What's faster: WiFi or 4G?

[Chrisy]

So which is faster? I've used 4G but not WiFi yet. I'll have to go to the library to try WiFi out.

 

[DJBeanPole]

I know WiFi hella faster than 3G. Tried downloading the Facebook app and it crawled. I told my brother (who was walking me through it) what about WiFi? Turned that sucker on and BOOM it was like instantaneous. Haven't gotten a chance to mess with 4G but I'd assume 4G > WIFI.

 

[bjboucher]

So which is faster? I've used 4G but not WiFi yet. I'll have to go to the library to try WiFi out.

It all depends on the speed of the internet that is feeding the WiFi. I'm guessing your 4G is going to be much faster than most public free WiFi hotspots, probably a lot faster. My WiFi at home is faster than my 4G but out in public, i'd probably go with 4G if you are looking for speed. I think the wifi will use a little less battery power on your phone though.

 

[anon62607]

So which is faster? I've used 4G but not WiFi yet. I'll have to go to the library to try WiFi out.

The speedtest.net application gets about the same speed for both wifi (connected to 105 megabit Comcast) and 4G LTE for me, which sort of indicates to me that either one is as fast as the tbolt can handle anyway.

 

[Forgetful]

Depends on the service of the wifi like everyone else has said.


My home wifi is about 2/3 time slower than 4G. But at school the wifi is almost 2 times faster at times.

 

[qbngator]

In Miami, FL, 4G LTE is faster for me than my wi-fi through XFinity (Comcast).

 

[dajogejr]

The speedtest.net application gets about the same speed for both wifi (connected to 105 megabit Comcast) and 4G LTE for me, which sort of indicates to me that either one is as fast as the tbolt can handle anyway.

You can't use the speedtest.net app for the Thunderbolt, know issues with LTE.
Go into your browser settings and uncheck the "Mobile View" settings.
Then go back to speedtest.net and test the speed on both.

I can't believe a 105MB comcast connection (yeah, I'm jealous..lol) isn't much faster than the LTE speeds. It should be.

 

[bjboucher]

You can't use the speedtest.net app for the Thunderbolt, know issues with LTE.
Go into your browser settings and uncheck the "Mobile View" settings.
Then go back to speedtest.net and test the speed on both.

I can't believe a 105MB comcast connection (yeah, I'm jealous..lol) isn't much faster than the LTE speeds. It should be.

I think the only issues with the APP are for upload speed, download speeds should be reliable from what I've read.

 

[prakash99]

Public wifi, like library, cafes, etc.. are usually slower than 4G.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[scassel]

I have been told that in general (105 MB Comcast lines aside ), 4G is faster than wifi.

 

[dajogejr]

I think the only issues with the APP are for upload speed, download speeds should be reliable from what I've read.

I have tested with the app and gotten 10 to 15 down, immediately went to the website and got 20 to 28 down.

I don't have any faith in that app whatsoever.

It also tested my Home WiFi at 6-8 down and the website tested it just below 11 down (I have 12 down and 1.5 up at home)

 

[C Dirty]

As others have already said, it depends on your wifi speed. In my case, my DSL is so laughable at home that I use 4G all the time. The only thing my wifi connection has over 4G is the ping, so I can't really use it for Xbox Live or anything. When it comes to straight downloading though, 4G smokes my home internet connection, and it puts my internet's upload to shame.

 

[anon(2632)]

Well, the wifi at my house is a Verizon MiFi 3g, and there is not 4g in my area (and i live in just outside of a small small small town of about 6000 in the middle of nowhere) and won't be for some time. We do not have any other options for internet except maybe hughesnet internet. No Cable or hard lines at all!
So, i'm guessing that my TB on wifi will pretty much be the same as using its own data...

(.... so jealous.... )

 

[SoDev]

Mines about the same. I get 15 at home max (where I.only have 3g anyway) and at work I get 4g which is anywhere from say 10-32ish.... Ok so 4g is faster, heh.

Sent from the Bolt via Tapatalk

 

[VideoEngineerAJS]

I think the only issues with the APP are for upload speed, download speeds should be reliable from what I've read.

As someone else in the thread said, both down and up are way off. At first everyone thought down was correct because it was still so much faster than anything else out there, but after doing tests from the browser on the phone and through my laptop using Mobile Hotspot I can assure you that both are dead wrong.

