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AT&T’s “5G E” is slower than Verizon and T-Mobile 4G, study finds
- waynecochran 8y agoAre there rules for enforcing (and by whom?) the term “5G”? Or is it like the word “natural” for health food?
- TheOperator 8y ago4G was supposed to achieve 100mbit peaks and I have yet to see speeds even approaching this with 4G LTE. So if somebody is enforcing advertising rules they're doing a shit job...
- amanaplanacanal 8y agoOokla just told me I am getting 85Mbps download and 11Mbps upload on AT&T LTE.
- Consultant32452 8y ago76 down, 49 up with Google Fi on a Pixel 2 for me
- chungy 8y agoThis probably depends heavily on where you live, but I can easily get ~150 Mbps up and down on LTE, in Washington state.
- hunter 8y agoBlame your carrier. I get 82Mbps in upload and 10Mbps in download. Can't complain for €6/month.
- mciancia 8y agoI can easily get over 100Mbps on LTE, this is what I'm getting now: https://www.speedtest.net/result/a/4793874317 https://www.speedtest.net/result/a/4793874317
- throwaway663 8y agoNice. Can I get this all over Krakow on a tourist Sim?
- mamon 8y agoWhen it comes to this "Play" carrier in Poland high speeds are for contracts, prepaid SIMs are limited to 70 Mbps
- votepaunchy 8y ago4G was originally supposed to be gigabit before carriers started branding LTE as 4G.
- toast0 8y agoLTE was supposed to be 4G, before carriers starting branding HSPA+ as 4G.
- ken 8y agoThey seem to be branding LTE as even better than 4G. My phone has an "LTE" indicator on top most of the time, but it switches to "4G" when I'm in a basement parking garage with lousy reception. I'm not sure what these terms mean, and the phone/service didn't exactly come with a user manual.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoI'm on AT&T (personal phone) and I get 4.5M bits down on LTE. My Verizon LTE (work phone) gets very similar. Both are iPhones and completely up to date. I could be near enough to the towers that my fillings start to ache and I still can't get any faster.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- MBCook 8y agoMy record with Verizon is 104 down and 35 up. It all seems to depend on how busy the tower is and how good the backhaul is.
- madeofpalk 8y agoJust got 140Mbps in London https://i.imgur.com/DFpZAg8.png https://i.imgur.com/DFpZAg8.png
- joecool1029 8y agoLTE's initial iterations were actually not considered 4G by definition. Part of the longterm evolution part was that as the components were upgraded they would comply with 4G. I can break 100mbps down in a few places on an iphone SE with only a cat3 modem, but that's pushing the spec's real-world limit for that. Today these speeds are easily achievable on most networks, it's just unlikely for AT&T due to congestion and their poor network and spectrum planning. It helps to spend money on capex instead of buying up shitty Mexican carriers and DirecTV to stem the flow of fleeing customers.
- takeda 8y agoI was about to say that it was mostly Sprint and (again) AT&T advertising 3G as 4G, and for example Verizon had real 4G from the start. But now as I think, I remember that Verizon had 4G that was capped to about 1mbps in certain areas and then gradually speed increased per area.
- bskap 8y agoThat was a bit of a mess. Technically, no carrier at the time had a "real" 4G network, according to the ITU- only LTE-Advanced and WiMAX 2 met their definition. Since the ITU had declared that Sprint's WiMAX network and Verizon's LTE network weren't real 4G, T-Mobile decided that they could call their (just-as-fast-as-early-LTE-networks) HSPA+ network 4G too, and then AT&T was almost forced to follow suit because T-Mobile was advertising how their 4G network was so much bigger than everyone else's.
- joecool1029 8y agoIt should be noted that T-Mobile was the only one set up to deploy DC-HSPA+ at 42mbps peak theoretical. Scratching around 30mbps was around what Verizon could do before congestion set in on band 13. AT&T to the best of my knowledge only had HSPA+ at 21mbps, so it really was way more of a stretch for them to call their network 4G. So at least, yeah... tmo kinda could have argued it was similar to early '4G' radio technologies on speed alone.
