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Side by side speed tests

Mahalo

Mahalo

Android Enthusiast
So I was talking with a friend over a beer the other day and he asked me how happy I've been with my GNexus. I told him that I've been pretty happy with it, apart from a few little things it was what I expected but I felt like I was getting poor network performance both with 3G and LTE. Since he has VZW and a 3G phone we did side by side speed tests.... his 3G phone nearly met my 4G speeds when I had LTE on. When I went straight 3G he had 3x my speed both down and up...

I got on the phone with VZW immediately and asked what was going on. The CSR said I would get a call back yesterday. I didn't...so I called to check in today and was told that my ticket is marked for a call back this afternoon.

My question to you guys and gals is.... have you done side by side tests with your phones and another VZW phone in 3G or LTE modes?

I am not one to complain about my phone... In fact, I think this is the first negative post I've had about i but it is a pretty big deal to me so don't take this as bashing! I'm just darn curious. I returned one phone due to poor network performance already,
 
Mahalo said:
So I was talking with a friend over a beer the other day and he asked me how happy I've been with my GNexus. I told him that I've been pretty happy with it, apart from a few little things it was what I expected but I felt like I was getting poor network performance both with 3G and LTE. Since he has VZW and a 3G phone we did side by side speed tests.... his 3G phone nearly met my 4G speeds when I had LTE on. When I went straight 3G he had 3x my speed both down and up...

I got on the phone with VZW immediately and asked what was going on. The CSR said I would get a call back yesterday. I didn't...so I called to check in today and was told that my ticket is marked for a call back this afternoon.

My question to you guys and gals is.... have you done side by side tests with your phones and another VZW phone in 3G or LTE modes?

I am not one to complain about my phone... In fact, I think this is the first negative post I've had about i but it is a pretty big deal to me so don't take this as bashing! I'm just darn curious. I returned one phone due to poor network performance already,
Click to expand...

I was actually about to post something that indirectly happens to be a perfect response to your question.

While doing my own testing of signal strength for me around town, I noticed something interesting.

Yesterday I happend to be in two places around town where my LTE signal strength was very good (-75dbm for both).

Yet, my speed result tests were IMMENSELY different.

In one area of town - 32mb down/ 18 up
In the other - 6mb down/10 up

Same signal strength in both locations, yet obviously using different towers - which brings me to my next and most important point:

Signal strength is not as important as the number of users currently sharing a tower with you when it comes to speed.

As Verizon expands their LTE network, speeds will continue to go up - even in great signal areas.

Or at least this is my hope/belief :D
 
I wouldn't put "too" much stock in speeds tests.

Speed tests can vary by a huge amount just from one test to the next.


Unless you and your friend did 20+ tests and averaged them they isn't enough data...

that said I've seen some rumors and what not, that lead me to believe the 3G drivers on the Gnex aren't as polished as the should be. I expect it'll be much improved next update...
 
Mahalo said:
So I was talking with a friend over a beer the other day and he asked me how happy I've been with my GNexus. I told him that I've been pretty happy with it, apart from a few little things it was what I expected but I felt like I was getting poor network performance both with 3G and LTE. Since he has VZW and a 3G phone we did side by side speed tests.... his 3G phone nearly met my 4G speeds when I had LTE on. When I went straight 3G he had 3x my speed both down and up...

I got on the phone with VZW immediately and asked what was going on. The CSR said I would get a call back yesterday. I didn't...so I called to check in today and was told that my ticket is marked for a call back this afternoon.

My question to you guys and gals is.... have you done side by side tests with your phones and another VZW phone in 3G or LTE modes?

I am not one to complain about my phone... In fact, I think this is the first negative post I've had about i but it is a pretty big deal to me so don't take this as bashing! I'm just darn curious. I returned one phone due to poor network performance already,
Click to expand...

Are you certain you were using the same test server? They can vary significantly, at least on 4G speeds.
 
Crashumbc said:
that said I've seen some rumors and what not, that lead me to believe the 3G drivers on the Gnex aren't as polished as the should be. I expect it'll be much improved next update...
Click to expand...

I honestly thought the same thing until I got out of an area with LTE. Driving through a good portion of the state of EDIT: Kentucky, I had a really nice and robust 3g signal the whole drive.

The issue definitely (or at least in my opinion) takes place when the phone is transitioning between 3g and 4g (basically when there is a weak LTE signal and it flips back and forth)
 
Techno Tonis said:
I honestly thought the same thing until I got out of an area with LTE. Driving through a good portion of the state of Tennessee (which has no LTE yet) I had a really nice and robust 3g signal the whole drive.
Click to expand...

Nashville is eaten up with LTE. In fact, the Nashville LTE follows the I-24 corridor as far south as nearly Monteagle... hence my ability to enjoy 4G speeds in my little town.

