A Day with 3G: How do AT&T, Verizon and Sprint compare?
Every discussion about the iPhone in these forums seems to end up in a discussion about the network on which it belongs. The two become inseparable with all manner of aspirations cast about due to the willingness to either tolerate, defend or deal with claims all related to AT&T.
So this is the network thread.
I created it due to to such claims being leveled against me due to not owning an iPhone related to the AT&T network. I own an LG Dare. I've not claimed any phone is better than the iPhone, merely that they are within striking distance and given the inability of some to deal with AT&T and the refusal of Apple to deal with more than GSM, there are many lost business opportunities out there.
This thread should take care of the network side of this and prove, from multiple sources that AT&T is just not up to snuff.
First we have this from PCWorld. The print ready version is here.
Here is the criteria used...
The results are mostly good news for Verizon, very good news for Spring and bringing up the pack well below the mark for reliability, AT&T.
Within the article there is a large table that breaks this down by regions of the United States. In the West, it shows three cities for California. The Verizon result is 90%. The AT&T result.... 62%.
JD Powers and Consumer Reports show similar results.
The iPhone could give me oral pleasure and if only able to complete data requests, be they MMS, web browsing or voice, 62% of the time, I would have taken it back. There is no feature nor value proposition that makes such a situation tolerable to me.
I understand the claims about AT&T with regard to iPhones and usage. This might have made sense the first year. However we are now in the 25th month of adding phones and still have the claims of overwhelmed network. Part of being a good business is learning to scale and estimate future demand. 25 months later, if AT&T is not there, it is no longer a surprise or an unplanned event to which a response could not have been planned, rather it is the way they have planned to do business and it should no longer be excused.
Given the choice of the best phone on the best network, I would gladly hand my money over to Apple easily. However we dont have that. The network where I live isn't just average, it is subpar and not tolerable with regard to AT&T. Much like how Apple had an Intel project going in the event PowerPC could not innovate well enough or meet demand, there is simply no good reason to not have developed an iPhone capable of going on other networks. Even if they stick with AT&T, at this time the AT&T network resembles the stage of PPC progression where Mac users are saying "I need a car radiator to cool this G5, and how the hell are they ever going to put this thing in a laptop?"
For the sake of the iPhone platform, Apple needs to show they can meet competitors on all fronts.
Feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and especially articles about cell network performance below.
So this is the network thread.
I created it due to to such claims being leveled against me due to not owning an iPhone related to the AT&T network. I own an LG Dare. I've not claimed any phone is better than the iPhone, merely that they are within striking distance and given the inability of some to deal with AT&T and the refusal of Apple to deal with more than GSM, there are many lost business opportunities out there.
This thread should take care of the network side of this and prove, from multiple sources that AT&T is just not up to snuff.
First we have this from PCWorld. The print ready version is here.
Here is the criteria used...
Quote:
How We Tested and What the Ratings Mean
We decided to test the three major 3G cellular wireless broadband providers in 13 U.S. cities that we judged to be broadly representative of the locales where most customers are likely to use these services. In each city, we randomly chose 20 test locations, evenly distributed over the metropolitan area. We performed all of our tests inside a parked car.
We created a 1-minute stress test to evaluate the quality and performance of the wireless service. We tested network delay, upload speed, download speed, and reliability, as well as the correlation between "bars of service" and network performance.
We conducted the tests using industry-standard wireless-testing software (Ixia Chariot) running on a Windows XP SP3 laptop. We tested on a laptop, rather than on a smartphone, because we needed the laptop's processing power to run Ixia's rigorous 1-minute tests, and because a laptop can test the strengths and weaknesses of the network more accurately than a cell phone can. To connect to each network, we used the latest USB modem from each vendor: AT&T's USBConnect Option Quicksilver, Sprint's Sierra Wireless USB 598, and Verizon Wireless's Novatel Wireless USB 727. All of the client adapters we used came from the respective vendors and were recommended by the outlets where we purchased them.
How We Tested and What the Ratings Mean
We decided to test the three major 3G cellular wireless broadband providers in 13 U.S. cities that we judged to be broadly representative of the locales where most customers are likely to use these services. In each city, we randomly chose 20 test locations, evenly distributed over the metropolitan area. We performed all of our tests inside a parked car.
