Share your 3G plan experiences here (latency to surfing websites, streaming video, tethering usage)

[Aiden]

The oracles have been live testing it and their results are posted within other threads but would be great to aggregate all experiences in a single thread.

For others that converted over or joined recently, it would be great for you to share your experiences for others to make a decision on the new plans.

It may be advertised now as 3G but it really is just LTE that is throttled to a maximum of 2.5mbps download speeds, hence the marketing message behind the coverage and reliability of LTE network, yet was confusing with the 3G lingo thrown in.

Feedback around latency of surfing webpages and streaming YouTube on mobile would be great to really understand how "bad" this plan sounds like.

Reality is if the latency is just as fast as full speed LTE, then normal browsing experience won't change much, perhaps a few seconds slower loading up a media dense webpage.

A throttled LTE at up to 2.5mbps download is much better than 5-7mbps actual 3G due to faster response time for general usage.

[imm1304]

Hey @anthony1987,

I didn't personally try Facebook live during the testing days, but I expect it to work.  I tested various video streams and made video calls successfully. 

[anthony1987]

How about for Facebook Live? Considering the 8 gb for $50 but not sure if 3G will work for that , I am live lots for different events so not sure how that will go

[sa7375]

Excellent. That was a perfect evaluation and pretty much in line with the experience reported by other users. Thanks.

[Pound]

Thanks for sharing the info. Today is the third day with PM. Just did the speed test again. People were right. Both download and upload are throttled at around 3mpbs. 

Went on to do a few tests. 

Youtube played a four minute video at 720p resolution, cost me about 30mb of data, very smooth. Could see the buffering bar way ahead. 

Google News no difference on the main page, all photos loaded instantly. Took it about two seconds to open the news webpage within the app, again once opened, the full article and all photos are loaded. 

Websites tested Toronto Star, Walmart.ca, redflagdeals, and a few foreign sites. Felt the difference - slightly slower than before - but not at all bad.

Everything seems pretty on par with what is shown in the video posted in this topic. But again, it could be my phone -four year old iOS. 

[sa7375]

Thanks again.

Please be advsied that the throttling back to the 3G speeds kicks in after about 3-4 days of signing-in: this I have learnt from the many posts that I have read earlier. Also do note that PM will always display LTE though the speeds will be throttled down to a lower 3G. 

So may be you would consider waiting another 3-4 days before a speed-test again. 

[Pound]

I was using Fido LTE. I actually did. It showed download at 32mpbs and upload at 8.2mpbs. Then I tested again with a speed app on iOS. Similar results. Doesn’t seem like throttled 3G speed though. That’s why I didn’t post it for it might cause confusion. With PM, the phone reception shows LTE most of the time while the LTE is enabled on my phone. So I believe it is still LTE frequency but throttled to a lower speed. 

[sa7375]

Hi,

Thanks for your update. I have two supplementary questions:

1. Were you using 3G at FIDO

2. Could you possibly do a speed test at http://www.speedtest.net/ using 3G at PM and post your results.

Thanks in advance.

[Pound]

New to PM from Fido. 

Have not noticed any diffrence in internet speed. Phone seems to have better signal reception than before. 

[Tiptopssss]

Mine is pretty good

[sa7375]

Thanks for that excellent video which makes the context of 3G experince a lot clearer.

Wonder if you can also share the actual average speeds on 3G — both download and upload — and also include the city where these were conducted. I ask because I am considering to subscribe for the 3G option.

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@NDesai wrote:

Here is the video i made that demonstrates the new 3G on Public Mobile. Tested on my nexus 5 and on my pc (tethered from 3G sim). First it demonstrates a few websites and then YouTube videos. Hope this will help anyone with wonders about 3G speed. 

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[Luddite]

@pjstock Latency is the time, in milliseconds, to get a response to a short "ping"; smaller is better. The results were generated used https://speedof.me.

[pjstock]

I don't know what "latency" means in this context but I'll add my first day experience here:

I'm a new PM client attracted by the more affordable data plans available here than on the other carriers (I am presently with Fido).

I don't think I have a need for fast data and so can probably get away with one of the pretty cost effective 3G data plans.

So, I've just activated a new PM SIM and am testing it out before I permanently abandon Fido and the world of LTE.

initially tests, side by side, my old LTE versus the new PM 3G I am getting about 6-7mbps on fido/rogers LTE versus 2.2Mbps on PM 3G.

So about 1/3 the speed of LTE. 

[Luddite]

Adding to this old thread to help aggregation.

