Note 4 vs Samsung S6 OTA dn/up load speeds

[AZgl1500]

Today, at a group gathering down at a remote lake, where the signal bars were in the 2 to 3 range...

a friend and I were comparing speeds between his new Samsung S6 with Android 6.0 Marshmallow and my Samsung Note 4 with 5.1.1

I was showing him www.speedof.me as a SpeedTest utility. He was unaware of any that would work with a cellphone.
well, Speedof.me does a very good job with cellphones.

But, here is the kicker: his S6 achieved 14.4 mbps down, and 10.0 mbps upload speeds.

Me, standing 2 feet away from him only got 1.4 mbps down, and 0.6 up...

First thing he asked me was if my Note 4 had Marshmallow on it, as we are both using Verizon as the carrier.

So, I am asking for others to pipe in here with comparisons you have done with a Note 4 vs an S6 at nearly the same time... and in a poor reception area on the same carrier. Please, no posts about one phone on AT&T and the other on Sprint... ( example) that is not a valid comparison.

We were at the water's edge, in thick trees, and 12 miles from the nearest cellsite.

 

[AZgl1500]

Hmmmm,

not a single response.

I have called and talked to Verizon Customer Service, they made two changes to the Note 4 and it came up on 4g once. and that was it.

Now, Verizon is historically a CDMA service with LTE bands and that is how it came up programmed when I registered the SIM card to the Note 4.

There has to be something wrong, even if the default settings are 'correct'.... so I started making changes to see "after the fact" what happens.


Under Settings/Mobile Networks/Network Mode/...
there are 3 options:

Global
LTE/CDMA
LTE/GSM/UMTS​

My phones have always been on the 2nd option LTE/CDMA...

Tonight, still very much frustrated that the signal strength was only 1 or 2 bars, and showing 3g all the time, except in rural areas it was dropping back to 1x. Then in some areas this morning, we drove through about 30 miles of NO SIGNAL period. I am right now looking at the VZW coverage map and it shows that area to be saturated in LTE/4g

Mind you, I am right now in Iowa Park, Texas and earlier was in Wichita Falls, TX.
Both metro areas... 4g is totally saturated here, but my phone only has 3g ??



Thinking about all of this, I got to wondering what if I changed it to GSM?

Son of a bitch! 4G 5 bars !!!
and on 3g there is only 2 bars, sometimes 1 bar here where I am now.


When I called into Customer Service yesterday, I told them "Hey, I have a LTE JetPack WiFi router turned on and it is giving me 30+ mbps download speeds all day long. Why in the hell won't my Samsung Note 4 do the same thing?

I got a Song and Dance about how the phone has too many things to do, and it can't keep up with the WiFi router which only has one function. LTE/4g and nothing else.

Well, that may be, but I am not convinced.
as of right now the JetPack is giving me 25 mbps on this laptop and the Note 4 is showing 10-12 mbps.
Both logged into http://speedof.me/

I am inside a house in the Iowa Park, Tx area.... so not outside in the clear.

Not exactly fantastic, but at least it is on LTE and not 1x or 3g.
Not exactly 40-50 mbps, but it is very usable, and the weather maps are coming up "right now".
something that is important to me, as I ride a motorcycle and I'm trying to stay away from all of the flooding around me. I had to divert away from a flooded road this morning, the highway was under 8 feet of water.

I am posting this update to give future readers a solution should they also have the same experience as I have had.

 

[AZgl1500]

Just for the hell of it, I switched it to "Global" and lost all service period.