[PUBBY]

4G service in Dallas reviewed Last September I upgraded my phone to a 4G model figuring that the new high speed cellular service would get to Dallas eventually. Well it is here and as the realtime video of speakeasy's speedtest shows, it can be swift. That video was taken shortly after noon today (2/23/2012) and seems pretty typical for daytime. I've had download rates ranging from a low of about 8mbps at my house to 12 and 19 mbps at locations like an access drive at US278/61. I'm actually tickled at the speeds I've been getting in the daytime. Indeed, the 4-g service pretty much covers all of Dallas all the way to the Atlanta Northwest Airport some seven or eight miles west of town. There are probably a few dead spots in the area but generally speaking the downlink speeds rival cable and probably beat dsl in the daytime. Come nightfall, however, it appears that the return of the 30-40,000 residents who work outside the county suck the vitality out of the local 4g. At the house, which admitted is a bit challenged anyway, about the best I could do last night was 1.5mbps down and I did record a few instances where the speed test fell below 1mbps and into basic DSL territory. To make this a better post, do let us know what kind of 4G service you get at key locations. I plan to be out an about a bit an will record more locations as I do testing.

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[smitty]

Good topic.

I don't have experience to share. (I have a 4S and and am deeply satisfied with it. Contrary to popular belief, the 4S is a 3G phone.)

I'm interested to know how much your battery life is impacted if at all.

This post has been edited by smitty: 23 February 2012 - 02:06 PM

[PUBBY]

I've got a pantech breakout ... it was about the least expensive of the 4-g phones offered by verizon when I upgraded from my original droid phone. I have to charge it every night and I generally don't use it for browsing. (something about the 27-inch 1080p TV/monitor I got for a heck of deal from Anything Joe's) that has me connected to my laptop for most Internet stuff.

I'm personally more interested in using the phone as a net connection device for the laptop and for video production. To wit I'm more excited about the 3.81mbps uplink than I am the 24mbps downlink. I was, though, relatively happy about the 1.4mbps uplink from home although I did get a couple of disappointing results in the midst of prime time (8 p.m.) when I fear everyone had returned and more folks were using their devices. Daytime though is actually pretty good for me and video.

pubby

[Wineguy]

PUBBY, on 23 February 2012 - 02:36 PM, said:

I've got a pantech breakout ... it was about the least expensive of the 4-g phones offered by verizon when I upgraded from my original droid phone. I have to charge it every night and I generally don't use it for browsing. (something about the 27-inch 1080p TV/monitor I got for a heck of deal from Anything Joe's) that has me connected to my laptop for most Internet stuff.

I'm personally more interested in using the phone as a net connection device for the laptop and for video production. To wit I'm more excited about the 3.81mbps uplink than I am the 24mbps downlink. I was, though, relatively happy about the 1.4mbps uplink from home although I did get a couple of disappointing results in the midst of prime time (8 p.m.) when I fear everyone had returned and more folks were using their devices. Daytime though is actually pretty good for me and video.

pubby

I have a Verizon MiFi 4G Hotspot and I run about 8-10 Mb/s at my house. I have seen some tests on AT&T which are showing about 20Mb/s in the area. I love how they advertise that Verizons LTE is so fast, but my AT&T iPhone 4s isnt even LTE and gets 4-7Mb/s on HSPA+, but at my house the LTE on verizon isnt getting much better.

I wish I had of waited and got a Hotspot from AT&T instead of Verizon. I have never gotten good data downloads on 3G or 4G with them.

[smitty]

PUBBY, on 23 February 2012 - 02:36 PM, said:

...snip...
I have to charge it every night...

...snip...

Yes, but have you noticed faster battery drain now that you have, and are using 4G service? I presume up to this point you had been using 3G service on your 4G-capable phone. I'm wondering if it's as simple as 4 is 1/3 more then 3 and so, does it drain the battery 1/3 faster? (I'm probably asking an utterly stewpid question, but I know less than nothing about electronics.)

