LTE now faster than 5G in certain areas

[dishstaller]

I have seen several instances recently where 5G didn't nearly as well as LTE....and these were places where the 5G signal was STRONG, not weak. One place was last week when we were in Pigeon Forge, TN. Nothing wanted to load right....google maps was useless. I tried to do a speed test and it wouldn't even start the test (Ookla App). I finally went into my settings and set my phone to LTE only. Did a speed test and got over 300 mbps down and something like 30 up. This was on Verizon.

 

[comfortably_numb]

This was on Verizon.

This is due to the haphazard and hasty rollout of 5G by Verizon. They oversaturated metro areas with "Home internet" users, then they also had to remove 5G cells from many towers due to the gov't restricting the use of Huawei chips. So, in essence they've fallen far behind TMO on 5G rollout. There's even a prevailing attitude at Verizon that 5G "isn't all it's hyped up to be" and overrated. In other words, they don't care.

Juan can provide more details I'm sure

I have dual VZW and TMO esims and TMO outperforms Verizon on data speed almost everywhere they coexist. IMO the only reason to keep VZW is if they are the only provider in a given area, like rural KS/MO/OK/AZ/NV. They're still dependable if you need to make a call. Speedy data? Not so much.

 

[Juan]

This is due to the haphazard and hasty rollout of 5G by Verizon. They oversaturated metro areas with "Home internet" users, then they also had to remove 5G cells from many towers due to the gov't restricting the use of Huawei chips. So, in essence they've fallen far behind TMO on 5G rollout. There's even a prevailing attitude at Verizon that 5G "isn't all it's hyped up to be" and overrated. In other words, they don't care.

Juan can provide more details I'm sure

I have dual VZW and TMO esims and TMO outperforms Verizon on data speed almost everywhere they coexist. IMO the only reason to keep VZW is if they are the only provider in a given area, like rural KS/MO/OK/AZ/NV. They're still dependable if you need to make a call. Speedy data? Not so much.

It's all about 6g now...the hell with 5g

 

[dishstaller]

It's all about 6g now...the hell with 5g

That pretty much sums up my experience with companies I've dealt with through the years. They screw something up....the something that was supposed to solve all kinds of issues and bring in new customers.....then after repeated screw ups and total inability to fix the existing tech, they come up with something NEW (which of course hasn't been rolled out yet) and then when you complain about the current tech not working, they say "hey Andy.....you're living in the past dude.....this new stuff is going to be great". Fast-forward a year or so and you are being given the SAME line about the "new" current tech which turned into a steaming pile of excrement.

Rant off.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Summary of Verizon's management errors. This is not an exhaustive list.

Management's attitude is (was) "We're the best and by God you'll pay for it."

Oopsy.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Great comments here:


View: https://www.reddit.com/r/verizon/comments/1ow77cl/verizon_is_severely_struggling_with_competition/


Basically they got cocky and rode that wave until they couldn't anymore.

"For years they campaigned on exclusivity and high costs. I remember the CEO making a comment that was in the mindset of "if you can't afford Verizon that's your fault."

 

[EarDemon]

What band(s) were you connected to and how wide were they?

On T-Mobile, there are plenty of times I was able to get faster speeds on band 66 LTE versus n71 NR.

With Verizon, if you are close to a cell site, it is very plausible you'll get faster speeds on the higher LTE frequencies instead of n5. n5 will obviously provides more bandwidth versus b5 at greater distances but LTE bands 2, 4 & 66 will probably still win out. For low band, it's generally stated there is a 25% or so increase in bandwidth going from LTE to NR on the same frequencies. For significant 5G speeds you need to be connected to at least mid-band. I have no problem pulling in well over 1 Gbps on all three carries when connected to n77 on Verizon and AT&T and n41 on T-Mobile.

I've exceeded 2 Gbps on T-Mobile n41, 1.5 Gbps on Verizon n77, 4.5 Gbps on Verizon n261, 1.5 Gbps on AT&T n77 (c-band, not DoD). n71 on T-Mobile get's me 200 - 250 Mbps, Verizon n5 about the same. It's very rare I connect to low band 5G on AT&T, since it's a FirstNet account and it prioritizes LTE band 14 over low band NR.

The way I see it right now, AT&T is best positioned for the future. They got a small amount of n71 from Dish, they seem like like are going to build it out, not do a spectrum swap with T-Mobile, as well as a bunch of DoD, they will be getting 4.9 for FirstNet, they are starting to migrate band 14 to n14 in very limited areas, plus the tower by tower rip and replace swapping out old Nokia gear and replacing it with brand new Ericsson gear.

T-Mobile has a timeline in place for their LTE shutdown, sometime in the mid 2030s I think. Verizon and AT&T will likely have their LTE networks around much longer since so much IoT stuff runs off their networks. Just about every modern car has an AT&T LTE modem in it.

T-Mobile got a jump start on mid-band 5G due to their acquisition of Sprint, Verizon and AT&T had to wait for the c-band auction, but deployed mmWave (Verizon to a much greater extent), in densely populated areas.