- 8y ago
- rayiner 8y agoIt depends entirely where you are. Here in Maryland I’m getting over 200 mbps down on an iPhone XR: https://www.speedtest.net/result/i/3160011117 https://www.speedtest.net/result/i/3160011117
- vitus 8y agoThe requirements for the proposed 4G spec are actually even higher than that -- 100Mbps was for high-mobility clients, whereas low-mobility clients were promised 1Gbps speeds. https://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/m/R-REC-M.1645-0-200306-I!!PDF-E.pdf https://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/m/R-REC-M.1645-0-20... page 9 defines high / low mobility as follows: "low mobility covers pedestrian speed, and high mobility covers high speed on highways or fast trains (60 km/h to ~250 km/h, or more)." (this is roughly 35 to 150 mph) We are nowhere near those speeds, even on the best networks.
- rayiner 8y agoThe ITU IMT standards are dumb and meaningless. They just set aspirational targets, but don’t define any technology for meeting those targets. ITU jumped from 200 kbps for 3G to 1 gigabit for 4G. That was not a useful definition and the market correctly ignored it. Imagine if we had “3G” wired networking defined as 100 mbps and “4G” wired networking aspirationally defined as 10 gigabit. What would you do when the IEEE (the folks who actually make the technology) release 1G Ethernet. Would you insist on calling it 3.5G wired networking? “4G” is LTE. It’s 4G because it’s what came after HSDPA/EVDO, not because it meets any particular ITU target.
- vitus 8y agoWithout any sort of backing specification, the terminology of 3G vs 4G vs 5G is dumb and meaningless, as we see with AT&T calling their network 5G (E), even though it's no better than what their competitors call 4G. Also, it's disingenuous to describe the jump as from 200kbps to 1Gbps, since HSDPA offering 14Mbps was already being deployed prior to when this particular ITU standard came out. (https://www.gsma.com/aboutus/gsm-technology https://www.gsma.com/aboutus/gsm-technology indicates deployments of HSDPA started in 2005)
- kakarot 8y agoI get about 2mbit w/ 4G LTE on a ~$50 plan... For the first week my phone showed 80-115mbit but that didn't last. My carrier tells me that in order to downgrade my plan I would have to first cancel my phone number and wait a month.
- ineedasername 8y agoI get 18mbit down, 4 up on the lowest end pre-paid tmobile plan. But I'm also in the suburbs of large metro areas where the networks are fairly well built out. However, this is one of the reasons I pay full price on my phone and stick to pre paid. Lot's more flexibility to up stakes and move to a different carrier if they start downgrading service.
- kakarot 8y agoI'm on prepaid but I'm paying for data consumption I just don't utilize given the abysmal speeds. I have to use a mobile VPN just to achieve decent peering. Basically to get around this absurd policy I have to switch to another carrier and back over two months. However, I don't plan to switch back once I make the jump. In the last year I've traveled to a couple states and a few dozen cities and I had garbage speed and latency in all of them. T-Mobile's solution was that I buy a new phone. But the phone achieved 100mbit when I first got my plan.
- sundvor 8y agoI got a 312 Mbit download Speed test the other day on my S10+. I will not be accepting Telstra's free Samsung S10 5g upgrade offer.
- dawnerd 8y agoI can get around 100 here with my Verizon hotspot. https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/i/3127192452 https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/i/3127192452 Most places seem to be around the 40mbps mark but when visiting SoCal it drops to anywhere from 2mbps to 30.
- TomMarius 8y agoMy phone regularly downloads faster than 50 Mb/s during peak. Good enough for me. (Prague, CZ)
- pyk 8y ago5GNR (3GPP release 15) is the official globally recognized standard for 5G. Guessing 3GPP has some loose enforcement but not sure. http://www.3gpp.org/release-15 http://www.3gpp.org/release-15
- joecool1029 8y agoIn the US, ITU will just move the goalposts for 4G like they did for 3G when AT&T changed the hspa+ indicator to 4G. 3GPP has no teeth here.
- dontbenebby 8y ago> Are there rules for enforcing (and by whom?) the term “5G”? Or is it like the word “natural” for health food? Alternatively, they can slowly phase out 4g like they did with 3G. This is very useful if you have pesky customers stuck on cheap all you can eat data plans. The paranoid part of me wonders if it'll be an excuse to shunt people off of cheap plans.
- arcticbull 8y agoThe scam is much more obvious, AT&T wants to show everyone that they have 5G while everyone else has 4G, and that’s one extra G.
- reaperducer 8y agoAlternatively, they can slowly phase out 4g like they did with 3G. This is very useful if you have pesky customers stuck on cheap all you can eat data plans. The funny thing is that all that used 3G gear, at least the good stuff, seems to have gone to the deeply rural areas. I know a few towns that, as recently as last month, only have 3G service. But the data speeds I get roaming there on 3G are almost double what I get at home on AT&T with full bars of LTE.