I'm glad your happy with the speed. I hesitated getting a 4S because it's 3G, but my 3S was also 3G and it streamed movies just fine. For my needs, I couldn't see needing anything faster than streaming video capability. (I like to watch movies when walkin' the dawg.) As far as speed not related to connection speed, it's virtually instantly fast when loading apps etc. The screen resolution is amazing; almost spooky. Its pixels are invisibly small.

[Riptides]

WooT! 4G eh?

That means it'll take even less time to reach your monthly cap

[smitty]

Wineguy, on 23 February 2012 - 03:06 PM, said:

I have a Verizon MiFi 4G Hotspot and I run about 8-10 Mb/s at my house. I have seen some tests on AT&T which are showing about 20Mb/s in the area. I love how they advertise that Verizons LTE is so fast, but my AT&T iPhone 4s isnt even LTE and gets 4-7Mb/s on HSPA+, but at my house the LTE on verizon isnt getting much better.

I wish I had of waited and got a Hotspot from AT&T instead of Verizon. I have never gotten good data downloads on 3G or 4G with them.

My wife got an......Andriod-something, 4G. The latest bells and whistles about 6 mo ago. She prefers her old 3S over the 4G whatever it is. I don't think she's used 4G service on it though. Apple phones are god sends to electronically illiterate people like me. It's like it reads my mind.

Have you had an agrument with Siri yet? I have! It was funny! She has a hard time understanding me, but sh'e getting better. I can almost trust her to send text messages without reading them to me first before sending it. It transforms texting while driving from something very dangerous to being no more dangerous than a conversation with a passenger while driving.

P.S. A variety show that requires differing ethnic groups to communicate through Siri would be a wild hit.

Riptides, on 23 February 2012 - 03:19 PM, said:

WooT! 4G eh?

That means it'll take even less time to reach your monthly cap

Unlimited data service baby!

[PUBBY]

The funniest thing I've seen is that I had 4g on the second floor of the new courthouse building. I went to the lobby and it dropped to 3g and then walked to the side of the Admin building and I'm back at 4G with a mighty strong signal (26mbps down).

Then I looked immediately to the east and noticed the cell tower there and could tell the problem was that the massive size of the Admin building created a signal shadow that killed 4g probably for the 30 yards from the front of the courthouse to the Admin building.

Step to the side so you get line of sight on the tower and bang, 20mbps - step in front of the admin building and you'll get 3g at 500kbs or so.

pubby

[CrabbyDaddy]

PUBBY, on 25 February 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

The funniest thing I've seen is that I had 4g on the second floor of the new courthouse building. I went to the lobby and it dropped to 3g and then walked to the side of the Admin building and I'm back at 4G with a mighty strong signal (26mbps down).

Then I looked immediately to the east and noticed the cell tower there and could tell the problem was that the massive size of the Admin building created a signal shadow that killed 4g probably for the 30 yards from the front of the courthouse to the Admin building.

Step to the side so you get line of sight on the tower and bang, 20mbps - step in front of the admin building and you'll get 3g at 500kbs or so.

pubby

Good detective work...Colombo What's next?


Edited to add: What did you eat at chicken world, mr. Pubs?

This post has been edited by CrabbyDaddy: 25 February 2012 - 11:14 PM

[Nitro]

T-Mobile has had 4G in Dallas for a good while... at least 2 years.

This post has been edited by Nitro: 26 February 2012 - 01:47 AM

[PUBBY]

CrabbyDaddy, on 25 February 2012 - 11:11 PM, said:

Good detective work...Colombo What's next?


Edited to add: What did you eat at chicken world, mr. Pubs?

Chicken

pubby

Nitro, on 26 February 2012 - 01:46 AM, said:

T-Mobile has had 4G in Dallas for a good while... at least 2 years.

