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the ultimate 4G LTE tragedy


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In NYC, WiFi literally exists everywhere. The cable companies, like Optimum and Time Warner, have set up WiFi networks in each borough. Even cable companies that aren't here like Comcast have WiFi here. It's great but the coverage is very spotty. Once the WiFi connection goes to 2 bars, it's unusable. But if I have all bars, the WiFi is anywhere from 15 to 20 Mbps.

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I guess I'm older than most here but I worked in technology all my life so I have a "young" attitude and certainly don't wear a tin-foil hat ; around here in Henderson, as Josh pointed out ,my guess is I'll NEVER have a high and robust LTE signal cause all the golf courses and retirement communities won't allow anything but minimalist towers; I cut the cable this year for Cox but do get 1 Mbit broadband from them enough to keep my Tivos updated and to slowly update all my computers from time to time...point of all this: LTE was to be & I hope still is my hope for a better internet experience for a few years until Sprint has to reel in their unlimited data caps; I tried a Big Red Hotspot and both LTE and 3G reception were horrible at my house; I get decent Wimax (3-5 mbit down) on Sprint so I use that most of the time w/o a router; for me when Wimax is shuttered and I don't get good LTE at the house I'll be going back to a 1 mbit world (at least at the house); so to the OP, I feel your pain, but their are a lot of folk like you out here with the same problem

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In NYC, WiFi literally exists everywhere. The cable companies, like Optimum and Time Warner, have set up WiFi networks in each borough. Even cable companies that aren't here like Comcast have WiFi here. It's great but the coverage is very spotty. Once the WiFi connection goes to 2 bars, it's unusable. But if I have all bars, the WiFi is anywhere from 15 to 20 Mbps.

 

I thought they were only in Brooklyn, The Bronx, & Long Island....at least it appears so on Sensorly. I never see those wifi areas anywhere else. If my area (Queens) had those I wouldn't be so thirsty for NV.

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Clear started a lot of that crap. Use our 4G instead of buying a landline. All good until their ill-built network was oversold and causing Sprint grief. Was grabbing the money worth it for Clear? No.

 

As far as the state of WiFi, it sucks in lots of places because it's AT&T WiFi. I wish the other carriers would be more aggressive in building out carrier WiFi in the US.

 

Hmmm, I've had a similar idea.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I can't really blame Sprint. I'm more upset about the wimax deployment because I never got it and they gave up on it.

Robert I'm in diamond bar which is 20-30 miles outside of los Angeles.

I also live in a house right next to a hill so that could play a part.

 

I seen better coverage in Diamond Bar after some upgraded towers. Back in the days when no NV, I used to take grand towards Chino Hills going up hill and my phone was dead (no service) . Now I have signal and im able to make calls.

 

But that is right, I had a lot of trouble with low signal in the hill areas of Chino Hills. Even when I had Nextel (iDen) service was horrible, either no bars or No service.

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Fortunately, Diamond Bar is outside the IBEZ and should get 800 deployment.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

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If your LTE Expectations are for it to beat your home wifi with a cable connection, you are doing it wrong.

 

Might it happen sometimes? Sure. Should it be expected LTE is faster? No.

 

Sent from my Galaxy S3

 

 

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If your LTE Expectations are for it to beat your home wifi with a cable connection, you are doing it wrong.

 

Might it happen sometimes? Sure. Should it be expected LTE is faster? No.

 

Sent from my Galaxy S3

 

Well, with cable and DSL companies setting the bar so low it isn't too much to expect really.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

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Well, with cable and DSL companies setting the bar so low it isn't too much to expect really.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

Depends on where you live. Here both the local Cable companies and Verizon FiOS offer 60+mbps speeds.

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Depends on where you live. Here both the local Cable companies and Verizon FiOS offer 60+mbps speeds.

 

Yes, when we switched to FiOS, the top tier was 150Mpbs/65Mpbs. We went for the 50/25. I wonder how long that is going to last us before we need to go higher.

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Yes, when we switched to FiOS, the top tier was 150Mpbs/65Mpbs. We went for the 50/25. I wonder how long that is going to last us before we need to go higher.

 

What do you really do in the house that requires more than that? Just curious? How much more faster do you need a web page to load?

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We don't do anything that requires more than that (yet!). If it wasn't for the free upgrade, I'm not sure we would have the 50/25. But when we first got Comcast Performance or whatever it was called when we moved in here years ago, I didn't think we would need that. It was more that enough and I think it was even slower then. Before we switched to FiOS, the kids were complaining their online games were dragging. Now I read Comcast is increasing their performance speeds from 15 to 25.

 

We don't need it but it exists and someone will find a use for it eventually. I would like to know who has a 150/65 connection and what are they using it for?

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I would like to know who has a 150/65 connection and what are they using it for?

 

You can practically bet that most consumers who are truly taking advantages of those downlink/uplink speeds are violating their terms of service by running server operations, quite likely committing copyright fraud, too. While those speeds are admirable, our nation would be far better off by ensuring that basically everyone has access to at least a tenth of those speeds via wired broadband.

 

AJ

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We don't do anything that requires more than that (yet!). If it wasn't for the free upgrade, I'm not sure we would have the 50/25. But when we first got Comcast Performance or whatever it was called when we moved in here years ago, I didn't think we would need that. It was more that enough and I think it was even slower then. Before we switched to FiOS, the kids were complaining their online games were dragging. Now I read Comcast is increasing their performance speeds from 15 to 25.

