3G survey: Sprint and Verizon neck-and-neck, AT&T lags in reliability

[ComicalMoodyDan]

3G survey: Sprint and Verizon neck-and-neck, AT&T lags in reliability
Tue Jun 30, 2009 12:08PM EDT

The editors at PC World teamed up with wireless testing firm Novarum to take a "single-day snapshot" of nationwide 3G wireless performance. The results? Verizon Wireless gets the "speed demon" award and Sprint leads the pack in reliability, while AT&T suffers from a dependability gap.

First of all, hats off to PC World for taking the time and effort for such a thorough wireless study, which encompasses three of the biggest U.S. carriers (no results for T-Mobile, unfortunately), 13 cities, 283 testing sites, and nearly 5,500 individual tests. Many of us wireless reviewers only have the resources to test reception by waving a test phone around our back yards, so it's refreshing to see a systematic, coast-to-coast survey.

Anyway, PC World has a chart rating the average download and upload speeds of each carrier for specific cities, along with a percentage reliability rating. The results vary from city to city, naturally, with Verizon dominating in the eastern and central states and Sprint coming out ahead in the West.

Overall, though, PC World gave Verizon high marks for its "good mix of speed and reliability," plus a chart-topping average download speed of 951Kbps. But while Sprint's average download speed of 808Kbps "wasn't flashy," the carrier wins out in dependability, scoring an overall 90.5 reliability ratings.

Then there's AT&T, which placed second to Verizon in terms of average download speeds (812Kbps) but lagged badly in the reliability department—just 68 percent. Ouch.

AT&T's relatively poor reliability score in the PC World survey will certainly fuel the fire of U.S. iPhone users—myself included—who regularly complain about spotty 3G reception. Indeed, I've lost track of how many times my iPhone (showing five bars of reception, mind you) stubbornly refuses to pull down a Web page, while a test Verizon or Sprint phone manages to surf just fine from the exact same location.

Speaking of "more bars in more places," the PC World editors have some interesting things to say about signal-strength bars—namely, that they have little do with whether you'll get good 3G performance. That's because the bars only tell you if your phone has a good connection to a nearby cell tower, not whether your carrier's "backhaul" system is pulling a steady flow of data from the Internet at large, PC World explains. (Now you tell me.)

Make sure to check out PC World's full survey, along with complete results for all the 13 test cities.

So, how's the 3G performance in your area? Who's your carrier? Let us know.

3G survey: Sprint and Verizon neck-and-neck, AT&T lags in reliability : Ben Patterson : Yahoo! Tech

[Kalimotxo]

Great article and study... the full article is located here: A Day in the Life of 3G - PC World

[RadioRaiders]

Pretty sad state of affairs Especially considering EVDO isn't really officially classified as 3G (ie: isn't wideband, ,can only handle one connection at a time, and peak rate of only 3Mbps). In Europe, my average HSPA download speeds are usually around 2-3Mbps, and peaks of 7Mbps. if I'm getting less than 1Mbps somethings wrong I would have to agree with the author of the article who points out possible bottlenecks with the backhaul. Upgrading transmission lines is a hot topic with all the operators right now.

One other issue for AT&T could be that they have to split their radio spectrum between GSM and UMTS. So in areas where they have capacity issues with data connections and would like to add a second 5Mhz UMTS carrier, they may not be able to since they have to leave some spectrum for GSM users.

[spleck]

Read the comments by KenBiba (I believe he was part of the testing team). VERY insightful. The low correlation between data performance and signal strength led him to infer that AT&T's primary problem is congestion, possibly both tower and backhaul. This basically matches much of the anecdotal evidence that users see more bars than they can use. (I think that should be AT&T's new slogan: More bars than you can use.)

[scotsboyuk]

There must be something about the iPhone going to the network with the crapiest 3G performance because here in the UK the iPhone is on O2. O2's 3G coverage is the worst of all the networks in the UK. They invested a lot in creating a second rate EDGE network for the 2G iPhone whilst the other networks where surging ahead with 3G investments. Now they have a relatively small EDGE footprint and lacklustre 3G coverage.

[JFB]

Here is Sprint's Press Release about the article:

Sprint Named Most Reliable Network in PC World's 3G Comparison Tests

The Now Network Not Only Beats AT&T and Verizon in Reliability, It Also Scores High in Mobile Broadband Speeds
OVERLAND PARK, Kan., Jul 08, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- A 3G comparison test by PC World found Sprint (NYSE:S) as the more reliable network over Verizon and AT&T in 13 cities examined by the magazine, providing further support for Sprint's "most dependable 3G network" claim.
The PC World tests took place in March and April this year in 13 major markets across the country, including Boston, Baltimore, New York, Orlando, Denver, Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans, Phoenix, Seattle, Portland, San Diego and San Jose. In each location, testers measured download speed, upload speed and reliability. In every market, Sprint bested AT&T for reliability. And, overall, Sprint proved more reliable over Verizon with a strong connection 90.5 percent of the time, according to the results. In Boston, Denver and Seattle, Sprint earned perfect scores - 100 percent reliable in connection tests.

