I've noticed lately as more of these towers are updated and backhaul completed that even though LTE isn't widespread, the 3g is much better than it was a couple months ago. Not good enough to stream or anything, but at least I can browse the web, use feedly & currents reasonably well when I'm at lunch.
And the locations that have LTE, it's pretty darn good. Not sure about streaming music/video as I don't use it much, but webpages are very fast.
Glad to see it finally happening, I was -> <- this close to switching to tmo's $30 plan recently, had the sim card and everything (nice to have many carrier options with the N5).