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

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

 

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.

 

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.)

 

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.

 

Here is Sprint's Press Release about the article:

 

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.

 

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!

 

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.

 

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:

 

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.

 

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.

 

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).