I did a side-by-side comparison of 3G and 4G using the same server... but on the same device (my Nexus). Here are my results:

3G: Ping 119 ms DL 1698 kbps UL 824 kbps
4G: Ping 81 ms DL 29778 kbps UL 19351 kbps

I'm not sure what portion of Tennessee you drove through, but yes: we do have LTE :)

EDIT: Kentucky? Oh well, that's different...
 
Techno Tonis said:
I honestly thought the same thing until I got out of an area with LTE. Driving through a good portion of the state of Tennessee (which has no LTE yet) I had a really nice and robust 3g signal the whole drive.

The issue definitely (or at least in my opinion) takes place when the phone is transitioning between 3g and 4g (basically when there is a weak LTE signal and it flips back and forth)
Click to expand...


definitely think the hand off can be improved.

Most of my "guess" (and its only guess no real basis) comes from a recent review that one of the tech. sites did (if I can find it I'll post the link)

Basically, they did a whole bunch of different battery tests and compared it to other phones.

Most of the tests the GNex held up pretty well EXCEPT for the 2-3 3G tests... there it went from the top 3-4 phones to the bottom with like HALF the battery life compared other phones it matched up well against in the previous test... To me this indicates something ain't right.
 
The_Chief said:
Nashville is eaten up with LTE. In fact, the Nashville LTE follows the I-24 corridor as far south as nearly Monteagle... hence my ability to enjoy 4G speeds in my little town.

I did a side-by-side comparison of 3G and 4G using the same server... but on the same device (my Nexus). Here are my results:

3G: Ping 119 ms DL 1698 kbps UL 824 kbps
4G: Ping 81 ms DL 29778 kbps UL 19351 kbps

I'm not sure what portion of Tennessee you drove through, but yes: we do have LTE :)
Click to expand...

Sorry, I meant to say the state of Kentucky, not Tennessee as I was actually on my way to Nashville for new years. Fine city :D

EDIT: Ok, I know Lexington has LTE because I picked up my buddy at UK en route to Nashville. The entire portion of land and road between these two cities do not have the 4g's however, which is what I was trying to say. I'm making this more complicated than it needs to be :p
 
Crashumbc said:
definitely think the hand off can be improved.

Most of my "guess" (and its only guess no real basis) comes from a recent review that one of the tech. sites did (if I can find it I'll post the link)

Basically, they did a whole bunch of different battery tests and compared it to other phones.

Most of the tests the GNex held up pretty well EXCEPT for the 2-3 3G tests... there it went from the top 3-4 phones to the bottom with like HALF the battery life compared other phones it matched up well against in the previous test... To me this indicates something ain't right.
Click to expand...

Maybe you are referring to this?

AnandTech - Samsung Galaxy Nexus & Ice Cream Sandwich Review
 
Thanks for the input, guys, we did well over 10 tests using the same servers and both on 3G. Not once did my phone come close to the speeds he was getting. I then ran the LTE tests and compared them to the #s he had just saved. If I don't hear from VZW today I'll swing into the store on my way home to see if we can recreate with their phones.
 
Crashumbc said:
That's it!

If you look at the cellular talk time and the 3G hotspot time those metrics are way off the battery life, on how the phone compares on the other stuff...

Maybe I'm reading too much into but, I think we'll see those improve with the next round of radio updates...
Click to expand...


I am prone to believe the same thing. There may be a radio update coming out to 'solve' my perceived problem.

Othre than this, everything else about the phone has been great. Especially my battery life!
 
my 3G speeds are faster than on my BB storm, and my 4G speeds are on average 8-10x as fast as the 3G. This is true whether I measure it by speedtest apps or real world usage.
 
I did a test between moto bionic, gnex, and htc thunderbolt. all 3 sitting next to eachother on my desk. running speed test at same time.

average of 10 tests

Bionic 26mbps/16mbps
gnex 14mbps/6mbps
htc 10mbps/2mbps

This was obviously on 4G. doing the same test on 3G gets following results

bionic 1.9mbps/1mbps
gnex 1mbps/.8mbps
htc .9mbps/.3mbps
 
jkc120 said:
Are you certain you were using the same test server? They can vary significantly, at least on 4G speeds.
Click to expand...

This, and....

Any core site or data center can have speedtest (ookla) servers in many different locations.

If the closest one only has a 50Mb data pipe.... well.... you can guess much less than 50Mb. But not just that connection.... there are many transport connections.... Just too many variables when using ookla.

I also believe that ookla doesn't have any method for slotting connections, so there could be a chance that someone else or some other service using that data pipe could be happening when you are testing..... it's really hard to get good speed test results.
 
As mentioned, you can't rely on one or even 3 speed tests.

A. Sometimes it will poll different locations.... 1 night when right next to my wife's Razr, it was polling Secaucus NJ and I was polling Philadelphia.

