Eight Major 3G, HSPA & LTE Networks Tested Nationwide

adeelarshad82 writes: For the fourth year running, PCMag sent drivers out on the road to test the nation's Fastest Mobile Networks. Using eight identical Samsung phones, the drivers tested out eight separate networks for four major carriers across 30 cities evenly spread across six regions. Using Sensorly's 2013 software, a broad suite of tests were conducted every three minutes: a "ping" to test network latency, multi-threaded HTTP upload and download tests including separate "time to first byte" measures, a 4MB single-threaded file download, a 2MB single-threaded file upload, the download of a 1MB Web page with 70 elements, and 100kbps and 500kbps UDP streams designed to simulate streaming media. Nearly 90,000 data cycles later, the data not only revealed the fastest and the most consistent networks but other interesting points. The tests recorded the fastest download time of 66.11 Mbits/sec in New Orleans and the best average in Austin of 27.25 Mbits/sec, both for AT&T's LTE network. The tests also found T-Mobile HSPA network to have worst Average Time To First Byte even when compared with AT&T HSPA network. Also according to the tests, Sprint's LTE network didn't even come close to competing with other LTE networks to the point that in some cities its LTE network speed averaged less than T-Mobile's HSPA network speed.