

Often, phones get auto-routed to the 2.4 GHz frequency, which is fairly comparable to your current LTE plan. These offer two dedicated lines of data transmission–typically a 2.4 GHz and 5GHz frequency. There’s also a rise in the popularity of dual band routers.

In some cases your LTE may serve you better than some routers.

The speed of the WiFi is dependent on the plan and provider. Wireless routers carry the benefit of being hardwired into the data stream–meaning that you have a closer proximity to the actual access of the internet, than however far away you are from the nearest cell phone tower. So while your phone typically relies on the signal provided by your cell carrier–it also has the option to connect to a WiFi router. It’s the final step in 4G technology before the infrastructure transfers to 5G on the whole. LTE (or LTE Advanced) stands for long-term evolution. Typically there are more 4G networks in operation than 3G, meaning easier access and better service areas. While these are minimum standards, things like distance, number of users, and even weather can all impact transfer rates. How fast is 4G LTE Internet Speeds? To qualify for 4G on the other hand, rates have a minimum requirement of 100 Mbps while mobile (traveling in a car or subway), and 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) when stationary. How fast is 3G LTE in Mbps by today’s standards? It caps at about 7 Megabits per second (Mbps). To watch an average Youtube video on a 3G connection would use 550-750 Mb of data, and take almost 7 hours to render out.
Spectrum wireless internet speed test download#
3G networks peaked at 200 kilobits per second (Kbps) download speeds.įor reference, by today’s standards, the average Youtube video is 11 minutes long, and videos stream at 1080p. 3G and 4G, however… that turf war got interesting.īoth 3G and 4G devices offer broadband mobile internet access, but have massively different standards. 2G introduced digital signal, and mobile internet (it was very limited at the time). But the building is blocking a good signal, so you’re only getting 4G–you’re confused–it’s chaos! Let’s break down the differences and, just for fun, see who wins.įor starters, the G stands for “generation.” 1G were analog cell phones. Your WiFi auto connects, but for some reason it’s slower than your LTE. If you would like to take a look at how this test looks on both the desktop and mobile versions of the Spectrum website, check out the screenshots we took during and after testing.It’s a battle every time you drive through McDonald’s. These speeds were right in line with our expectations, and the results were pretty steady from test to test, so we believe the Spectrum test to be quite accurate. The average download speed registered at 149.0 Mbps, while the upload speeds were all recorded at the exact same speed of 6.0 Mbps. Considering that the vast majority of internet speed tests do analyze ping times, this was a disappointing discovery. However, one fairly major gripe we have with this test is the fact that it does not record ping or latency times. Getting down to the specifics, the Spectrum speed test took an average of 5.3 seconds to load and 35.5 seconds to run, which are typical times compared to most competitors. The Spectrum speed test also produced results in this range, and we were impressed with the general reliability and consistency. For these tests, we used a connection that advertises download speeds of up to 150 Mbps, and competing speed tests confirmed that we were indeed receiving speeds at or exceeding the advertised rates.
