4G in the Real World

[RagingSamster]

I was hoping that someone here could comment about "real world" 4G performance, I've heard both sides. Some saying it's blazingly fast, others saying its hit or miss with high latencies. I'm in the Seattle area which is supposedly saturated with 4G, I suppose I'll even be happy with 3G speeds, but if anyone can share real world speed 4G speed/latency tests. I'd be most appreciative.

 

[seretogis]

I'm also in Seattle, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. I ditched Qwest and use CLEAR (4g wimax) for my home broadband connection now and it's about 4-10mb down and around 1mb up. Latency is around 90-140ms. It's really a nice step up above 3g.

 

[tictac]

heh. i live in lacey. ill be spending the entire weekend with my evo4g in seattle.

clear needs to extend the 4G just a little further south. dammit.

 

[RagingSamster]

Thank you! over in another forum, one that is focused on DSL and Reports on news and has speed tests. In a particular subforum that looks at 4G, the same 5 people are constantly posting horrid speeds/latency. I guess thats an issue with public forums, most go to complain rather than praise

 

[katmandoo122]

I've heard the biggest problem is the band being used...extremely poor penetration through anything, including buildings, trees, etc. If you have a direct LOS, though, it should be nice ups over 3G. So, in the real world, will you have LOS?

Not often yet. Maybe as the roll it out further.

Now that Sprint is RFPing LTE, there is a good chance that Wimax is a temporary fix.

 

[hopalee]

Can someone please answer this question for me without beheading me? I'm looking for an easy to understand explanation about 4G/WiMax. I tried going through the sticky thread, but it's mostly incomprehensible to me. What I want to know is
a) Are 4G & WiMax the same thing?
b) If not, does 4G only refer to internet speeds, or does it have to deal with calling too?
c) If 4G is cellular service, and not just internet, how can people be complaining about it if the EVO is the first 4G phone available?

Thank you so much!

 

[GODSPEED44]

I'm also in Seattle, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. I ditched Qwest and use CLEAR (4g wimax) for my home broadband connection now and it's about 4-10mb down and around 1mb up. Latency is around 90-140ms. It's really a nice step up above 3g.

Funny, I am in Des Moines and just ditched Clear after having Clearwire for 2 years. As soon as I switched to 4g in January, I started having major issues. Talked to techs and was within .5 mile of tower, still had major dropping issues.

Man the Evo 4g is sweet, if only it had a phsyical keyboard.

Moment with physical keyboard and Shapewriter.

 

[sagedil]

Can someone please answer this question for me without beheading me? I'm looking for an easy to understand explanation about 4G/WiMax. I tried going through the sticky thread, but it's mostly incomprehensible to me. What I want to know is
a) Are 4G & WiMax the same thing?
b) If not, does 4G only refer to internet speeds, or does it have to deal with calling too?
c) If 4G is cellular service, and not just internet, how can people be complaining about it if the EVO is the first 4G phone available?

Thank you so much!

Best of my ability...
a) Yes
b) Only internet, see below
c) No, 4G (for now) is only data, calls do not work on it...yet

 

[Aragorn]

Can someone please answer this question for me without beheading me? I'm looking for an easy to understand explanation about 4G/WiMax. I tried going through the sticky thread, but it's mostly incomprehensible to me. What I want to know is
a) Are 4G & WiMax the same thing?
b) If not, does 4G only refer to internet speeds, or does it have to deal with calling too?
c) If 4G is cellular service, and not just internet, how can people be complaining about it if the EVO is the first 4G phone available?

Thank you so much!

A. 4G refers to the fourth generation of digital cellular technologies. WiMAX is one of those technologies. LTE is another 4G technology.

B. 4G is currently only being used for data transmission. A voice call on the EVO is routed over the 3G network.