 

We don't need it but it exists and someone will find a use for it eventually. I would like to know who has a 150/65 connection and what are they using it for?

 

I'm just curious because I have 30/30 now I believe, and my Xbox experience is still the same. I just question at what point does speed become a marketing tool?

 

Check that, it already is.

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I have two boys who online game at the same time. Add to that a couple of their friends who bring their laptops over so they can all play together. That is really nothing new in our house though. Friends with Ipod Touchs, DSs, phones and laptops. The guest network password is posted on the fridge.

 

A few months ago the boys started complaining. It was a while before I took them seriously. Then I noticed the lag in loading web pages when they were both playing. I know I said I read Comcast is increasing the performance from 15 down but I think in our area we had 12/2.

 

I just question at what point does speed become a marketing tool?

 

Check that, it already is.

 

It always has been.

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I have two boys who online game at the same time. Add to that a couple of their friends who bring their laptops over so they can all play together. That is really nothing new in our house though. Friends with Ipod Touchs, DSs, phones and laptops. The guest network password is posted on the fridge.

 

A few months ago the boys started complaining. It was a while before I took them seriously. Then I noticed the lag in loading web pages when they were both playing. I know I said I read Comcast is increasing the performance from 15 down but I think in our area we had 12/2.

 

 

Ok that makes sense now. I guess I've been spoiled, we rarely have people on the WIFI other than my brother and I, and FiOS is fast enough regardless.

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I'm just curious because I have 30/30 now I believe, and my Xbox experience is still the same. I just question at what point does speed become a marketing tool?

 

Check that, it already is.

 

Most online games use very little bandwidth honestly. Constant connection of 500kbps is usually all that's needed for smooth gameplay. As has been stated numerous times around here ane elsewhere on the net, latency is what people think of when they think of "feeling" the speed. How long it takes from when you click something until it gets to the server and back to you. This is also "lag" in video games. The raw speed means next to nothing with gaming. Games are highly optimized so that even crap connections won't hinder gameplay very much. Latency however is very important for gaming and the feel of speed.

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Most online games use very little bandwidth honestly. Constant connection of 500kbps is usually all that's needed for smooth gameplay. As has been stated numerous times around here ane elsewhere on the net, latency is what people think of when they think of "feeling" the speed. How long it takes from when you click something until it gets to the server and back to you. This is also "lag" in video games. The raw speed means next to nothing with gaming. Games are highly optimized so that even crap connections won't hinder gameplay very much. Latency however is very important for gaming and the feel of speed.

most defiantly i have a 15/5 fios line for my server and when im on the xbox or Netflix i have almost no lag but my avg ping speed is under 30ms. and the server runs backup of the pos system daily and is an off site dvr with 12 video channels 

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You could easily run 25 xbox live games with a 25 up speed. Sounds like you have a bad signal or antiquated routing equipment causing you issues.

 

You can play fps games over 3g if the connection is stable and still stay under 150 ping.

 

Sent from my Galaxy S3

 

 

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I live on the 4th floor of a 7 floor hi-rise condo. My unit is an interior unit. Cement on top, bottom and pretty much on 3 sides. On top of that, the interior walls are metal framed. I live in a Faraday cage. I have to use 3 APs to get consistent WiFi throughout the condo. Do the cell companies owe me signal deep inside my condo? I believe not. I get suprisingly good signal from Verizon 3G and LTE, with worsening signal from AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. I am sure that if Sprint keeps their current site and puts LTE 800 on it, their signal will be very good. As long as my cable connection is reliable and it has been very much so, I will be satisfied. Outside, I will definitely expect to get great signal from everybody. Inside not so much.

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Depending on which house i'm at will depend on which system is better.  At my house, i have an RT-N66U running to two switches throughout the house for wired connections and 2 SSID'd wifi connections.  At any one time there will be three desktops, 5 or more cell phones (just can't let some of those old ones go), and up to 4 laptops plus a few game systems and a smart tv.  initially, we were at like 15/1 on TWC.  If someone was streaming, the whole network would just go flat on it's face as that is prioritized on the router as highest.  We upped to 30/5 (which we really get about 37/7) and since then the lag and speeds have been well maintained. 
Go to the gf's house, and unfortunately, there is a pain in bypassing the router there, and since it's not my house, i won't upgrade to the rt-n66u.  There is a bridge in one room that feeds wifi (non-n) to the garage which streams whichever service, there are 2 smart tv's, a desktop, up to 5 laptops since someone always has two or more of theirs on at all times, ipads, nooks, 5 phones, printer, plus guests.  since there is no N-wifi, most of the laptops and wireless devices max at 18mbps, but the desktop and smart tv's are wired in and since they stream and with the constant barrage of photo uploads from the photography, the Fios at 75/35 made the underperformace in the wireless a little easier to deal with and the upload of 10mb photos, thousands at a time, is just so much better then when it was the 25/10 we started with. 
A good router definately helps when you start adding the ridiculous amounts of wireless devices that us rather large families deal with.

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I thought they were only in Brooklyn, The Bronx, & Long Island....at least it appears so on Sensorly. I never see those wifi areas anywhere else. If my area (Queens) had those I wouldn't be so thirsty for NV.

 

Public WiFi is kind of danger zone....

Edited by dnwk
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