Verizon 4G is Fastest, Test Suggests

Verizon Wireless has the fastest U.S. fourth generation mobile network, in part because it uses Long Term Evolution, Laptop magazine says, based on tests it conducted. "There's a reason why AT&T and (presumably) Sprint are moving to LTE. It's a superior technology," Laptop magazine says. Nationwide 4G Showdown

Website load times were measured by averaging the time it took for CNN.com, ESPN.com, Laptopmag.com, and NYTimes.com took to load in Chrome browser on the laptop. For the smartphones, testers disabled flash and gathered load times for Consumerist.com, HuffingtonPost.com, Laptopmag.com, and Time.com/time.

"Verizon Wireless' 4G network consistently delivered better speeds than the other big three national carriers in our testing." Laptop magazine says. The tests were conducted in Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, Orlando, and San Francisco, at three locations within each city," the magazine says.

Speedtest.net was used for the synthetic upload and download tests. Testers averaged 10 results for each device in each location. To get real-world benchmarks, researchers downloaded a 155MB file (OpenOffice.org) from an FTP server. Testers also uploaded a 6.7MB "Handbrake" file to the same FTP. If it took more than 7 minutes to perform either of these tasks, it was counted as a failed attempt.

All this data was compiled to create averages for each carrier in each city, and each device for each carrier, Laptop magazine says.

Tests such as these can yield significantly different results based on the locations, the devices used and perhaps even times of day, it is fair to say.

Still, the results tend to agree with other tests, which also suggest the Verizon network is generally faster.
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