4 ms·

Not sure why so many are pooh pooh'ng this. I consider the quality of display and the speed of modem two most important aspects of modern smartphones. Not eve

Not sure why so many are pooh pooh'ng this. I consider the quality of display and the speed of modem two most important aspects of modern smartphones. Not everyone lives next to cell towers or in high density areas like NYC. I actually do live in NYC, but in less desirable area where avg download speed is ~2mps (Oneplus 5T on TMobile), but it was much slower and frustrating on my older phone (Note 4 on AT&T).

what-the-grump 8y ago
My service is regularly shit on America’s best network in NYC. iPhones used to be very good at this. Now I can’t make phone calls/drop in the same location, on the same cellphone.
- joecool1029 8y ago
  Honestly phones supporting LAA[1] for places like penn station goes a long way toward having usable service during rush hour in a sea of people. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_in_unlicensed_spectrum#License_Assisted_Access_(LAA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_in_unlicensed_spectrum#Lic...
  - londons_explore 8y ago
    LAA simply seems like the cell providers way to charge me for use of frequencies I could otherwise use for free. A key reason I'm happy to pay cell providers so much money is because they have licenses to use lots of spectrum at high transmission powers to give me service nearly anywhere. WiFi, it's free cousin, has lower transmission power, but in most cities one is always within range of free WiFi (even if roaming between hotspots is painful!). When cell providers are allowed onto the free spectrum, they will use up all the available bandwidth, degrading free service and forcing users to pay for their (normally free) bandwidth.
orev 8y ago
The speed you get is far more dependent on the signal strength, not the speed of the modem. That only comes into play when you have a perfect signal, so realistically (as a perfect signal is rare), modem speed plays almost no part in speed limitations.
- joecool1029 8y ago
  It does come into play in weak signal situations. Consider support for more spatial streams (4x4 mimo) helps with reception in cell edge areas and when noise levels are high or multipath interference is a factor. Also every modem/antenna pairing has limits programmed in where they'll drop a cell or switch to a different layer (band) with less bandwidth. No iphone uses 4x4 mimo. Maybe for battery, or maybe Jony couldn't make it pleasing looking enough in the X, but its lack is very much is a factor affecting quality of service including speed in non-ideal environments.
  - innagadadavida 8y ago
    Are there any reliable objective numbers and comparisons for this? While mimo is a great technology, it is trivial to “hold your iPhone right way” and get the same benefits, I feel mimo has become a marketing ploy for companies to push their latest without any perceptible impact to users.
    - joecool1029 8y ago
      Here’s some testing on the S7 with T-Mobile using 4x4: http://cellularinsights.com/samsung-galaxy-s7-the-first-4x4-mimo-smartphone/ http://cellularinsights.com/samsung-galaxy-s7-the-first-4x4-... There’s a perceptable impact to users with mimi and it specifically takes advantage of multipath. This is not a case of marketing fluff. However, 256QAM is something you’ll probably only see in ideal situations as it requires very good signal, that’s the one that edged out gigabit speeds in the lab.

what-the-grump 8y ago

My service is regularly shit on America’s best network in NYC. iPhones used to be very good at this. Now I can’t make phone calls/drop in the same location, on the same cellphone.

joecool1029 8y ago
Honestly phones supporting LAA[1] for places like penn station goes a long way toward having usable service during rush hour in a sea of people. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_in_unlicensed_spectrum#License_Assisted_Access_(LAA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_in_unlicensed_spectrum#Lic...
- londons_explore 8y ago
  LAA simply seems like the cell providers way to charge me for use of frequencies I could otherwise use for free. A key reason I'm happy to pay cell providers so much money is because they have licenses to use lots of spectrum at high transmission powers to give me service nearly anywhere. WiFi, it's free cousin, has lower transmission power, but in most cities one is always within range of free WiFi (even if roaming between hotspots is painful!). When cell providers are allowed onto the free spectrum, they will use up all the available bandwidth, degrading free service and forcing users to pay for their (normally free) bandwidth.

orev 8y ago

The speed you get is far more dependent on the signal strength, not the speed of the modem. That only comes into play when you have a perfect signal, so realistically (as a perfect signal is rare), modem speed plays almost no part in speed limitations.

joecool1029 8y ago
It does come into play in weak signal situations. Consider support for more spatial streams (4x4 mimo) helps with reception in cell edge areas and when noise levels are high or multipath interference is a factor. Also every modem/antenna pairing has limits programmed in where they'll drop a cell or switch to a different layer (band) with less bandwidth. No iphone uses 4x4 mimo. Maybe for battery, or maybe Jony couldn't make it pleasing looking enough in the X, but its lack is very much is a factor affecting quality of service including speed in non-ideal environments.
- innagadadavida 8y ago
  Are there any reliable objective numbers and comparisons for this? While mimo is a great technology, it is trivial to “hold your iPhone right way” and get the same benefits, I feel mimo has become a marketing ploy for companies to push their latest without any perceptible impact to users.
  - joecool1029 8y ago
    Here’s some testing on the S7 with T-Mobile using 4x4: http://cellularinsights.com/samsung-galaxy-s7-the-first-4x4-mimo-smartphone/ http://cellularinsights.com/samsung-galaxy-s7-the-first-4x4-... There’s a perceptable impact to users with mimi and it specifically takes advantage of multipath. This is not a case of marketing fluff. However, 256QAM is something you’ll probably only see in ideal situations as it requires very good signal, that’s the one that edged out gigabit speeds in the lab.