B. Each test can be extremely different. I had the Razr pull 20mbps while the GN pulled 11. The next 3 tests the GN pulled 9ish while the Razr was in the 7-8 range.

You'd have to do a lot of tests to really get enough data worth looking at. That said, in 80% of my tests the GN reported better speeds.
 
I totally agree about the tests fluctuating but i also know that the 3G radio in the phone is not that good.
We do not have 4G in my area yet but i had to have the awesome phone :)
I constantly got zero, that's right, no connectivity at all at work and at home. VZW tried to help but could not. Obviously a deal breaker for me :(
VZW still has a lot of fine tuning to do with their 4G network. My friends Razor is terrible when it changes from 3G to 4G and back. He travels all over and that is one thing he hates about the network.
Time will certainly cure these issues but i just can not sign a 2 year contract for a phone (network) that does not work. Thinking by the time they fix it all.............there will be another awesome phone to get.
Meanwhile i am using my old Droid X..................:o:mad::o:):mad:
 
Three consecutive tests from our apartment in DC.
Nexus - 2 bars of 4G, -97dBm signal
Bionic - 4 bars of 4G, -65 dBm signal

Nexus - 8 down, 6.9 up
4.1 down, 7.3 up
10.2 down, 10.5 up
Bionic - 9.2 down, 9.3 up
8.8 down, 9.4 up
9.5 down, 12.8 up

These are just my tests. I think the Nexus lags slightly behind the signal strength of the Bionic (I owned the Bionic for a few months before giving it to my wife), but the difference is negligible.

Edit: FWIW, I nearly barfed when I spent some time on the Bionic. That screen is absolutely horrible.
 
I posted in a thread recently about my Nexus's speedtest trials. I was in a Verizon corporate store and tested my Nexus against all Verizon's LTE phones. I was completely demolished by every phone I tested against.

I was in a saturated LTE area and neither my Nexus nor the display Nexus could grab a 4G signal.

There is definately something going on with the radios in the Nexus. It remains to be seen if the problem is hardware or software related.

I returned my Nexus and am now waiting to see how this plays out.
 
Live in New Cumberland, PA. Using Ookla, I tested on a few different server locations on 4G:

1. Baltimore, MD: 16/7
2. Baltimore, MD: 18/6
3. Frederick, MD: 22/1.6 (?!)
4. Frederick, MD: 22/1.5 (?!)
5. Philly: 12/7
6. Philly: 12/7
7. State College, PA: 37/7
8. State College, PA: 33/7
9. Scranton, PA: 14/7
10. Scranton, PA: 16/6

So it would appear to me that there is no real exact science in measuring this stuff. And boy did my phone warm up after all this.
 
jkc120 said:
Are you certain you were using the same test server? They can vary significantly, at least on 4G speeds.
Click to expand...

I don't know, it seems to me I've read many posts just like the OP's. Every time I see the same responses. You mean to tell me that every time it just happens that the GNex is using the poorer tower or the poorer server.

Guys, this just happens to many times from too many different owners to keep thinking it's a 'different server' or a 'different tower'.

Hopefully this will get fixed.
 
Sandroidfan said:
Maybe you are referring to this?

AnandTech - Samsung Galaxy Nexus & Ice Cream Sandwich Review
Click to expand...

What amazes me about this review is that they are still fixated on 'relative' signal bars and signal strengths as indicated by the 'dbm' numbers. They still don't seem to get that so many people ARE having reception issues in marginal signal areas and they could care less about the bars or numbers.

I have no idea if the writer ever ventured in to a marginal signal area. But to constantly hard on the fact that the Nexus 'displays #s and bars differently', is more than a bit insulting to people who have RECEPTION issues, not #s and bars issues. :rolleyes:
 
thenew3 said:
I did a test between moto bionic, gnex, and htc thunderbolt. all 3 sitting next to eachother on my desk. running speed test at same time.

average of 10 tests

Bionic 26mbps/16mbps
gnex 14mbps/6mbps
htc 10mbps/2mbps

This was obviously on 4G. doing the same test on 3G gets following results

bionic 1.9mbps/1mbps
gnex 1mbps/.8mbps
htc .9mbps/.3mbps
Click to expand...

And of course you will be told that somehow your Gnex never found the 'right' tower or the 'right' server. Somehow the Bionic did.
 
Tim K said:
As mentioned, you can't rely on one or even 3 speed tests.

A. Sometimes it will poll different locations.... 1 night when right next to my wife's Razr, it was polling Secaucus NJ and I was polling Philadelphia.

B. Each test can be extremely different. I had the Razr pull 20mbps while the GN pulled 11. The next 3 tests the GN pulled 9ish while the Razr was in the 7-8 range.

You'd have to do a lot of tests to really get enough data worth looking at. That said, in 80% of my tests the GN reported better speeds.
Click to expand...

You guys do know that you can preset the server so that both phones are polling the same server?
 
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