LTE Speeds ~3 years after rollout

Soldato
Joined
8 Nov 2006
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Location
London
I just thought it might be worth looking at the speeds people are getting as LTE has become mainstream with increased load on the networks.

I've noticed that the speed aren't what they used to be and similar to average HSPA speeds now (8 to 12 mbps).
 
Not really seeing a consistent picture - overall probably seeing increased speeds in more areas but maybe less often seeing very high speeds.

EDIT: Check you are actually on LTE if using Android - some people have found their devices dropping back to HSPA or even showing 4G but actually connected on 3G after the Marshmallow update until manually toggling the setting again.
 
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Hmmm. You may be right. Galaxy S7, so always been on MM.

I'm taking the sim card status page as an indicator if I'm on LTE.

It always says LTE, but the top bar switches between 4G and 4G+.

I only get the faster speeds when it is showing 4G+. ~20Mb/s to ~50Mb/s vs 10Mb/s.

Android can't be classing HSPA+ as LTE surely? Also look at the unusual upload speed differences.

Screenshot_20160703-165154.png
 
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It always says LTE, but the top bar switches between 4G and 4G+.

I only get the faster speeds when it is showing 4G+. ~20Mb/s to ~50Mb/s vs 10Mb/s.
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As gigabit pointed out, this is a case of you having LTE and LTE-A connections. LTE-A is good for 150mbit down if you're in test conditions (I get 120-128mbps at Vodafone HQ), LTE is good for upto 100. HSPA+ (the most evolved 3G variant) went up to ~41mbps in the UK, most networks upgraded to this on most masts.

Carrier agg (which requires a Release 10 network) allows telcos to use split segments of bandwidth so for example voda can bond together their 800 and 2600 chunks into one larger bond and as time goes on this will help considerably with throughput and capacity (it helps peak throughput but not as much).
 
Android can't be classing HSPA+ as LTE surely? Also look at the unusual upload speed differences.

Screenshot_20160703-165154.png

They could be as some claimed that supporting the 64 QAM modulation scheme used by both HSPA+ and LTE meant their devices supported 4G.

Wait until 3 CC DL / 2 CC UL CA starts being deployed for real confusion to set in.
 
Mine varies quite a lot on Three, currently in work in Caridff and it's on 6.17Mbps down and 4.69Mbps up. (yes, this while connected to 4G/LTE)

Best I've seen is around 22Mbps down, but usually much lower than this.
 
Purposely went for a cheaper 3g only provider as where I am 4g is so patchy it was worse than 3g
 
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