Cell Phones

Noticible difference between LTE and HSPA+?

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  • Oct 6th, 2014 2:36 pm
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Deal Addict
Oct 4, 2006
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Noticible difference between LTE and HSPA+?

Coming from someone who's been on a 3G for the longest time, my next phone will be LTE capable.

But if I sign up with a carrier that doesn't have LTE (read Wind Mobile), I'm wondering if there is a noticible difference?
Numbers suggest there's a huge gap, but what about real world usage?
Certainly not with texting, but surfing the internet and streaming video is something of concern.
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Jul 2, 2001
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Wind/mobilicity isn't exactly know for fast network speeds so yes you will notice a difference between them and rogers/bell/telus.
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Mar 24, 2009
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Warning about Wind, you may get terrible data speeds in urban centres. I just tested out Wind and in downtown Ottawa we could only get 1.8 mbps down and 1.2 mbps up. The rep told me that downtown is slow, but the suburbs is "fast". When I pressed her, she indicated that fast is 4 mbps...

Meanwhile my Rogers LTE account gets 55 mbps down and 22 mbps up.

They are not in the same league sadly.
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Dec 12, 2009
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Deaks2 wrote: Warning about Wind, you may get terrible data speeds in urban centres. I just tested out Wind and in downtown Ottawa we could only get 1.8 mbps down and 1.2 mbps up. The rep told me that downtown is slow, but the suburbs is "fast". When I pressed her, she indicated that fast is 4 mbps...

Meanwhile my Rogers LTE account gets 55 mbps down and 22 mbps up.

They are not in the same league sadly.
What do you do on your phone that requires 55/22 mbit performance? Latency is an important factor in mobile data performance. This is one area that Wind has problems with. I find that as long as latency is reasonable, anywhere around 5 mbit is fast enough.
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Mar 26, 2011
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In the GTA (Scarborough, Markham, Richmond Hill) I generally get anywhere between 8Mbps and 14Mbps with Wind.

I was in Ottawa over the summer and god very solid speeds there as well (8-10Mbps).

Everywhere I've used Wind recently (past year or so) the PING times have been sub 50MS.

As far as difference between LTE & HSPA, I don't think you'll really notice the difference. I have a LTE device with TELUS and a WIND HSPA device, there's a difference, but not very noticeable (fraction of a second). But if you're going to download a large file, then you will notice the difference.
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Mar 24, 2009
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will888 wrote: What do you do on your phone that requires 55/22 mbit performance? Latency is an important factor in mobile data performance. This is one area that Wind has problems with. I find that as long as latency is reasonable, anywhere around 5 mbit is fast enough.
Remote desktop, not mention tethering with my notebook.
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Dec 12, 2009
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Deaks2 wrote: Remote desktop, not mention tethering with my notebook.
And how many gigs of usage do you intend to use, how much usage does your wireless plan include? Can we have a show of hands, how many out there have 55/22 mbit home internet? Don't get me wrong, we would all love gigabit data speeds. I do think you have the bar raised a bit too high.
Deal Guru
Oct 3, 2006
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In major urban centres, LTE is so slow that it's basically what HSPA should have been, but I think you'll still notice a difference.
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Dec 3, 2003
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I disable LTE because I get a weak signal at work, but a fairly strong HSPA signal and I think the weak signal causes excessive battery drain. I just leave it off because I never miss the extra speed.
Definition: Than
A conjunction used to introduce the second element of an unequal comparison: She had better grammar than I.
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Nov 21, 2008
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Deaks2 wrote: Remote desktop, not mention tethering with my notebook.
When I switched from HSPA to LTE, the only real difference I noticed on my smartphone was when running SpeedTest. LTE is supposed to provide lower latency (which is probably more important when comparing comparable speeds), but the device to tower latency might be just a small part of the total latency. Doesn't help much if I can ping my provider in 2ms instead of 5ms when it takes another 80ms to get to the remote server.

I've tethered quite a bit both on 3G and LTE connections, and decent 3G speeds are more than fast enough for browsing, e-mail, and even downloading/uploading. I sync up with remote servers, browse full website forums, remotely administer remote systems, etc., and the responsiveness isn't noticeably much different than on my home DSL connection.