They probably should have advertised that fact on pcom and I'd have known

pubby

[Riptides]

smitty, on 23 February 2012 - 03:22 PM, said:

Unlimited data service baby!

You have to remember the Broadband folks redefined "Unlimited" in the early oughites, it doesn't mean all you can eat datawise, it means always on and ready to use as long as you want to use it, Unlimited.

Quote

AT&T has been waging a quiet war on those "unlimited" users they grandfathered in 2010, they've started throttling those users after 2 GB to force them to tiered data plans.
http://www.dslreport...al-Sense-118522

Now seems you are safe as long as you don't jailbreak and tether unofficially.
OR
Use over 2GB of Data a month.

Most folks won't have to worry but power users might find themselves moved over to a tiered data plan eventually.

This post has been edited by Riptides: 26 February 2012 - 05:14 PM

[Wineguy]

Riptides, on 26 February 2012 - 05:04 PM, said:

You have to remember the Broadband folks redefined "Unlimited" in the early oughites, it doesn't mean all you can eat datawise, it means always on and ready to use as long as you want to use it, Unlimited.



Now seems you are safe as long as you don't jailbreak and tether unofficially.
OR
Use over 2GB of Data a month.

Most folks won't have to worry but power users might find themselves moved over to a tiered data plan eventually.

I use about 4.5 GB a month on my iPhone and have yet to be throttled. I have had an iPhone since June 26, 2007 (the day it came out), and have had unlimited since day one. I read that most of that throttling has occurred in New York City area and California, both areas that have very clogged networks and lots of jail breaking data hogs.

As for T-Mobile having "4G" in Paulding for over 2 years, that is like me saying I have a Hybrid car since it can take E-85 gas. They advertise 4G even though it is the same network as 3G just with a little tweak to increase the speed slightly. Unfortunately there are no laws governing the use of terms in marketing like this. The iPhone 4s uses the same technology as T-Mobiles 4G, but Apple refuses to let the carriers label it as 4G since it is not running on the accepted LTE 4G networks. Which btw, according to the international committees that created 3G and 4G and such, LTE is still FAR from 4G. it is more of a 3G+. It will be another 3-5 years before we truly see 4G LTE+ which is fast enough to truly be marketed as 4G.

[CrabbyDaddy]

Wineguy, on 26 February 2012 - 05:58 PM, said:

I use about 4.5 GB a month on my iPhone and have yet to be throttled. I have had an iPhone since June 26, 2007 (the day it came out), and have had unlimited since day one. I read that most of that throttling has occurred in New York City area and California, both areas that have very clogged networks and lots of jail breaking data hogs.

As for T-Mobile having "4G" in Paulding for over 2 years, that is like me saying I have a Hybrid car since it can take E-85 gas. They advertise 4G even though it is the same network as 3G just with a little tweak to increase the speed slightly. Unfortunately there are no laws governing the use of terms in marketing like this. The iPhone 4s uses the same technology as T-Mobiles 4G, but Apple refuses to let the carriers label it as 4G since it is not running on the accepted LTE 4G networks. Which btw, according to the international committees that created 3G and 4G and such, LTE is still FAR from 4G. it is more of a 3G+. It will be another 3-5 years before we truly see 4G LTE+ which is fast enough to truly be marketed as 4G.

The iPhone 4 or 4s is a 3G phone. LTE is LTE which stands for long term evolution. You have no idea what you are talking about. You should stick to wine...I'll bet you know alot more about that than phone stuff. BTW most carriers have LTE service in paulding now.

[Riptides]

Wineguy, on 26 February 2012 - 05:58 PM, said:

I use about 4.5 GB a month on my iPhone and have yet to be throttled. I have had an iPhone since June 26, 2007 (the day it came out), and have had unlimited since day one. I read that most of that throttling has occurred in New York City area and California, both areas that have very clogged networks and lots of jail breaking data hogs.

