Real World Experience 3G vs 4G

[David_F]

Looking for some feedback from users that have moved from a 3G plan to a 4G plan.  Have you noticed any real world difference in speed?  I generally only use phone data for some light internet browsing, maps and linking to fitness band for GPS data.  No streaming.

Not looking for a lecture on 3G vs 4G vs 5G.  That is not what I am asking.  Also not looking for comments from anyone that has not actually moved from a 3G plan to a 4G plan.

[funpig1]

Just to finish the narrative, this is my second day after switching from the 3G to the 4G plan. 

I drove into an area where the signal is better. The display on my phone changes between LTE, LTE+ and 5G.  I ran a speed test when the display read 5G and I got a whopping 103 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload. When I ran multiple speed test for the 5G, the speed would often get throttled back to about 25 to 50 Mbps. I guess the wind was changing directions, lol 

[funpig1]

I do not think it is the phone or battery. I just switched from my old Pixel 3A to a brand new Pixel 7A.

I know that the problem is due to the location of our house. This has been a problem for years and I have complained to both, telus and kodoo in the past in the hopes that they would put in a microcell or whatever. I stopped complaining after I switched over to the much cheaper PM plans. 

BTW, I forgot to mention that the upload speeds for both the previous 3G and the current 4G are approximately 1 Mbps at my house location.

[Korth_]

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@funpig1 wrote:

I guess the 4G is still affected by the wind direction at my house.

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I've been in lively debates with other ham radio operators about whether or not wind affects radio in the real world. (I argue that yes, indeed, the wind does affect radio because it's moving air which is full of water and other components that affect radio - and the more "wet" the air is the more pronounced the effect of the wind will be on radio. Just look at any weather radar map to see it yourself.)

But proximity to electrical systems, magnetic disturbances, metallic structures, RF-absorbing/-scattering/-attenuating materials, weird geomagnetic quirks and anomalies, even unfavourable geography and poor line of sight all affect radio.

Also, your local cell site(s) might simply lack coverage in your home, they could even be directional and pointed away from you (to provide coverage elsewhere). I'm sure that if you (and your neighbours) complain often enough then Telus will eventually get around to installing one of those "microcell" sites on a nearby pole or rooftop. I'm guessing that you're in a fringe-coverage area, your "LTE+" might not depend on the wind, exactly, but might depend a lot on how many cars are on a nearby road, lol.

https://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/cancellsites.html

Your phone might have weak radio or weak battery. People tend to dismiss this as inconsequential - especially if it doesn't change the number of signal "bars" displayed on their device - but weak battery is a truly significant contributor.

[funpig1]

I just switched from 3G to 4G today.

My house is near a dead zone and the Telus signal can be poor. We jokingly say the cellular signal depends on which way the wind is blowing. I sometimes have to go up to the second floor to get a better cellular signal.

On 3G, a speedtest will get me 2-3 Mbps. When when I switched to the new 4G plan, there was not much difference. I messaged CS_Agent and they said they would reset their system on their end. FYI, we have been told the same thing by both Telus and Koodo when we were with them in the past.

After I set my preferred network to 5G (recommended), reset my mobility network in the phone system settings and restarted my phone, my speedtest download speed jumped to an impressive (to me) 40 Mbps, which is a huge improvement.

One thing I noticed is that if the display at the top of the phone reads "LTE+", I will get the 40 Mbps.  However, if the display changes to "LTE", my 4G download speed will drop back down to about 3.0 Mbps. 

I guess the 4G is still affected by the wind direction at my house.

[on2wheels]

I noticed an immediate difference in anything that needed web data. Pages loaded faster, apps loaded faster.  This is from someone who was on 3G for 5+ years, and recently changed to 4G.  My phone is not 5G compatible.

[Korth_]

Anyone who's a Public Mobile subscriber on "3G speed" is already connecting to Telus/Bell 4G (LTE) by default, it's just being throttled.

True 3G (UMTS/HSPA+) is being "sunset". Or rather, it's being slowly, slowly phased out - it seems like the carriers aren't deliberately deactivating their old 3G equipment - if it works then there's no reason to disturb it, maybe people are using it, maybe it's just a good fallback system - but the carriers are also not replacing it when it's too troublesome to maintain or license or operate in certain areas for whatever cost/business reasons. (I don't work for any of the phone companies, this is just my clueless observation and speculation.)

Our "3G" plans (usually) benefit from faster LTE pings, from lower LTE latencies and jitters. Indeed, when you first activate a "3G" plan, you'll often observe LTE performances (~110mbps) for up to 2-3 business days before your "3G speed" (~3mpbs) throttle gets applied. (You'll often see recurring complaints here from people dismayed that the first thing they did was run some speedtests to measure how well their new Public Mobile plan performs ... and the second thing they did was panic because they had no more data left. Unthrottled speedtests can burn through an entire monthly "3G data" provision in just seconds or minutes. And nobody ever seems to read the fine print so of course the mistakes, ignorance, and impatience are never their fault.)

There are still some quirky instances where subscribers can force their phones to connect to legacy 3G services and observe consistently better or faster data speeds (because certain areas or conditions can make local LTE performance really poor). Or at least I've read such reports on this and other forums, although they used to be common a few years ago and are rarely mentioned anymore. 4G/LTE and 5G have almost fully taken over, 3G is just not the popular focus anymore.

So TL;DR ... For most end-users, "3G" and "4G" are the same thing these days as far as signal and stability and reliability go. They're not technology differentiators anymore, they're functionally the same network, they're basically just different levels of performance you can choose to buy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telus_Mobility

https://www.digikey.ca/en/articles/2g-3g-4g-lte-network-shutdown-updates

https://www.readersdigest.ca/home-garden/tips/3g-network-shutdown-canada/

[publicsteve1]

The speed difference can be huge, but my experience is that your location and tower proximity / capability is important. I recently upgraded my 3g plan, which as I understand it simply removes the artificial low speed throttle they have on the 4g service. I noticed only a slight improvement, (3.4 mbps as just tested), because I live in a rural setting with hills around my home. At my cottage, where I am close to a tower, I'm getting amazing speeds and was able to ditch my LTE internet service and hotspot everything off my phone. So it would be good to check that with a friends 4g phone. 

[DennyCrane]

@BKNS27 That's a separate issue. This thread is about plan speed.

[BKNS27]

@David_F 

Please keep in mind that 3G will be decommissioned in Canada in 2025. So you will be on 4G and if you have the older 3G phone…you will need to also upgrade your phone.

[DennyCrane]

Night and day. Huge improvement.

Now if you asked about 4G to 5G, I'd say it's negligible from a common use perspective. But 3G to 4G is a significant improvement. You're going from up to 3Mbps to up to 100Mbps. I'll also say that in the end [of my 3G era] it seemed PM was throttling my speed even slower than 3Mbps.