

The State of LTE – USA record the second-lowest speeds worldwide - edmack
http://opensignal.com/reports/state-of-lte-q1-2014/index.php

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rayiner
This is inconsistent with the numbers I've heard about LTE rollout in the U.S.
versus Europe: [http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/gsma-europe-trails-us-
lt...](http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/gsma-europe-trails-us-lte-
deployment-mobile-investment/2013-05-30) ("The report also found that by the
end of 2013, nearly 20 percent of U.S. connections will be on LTE networks,
compared with fewer than 2 percent in the EU . . . . Further, the GSMA's
report found that average mobile data connection speeds in the United States
are now 75 percent faster than those in Europe--and by 2017 the speeds will be
more than twice as fast. The report also found that mobile investment in the
United States has outpaced that in Europe, with capital expenditure in the
U.S. market growing by 70 percent since 2007 while declining in the EU.").

I wonder how much of the speed issue is related to higher load on LTE networks
here in the U.S. From the above-linked article: "The report found that, on
average, U.S. consumers use five times more voice minutes and nearly twice as
much data each month than their counterparts in the European Union."

See also:
[http://www.gsmamobilewirelessperformance.com/GSMA_Mobile_Wir...](http://www.gsmamobilewirelessperformance.com/GSMA_Mobile_Wireless_Performance_May2013.pdf).

Maps of LTE rollouts: [http://gigaom.com/2013/09/20/mapping-out-the-worlds-
lte-cove...](http://gigaom.com/2013/09/20/mapping-out-the-worlds-lte-coverage-
its-in-fewer-places-than-you-think).

U.S. investment in wireless is up by 2/3 since 2007, but down in the EU:
[http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f3240dc2-c852-11e2-acc6-00144feab7...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f3240dc2-c852-11e2-acc6-00144feab7de.html#axzz2tsuIXYMc).

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Spittie
Nice article, I think that the biggest problem with American's LTE (feel free
to correct me if I'm wrong, as a not-american I can talk only about what I
read online) is that it got implemented really soon, in place of the almost
not existing 3g network.

In result, the infrastructure is (might be?) already old, and there are also
many people on 4g already (and more people = less bandwidth for everyone).

I'm also guessing that very small bandwidth caps play a role here, as it's way
easier to use 500MB on a 20mb/s connection, instead of a 5mb/s.

On a side note, it's nice to not see Italy at the bottom as always ;) Now, if
we could do something about our home connections... (Yes, I do know TI/FW are
currently deploying VDSL, but it's still at a very low pace).

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smcl
I'd be curious how the Czech LTE coverage
([http://www.o2.cz/osobni/199436-mapa_pokryti_a_prodejen/](http://www.o2.cz/osobni/199436-mapa_pokryti_a_prodejen/))
would translate into this graph. Most of the main cities have LTE, but I've no
idea how fast or reliable it is as my phone and network don't currently
support it.

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sjtgraham
Three (Hutchison Whampoa) is rolling out 4G in the UK. It was turned on for me
yesterday and I had 30 meg down in Central London today. Three is ludicrously
cheap too (at least compared to the other carriers), £18/month for unlimited
data.

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dubfan
In Seattle with AT&T I find that I often have to disable LTE because it's so
slow. I just ran a test and I get about 1.5 Mbit/s downstream on LTE.
Pathetic.

