Just how fast is AT&T's new 4G LTE network?

Earlier this year the folks at PC magazine performed a speed test in 21 major cities to see who has the fastest network. Verizon’s 4G LTE pulled in an average of 9.46 megabits per second down (with peaks hitting over 35 megabits per second!) and 1.35 megabits per second up. Keep in mind all such tests depend on how many users are sharing the network. A network with few users will be quite fast. A "loaded" network will provide a different experience.

AT&T’s 4G LTE network has been up for less than a week, so there aren’t that many people using it. Research firm Signals Research gobbled up nearly 90 GB of data over three days in Houston, Texas.

“The average downlink Physical Layer throughput was 23.6 Mbps with a peak rate of 61.1 Mbps. Both results meaningfully exceeded our expectations. The data rate also exceeded 40M bps for 8.6 percent of the time and 21 Mbps–the theoretical peak data rate of the operator’s HSPA+ network–for 38.2 percent of the time. Most importantly, the data rate was greater than 5 Mbps for 95 percent of the time.”

Don't count on that lasting. As more users get on the network, typical speeds will drop, and quite a lot.

Just how fast is AT&T's new 4G LTE network?