23 thoughts on “LTE at DIA?”

  7. Craig Robertson

    I have a friend that had Spark. Speed and bandwidth awesome… When you can get it. It's never where you need it. Of course this is Kansas City area where there headquarters are located, well it was till they got bought out by Softbank based in Japan. 1 bar is the norm, that according to Sprint 1 bar is good because it's digital so any amount of signal is full strength. Yeah right.

  8. Jeremy Collins

    +Craig Robertson well they should fit right in with tmobile if the merger happens because that's what tmobile tells me about its awful signal strength.. "oh as long as you can have download speeds of 2mb its acceptable" lol

  13. Craig Robertson

    +Jeremy Collins Well… The size of the US and it's sparse populations spread over large distances is network infrastructure logistical nightmare! Despite the fact it's wireless it's still limited on range.  But yes we could do better. I'm biding my time for when Google takes over! 😉 Satellites are already assuming position for world domination!  Robotic Google cars are just waiting for the signal! ^_^

  14. Jeremy Collins

    +Craig Robertson oh i agree.. Carriers are not spending money on infrastructure but keeping their profits high and their service gets worse. T-mobile is seeing it now. They got all these new customers and their network is struggling at times. Verizon's is awful at times. I think if CDMA went away and LTE and GSM was focused on it would be better too.

  15. Paul Gatling

    Do you have any idea how much average rent on a single cell site is in an urban area? How about monthly rate on 100mb fiber pipe from century link? Oh yeah then there is the spectrum.

    Then there is zoning a site…

    Some countries overcome this by calling wireless a utility to keep leasing and zoning to a minimum and not charging insane rates for spectrum.

    Then there are all of the raw square miles to be covered as +Craig Robertson accurately alluded to.

  17. Jeremy Collins

    +Paul Gatling I know there is a lot of cost but do you really think these carriers aren't gouging us? We are paying for services that are spotty at times and then told to pay more.. plus I hear (not sure if this true) a lot of the infrastructure for cell towers and cable is paid for by tax dollars. I know this is true for Comcast for sure. Geography is an issue but come on its 2014 the US should be a lot further ahead in this front.

    btw great conversations!!!

  18. Paul Gatling

    There is zero government subsidy in wireless telecom. You are being gouged by Comcast and time Warner.

    When you're feeling gouged by wireless telecom ask yourself one thing, is it really a necessity that I have this? It is a luxury. The prices have stayed the same for a decade, more features and potential has been added. I'm failing to see your issue with wireless pricing.

  23. Jonathon Barton

    http://www.gsmamobilewirelessperformance.com/GSMA_Mobile_Wireless_Performance_May2013.pdf
    From the Executive Summary and other spots:
    * EU consumers pay less per month than U.S. consumers for mobile wireless services, but U.S. consumers use five times more voice minutes and twice as much data. U.S. consumers use 901 voice minutes per month, more than five times the European average of 170 minutes. US users average 810 MB of data vs. the European average of 415 MB. Thus, while U.S. consumers pay more per month than those in the EU, they pay less per unit of usage. Merrill lynch reports that average revenue per minute of voice usage in the U.S. (3 cents per minute) is far lower than in any European country, and less than a third of the European average. (10 cents per minute) 

    * _Growth in investment in the U.S. is translating into faster data connection speeds: U.S. speeds are now 75 percent faster than the EU average, and the gap is expected to grow. Figure 9 shows the divergence between the level of capital expenditures on wireless infrastructure in the EU and the U.S. as estimated by Goldman Sachs. As the figure shows,  
    the level of wireless capex in the U.S. has grown by over 70 percent since 2007, while declining in the EU. by late 2012 more than 10 percent of U.S. wireless connections were on LTE networks, compared with less than one percent in the EU. Moreover, U.S. carriers are moving quickly to transition customers to the new networks: by year-end 2013, nearly 20 percent of U.S. connections are expected to be on LTE networks, compared to less than two percent in the EU; Verizon has announced it intends to phase out its 2g and 3g networks entirely by 2021._
     
    * The U.S. is deploying LTE at a much faster pace than the EU; by YE 2013, 19 percent of U.S. connections will be on LTE networks compared to less than two percent in the EU

    Average cellular download speeds (that I can find):
    2007 
    AT&T EDGE: 115 kbps
    AT&T HSDPA: 1.0 mbps

    2008
    AT&T HSDPA: 755 kbps
    Sprint EV-DO: 494 kbps
    Verizon EV-DO Rev A.: 592 kbps

    2009 
    AT&T: 901 Kbps (8,153 users reporting in)
    Sprint: 1,598 Kbps (1,570 users)
    Verizon: 1940 kbps (856 users)
    T-Mobile: 1,793 Kbps (1,189 users)

    2010 – PC World 13-city test
    AT&T: 1.41 mbps 
    Sprint: 795 Kbps
    Verizon: 877 kbps
    T-Mobile: 868 Kbps

    2011  3G- iPhoneHacks.com, Buffalo, NY 3G test
    AT&T HSPA: 2.53 mbps
    Verizon EV-DO: 0.55 mbps
    Sprint EV-DO: 0.50 mbps
    T-Mobile: n/a

    2011 4G – PC World
    AT&T HSPA+: 2.48 mbps
    Verizon LTE: 6.44 mbps
    Sprint WiMax: 2.15 mbps
    T-Mobile Unknown: 2.83 mbps

     *2012* 3G PC World
    AT&T: 2.62 mbps
    Verizon: 1.04 mbps
    Sprint: 0.59 mbps
    T-Mobile: 3.84 mbps

     *2012* PC World 4G 13 cities
    AT&T LTE: 9.12 mbps
    Verizon LTE: 7.35 mbps
    Sprint WiMax: 2.81 mbps
    T-Mobile : 5.53 mbps

     *2013* BGR 4G 
    AT&T LTE: 18.6 mbps
    Verizon LTE: 14.3 mbps
    Sprint LTE: 10.3 mbps
    T-Mobile HSPA+: 7.3 mbps

    Why, yes, the networks (all of them!) have gotten MUCH faster in the last couple of years. It's not exactly fair to single out, say, Korea, which is a smaller, much more densely settled country the way the US is COMPLETELY spread out. 

    Sure, we're behind Korea, but we're *way ahead* of the EU.

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