Anyone even nerdier than I am out there? Re signal/data speed fun lol

[Pawprints1986]

So, just for fun I got curious and ran speed test on my phone on data. 

There are 2 main servers to pick from, "telus" and "telus mobility"

"telus mobility" was faster on wcdma only, but "telus" was faster on LTE. And nerds happen to know why? Might not mean anything at all? Both say based out of Toronto though I'm 4 hours away, so location isn't it... Just curious. If this rather belongs in "off topic", feel free to move it! 🙂

 

 

 

[jor123]

How long has it been since PM offered LTE speed plans anyway? 

[Korth]

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@Anonymous wrote:

There used to be ...

There used to be ...

There used to be ...

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Yeah, I miss the Build Your Own Plan Calculator too, the wider array of options (including LTE) added a lot of pay-only-for-what-you-want flexibility which made referrals easy.

But nostalgia's never what it used to be, a lot of things (seen and unseen) at PM have changed for the better as well. People continue to hold onto legacy plans because they were great deals, but most of these end up eventually relinquished for current plans which are even better deals. The only holdout is LTE ... and we know it'll eventually supplant "3G" for everyone, we just don't know how many years down the pipeline it'll happen.

[Pawprints1986]

My plan just charged at my last renewal actually, for the 2gb $30 plan (which fun side note koodo is offering for 45 now, lol)

Also for fun to see what would happen, I picked the Rogers server and did a test and it still came up with 5mbps download speed... But since we don't get service from them that was quite interesting lol. Unless maybe the true reading in that regard would be change my device to pick Rogers despite no service and then speed test which would undoubtedly show 0s across the board

[Anonymous]

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@apollo wrote:

@computergeek541   

Can you send me the link for a plan with Public at LTE speeds please? I've never seen this on their site and would like to look at the options and pricing.

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There being no plan with full LTE anymore there's kinda no point.

There used to be a build your own plan where you could choose talk provincially or Canada-wide or even none. Or text or none. Or throttled or full LTE or none.

There used to be plans that had full LTE. There last was a data-only plan at full LTE that only just a few weeks ago got quietly cancelled.

With those BYO plans and some limited feature plans, the rule was that if your base plan had no data component that you could buy the data add-ons and they would be in full LTE.

I have the old limited minutes/text plan that came with no data. The data that I get either gifted or buying is in full LTE.

[computergeek541]

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@apollo wrote:

@computergeek541   

Can you send me the link for a plan with Public at LTE please? I've never seen this on their site and would like to look at the options and pricing.

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People who have such plans are long-time customers.

[apollo]

@computergeek541   

Can you send me the link for a plan with Public at LTE speeds please? I've never seen this on their site and would like to look at the options and pricing.

[computergeek541]

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@apollo wrote:

Correct, wording was off. You can connect to LTE networks, but at 3G speeds, is what I meant.

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This depends on the customer's plan. There are many Public Mobile customers who do do have this speed restriction.

[apollo]

Correct, wording was off. You can connect to LTE networks, but at 3G speeds, is what I meant.

[computergeek541]

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@will13am wrote:

A couple of tests is insufficient to characterize something that is very random.  The traffic on the towers vary with time.  The conclusions are not supported.  @computergeek541 , you are the maven of speed tests, any thoughts?

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I think that about 1000 tests would provide a good same size, although I don't suggest doing that unless you want to run out of data today.

Those tests are far from 100% accurate. If Public Mobile is imposing a hard limit on 3g plans of exactly 3Mbps when connected to LTE, it isn't possible to have results of 3.7 or 3.4Mbps, yet that app does report such results. Those LTE results could have been a momentary glitch, or maybe, the throttling had been temproarily disabled on the account.

I'm also had times when my 3g-speed plan mysteriously got unthrottled temporarily.

@Pawprints1986 Are you on an LTE plan?  Have you made a plan change recently? 

[sheytoon]

@apollo PM has 3G and LTE. Speeds are not limited on 3G, but they are limited to 3 Mbps for DL and UL on LTE.

[apollo]

You can pick other servers, however, this may not make a difference if the route stays the same, and if the route has issue or congestion. Picture it as a hwy being the fastest route to get somewhere, but the hwy is congested, so taking another route might be needed. However, we are talking ms times here. Best time to run tests, to get true results, is in the late evening or very early day hours. Although, if you are testing the Public mobile, you are hitting higher speeds than 3 G, and the throttle may be why. Remember, public only has 3G connections, which is roughly 3Mbs down and 1Mbs up. You might get higher at times, but that's just the throttle system adjusting the speeds.

[LurganIeUk]

You should be able to click "change server" for other options. By the way....I heard those speed tests make a huge dent in your Data. 

[Korth]

@will13am 

I suppose that it would be better to rephrase my questions:

How random is this randomness? Is it so wildly unpredictable that speedtest metrics are utterly meaningless? Or, given some generally consistent conditions, how many speedtests would you expect are necessary before normal randomness evens itself out?

Nevermind ... lol

[sheytoon]

I would say at least 5-10 tests during off-peak hours. Should always test the same phone in the same location.

[will13am]

A couple of tests is insufficient to characterize something that is very random.  The traffic on the towers vary with time.  The conclusions are not supported.  @computergeek541 , you are the maven of speed tests, any thoughts?

[Korth]

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@sheytoon wrote:

As for the 2 Telus servers behaving differently, I'm not sure. If you have enough data to spare and can repeat your tests, my guess is the results would even out on average.

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Is the per-session variance that significant? How many speedtests would you need to run to determine consistently "average" rates? 5? 20? 100?

I'm beginning to suspect that mobile speedtest results aren't particularly meaningful, aside from quickly confirming that your phone and your local service are working properly.

[sheytoon]

@Pawprints1986 are your results reproducible? WCDMA (3G) is not restricted, and you can get up to 37 Mbps under ideal conditions.

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Getting-Started/Is-this-plan-3G-or-4G/m-p/526193/high...

LTE is limited to 3 Mbps by your subscription profile on the core network. This value is called AMBR or Aggregate Maximum Bit Rate.

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Using-Your-Service/Speed-limit-on-3G-plans/td-p/34313...

AMBR enforcement is not instantaneous, so you may see your LTE speed go beyond 3 Mbps initially.

As for the 2 Telus servers behaving differently, I'm not sure. If you have enough data to spare and can repeat your tests, my guess is the results would even out on average.

Unrestricted LTE can get to very high speeds...

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Using-Your-Service/Is-Public-Mobile-s-LTE-throttled-v...

[Korth]

The device-side might process the protocols differently. Different hardware. Different software. The components integrated into the SoC have to have different rated performances because of processor architecture limitations, the components integrated onto the mainboard have to have different rated performances because of GPIO and interrupt/polling priorities.

Phones often advertise which processor and chipset they use, how many cores, how many GHz, how much RAM. They don't advertise the tradeoffs they had to make when "optimizing" preferred performance parameters. They don't advertise the price-vs-performance decisions they made when choosing lesser components.

And different OEMs have different design philosophies. Some prefer to pack everything in their device up to maximal allowable limits. Others prefer bang-for-buck focus on important (marketable) specs with little regard for how this impacts unimportant specs. Some populate their devices with as many features as possible, even though it puts a lot of load on the processor. And many have solid clever hardware but awful code (sluggish firmware, bloated software).

And don't believe all the marketing hype. Every device is manufactured with price target above all else. They can't make any profit selling under their own cost and they can't make any profit selling at a cost so high that nobody will buy. Price is ultimately the most critical limitation which determines actual performance.