Whilst 4G speeds, in theory, are rather insane, the “real world” experience can be a little different. There’s a range of factors that’ll alter your experience. Location, of course, is the major one, but we must also consider the time of day. Trying to “nail” a speed testing website whilst standing on a station platform at 8AM on Monday will see your connection shared with many others around you.
So perhaps the best chance is to stand slap-bang in the middle of a large city, with excellent coverage, when no-one is around. 7AM on Sunday, outside Victoria station in London should do it.
Next you’ll need a 4G smartphone, like the Samsung Galaxy Alpha, and a brand new 4G network, in this case Vodafone.
Dan ventured out, a little bleary-eyed, one Sunday morning to give it a try, and we have to confess, he smashed it.
A near-150Mbps download. That’s very quick indeed and certainly faster than your home broadband I’m betting. We should, again, point out that Dan was probably the only person using this mast at the time, so it’s rare to see such high download speeds, but it shows the size of the “backhaul” pipe that the mast uses.
Consider though, for a moment, that even the fastest home fibre connection (through FTTC / Fibre To The Cabinet) runs at an absolute maximum of 76Mbps.
We have to throw down a challenge. Can anyone beat this speed on 4G?