- rayiner 8y ago“5G” isn’t a well defined term. In theory, it includes both LTE and 5GNR (the OFDM based “new radio” air interface) on parallel tracks: https://www.edn.com/5G/4458325/What-is-5G-NR https://www.edn.com/5G/4458325/What-is-5G-NR
- eli 8y agoThe “G” standards have always been more marketing than anything else. This whole scandal already happened when some carriers decided to call EDGE “3G”
- arcticbull 8y agoAT&T also tried to call HSPA+ 4G while Verizon had LTE, and switched the indicators on the iPhone IIRC.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y agoI am in downtown Denver Colorado and can’t even reach 10Mbps on 4G LTE (Att). In the Czech Republic, on a prepaid SIM card, I received around 50Mbps, many years ago. I have zero trust in these wireless generation differences. There are so many other variables in end-user speed.
- hijinks 8y agoI'm 15 minutes south of Denver and outside my house I barely get 2 bars of LTE and speeds are awful.
- EnderWT 8y agoCentennial here - 9Mbps download / 0.9Mbps upload
- peapicker 8y agoI’m in Centennial and get ~45Mbps down 7Mbps up with Verizon. Who are you with?
- innocenat 8y agoMost of the time you can feel the difference in "wireless generation differences." But USA isn't one of them.
- thereare5lights 8y ago"All four major carriers have rolled out LTE-Advanced. But while Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile accurately call it 4G, AT&T calls it 5G E." "AT&T's network name change may well trick consumers into thinking they're getting better service than a 4G operator, but they aren't. We already knew that 5G E has no technological advantage over LTE-Advanced, because they are the same thing with different names." Doesn't that mean this, for all intents and purposes, isn't really the 5G we're all thinking of and that this is just massive click bait?
- stochastic_monk 8y agoIt’s not clickbait. AT&T is pretending to have 5G when it doesn’t. This is worth reporting.
- iscrewyou 8y agoThey’ve done this all the way back to 4G. I know because I used to sell cellphones when I was I college. It was 3G but they called it 4G. They’ve done that with every new iteration. It’s ATT being ATT. Why they haven’t gotten in trouble for this shady practice is beyond me.
- sovnade 8y agoMassive amounts of money and a complicit FCC?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- metaphor 8y ago> ...a complicit FCC? What role do you think the FCC has here? If anything, this is a Truth in Advertising[1] issue--enforced by the FTC, not FCC. [1] https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-consumer-protection/our-divisions/division-advertising-practices https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-consume...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jtms 8y agoYou would think the FCC would have something to say about this.
- rayiner 8y agoI can’t find anything in the Communications Act of 1934 that gives the FCC jurisdiction over marketing practices.
- wnevets 8y agoWhat makes you think the FCC doesn't have jurisdiction over deceptive marketing?
- bsamuels 8y agobecause deceptive marketing is a consumer protection thing the FTC would go after
- wnevets 8y agoSomebody better tell the fcc then! https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/tcd/mktg.html https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/tcd/mktg.html
- metaphor 8y agoWhat makes you think they do? IANAL, but Truth in Advertising[1] enforcement is a FTC affair, not FCC. On the other hand, rayiner is, so there a benefit-of-the-doubt element that I'm inclined to respect. EDIT: ...and I humbly stand corrected. [1] https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-consumer-protection/our-divisions/division-advertising-practices https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-consume...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 8y ago
- jrockway 8y agoStill waiting for the Java-style version increment, where 5.1G comes out and someone starts marketing it as 51G. "It's 47Gs better than T-Mobile!!111!"
- bentearwalking 8y agoYeah and I get 220 mbps down on 4g prepaid tourist SIM in Singapore so what the?
- OrgNet 8y agoI get 25 mbps on my cable connection... for $30/month...
- pryelluw 8y agoReminds me of that Parks and Rec episode where Tom (character) puts a spin on municipal water with fluoride.
- selljamhere 8y agoH2-Flow!
- willart4food 8y agoJust like the meme: Well Yes, But Actually No
- holbrad 8y agoJust got 800 Kbps on a speed test. That's on "4G" in the UK.
- system2 8y agoCarriers don't even fully provide what 4G is capable of, yet still advertising so-called 5G. I would be okay with 50gbit 4G LTE with an unlimited plan for the next 5 years at least until they figure out their new gimmicks.