Sprint's Now Network is not only the most reliable according to the PC World 3G tests, it also was applauded for its speed. In most markets, Sprint was competitive with Verizon and AT&T on download speed and was notably faster with better reliability compared with both competitors in the major West Coast cities of Seattle, San Francisco, Portland and San Diego.

The PC World results also show that Sprint's commitment to network performance is paying off for the company's customers. Today, according to customers and third-party reports, Sprint's networks have never been better, with these results serving as further confirmation that Sprint operates the nation's most dependable 3G broadband network.1

In addition, Sprint is leading the way in next generation 4G service. Sprint launched 4G service in Baltimore in late 2008 and expects to launch it in major markets in 2009. 4G will bring the Internet to life for mobile users by offering a faster Internet experience in more cities across the nation than any other wireless service from a national carrier.

In addition to dependability, Sprint customers enjoy the best value in the industry with a dynamic suite of Everything plans that allow customers to use their phones the way they want without worrying about their wireless bills. For example, Sprint's Simply EverythingSM plan provides unlimited nationwide calling, texting, email, Web browsing, GPS navigation and much more for only $99.99 per month. That's a savings of $1,200 over the course of two years vs. a comparable AT&T iPhone(R) plan.2

To read the entire PC World survey story, visit A Day in the Life of 3G - PC World

[viewfly]

An interesting table is found in the original article. For ATT, in the city of Boston, the 3G speeds are high...averaging 1200kbps...and the reliability is 90%. But for the rest of the cities surveyed, ATT comes in more around 60% reliability. Since I'm mostly doing 3G in Boston, my perception may be somewhat bias compared to other cities.

It might be useful if the results were normalized for volume of data traffic. I'm certain the iPhone has added a lot of load for ATT. On the other hand, on and around the MIT campus here, it seems like every other person has an iPhone, yet I'm still get good speeds and reliability.

Thanks for the link to the article.

[spleck]

I think a couple other metrics like total licensed spectrum and average cell site density would be telling. If a carrier is bandwidth starved (a single 10 MHz PCS block), then you might expect lower data speeds/congestion unless they're willing to increase the site density to deal with it. If they've got plenty of spectrum (25 MHz cellular + 30 MHz PCS), then they need to start using it!

[Jay2TheRescue]

I use TomTom Navigator on my Windows Mobile phone. After thesoftware is paid for its yours... You can subscribe to live traffic updates and such if you like, but its not required.

[Fire14]

Very interesting & does show how some bias on carriers can be seen by the tests like how Sprint is better in the west & verizon in the east.
I wonder if they plan on doing more then a 1 day test to see how over a period of time the different carriers would fare & include T-Mobile.
I do have to say my Verizon phone seems slower then my at&t did on downloads & websites, but again with many different factors i could have been lucky where I used it the most.

I also thought this was interesting:

But unlike Verizon's, Sprint's wireless subscriber base has been shrinking. The network connected 49.3 million customers at the end of 2008, compared to 53.8 million at the end of 2007. Has the decrease in number of customers reduced the load on Sprint's network and contributed to its solid performance in our tests? Sprint's vice president of network development and engineering, Iyad Tarazi, insists that the two things are unrelated and that traffic on its 3G network has continued to increase throughout the past year.

[Simon5282]

Now we all know that Verizon has the biggest and most reliable network and ATT has the fastest.

If you don't believe me, ask the carriers. Isn't advertising funny.

[bobolito]

Originally Posted by viewfly

An interesting table is found in the original article. For ATT, in the city of Boston, the 3G speeds are high...averaging 1200kbps...and the reliability is 90%. But for the rest of the cities surveyed, ATT comes in more around 60% reliability. Since I'm mostly doing 3G in Boston, my perception may be somewhat bias compared to other cities.

It might be useful if the results were normalized for volume of data traffic. I'm certain the iPhone has added a lot of load for ATT. On the other hand, on and around the MIT campus here, it seems like every other person has an iPhone, yet I'm still get good speeds and reliability.

Thanks for the link to the article.

iPhone gives me around 700kbps down on average here in NJ. The table claims a 477kbps for NYC. There's definitely a difference in speed and reliability between NYC and NJ.

[SAR0609]

It's amazing how the iPhone can sell so well and take the world by storm (and sustain it), while being on only one network that is sub-par compared to other data networks. Credit goes to a revolutionary device design and UI. Before it, everyone was crunching out flip phones with features that were buried inside their thick hardware and awful software. What is more surprising is how the iPhone & ATT have made 3G the thing to want, when competitors like Sprint & Verizon had it first and usually outperform with their data networks (not to mention calls/drops).