Thursday, March 31, 2011

Verizon's 4G LTE network is the real thing...and it's really fast, too

While we wait to see what AT&T has up its wireless sleeve locally tomorrow, Verion Wireless is already off to a big start in true 4G.

You'll see T-Mobile and AT&T advertising their current services as 4G. Think of them as a slightly faster 3G variant. They are not what you should think of as 4G. I think AT&T will announce its 4G LTE (long term evolution) plans for Charlotte tomorrow.

Verizon has been going here for a few months and last week announced support for most major cities in the Carolinas.

Recently, I was able to test the 4G LTE network courtesy of one of the company's 4G USB mobile modems, which run $50 to $100 with a two-year contract. And boy is it fast.

I got a consistent 4G connection all over Charlotte and the speed blew me away. I got faster download speeds via this USB than on my Windstream DSL which gives me about 13 Mbps download. With Verizon I got 18 down and about 10 Mbps upload, or five times as fast as my home network.

YouTube HD screamed, streaming anything screamed.

If all you do is email and check a few web pages, I'm not sure 4G is for you, but if you really like to work and send attachments and heavy surf on the move, this is the way to go.

It's night and day versus any 3G modem I've tried.

OK, so what does all this 4G goodness cost you? It's $50 per month for 5 gigs or $80 for 10 gigs. That's a lot of streaming and surfing and downloading. Go past those limits and you pay $10 per gig.

That's the same price Verizon charges for its 3G mobile plans, though it offers a couple cheaper options that aren't available with 4G: $35 for 3 gigs and $20 for one gig.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

He stated it works all over Charlotte......Bull(cough cough). His version of all over Charlotte is walking around the Disturbers building.

Anonymous said...

I just started using a Thunderbolt with 4G and it is unreal faster than my Bellsouth DSL at home...Love It.

better-than-u-it-seems said...

And the lemmings continue to follow along. These prices are CRAZY!!! Do you people know that most of the civilized nations in the world do not allow cell phone contracts? It is much cheaper, works as well if not better, and offers all the same phones. Americans are so ignorant!!

Anonymous said...

oh how wonderful, 18 mbs, the only catch is that if you actually use it you can spend $50 in about 2 hours.

Anonymous said...

Of course VZW's LTE is fast, it's being used on an UNLOADED network, there aren't that many users or device capable of LTE. Once more users start to use it, the speed will go down some.

Anonymous said...

better-than-u-it-seems, which ciilized nation doesn't allow cell phone contracts?

SoL93GT said...

Look most of you guys don't know what you're talking about. You have nothing better to do, so you're gonna post some bs on this guys good article. I have a Thunderbolt, and yes I have contract, the contract allowed me to get the phone for $239, instead of $800 which I would not have been able to afford. Thank you Verizon. And if you have a 4G LTE phone, not the USB modem, the data usage is unlimited. I just checked my bill online. The last 15 days I've used over 17.5 GB of data, I would have a nasty bill if I didn't have an unlimited plan, and no they are not going to cancel my contract. I don't use it any differently than anyone else that has a Thunderbolt does. $30 a month for unlimited 4G speeds, btw(I'm getting up to 25Mb/s down and 35Mb/s up, in Seffner, FL thats on the outskirts of Tampa and I get 4 bars, but I'm 2 miles away from getting Sprints 4G throttled back to 6Mb/s). My Dad has it, he can only get about 2.5 Mb/s with his Sprint 4G on his Evo 4G, and he's closer to the city than me, not to mention I was getting 2 Mb/s with Verizon's 3G. Their 4G is faster than Verizon Fios (fiber) to the side of my house which I had disconected, no sense paying more money for a slower internet speed, and they don't charge me $20 for the built in Hotspot in the Thunderbolt, unlike the last 2 Droid phones I had with 3G in which I had to call to have turned on, didn't have to with this one. I think everyone hating on Verizon's 4G LTE is jealous....cause they don't have Verizon.......lol Go hate somewhere else instead of this nice article. Just shows how rude you are. Good job Verizon.