Also I am an engineer with a major carrier though I won’t state who.
LTE is amazing and if you are looking for a data network that is the way to go… Period.
I will say this. I use to work for sprint and in San Diego we were Number One in terms of system performance but that took many years to achieve and in fact the pecking order was something like this for years.
Cricket was not include in the 3rd party test which is conduct by Nelson. The same company that looks at what TVs audiences are watching. I can reveal this information because it is in the public domain.
So back to the networks… Verizon is the only one with a LTE network that is everywhere. Sprint is struggling with WiMax and has it in only limited areas. They have been making small annoucments about having LTE in the future but they have to be careful about how loudly they discuss this or they will undermine their holdings in Clearwire. ATT is rolling out LTE as well but they are behind and in the interm they are using HSPDA which isn’t bad… Just not LTE.
As for the data rates that people are talking about it is typical for carriers to order a 100 Mbps pipe to the base station these days so extereme speeds are to be expected.
AN… Your speed is not capped btw… In a one bar condition your device changes its modulation scheme to a more slower but more robust format thus slowing the device down. DL speeds all depend on the amount of Interfence, Signal Strength, Load at the BTS, and finally and the lynch pin, backhaul size. Verizon is not capping. BTW all these amazing speeds with start to go down when the systems start loading up with 4G devices.
In terms of handsets… I LOVE MY ANDRIOD PHONE! I have both the iphone and an Andriod device and prefer the later. Problems is… My two favorite apps… The Economist and Netflix are not currently available for Andriod. SO you need to be careful there. Make sure your most beloved apps are available before switching otherwise you might feel cheated!
