Wireless Broadband

I recently tried several broadband wireless hotspots. One of the first was the MiFi available on both Sprint and Verizon. Sprint recently introduced a 3G/4G version and even more recently, Virgin introduced a 3G prepaid version. The devices I tried are as follows:

Device	Network	3G/4G	Price	Plan
Virgin MiFi 2200	Sprint	3G	$149.99	Prepaid $10 for 100MB (valid for 10 days) Prepaid $40 unlimited (valid for 1 month)
Overdrive	Sprint	3G/4G	$99.99 (after MIR)	$59.99/month with 2-year contract. 4G: unlimited. 3G: 5GB/month, $0.05/MB overage. 300MB/month roaming, $0.25/MB overage.
Rover Puck	Clear	4G only	$149.99	Prepaid $5/day Prepaid $20/week Prepaid $50/month
USBConnect 881U	AT&T	3G HSPA	$249.99 (no contract) Free with 2-year contract	$35/200MB, overage $0.10/MB. $60/5GB, overage $0.05MB. 2-year contract
Apple iPhone 4	AT&T	3G HSPA	$199 16GB $299 32GB with 2-year contract	$45 2GB Tethering Plan

 

I conducted three tests using Speedtest.net and Pingtest.net (where applicable).

Indoor office: located in Redmond, WA in a building with insulated glass, which acts as a good wireless insulator (Faraday cage), resulting in fair 3G and no 4G coverage

Outside office: located in Redmond, WA with reasonable 3G and poor 4G coverage.

Coffee Shop: located in downtown Bellevue, WA with good 3G and reasonable 4G coverage.

Indoor office results for computer

Carrier	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps	Ping ms	Pingtest
Virgin 3G	0.52	0.08	237	F
Sprint 3G	0.77	0.10	145	D
AT&T 3G	2.90	0.39	98	F

 

Note: for this test, no 4G signal was received, so there’s no data for Sprint 4G or Rover 4G.

 

 

Outside office results for computer

Carrier	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps	Ping ms	Pingtest
Virgin 3G	1.84	0.49	222	D
Sprint 3G	2.21	0.43	150	D
Sprint 4G	0.55	0.07	190	-
AT&T 3G	1.41	0.78	99	F

 

Note: for this test, no 4G signal was found for the Rover.

 

Coffee Shop

Carrier	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps	Ping ms	Pingtest
Virgin 3G	0.38	0.15	225	F
Sprint 3G	0.44	0.19	190	D
Sprint 4G	1.97	0.90	157	C
Rover 4G	1.22	0.82	76	B
AT&T 3G	3.42	1.03	119	D

 

I will publish the iPhone results later, but they were consistent with the AT&T 3G USB modem results.

My conclusion is that the CDMA devices perform very poorly in comparison to the AT&T GSM network. Further, there seems to be speed discrepancies between the Virgin and Sprint device (when forced into 3G only mode) even though they are using the same network. Also, despite the fact that the Sprint has a stake in Clear and their 4G networks are supposed to merging, there are discrepancies between the Sprint device (in 4G mode) and the Rover device.

Comments

[AJ Griffin]

Hmm, I'd be interested to see how the 4G devices perform in better coverage areas. Those speeds are a lot lower than I thought 4G would be after seeing some video about multitasking with Rover on their youtube the other day. I guess that video didn't actually do a speedtest or anything though. What do you think?

[David]

You would think that the 4G devices would perform better in good coverage areas, though in the coffee shop test, I was getting a decent 4G signal (according to the signal strength meter in dBs). However, the more important point is that even if they do perform well in 4G areas with good coverage, these are are few and far between today, so for a mobile hotspot that's pretty limiting.