On a side note, LTE speeds vary a lot. Right now I might get 8Mbps download speed. If I go up to the top of the mountain (must be a tower near there), I get 85Mbps. Downtown has a lot of swings in speed, depending on which part of the city I'm in.
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Mar 24, 2009
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will888 wrote: And how many gigs of usage do you intend to use, how much usage does your wireless plan include? Can we have a show of hands, how many out there have 55/22 mbit home internet? Don't get me wrong, we would all love gigabit data speeds. I do think you have the bar raised a bit too high.
I have a Rogers 6 GB/mo plan, regularly use 5-6 GB/mo. Home internet package is 350/350 Rogers fibre to the basement.
robertz wrote: When I switched from HSPA to LTE, the only real difference I noticed on my smartphone was when running SpeedTest. LTE is supposed to provide lower latency (which is probably more important when comparing comparable speeds), but the device to tower latency might be just a small part of the total latency. Doesn't help much if I can ping my provider in 2ms instead of 5ms when it takes another 80ms to get to the remote server.

I've tethered quite a bit both on 3G and LTE connections, and decent 3G speeds are more than fast enough for browsing, e-mail, and even downloading/uploading. I sync up with remote servers, browse full website forums, remotely administer remote systems, etc., and the responsiveness isn't noticeably much different than on my home DSL connection.

On a side note, LTE speeds vary a lot. Right now I might get 8Mbps download speed. If I go up to the top of the mountain (must be a tower near there), I get 85Mbps. Downtown has a lot of swings in speed, depending on which part of the city I'm in.
Agreed, however, I have noticed that my corporate content management system is really slow on remote desktop unless I have at least 15-20 mbps downstream bandwidth available.

To each his own.
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Sep 12, 2014
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will888 wrote: And how many gigs of usage do you intend to use, how much usage does your wireless plan include? Can we have a show of hands, how many out there have 55/22 mbit home internet? Don't get me wrong, we would all love gigabit data speeds. I do think you have the bar raised a bit too high.

Who doesnt have home internet speeds greater than that? Maybe not upload but download for sure unless you're still on aol
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Oct 16, 2008
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Yes there is noticeable difference.
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GodRFD wrote: Who doesnt have home internet speeds greater than that? Maybe not upload but download for sure unless you're still on aol
I don't, yet. Not sure that I need it.
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Jul 15, 2008
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GodRFD wrote: Who doesnt have home internet speeds greater than that? Maybe not upload but download for sure unless you're still on aol
:( I only have 25mbps at home.
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Feb 5, 2007
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My Teksavvy home cable internet is 45mbps down 10mbps up. The fastest I get from my iPhone 6 on Rogers network at full bars is 87mbps down 38mbps up. Usually I get around 30mbps down 4mbps up on average so that is still quite a big jump from HSPA+.

Do I notice a difference? Heck yes... night and day difference IMO.
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Oct 11, 2007
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When videotron started sharing Rogers LTE towers, my DL speed went from 15-25 mbps to 80-100 mbps. Upload similar jump from 5-10 to 30-40 mbps.
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Dec 20, 2011
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mobifree wrote: In the GTA (Scarborough, Markham, Richmond Hill) I generally get anywhere between 8Mbps and 14Mbps with Wind.

I was in Ottawa over the summer and god very solid speeds there as well (8-10Mbps).

Everywhere I've used Wind recently (past year or so) the PING times have been sub 50MS.

As far as difference between LTE & HSPA, I don't think you'll really notice the difference. I have a LTE device with TELUS and a WIND HSPA device, there's a difference, but not very noticeable (fraction of a second). But if you're going to download a large file, then you will notice the difference.
My experience with Wind in Calgary has been the same as this. I have heard people complaining that they get crap reception in Downtown YYC, but everywhere else it's great. There is NO difference noticable to most normal people between the HSPA+ on wind and the LTE on rogers. I find my the pages in my browser, photo uploads, app downloads etc all load FASTER on Wind than they EVER did on Rogers. Only way to know is try it... I did and my whole family is now saving a pile of cash every month.

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