 

[VideoEngineerAJS]

My home wifi is faster simply because I live in a valley so I'm in a 4G Extended Coverage Area. I still get decent speeds at 7-12Mbps down, but my home internet I get about 15-20Mbps down with it being 20 most of the time. I'd like to try the 60Mbps that Charter has just come out with, but I'd probably have to buy a new modem and I don't know if I feel like spending the extra money when I go in spurts on when I get on XBox Live.

 

[lovy]

So which is faster? I've used 4G but not WiFi yet. I'll have to go to the library to try WiFi out.

Hi Chrisy,

I have used both and I must say for me 4G is much faster than wifi. I live Brooklyn New York both have very strong signals but 4G hands down.

 

[tcapote]

Although 4G is smoking fast, my home WiFi is faster with Cox 60Mbps down speeds.

 

[shaddix]

Comparing 4g and wifi is like saying "Which is faster, the highway or asphalt?"

Wifi is just the cable that connects your phone to whatever isp connection is on the other end.


And yes, Both the upload and download speeds on the speedtest app are wrong. The download reads too low, and the upload reads too high.

 

[LessThanAnAndroidNovice]

It all depends on the speed of the internet that is feeding the WiFi. I'm guessing your 4G is going to be much faster than most public free WiFi hotspots, probably a lot faster. My WiFi at home is faster than my 4G but out in public, i'd probably go with 4G if you are looking for speed. I think the wifi will use a little less battery power on your phone though.

I don't know much about Android, as my name suggests, but I do know some things. You can't make a blanket apples to apples comparison between WiFi and 4G, because it depends on a couple of things, mostly Location Location Location, and you probably won't get the same results twice.

WiFi is a wireless connection to the Internet through your ISP provider, and currently there are three flavors out there, generally referred to 11b, 11g, or 11n. (these are really IEEE 802.11b, g, or n specifications), and it comes into play in the wireless router that provides the connection. You mostly see it in the speed (11b is the slowest and 11n the fastest. but there are some other factors in the protocol, including the encryption used between your wireless device and the router. Older devices, like my old laptop, only can use the 11b spec. My current laptop can use 11g or 11n. My Wii can only talk 11g. The TB can use all 3. So, regardless of how fast your wireless device is, in this case a TB, it can't access the Internet any faster than the WiFi router will allow. Your not likely to find many public WiFi locations with routers that support 11n. Once you get past the router, than you have to deal with congestion on the backbone in your immediate vicinity. Some days my Comcast connection flies, and other days it just drags. Just depends on what everyone else in the neighborhood is doing at that time.

If you look at the phone side of things, its always trying to maintain connection to a cell tower, but other towers in the immediate vicinity know about you. If you happen to live or work in a location that is near the overlap of two towers, moving from one side of the building to the others could trigger the change from one tower to another. You might see this as a momentary loss of connection, or a change in the signal strength.

So, the throughput you get today (upload and download speeds) could be different tomorrow, and what's faster on WiFi today might not be tomorrow.

WiFi, however, should be much easier on your battery, since the phone doesn't have to transmit as far as it does to a cell tower, assuming that you don't have one in your backyard.

Three other things to consider. First, LTE is new technology, and I have to assume that Verizon doesn't have all of the bugs out of it yet. I believe that they are still tweaking settings just as we are on our phones. Remember, this is the 1st LTE phone, and their only experience prior to the TB launch was mobile broadband for laptops.

Second, everyone has gotten used to everything working perfectly, like their old landline phone. About the only thing that could knock that out was physically cutting the wires. However, cellular networks, especially since the addition of data transport, have gotten exponentially more complicated, and their failure rate is grown exponentially with it. I don't know how common it is, but I expect that Verizon experiences the same kinds of equipment failures as the rest of the computer industry. Some failures may reduce capacity, and some, like a power failure, could knock out the whole tower. If you are not in an area with a lot of cell towers, reaching out to the next closest one could tax your connection. The bottom line here is that some of the intemittent problems being reported could be related to Verizon network issues, and we'd never know.

Third, upload and download speeds were generated in a lab under ideal circumstances. Just like automobile gas mileage figures, they have no basis in reality. They do give you a feel how the device compares to other devices, but experiencing those speeds in real life, especially sustained over days or even hours is just not going to happen