Comments on: Report: AT&T bests Verizon in raw 4G speed but still lags in LTE coverage

By: anil bhandari

anil bhandari — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:43:51 +0000

Hi Kevin. As usual an excellent report from Rootmetrics. However, I thought that Verizon had larger size LTE carriers in many of key markets compared to AT&T. All other things being equal it is Verizon who should have come out on the top by virtue of larger carrier size. As both carriers have deployed same version of LTE, I do not believe that Verizon RF Optimization is so bad to have worse performance than AT&T despite owning double the spectrum in some key markets. It is important that Rootmetrics further analyzes the data and explains reasons for this anomaly. Thanks.

By: noname

noname — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 04:27:02 +0000

In my purely anecdotal testing around Atlanta, my speedtests are showing a much faster Verizon experience. 10 speedtest,net tests conducted with a Verizon Galaxy S3 since December 3 in different geographic areas around town averaged 45404 down and 15097 up, with the peak download being around 47000 but generally very consistently in the 40s. Uploads have been much more variable from 9000 to 22000. Coverage is, as the article says, pretty much everywhere. The only thing better than great speeds is consistently great speeds and I am seeing that.

Having been a long-suffering Sprint Wimax customer, I tried to switch to their LTE network. It work great outside the Sprint store. It worked great in sight of the LTE tower near my house. It didn’t work anywhere else and the 3G was worse than on the Wimax phone. That phone went back to Sprint. Maybe Masayoshi Son can fix Sprint. I didn’t wait two years to find out.

So switching to Verizon has solved all of those problems so not a lot to complain about for me.

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 23:01:38 +0000

Hi Hundoman,

I wouldn’t say AT&T only as a little 700 MHz. It has enough to deploy a 10×10 MHz in most of its markets (though you’re right in some key cities like Chicago and LA it only has 5×5). Also Verizon actually is selling off most of its 700 MHz outside of the C-block its already deployed in, so the chart you link to doesn’t paint the whole picture. Verizon is definitely better off in the sense that it can deploy coast to coast on a single band, but AT&T has managed to build a sizable LTE footprint in 700 MHz.

By: hundoman

hundoman — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:54:09 +0000

LTE at the higher cellular spectrum spaces isn’t nearly as good for coverage as it is in the lower UHF spaces.

Verizon has all the 700Mhz space nationwide nicely wrapped up and covering things but ATT only has a little 700Mhz that they bought from Verizon from a divestiture.

Sprint has the best cellular spectrum space nationwide with the old 800Mhz Nextel space but I don’t really fancy them ever getting around to building that out with LTE anytime soon. So sad as my Nextel always worked everywhere.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd27/hundoman/public1/verizon_att_coverage_usa_zps80635e6a.jpg

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:36:49 +0000

You’re right, Billy. I was stuck in a 2012 mindset since that’s when Root conducted its tests. Corrected.

By: Billy Jacob Kandah

Billy Jacob Kandah — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:04:07 +0000

T-Mobile’s launching its LTE this year, not next year as you state, Simple mistype I’m sure.

By: Madmax

Madmax — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 20:39:34 +0000

T-Mobile is slated to launch LTE this year, not next.

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 18:51:51 +0000

Thanks for catching that. Fixing now.

By: guest

guest — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 18:17:55 +0000

“than Verizon’s”?