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In our last post, we showed you guys an unofficial, 3rd party network test that pitted the the big 4 carriers here in the US against each other in a no-holds barred, west coast challenge. Absent from those speed tests was Sprint and their upcoming 4G LTE network, not yet officially available for the masses. Fortunately, PC Mag was able to nab an exclusive testing of Sprint’s next-gen 4G network in Atlanta Georgia, using a specially provisioned LG Viper 4G and gathering data using the Sensorly application. Let’s take a look at some of the results.
As you can see, Sprint’s LTE comes in 2nd place to AT&T’s LTE, receiving between 8 and 15Mbps download speeds. This is followed by Verizon LTE and T-Mobile HSPA+ taking 3rd and 4th place, respectively. Sprint’s WiMax network (which they’ve recently handed down to Boost and Virgin Mobile), comes in a laughable dead last, barely holding a candle to AT&T’s upload speeds. And speaking of uploads, Sprint’s LTE up doesn’t fare as well as their down, coming in 3rd with 2Mbps upload, a hair above T-Mobile (rounding out 4th once again).
Like most things, I would take these unofficial speed tests with a tiny grain of salt. Sprint’s LTE network is just beginning to take off, and as more and more users begin sucking up some of that bandwidth, we’ll have to see how well Sprint can maintain these speeds. Still, these results look promising and it’s leaps and bounds better than what’s currently made available on the Now Network. What do you guys think? Excited? Or disappointed?
Mindless anti-AT&T comments in 3….2……1……
They’re so evil!!!! lol
I can’t say anything bad about them anymore. Not because I’ve had a change of heart, but because I’m presently applying for a job with each carrier lol. I feel like such a traitor.
Lured you in, the dark side has… O_o
att would do good to embrace the darkside tagline, get Vader and the gang and run with it.
sprint steppin there shit up
Curious map, you have. Am I reading correctly that Kankakee has LTE Now?
In Oregon Verizon’s LTE is amazing for the most part . I’ve gotten up to 62mbps download speed! Doesn’t happen very often anymore but those 4g outages were annoying but Vetter now
Really Chris Chavez… People should buy their phones, or, judging carriers by these speed test or by the benchmark test? To me these tests just a gimmicks.
If I want to buy a phone I use the carrier two weeks trail, I`ll take the phone where ever I go to see how is the network in my area, than I`ll sign with the right carries.
I think its decent, not the best, not the worst, and unlimited makes it a strong contender for those who worry about running out. Just hope they don’t hit any snags in the roll out. good for them!
I’m in Hammond,In right outside Chicago and they have LTE here it is in the test stages and actually off and on but when its on its on ;)
How is your Wimax 4G? I’m in Schererville and it’s not that good. Been debating going back to T-Mobile due to the spotty 4G coverage I’ve been getting from Sprint.
Verizon gets 30 mbps in Canton, OH. Hopefully Sprint will roll out LTE here and stop sucking. 3G here is terrible.
Last week I checked out a Razr Maxx and the LTE speed I got at the Verizon store was 27Mbps download and 19 upload, not the 10.5 and the 6.8 in the chart above. Go figure.
I’m ready for LTE already… hope it comes out next week here in ATL :-)
Just because you have a job with a company doesn’t mean you no longer are an individual with an opinion!
The backhaul upgrades Sprint is doing nation wide will help them fare very well with their LTE speeds. The remote radio head units on the top of the tower will provide that extra bit of coverage distance and using LTE release 9 will allow them to upgrade to LTE-A quicker than Verizon and ATT. Add that to LTE-800 for distance and Clearwire frequency when more bandwidth is needed and they are sitting pretty!
Sensorly is not yet listing Sprint LTE as a network choice. I’m confused as to how they were able to use Sensorly.
Im on Sprint because with a heavily loaded family plan and a family member who we get the employee discount from gives me a 52$ a month everything data plan (thats with the crap 10$ data charge) I have had the Evo for 2 yrs now and we actually get decent 4G wimax in St Louis, MO so I can get 3mb/s realworld download speeds on my tablet using my phone in rooted tether. Moving to the galaxy S III in 2 days and I will essentially be taking a step down in speed because LTE won’t be ‘available’ in my area for a year or more… I can appreciate the truly unlimited data… but when you are stuck with 3G it doesn’t really matter now does it. I think if you are not in a 4G LTE coverage area they need to remove the 10$ data fee they tack on, its bullsh!t
Not sure how the WiMax tests did so poorly, I’m in Portland, Oregon and I get 7.5MB on WiMax 4G, inside a building.
Getting my S3 on Thursday, living on 3G is gonna SUCK. 3G Speedtest just now: 43kbps. :-/