iPhone 5: LTE vs WiFi shootout

Being a networking nerd, the first thing that I did with my new iPhone 5 – compare LTE speeds with my WiFi network. My WiFi network is powered by a 200 Mbps fiber connection from WebPass, a local San Francisco Internet service provider.

  • I am getting much higher WiFi speeds, thanks to an upgrade in the WiFi capabilities including dual-band support. The iPhone 5 now supports the 802.11a network protocol and uses the 5GHz band. This is great news… now my iPad, Macbook Pro and iPhone are all getting similar speeds.
  • Wow! For now LTE upload speeds are kicking the pants off my WiFi, which is powered by a symmetric connection.
  • How long before LTE starts to degrade?
  • My perspective: the 5 GHz/802.11n support is pretty big deal and is going to have more impact, though it isn’t clear just yet.

Musings
6 comments

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Om Malik is a San Francisco based writer, photographer and investor. Read More

6 thoughts on this post

  3. The best speed I’ve gotten in the Philadelphia area on Verizon LTE since I picked up my iPhone 5 on Friday was 6.42 Mbps. Most of the time it’s been between 4 and 5 Mbps, often dropping to 3G and between 1 and 2 Mbps. Not impressed and may be regretting my decision to dump AT&T.

  4. You should also take latency into consideration. The LTE connection has over 4X the latency of the Wi-Fi connection. Not very good! Also, you should make sure that the Wi-Fi connection is indeed symmetric, as your results don’t seem to support this if true.

    1. Dewayne

      Thanks for the comment and agreed. Latency is a huge issue, and right now brute speed is making us overlook that. Also, I was wondering if we you suggestions on how to make the WiFi connection symmetric. I am using the Time Capsule from Apple right now.

  5. LTE speedtest.net result in Oakland, CA
    PIng 46ms
    Down – 34.86 Mbps
    UP – 14.53Mbps

    Unfortunately, I live in Marin County, CA and we don’t have AT&T LTE, yet.

    However, I have been very surprised/happy with how fast AT&T 4G (not LTE) has been. I have been getting between 3 and 9 Mbps w/ ‘fake’ 4G which is MUCH faster than the 3G in the same area.

    After all the hooting and hollering about AT&T and the non-4G, I wasn’t expecting much.

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