AT&T Doubles 4G LTE Coverage in 2012

[zakislam]

More than 150 million subscribers covered by carrier's LTE network.

AT&T Doubles 4G LTE Coverage in 2012 : Read more

 

[largg]

HI all. My phone is dying so I am checking out whats out there.

Last week I went to the ATT store on West side of Indianapolis (near 38th and Lafayette).
Fired up a speed test on one of their demo LG Optimus G and saw 36Mbs down and 12Mbs up.

Went to the Verizon store about 1/2 a block away and performed the same test on a Droid Max and saw 22Mbs down and about 10 Mbs up.

Next went to the T-mobile store that is next door to Verizon and performed the same test and saw 10 Mbs down and 8 Mbs up.

According to what I overheard from the salesman at the Sprint store on the east side of Indianapolis on east Washington street by German Church RD Sprint only has one LTE tower in Indianapolis and its nearby that store. I tested the speed on a display LG Mach and saw about 10.5 Mbs down and 8Mbs up.

If ATT's service general is truly similiar to what I saw they are really ahead of the competition! 10 Mbs down is nothing to sneeze at but 36Mbs? That was faster than what I got on my old Comcast cable modem. ATT's investment is really paying off.

 

[halcyon]

Largg, if you're not an AT&T employee then your experience is quite telling, but I don't know if that kind of performance is available in all of AT&T's markets or LTE markets. I can say that I do have Sprint and live just outside the capital of the free world and that we don't have LTE despite what Sprint might say. However, I think I appreciate the all-you-can-eat 3G that I'm getting just as much as I would limited 4G. Okay...maybe I'm fooling myself.

 

[ikefu]

I really don't care what AT&Ts performance is, they don't have service outside of the big cities. Their speed is zero if you have no coverage. We just got LTE in Laramie WY (only 30k people) with Verizon. Verizon seems to care about more than just large cities with their coverage so I'll stick with them.

Plus AT&T has terrible customer service.

 

[Guest]

I was driving through Orlando, FL and did a speedtest on AT&T's LTE and got 53.51 Mbps Down / 17.19 Mbps Up. Needless to say big improvement from 4G.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]zsw11[/nom]I was driving through Orlando, FL and did a speedtest on AT&T's LTE and got 53.51 Mbps Down / 17.19 Mbps Up. Needless to say big improvement from 4G.[/citation]

Correction that is actually 4g(and even then not technically by standards definition). HSPA+ is NOT 4G, no matter how badly AT&T lies in their commercials!!!!!!

 

[Guest]

Also, you wouldn't notice the difference in 36Mbps vs 10Mbps. Unless you sit on the speedtest.net app and run them until your battery dies. The only thing I care about is a consistent speed and quality of that data. Otherwise a periodic peak of 36 is nice and all but doesnt matter if the data is unusable once you leave a big city.

 

[rflynn88]

I live in southern NJ and have been pretty impressed with AT&T's 4G LTE coverage in my area (iPhone 5, it probably would be a Galaxy 4 if it had LTE). Cherry Hill, Deptford, Moorestown, Marlton, Berlin, all have LTE coverage. I recently went to the Microsoft Store in Newark Delaware with a friend to get a Surface RT, sure enough LTE coverage down there as well.

As far as speed goes; I pulled 55 Mbps down in Cherry Hill, but I generally see LTE speeds between 10-30 Mbps. I could have switched to verizon, but forcing single customers into a share plan for over $100/month was a big red flag from big red.

AT&T customer service has been decent enough as well. I missed a bill payment once and didn't realize so they stopped my service. Customer service waived the re-activation fee without hassle and had me re-connected quickly. Other than that I've never really had to call them.

I'm not a huge fan of AT&T, but in NJ they seem to be the best choice at the moment from a price/performance standpoint for a single customer. Also, I'm still grandfathered on the Unlimited/5GB $30 data plan.

 

[rflynn88]

^Correction: Nexus 4

 

[RabidFace]

To everyone that says AT&T has no coverage or horrible customer service, I beg to differ. I recently just went on a contract after being on their Go Phone for about a year and I won't be switching.

I exchanged 2 Galaxy S3s within my 14 days for various reasons without hassle, and I mean WITHOUT hassle. Explained a bit of my problem with both, and each time I received a new handset, not refurbished. Also, the day after I got my contract, I realized that the salesman didn't give me the right messaging feature so called customer service. She called out the mistake before I could even get it out. End of the story is, my first bill went from $150 to $113.

All carriers has good and bad spots for coverage. And I actually am a fan of Verizon. But after all this that I have dealt with in the past 2 weeks being on contract with them, I am a loyal AT&T customer.

LTE is also not bad here in the Portland metro area.

 

[Ironslice]

I don't even want LTE where I am: Tallahassee, FL. When my phone is on LTE the battery drains like 4 times as fast...

 

[doct3rphil]

50% increase is not double. 50% increase to 2 would be 3, not 4.

 

[s3anister]

[citation][nom]Ironslice[/nom]I don't even want LTE where I am: Tallahassee, FL. When my phone is on LTE the battery drains like 4 times as fast...[/citation]

And sex makes you tired... but you don't see people not doing that because they might get 'tired'.

We should have LTE or faster anywhere and everywhere. If for nothing else, simply for the sake of progress; battery life will catch up eventually.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

No changes for me .... get weak AT&T signal at home, need to drive 1.5 miles for a Verizon signal and 4 miles for Sprint signal. And, no I'm not "in the boonies". Mid Suffolk County, Long Island with the county population at about 1/7 million people.e

 

[Guest]

Getting 35mbs down, 16 up in Nashville TN on AT&T LTE with my Galaxy Note...very happy with it great coverage thru the whole city.

 

[largg]

[citation][nom]halcyon[/nom]Largg, if you're not an AT&T employee then your experience is quite telling, but I don't know if that kind of performance is available in all of AT&T's markets or LTE markets. I can say that I do have Sprint and live just outside the capital of the free world and that we don't have LTE despite what Sprint might say. However, I think I appreciate the all-you-can-eat 3G that I'm getting just as much as I would limited 4G. Okay...maybe I'm fooling myself.[/citation]

lol I am not an ATT rep, I would rather stick with what I've got, Virgin mobile. But as you probably have heard Sprint's 3G is terrible right now. The last test I did on my phone was like 0.16 Mbs down.

 

[murzar]

Very good.

 

[janson]

Today if you want to be mobile with your work you’ve got to have the big data speeds like 4G LTE (I’ve got mine with AT&T). I’m a graphic designer and I can’t believe the difference it has made in how little time it takes to transmit a file.