3G/4G Performance Map: Data Speeds for AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon

 

PCWorld - See our neighborhood-by-neighborhood test results for 127 locations in 13 cities. Click the map for raw speeds, as well as Web page and video load times. 

In our April 16 article "3G and 4G Wireless Speed Showdown," we reported the results of our exclusive 13-city tests of the four national wireless services: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Our study is the largest and best-known independent test of wireless service in the United States.

Here, in Part Two of our story, we drill deeper into the massive amounts of data that we collected over six weeks in February and March of this year. Whereas the first article reported the 13-city average speeds of the carriers, in this story we detail the carriers' performance in each of the ten testing locations we visited in each city.

We've assembled a full-page map showing all 127 of our testing locations in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. When you zoom in on a particular city, you'll see ten blue map markers--one for each place we tested. Click the pin, and you'll see our full testing results for that location.

T-Mobile's HSPA+ 21 service dominated the 3G testing, earning the highest marks for upload speed and download speed in 11 of the 13 cities we studied. The exceptions were Chicago (where AT&T captured the best download and upload speeds for 3G) and Dallas (where AT&T took the lead for 3G downloads, and Verizon won for 3G uploads).

 
Photograph by Robert Cardin


We saw three major patterns in our 4G test results. In five cities (Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco), AT&T swept the 4G upload and download competitions; in four (Denver, New Orleans, San Jose, and Seattle), Verizon swept both; and in the remaining four (Chicago, Dallas, New York, and Washington, D.C.), AT&T won for downloads and Verizon prevailed for uploads. Notably, in two of the cities where Verizon ruled (Denver and Seattle), AT&T doesn't offer 4G LTE service.

Web Page and Video Load Times

 

In addition to the speed results, you can see the results of our "behavioral" tests, which are meant to closely approximate the wireless usage of real people. At each of our testing locations, our field researcher loaded a 100KB static Web page and viewed a 1-minute video while connected to each of the 3G and 4G services of the carriers. For each one, the researcher logged the time the Web page took to load, as well as the time necessary to stream the video.       More

 

Apple iPad 3 may get March release date, 4G

Will the next iPad be 4G-friendly? (Credit: Apple )

CNET - Apple’s iPad 3 will reportedly hit the market in March and work with Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks.

According to Bloomberg, the iPad 3 will land in the calendar first quarter. Bloomberg cited manufacturing partners in Asia. In addition, the iPad 3 will sport a quad-core chip.

The iPad 3 is expected to be one of Apple’s big revenue drivers for the upcoming year. While the iPad 3 is critical, most analysts expect the iPhone 5, which is also expected to be 4G friendly, to drive sales more.

Volume manufacturing is expected to ramp up in February, according to Bloomberg.          

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Where can you get 4G?

Editors’ note: This chart was originally published on Dec. 2, 2010. It has been updated with new information.

With AT&T finally announcing its first LTE markets, 4G (or some form of it) has finally made it to all of America’s major carriers. But just as is the case with regular cell phone coverage, the scope and scale of each carrier’s 4G network vary widely. Some cover a lot of ground and some cover barely any at all. As a result, it can take a lot of effort to determine where in the country you can find high-speed data access and how the different carrier networks contrast and overlap.

To save you time, we’ve compiled a handy chart that details 4G coverage for Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, MetroPCS, and AT&T. Verizon has been the most aggressive with its rollout, but in most major cities, and many medium-size and smaller markets, you can get 4G from at least two wireless providers. Almost all 50 states are covered, with just five–Alaska, Wyoming,

Montana, Maine, and Vermont–left out (a corner of southeastern New Hampshire gets coverage from the Boston market).

Now, we know what you’re saying about T-Mobile: though it can be just as fast as WiMax, its HSPA+ technology isn’t really 4G. That’s certainly true, but if you want to get technical, neither are LTE and WiMax as they currently exist. And regardless of definitions, we included T-Mobile’s network because it is the carrier’s fastest network at the time of this writing.

Now before you move on to the chart, there are a couple of other things you should know. For most metro areas, you can assume that neighboring cities and immediate suburbs are covered as well, even if we don’t list them separately. So, for example, even though T-Mobile lists Bethesda, Md., and Alexandria, Va., as distinct HSPA+ markets, we included them under Washington, D.C. Similarly, Oakland and San Jose, Calif., are listed under the San Francisco Bay Area. We also grouped together cities with common associations like Dallas/Ft. Worth and Minneapolis/St. Paul. Please let us know if we missed a carrier’s 4G presence in your area or if we missed your town entirely.              See the coverage chart

Leak: AT&T’s Confidential 4G LTE and T-Mobile Plans

Gizmodo - Last week, a partly redacted document about the AT&T-Mobile merger was oh-so-briefly posted on the FCC’s site by Arnold & Porter LLP, a law firm working on the deal for AT&T. Outlining some of AT&T’s confidential LTE plans, it was quickly taken down. Well, here it is.

The document essentially lays out AT&T’s plans for its 4G LTE rollout with a lot of very specific numbers squeezed in between the helpful bumpers [Begin Confidential Information] and [End Confidential Information].

The gist: Under AT&T’s current one-year accelerated plan, it’s going to cover 70 million Americans by the end of this year, 170 million by the end of next, 250 million by the end of 2013. And they’re going to do that by upgrading 44,000 nodes to LTE: 8,000 this year, 16,000 next year, and 20,000 in 2013. The 97 percent of Americans they’re promising to cover if the T-Mobile merger goes through? That’ll be within six years of the merger closing—so if it closes in 2012, you’re talking like 2018 as a deadline. (Oh and previously, AT&T didn’t plan to hit 250 million people covered until 2014.)              More

Sprint's first sub-$100 4G smartphone set for Aug. 21 sale

Android 2.3-based Samsung Conquer runs 1 GHz processor; has two cameras and other high-end features

The Samsung Conquer 4G

 

 

Computerworld - Sprint's first sub-$100 4G smartphone, the Samsung Conquer 4G, goes on sale Aug. 21.

While many powerful new smartphones cost between $150 and $200, the 3.5-in. touchscreen Conquer will sell for $99.99 with a two-year agreement and after a rebate, Sprint and Samsung said.

The Conquer has a 1 GHz processor, similar to some recently unveiled higher-priced smartphones, as well as two cameras for video chat.

The device runs Android 2.3 and has a 2GB card for storage. It also includes a MicroSD slot that can support a 32GB card.

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Sprint and Samsung called the device an "affordable 4G smartphone." However Sprint. like all the major carriers, subsidizes the upfront hardware costs to attract customers to two-year plans that can ultimately cost in the thousands of dollars.

Sprint requires activation on its Everything Data plan for $69.99 a month plus a $10 monthly Premium Data add-on for smartphones.       More