guess you would rather have a hughes net sat Internet connection with 2meg down and 350ms response time over a dsl lite connection with 1meg down and 100ms response time. If you do you are a dumb a$$ network engineer and need to go back to school.

 

[Railgun1369]

I can't argue with idiocy. And this isn't about what carrier is better than another.

By the way, your example still shows that the sat solution is in fact, OVER TIME, faster. Not quicker. I'm sure you're smart enough to know the difference.

 

[Guest]

This is my results for my LG Xenon on AT&T's 3G network. I did the test 3 times using www.mobilespeedtest.com

Your speed: 1179.941 Kbps
Your latency: 1.808 seconds
Transfered 1000 KB in 6.78 seconds

Your speed: 1099.002 Kbps
Your latency: 1.972 seconds
Transfered 1000 KB in 7.28 seconds

Your speed: 1234.568 Kbps
Your latency: 1.986
Transfered 1000 KB in 6.48 seconds