IPhone 5	Compared to LTE performance was good for browsing, streaming video including netflix; much slower uploading photos and downloading apps; uses data allowance much slower
					Using iPhone 5 and Macbook tethered by USB
		Results of Speed Tests
		Download/Upload/Latency
	PLAN	Phone Alone	Tethered	Phone browsing, apps, etc.	Tethered – netflix	Tethered - streaming pbs	MMS – photo	Upload 75 MB app	Calling	SMS
	LTE	31/12/45	33/8.7/41	3 -20 sec to load a page	Good; 10 sec to load	good; 10 sec to load	8 sec	35 sec	normal	normal
	“3G”	2.7/0.5/61	2.2/0.4/40	pretty much the same as LTE	bit fuzzier; otherwise same	pretty much the same	22 sec	120 sec	normal	normal

[Michael77]

@Mr-Bump,

For the things you are doing, 3g should be fine. However, I still feel all PM plans should be 4g LTE. 

[mattdxb]

For those people who just browse the web, use social media, and use messengers like WhatsApp, WeChat, etc, the 3G speed is enough. 

For those who were on old pioneer plans and bought the $30 1GB addon every so often, the 3G plans may make more sense. 

[Mr-Bump]

I just joined PM, and was really interested in the 3g connection. I hate limiting how much I use my phone out of Wi-Fi, but I don't use it for much more than chrome, Reddit, maps, Google music, and sometimes YouTube.

After a quick test, for those uses it seems unnoticeable. Streamed music and a few HD movie trailers without issues. If it stays this fluid then I definitely won't be going back to full speed. 

[imm1304]

Interesting share @srlawren wrt the stats for nerds.

My understanding is that 1080p is 1080p.  The higher bandwidth connection is established simply because its available.  But at 2.5Mbps, there isn't any compression going on.  The YouTube video consumes roughly 16MB per minute of play time at 1080p resolution.  

8 bits = 1 byte of data.  So, 2.5Mbps connection will have max download speed of 2.5/8 = 0.312MB. 

So, at 2.5Mbps, we can download 1MB of data every 3 seconds (rounding to whole numbers for simplicity).  Which means that 1 minute long 1080p video can be downloaded in full within roughly 50 seconds.  Thats why the 1080p video at 2.5Mbps performs just fine. 

I guestimate that once the rate of download falls below 16MB/minute, the lag/buffering will increase proportionally.

[srlawren]

Okay, some interesting finds just a moment ago.

I now have my "3G" plan SIM in my retired Moto X.  I fired up the mobile hotspot, and experimented with watching YouTube videos on my OnePlus 3, with "stats for nerds" turned on.  This brings up an overlay with stats about the streaming in progress.

If I fire up a 1080p video on the OP3 and connect it to my home WiFi (a Shaw cable internet connection that give me "up to 30Mbps" download and up to 5 upload), and watch the stats, the Mbps seems to read around 31-33Mbps.  Swithcing to 1080p60 (60fps 1080p) bumps that up to around 35Mbps, but that might just be my home internet connection maxing out.  I imageine 1080p60 has the potential to go higher.  

i did NOT test 1080p60 over my primary 4G mobile connection as I didn't want to chew up a bunch of data.  I might yet try it just for fun.  But the regular (30fps?  24?) 1080p seemed in line with the home WiFi, around 31-33Mbps.

But, if I switch the WiFi on the OP3 over to the hotspot on the Moto X using the "3G" plan, as you might expect, the Mbps drops down to between 2.4 and 2.5Mbps, as you'd expect based on the cap.  It still plays 1080p videos fluidly and with only minimial more buffering, but it's only getting approx 32/2.5 = 1/12.8th of the throughput.  What means is it may be showing 1080p, but it's definitely either extra-compressing it before transmission, or it's really transmitting something much less.   When I tried a 1080p60 video over this same tethering, it was essentially unwatchable.  Every 10-25 seconds or so it would stop for a few seconds to buffer.  

[Aiden]

@NDesai perfect demo of the new plan

I see no issue with the website surfing or the YouTube streaming.

This plan looks good enough for the general public.

The only thing holding me back from referring is that the price is too high for what it is compared to the competition.

I myself would have probably switched from my $120 fall LTE 12gb/90day promo if this launch 3G 18gb/90 day promo was same price. Nothing wrong with another 6gb to stream Spotify/YouTube or surfing in general.

I don't tether off my phone so don't use it for downloading general files so 2.5mbps looks plenty for the above demo usage

[srlawren]

@jpar yes, I've been saying that for the past 2 weeks!  LOL. 

@NDesai great demo video!

[jpar]

The upload speed in that speed test seems pretty low.

[NDesai]

Here is the video i made that demonstrates the new 3G on Public Mobile. Tested on my nexus 5 and on my pc (tethered from 3G sim). First it demonstrates a few websites and then YouTube videos. Hope this will help anyone with wonders about 3G speed. 

[jpar]

I agree, latency is more important than anything for day-to-day usage..

[computergeek541]

I don't notice any difference in latency between 3g and LTE data.  Both usually have pings around 20ms for me.