- ghettoimp 8y agoThat would be awesome. I could blow through my monthly data cap in 0.68 seconds...
- KenanSulayman 8y ago50Gbit/s = 6,25GB/s; if your cap was 25GB it would take 4 seconds.
- seandhi 8y agoDon’t most mobile carriers cap at 5GB?
- JoshGlazebrook 8y agoNo. Most unlimited plans start deprioritization after 22GB.
- joecool1029 8y agoIt's 50GB now. I've been digging into how they do it as I'm a casual user of a few hundred GB/mo on both T-Mobile and Sprint. From what I can see and from the Sprint CTO's comments, the deprioritization happens on radio layer working on slices of around 30ms. If you are near cell edge, the scheduler will assign you less physical resource blocks. This deprioritization will affect you much less if you are near the tower as higher orders of modulation and less error correction plays into it. (Think out of a possible 100 or so blocks you could be assigned in a given timeframe, the blocks can either be slow due to poor radio conditions or fast) From my year or so of having a dedicated testing phone on T-Mobile, I can feel confident in saying what they say is true about speeds only being affected on congested sectors (not the full tower or region). Sprint I haven't had as much time with so I can only go with what they say is the case.
- Tsubasachan 8y agoSpeed isn't everything though. I only get 40Mbps but the network is reliable and I can tether (just retrieved 4 gigabyte from my seedbox). Do not let carriers blind you with fancy numbers.
- milankragujevic 8y agoHere's a speedtest over 4G LTE... Serbia with Telenor. https://www.speedtest.net/result/8133950542 https://www.speedtest.net/result/8133950542
- tyfon 8y agoCrazy, I didn't know Telenor was in Serbia. I have a mobile provider that uses their network here in Norway, I got 171/40 and 22 ms ping. I'm in the countryside approximately 50 km from Oslo.
- milankragujevic 8y agoThey're not anymore. Telenor in the Balkans was sold to PPF Group. They new owners raised prices a lot, and they have a license to call the company Telenor for 5 years.
- mackey 8y agoAbout 16 KM outside Boston, I get 150/25 w/ a 40 ms ping on and iPhone X with intel modem on ATT LTE.
- byteCoder 8y agoThis is Marketing 101 on how to make your customers and potential customers feel that you're ahead of the curve when you're really behind and you need to buy some time. Also, haven't we all learned yet that the publicity and discussion this is generating reenforces the connection between AT&T and 5G in people's minds, even if it's technically incorrect? The facts don't really matter.
- burtonator 8y agoClearly the solution is for Verizon to call their network "6G E"
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoFuck everything, we're doing 7G.
- blihp 8y agoFor those who don't get the reference: https://www.theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades-1819584036 https://www.theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-bla...
- Spectral 8y agoLol this onion article was posted in '04 and what do you know, Gillette is actually up to 5 blades and 2 strips - "Fusion5"
- zentiggr 8y agoSounds like a (theoretical, I know) solution would be to limit carriers to advertising no more than their current rolling average of download speed across all users. No one needs mention the obvious incentivizing to cut off all of the slowest areas/device/customers. I just think being required to report something based an 'actual' performance as opposed to 'vague technical term' could be more informative and shift all this handwaving over to a 'look, we've improved out actual throughput!' basis.
- Godel_unicode 8y agoGiven all the perverse incentives involved, this seems like something the FCC should do on their own and make public.
- ringaroll 8y agoMedian is a better measure then average.
- aphextron 8y agoBandwidth doesnt matter so much as latency. The only thing keeping me from using 4G tether as a main connection is the 150ms ping. 5G is supposed to get this under 5ms. I see no mention of latency in this study, which makes me question the source.
- callesgg 8y ago4G should be able to give pings much lower than 150ms. The internet says 50ms I have seen even faster. Maybe you can try another provider.
- aphextron 8y agoI’m showing a consistent ~150ms to all nearby servers right now on T-mobile. Either way, it’s more than 10x difference. 50ms vs 5ms is the difference between being able to game and not.
- thecleaner 8y agoDo all countries have telecom companies that are jerks ? I thought it was limited to Germany and US.
- Spectral 8y agoDirtbag AT&T always doing shady stuff like this. Wouldn't be surprised if someone proposed this and execs signed it off as a great idea because the revenue from the additional signups was determined to be greater than the expected fines.