Analyst Takes AT&T and Verizon LTE Systems on Test Drive

On Sunday, AT&T launched super-speed 4G LTE network in five cities around the country. To see how AT&T’s 4G LTE network was performing, PCMag.com junior analyst David Pierce went to Houston, Texas to compare AT&T LTE network with the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE system.

After about eight rounds of testing, PCMag.com analyst found that AT&T's Houston network is faster than Verizon's LTE system. Of course, said Pierce. “We're comparing loaded Verizon network full of Droid Bionics and HTC Thunderbolts to a brand-new AT&T system just out of the wrapping paper.”

However, the results still show that if AT&T takes good care of its LTE system, it's going to be crazy fast.

As per the PCMag.com report, the AT&T network averaged out with about 24 Mbps downloads and peaked at 42.85 Mbps. “The fastest cellular connection we've ever seen,” wrote DailyTech reporter Jason Mick.

He added, “Just as exciting as the sheer download speeds were the connection quality results. Pingtest.net generally rated the network an A or a B, good enough for video chat or gaming.”

According to Pierce, “We tested in eight locations in central Houston, some of which we pre-checked with AT&T for coverage and some of which we left for surprises.”

To check out the networks, the analysts used three tests on a Dell Inspiron Windows 7 laptop. The Speedtest.net, which was  used in Fastest ISPs feature, gives a solid number for uploads, downloads and the time it takes to reach a testing server (ping), said Pierce. Its sibling Pingtest.net focuses on the streaming experience: whether a connection is good enough for video streaming, VOIP calling, or gaming. “That's an area where LTE should do a lot better than other forms of 3G and 4G,” according to the analyst.

Finally, said Pierce, “We downloaded the home pages of five different Web sites using the ‘curl’ command-line tool and averaged out both the time until the first byte of the site arrived, and the total download time.”

Currently, as per the DailyTech report, AT&T has two USB modems (the Momentum 4G by Sierra Wireless and the Adrenaline by LG), a hotspot (the Elevate 4G by Sierra) and a tablet (the HTC Jetstream) able to run on its LTE network. However, the carrier is not yet offering LTE phones, according to Mick. And no, you can't use AT&T, Verizon, and MetroPCS LTE devices on each others' networks, as the companies spec out their radios to exclude each others' frequencies. Apparently, they don't want roaming.