We created a 1-minute stress test to evaluate the quality and performance of the wireless service. We tested network delay, upload speed, download speed, and reliability, as well as the correlation between "bars of service" and network performance.
We conducted the tests using industry-standard wireless-testing software (Ixia Chariot) running on a Windows XP SP3 laptop. We tested on a laptop, rather than on a smartphone, because we needed the laptop's processing power to run Ixia's rigorous 1-minute tests, and because a laptop can test the strengths and weaknesses of the network more accurately than a cell phone can. To connect to each network, we used the latest USB modem from each vendor: AT&T's USBConnect Option Quicksilver, Sprint's Sierra Wireless USB 598, and Verizon Wireless's Novatel Wireless USB 727. All of the client adapters we used came from the respective vendors and were recommended by the outlets where we purchased them.
The results are mostly good news for Verizon, very good news for Spring and bringing up the pack well below the mark for reliability, AT&T.
Quote:
Testing Results in a Nutshell
In Novarum's tests for us, Verizon Wireless demonstrated a good mix of speed and reliability. Across more than 20 testing locations in each of the 13 cities we tested, Verizon had an average download speed of 951 kbps. Verizon demonstrated good reliability, too; the network was available at a reasonable and uninterrupted speed in 89.8 percent of our tests.
Sprint's 3G network delivered a solid connection in 90.5 percent of our 13-city tests. Sprint's average download speed of 808 kbps across 13 cities wasn't flashy (at that speed, a 1MB file downloads in 10 seconds), but dependability is an important asset. The Sprint network performed especially well, both in speed and in reliability, in our test cities in the western part of the United States.
The AT&T network's 13-city average download speed in our tests was 812 kbps. Its average upload speed was 660 kbps. Reliability was an issue in our experience of the AT&T system: Our testers were able to make a connection at a reasonable, uninterrupted speed in only 68 percent of their tests.
Testing Results in a Nutshell
In Novarum's tests for us, Verizon Wireless demonstrated a good mix of speed and reliability. Across more than 20 testing locations in each of the 13 cities we tested, Verizon had an average download speed of 951 kbps. Verizon demonstrated good reliability, too; the network was available at a reasonable and uninterrupted speed in 89.8 percent of our tests.
Sprint's 3G network delivered a solid connection in 90.5 percent of our 13-city tests. Sprint's average download speed of 808 kbps across 13 cities wasn't flashy (at that speed, a 1MB file downloads in 10 seconds), but dependability is an important asset. The Sprint network performed especially well, both in speed and in reliability, in our test cities in the western part of the United States.
The AT&T network's 13-city average download speed in our tests was 812 kbps. Its average upload speed was 660 kbps. Reliability was an issue in our experience of the AT&T system: Our testers were able to make a connection at a reasonable, uninterrupted speed in only 68 percent of their tests.
Within the article there is a large table that breaks this down by regions of the United States. In the West, it shows three cities for California. The Verizon result is 90%. The AT&T result.... 62%.
JD Powers and Consumer Reports show similar results.
The iPhone could give me oral pleasure and if only able to complete data requests, be they MMS, web browsing or voice, 62% of the time, I would have taken it back. There is no feature nor value proposition that makes such a situation tolerable to me.
I understand the claims about AT&T with regard to iPhones and usage. This might have made sense the first year. However we are now in the 25th month of adding phones and still have the claims of overwhelmed network. Part of being a good business is learning to scale and estimate future demand. 25 months later, if AT&T is not there, it is no longer a surprise or an unplanned event to which a response could not have been planned, rather it is the way they have planned to do business and it should no longer be excused.
Given the choice of the best phone on the best network, I would gladly hand my money over to Apple easily. However we dont have that. The network where I live isn't just average, it is subpar and not tolerable with regard to AT&T. Much like how Apple had an Intel project going in the event PowerPC could not innovate well enough or meet demand, there is simply no good reason to not have developed an iPhone capable of going on other networks. Even if they stick with AT&T, at this time the AT&T network resembles the stage of PPC progression where Mac users are saying "I need a car radiator to cool this G5, and how the hell are they ever going to put this thing in a laptop?"
For the sake of the iPhone platform, Apple needs to show they can meet competitors on all fronts.
Feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and especially articles about cell network performance below.