Think it's been determined that the 2GB of data is an gusstimated national network average.
The broadband companies haven't been very forthcoming about what their precise metrics are for determining that you are a data hog, but it's generally considered if you are in the top 5% of highest bandwidth usage on the network for your area, then you probably qualify. Problem is different network areas will have different metrics. New Yorks network profile is a whole other world compared to Atlantas outlying metro area.

CrabbyDaddy, on 26 February 2012 - 09:17 PM, said:

The iPhone 4 or 4s is a 3G phone. LTE is LTE which stands for long term evolution. You have no idea what you are talking about. You should stick to wine...I'll bet you know alot more about that than phone stuff. BTW most carriers have LTE service in paulding now.

Verizon is probably the only carrier running a true Nationwide LTE 4G Network, as of last spring, when testing was done and it showed that they were, on average, about twice as fast as any other carriers 4G Network. ATT's and TMobiles was about on par for national speed averages as of last spring. And Sprint was all over the place depending on what market you were in.

CrabbyDaddy, on 26 February 2012 - 09:17 PM, said:

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Still won't stop me from posting on the internet.

This post has been edited by Riptides: 26 February 2012 - 10:23 PM

[Wineguy]

CrabbyDaddy, on 26 February 2012 - 09:17 PM, said:

The iPhone 4 or 4s is a 3G phone. LTE is LTE which stands for long term evolution. You have no idea what you are talking about. You should stick to wine...I'll bet you know alot more about that than phone stuff. BTW most carriers have LTE service in paulding now.

I do not think I am the one misinformed here. Currently no iPhone is a 4G device. The iPhone 4s works on the HSPA+ network which Is what tmobile describes as 4G. My iPhone 4s has pulled in download speeds in excess of 8Mb/s which in TMobiles definition is 4G (which it is not). As for your sadly incorrect information that most carriers have LTE, try 3 of them. Verizon and AT&T are the only one with their own LTE towers, and Metro uses Verizon's for service. Sprint has announce by the end of this year they will begin launching LTE and TMobile says they will by 2014.

http://www.pcmag.com...,2394434,00.asp


Also, Riptides, you are correct that as of one year ago Verizon was the only national LTE carrier. They still have the largest footprint. But if you do a search for any speed tests currently, AT&T has a slight edge over them in terms of speed of the network on LTE. However, it is very dependent on location.

http://www.technobuf...-lte-smackdown/

You are correct that it's the top 5% who are limited, luckily in the southeast 5% is well above 2-4GB as far as I have been able to gather.

This post has been edited by Wineguy: 26 February 2012 - 11:13 PM

[Jane Doe]

It's time for me to upgrade with Verizon. I've been eyeing the Rezound and Razr Maxx, but I'm (im)patiently holding out for the next greatest thing to happen. I hope Verizon gets the HTC One X.

Just announced: the HTC One X

[Wineguy]

Jane Doe, on 26 February 2012 - 11:20 PM, said:

It's time for me to upgrade with Verizon. I've been eyeing the Rezound and Razr Maxx, but I'm (im)patiently holding out for the next greatest thing to happen. I hope Verizon gets the HTC One X.

Just announced: the HTC One X

From what I read the X is going to be an ATT exclusive. Verizon and T-Mobile are getting versions of the phone, but none with the powerful specs of the X.

[Jane Doe]

That's what I read too....dang it. I just hope Verizon gets something compatible to this phone. The week is young from the Mobile World Congress extravaganza. I just know a huge announcement from Verizon will be made! {crossing fingers}

[Wineguy]

Jane Doe, on 26 February 2012 - 11:33 PM, said:

That's what I read too....dang it. I just hope Verizon gets something compatible to this phone. The week is young from the Mobile World Congress extravaganza. I just know a huge announcement from Verizon will be made! {crossing fingers}

I wouldn't doubt it. Samsung, Motorola, Acer, Asus, Sony, there are still so many that could hit with a High Res, Quad Core, Long Battery, Way too big of a screen, monster phone, lol.