3G vs LTE

[canuckfan77]

I'm on a grandfathered plan. Unlimited texting plus unlimited province-wide calling and 12 gigs over my 3 month plan for $120

I'm considering swiching over to the $40 promotional plan for the nationwide calling and extra data per month.

I'm not sure how much of a speed drop off there would be. Please respond if you've switched from an LTE plan to 3g or just your experience in general with 3g

Thanks!

[mynewhome]

I really don't notice a difference using LTE vs throttled LTE. My reception was so bad with Fido LTE I could never use my phone unless I wasn't home. But with PM the data speed is fine for what I need.

[stonechucker]

@canuckfan77, I'm on the same plan, and I've been thinking about changing to the 3G speed options as I do not use all 12 GB of data, nor do I see the 'fast' speed of LTE where I use my data.

I'm currently signed up to change in early June to the new $25 plan, with fewer data.  I've been cancelling each time, as I don't want to regret leaving the $120 package.

It's a tough call.

[canuckfan77]

[mynewhome]

which plan is that?

[canuckfan77]

I don't normally watch videos on data, stream music, some gaming, scrolling fb. I set up a mobile hotspot when out with the family where there isn't free wifi, so I'm really leaning to more data rather than faster data. My ONLY hangup is that I can never get back on this plan that I currently have. 

[computergeek541]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Triguy wrote:

LTE is normally faster than 3G but PM throttles it to 3MB/sec. 3G is not thottled so it's around 15MB/sec. 

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We wish! 🙂

Throughput speed is generally written based on bits per second or bps. In this case it's mega bits per second. So that would be Mbps. Could be all lower case mbps. But the capital B generally means Bytes which this certainly is not.

Not calling you out. It doesn't matter. Just if you're interested. 🙂

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We could argue that a small/non capital letter "m" could actually mean 1/1000th, although I've never heard of anyone using that as a measure of internet speed.  The problem with saying 3MBPS has to do with that Mb and MB are both commonly used and mean different things.  As you know saying 3MBPS or 3MBps is really 24Mbps, which Public Mobile most certainly doesn't provide on the LTE network for these "3g" plans.

[Anonymous]

 @mynewhome You left a blank post. If you like, you could click the 3 dots to the upper right corner of your post and click Edit Reply.

[mynewhome]

sorry for the duplicate post!

[Anonymous]

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@Triguy wrote:

LTE is normally faster than 3G but PM throttles it to 3MB/sec. 3G is not thottled so it's around 15MB/sec. 

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We wish! 🙂

Throughput speed is generally written based on bits per second or bps. In this case it's mega bits per second. So that would be Mbps. Could be all lower case mbps. But the capital B generally means Bytes which this certainly is not.

Not calling you out. It doesn't matter. Just if you're interested. 🙂

[mynewhome]

wow, that's over 2x faster for data than the lte auto option!

[Anonymous]

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@mynewhome wrote:

I don't see the 3g network as a network option in my area in Toronto - where are the public mobile 3g networks?

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You change what your phone picks up. Manually scan for networks. You should see Public Mobile. Select it. Then change the services that your phone can pick up. 3G is like saying WCDMA or UMTS or HSPA. If you see options like those then you're looking at "3G".

[mynewhome]

I don't see the 3g network as a network option in my area in Toronto - where are the public mobile 3g networks?

[mojorising]

A lot of apps now have settings where you can choose to set the stream to a very low speed. My Bell Fibe TV app is just one example and You Tube has settings that you can choose as low as 144 kilo bytes. These are great to control vidoes from pausing during play due to buffering and control your data useage.

I'm on the $45 - 6.5 GB plan and never have a problem getting close to that limit.

So I would recomend that you view your video/audio streaming apps to see if they the have an option to downgrade the quality. I personally do not need to see HD videos on my smart phone!

[Camjam_65]

with PM the speeds will be quite comparable, LTE is throttled at a certain point where 3G is not. As long as you're not looking to stream daily with 3G you wouldn't notice much difference in my opinion.

[Triguy]

LTE is normally faster than 3G but PM throttles it to 3MB/sec. 3G is not thottled so it's around 15MB/sec. 

[Anonymous]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Nice edit 🙂 I was about to make a joke.

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LOL, (a swear word) instead of buffer... it wouldn't have been the worst ever typo.

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I thought it was funny it got past the bleeper.

edited by computergeek541:  my typo is actually considered swearing in some countries

Just to be clear, @computergeek541 had posted an inadvertent auto-correct typo of a word that has several meanings, one of which is indeed as mentioned. He quickly edited it. I observed that. I wrote the above in reply more as a "hmph interesting".

[computergeek541]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Nice edit 🙂 I was about to make a joke.

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LOL, (a swear word) instead of buffer... it wouldn't have been the worst ever typo.

[Anonymous]

Nice edit 🙂 I was about to make a joke.

[computergeek541]

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@canuckfan77 wrote:

I'm on a grandfathered plan. Unlimited texting plus unlimited province-wide calling and 12 gigs over my 3 month plan for $120

I'm considering swiching over to the $40 promotional plan for the nationwide calling and extra data per month.

I'm not sure how much of a speed drop off there would be. Please respond if you've switched from an LTE plan to 3g or just your experience in general with 3g

Thanks!

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When you are connected to the LTE network, the speed is reduced to 3Mbps.  That's fine for most things. When you're doing something such as watching videos, a tv show or movie might take a few seconds longer to buffer before playing starts, while on a full speed LTE plan, it would often be instant.  You will still be able to use either the LTE or HSPA (3g) networks for data, but all phone calls will still go through HSPA/3g.