According to the latest tests that pitted LTE against WiMax, Verizon’s 4G LTE network is faster than Sprint’s WiMax. BTIG Research ran more than 1,000 speed tests in New York City and came up with the conclusion that LTE is better of the two.
For the 4G comparison test, BTIG used Sprint’s EVO 4G on WiMax against Virizon Wireless’ HTC Thunderbolt on LTE. The testers found out that Verizon’s LTE network is more reliable and faster than Sprint’s WiMax network.
On an average, LTE speeds are 9Mbps download speed and 5Mbps upload speed. On the other hand, WiMax just managed to reach 1Mbps in both download and upload. Sprint subscribers are not getting their money’s worth with this service.
The BTIG test results are similar to what Computerworld also got with their own tests. According to its contributor Brian Nadel, Verizon’s upload and download speeds are much faster than Sprint’s 4G network.
These tests were conducted in New York City only and Sprint’s WiMax could perform better in other parts of the country. Sprint is third among U.S. wireless carriers behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Sprint has announced that it has plans to migrate to LTE in the future. The company should migrate to LTE soon if they want to compete with Verizon Wireless and AT&T in the 4G battle.
This article is sooooo biased! Really, upload/download speed just is not important to mobile devices beyond what is necessary for the most demanding application usage. 1Mbps is perfectly adequate for streaming.
What is important is consistent speed over time and over the serving area (and obviously, a large serving area.)
Sprint has published for some long time now that the intent is to move toward LTE, but WiMax was built years before LTE was available and I’ve been using it for greater than 18 months and am pleased with performance. I certainly do not feel cheated.
You can only consume so many bits per second before you hit your monthly data cap.
You can’t really judge this accurately without understanding how each operator has deployed their backhaul circuits! Sprint is always behind in that game and those circuit sizes are much smaller than the air interface maximums for either WiMAX or LTE.