T-Mobile HSPA performance

[anon62607]

I am a Verizon customer in the process of switching to T-Mobile. I'm on a Verizon family plan with three lines and I've already switched one (my iPhone 5s) to T-Mobile.

I switched the day before I came down to Victorville from Portland for a few days for work. In Portland T-Mobile LTE was pretty widespread and pretty fast and it felt like I made the correct decision but now in Victorville I'm having second thoughts.

T-Mobile's coverage map indicates excellent 4G service here, and there is some LTE (which remains quite fast, just like Portland) but in most areas I'm in HSPA coverage, not LTE, and it is quite clearly under capacity constraint. Running speedtests throughout the day I observed performance around 2.5 Mbps overnight down to 0.09 Mbps midday - and most of the day from 7 am to about 11 pm performance is around 0.2 Mbps down.

Performance is much higher on the reverse channel (upstream) and that typically indicates capacity constraint - too many people are using too little spectrum and this makes me worry that T-Mobile's "unlimited everything for little money" policy will make them a Sprint-like dog slow carrier in the long run.

So this post is a comment and a question, the comment being that it seems like if you live in a T-Mobile LTE area the unlimited deal is attractive but if you're in an HSPA area it's not.

The question is: is that true? Do you guys in T-Mobile HSPA areas see better performance mid-day than I'm seeing?


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[Almeuit]

Below are various HSPA tests around town for me.

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[UJ95x]

Speed test just now


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[B. Diddy]

I'm in the Silicon Valley, and had Verizon up until 3 days ago. Verizon's mediocre 4G LTE service was giving me 5-6 MBPS on average, maybe 10 MBPS at best. I was also getting kicked down frequently to 3G, with download speeds of <1 MBPS. Fun.:-\ Now that I'm on T-Mobile, I'm getting 10-13 MBPS on HSPA+, and 30-40 MBPS on LTE. Yessss. Hardly ever see the E (for 3G).

 

[UJ95x]

I'm in the Silicon Valley, and had Verizon up until 3 days ago. Verizon's mediocre 4G LTE service was giving me 5-6 MBPS on average, maybe 10 MBPS at best. I was also getting kicked down frequently to 3G, with download speeds of <1 MBPS. Fun.:-\ Now that I'm on T-Mobile, I'm getting 10-13 MBPS on HSPA+, and 30-40 MBPS on LTE. Yessss. Hardly ever see the E (for 3G).

E is for EDGE
3G is HSPA I believe. The + makes it "4G"

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[B. Diddy]

Oh, I was thinking E was for EV-DO, but maybe that's just on Verizon.

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[UJ95x]

Oh, I was thinking E was for EV-DO, but maybe that's just on Verizon.

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EVDO is for CDMA carriers only, so yeah, that would be VZW

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[dpham00]

Edge is 2g.

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[FaisDogg]

I'm in the Silicon Valley, and had Verizon up until 3 days ago. Verizon's mediocre 4G LTE service was giving me 5-6 MBPS on average, maybe 10 MBPS at best. I was also getting kicked down frequently to 3G, with download speeds of <1 MBPS. Fun.:-\ Now that I'm on T-Mobile, I'm getting 10-13 MBPS on HSPA+, and 30-40 MBPS on LTE. Yessss. Hardly ever see the E (for 3G).

Pretty much exact situation here in northern California

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[UJ95x]

Pretty much exact situation here in northern California

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Silicon Valley is in Nor Cal isn't it?

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[FaisDogg]

Silicon Valley is in Nor Cal isn't it?

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You're right, but I'm in Sacramento, California... Lol

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[itic]

Here in Oakland, north of silicon valley, Ive noticed that my HSPA spds in my home using a nexus 4 were 1 to 3 mbps while with a moto x its anywhere from 5 to 11mbps.

 

[UJ95x]

Here in Oakland, north of silicon valley, Ive noticed that my HSPA spds in my home using a nexus 4 were 1 to 3 mbps while with a moto x its anywhere from 5 to 11mbps.

Motorola radios ftw

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[anon62607]

thanks for the replies guys. I made it back to Portland last night only to have to get on a flight to Atlanta this morning. Portland remains fast (though LTE). from Victorville to Ontario (California) I stayed in HSPA and performance remained poor until getting in the vicinity of the Ontario airport when it kicked over to LTE. hopefully I'll start seeing better HSPA speeds and Victorville / Ontario is just a fluke.