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Is Public Mobile's LTE throttled vs Telus/Koodo? Who here has the fastest Public Mobile speed?

Eug
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

I set my wife up on Public Mobile and it is working well for her. However, I've noticed that the max download speeds are more limited than I was expecting. They're decent and more than sufficient for her, but still, not quite what I might have expected for Telus or Koodo. (She was on Koodo before.)

 

Thinking it might just be luck of the draw for wireless conditions right at those times tested, I looked online, and it seems a few people have done comparative tests between Public Mobile and Koodo side by side, and Public Mobile is consistently slower. Well, at best Public Mobile is sometimes similar, but most of the time Public Mobile is slower. For example, one test had two Galaxy S6 phones testing Koodo against Public Mobile tested side by side. Koodo was over 100 Mbps, but Public Mobile was 20ish Mbps. Others have done maybe 5 tests in a row with the same phone models and again, Public Mobile usually was slower. Furthermore, I have never seen a Public Mobile speed test benchmark out there hit over 100 Mbps. In fact, over 60 Mbps seems to be rare.

 

Are Koodo and Telus given priority over Public Mobile in terms of download (and upload speeds), or is Public Mobile actively throttled (but still provided LTE speeds)? Or is Public Mobile using a more limited LTE feature set? Or is this all just by chance? To be fair to Public Mobile, I don't think I've ever seen truly scientific speed test comparisons between Public Mobile vs Telus/Koodo.

 

BTW, my iPhone 7 Plus on Fido is consistently slower than Public Mobile on my wife's iPhone 6s for upload speeds in my house, with my Fido consistently in the 1.5-2.5 Mbps range, and her Public Mobile in the 8-15 Mbps range. That's a pretty huge difference, and I'd rather have the faster uploads. This is her iPhone 6s on Public Mobile, to show the decent uploads.

 

FF299FC1-F694-4B9A-8B94-3385BA59C2D8_zpsszawj9ee.PNG

237 REPLIES 237

edward203203
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I did some speedtests on an LTE+ phone and I can confirm that Public Mobile's LTE is throttled, it never got download speeds greater than 60 Mbps.  However, when I replaced my SIM with a Fido SIM connected to Telus I can achieve over 100 Mbps.

 

Screenshot_20170223-001959.png

gmd
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

I have to say that for my usage, the speeds I get from Public Mobile are more than adequate.

 

Smiley Wink

Smcanada99
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen
I don't know much but I know that when I see LTE+ on my phone my speeds are much higher and typically I see LTE plus more than regular LTE especially when I am not in my basement. Just ran a speed test down 51
Up 3.19 and ping was 18ms in my house

I really do not care about speed tests as long as my emails upload and down load quickly and sent messages and received messages and attachments are loaded quick. I do find that on iOS the emails and everything loads quicker than my Samsung s7. It seems like it takes for ever on Android maybe it's just me or is there some settings I need to change on the Android

jpar
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

I would be ok with the speed being throttled a little (reasonably), but hope that the ping/latency is consistent. That matters more than anything for most uses...

gmd
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

I have compared Public Mobile to Koodo Prepaid. Koodo Prepaid won...

Definitive proof that Koodo is not throttled. Seems to be just Public Mobile:
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1777615-KOODO-LTE-speeds-post-em-if-you-got-em?p=16808019...

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

Thanks @sheytoon, that's a little distrubing.  But then, I can't think of any times as a PM customer (approx 16 months or so now I think) that I've thought during my day to day interactions with my data-eating apps that I wish it wasn't so slow.  Thos apps include but are not limited to Fenix (twitter client), FeedMe (RSS reader), Chrome, Play Store (though I do most app updates over WiFi but that's more for conserving data amounts than speed), Gmail, Nine (the email app I use for work, and it actually gets my Office 365 Exchange mail consistently quicker than Outlook running on my PC), Facebook, Instagram, Slack, BBM, WhatsApp, and many othes.  


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getting faster speeds then my home computer lol

 


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More testing on a different phone. Same results. I believe that Public Mobile is throttled somewhere in the EPC. All tests were done in the same location.

 

4 tests with Bell SIM using 2 different servers:

Bell.png

 

4 tests with PM SIM using the same 2 servers mentioned above:

PM.jpg

 

Signal info showing that CA is equally available for both SIMs (Bell = 302-610 and Telus = 302-220):

Bell-sig.pngPM-sig.jpg

@sheytoon  thanks for your knowledge on this subject.  Even thought I don't completely follow all you have said I do understand some of it so thanks for taking the time with your detailed posts on the matter coming from someone that deals with this stuff as part of their job.

 


I am happy to help, but I am not a Customer Support Agent please do not include any personal info in a message to me. Click HERE to create a trouble ticket through SIMon the Chatbot *

There is no such thing as a Cat-x network. It's like saying "I will eat blue for dinner". It just doesn't make any sense.

 

Maybe they're referring to when Telus launched their first Cat-3 phone for sale to customers. In any case, that needs to be updated. Telus is selling S7 and S7 Edge phones, which are Cat-9.

dearmusic
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

@sheytoon wrote:

 

Please note Category numbers are not related to CA capability. A Cat-9 device may be able to do 3CA, but another Cat-9 device may only be able to do 2CA.



So the category is only for client side? According to this page, the LTE network deployment for Telus is still at category 3, what does that mean?

 

@dearmusic

There is an organization known as 3GPP that is responsible for defining 3G and LTE standards globally.

 

3GPP provides updates and new standards constantly and they number these releases at a high level.

 

Rel-8 was the start of LTE.

Rel-10 was the start of LTE-A.

Rel-13 is the start of LTE-A Pro.

 

LTE-roadmap.PNG

 

LTE-Advanced (also known as LTE-A) is actually a collection of enhancements, including CA, higher-order MIMO, CoMP, 256 QAM.

http://www.3gpp.org/technologies/keywords-acronyms/97-lte-advanced

 

Part of the reason for this misunderstanding is the operators themselves don't refer to CA, they just call it LTE-A, which is not very precise.

 

What you're referring to is Carrier Aggregation (CA), which is one of the prominent features of LTE-A. CA, as described here combines different carriers or channels into one logical channel. This dramatically increases user throughput, but requires specialized hardware inside the phone to take advantage of specific band combinations.

 

Both Bell and Telus have deployed CA equally in their respective RANs, and all customers have equal access to all CA features across Canada (as long as it is deployed in the eNodeB).

 

Category numbers are not related to the network at all. They are only used to describe the capabilities of smartphones and other User Equipment (UE).

 

Here is a good overview of all the UE categories:

http://niviuk.free.fr/ue_category.php

 

Cat-6 devices are generally CA capable and can provide DL speeds up to 300 Mbps. Cat-4 devices are generally non-CA capable and can provide DL speeds up to 150 Mbps. Cat-9 devices are currently the fastest high-end phones on the market (i.e. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge).

 

Category numbers are not necessarily related to CA capability. A Cat-9 device may be able to do 3CA, but another Cat-9 device may only be able to do 2CA.

 

Also, not all Categories will actually be implemented. They are simply defined in the LTE standards, and manufacturers can choose to make a device for any Category number they wish. As an example, I don't think there's ever going to be a Cat-8 device anywhere. It will simply be too exensive to develop. Higher category numbers are not always faster. Refer to the table in the above link for details.

@Michael6

For regular usage, it doesn't make any difference. Even streaming 1080p video uses no more than 10 Mbps. My interest is strictly from an engineering perspective. I'd like to understand why it's not working. Hopefully I can figure it out one day and share with everyone.

dearmusic
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

@srlawren

 

After a bit of research,

 

LTE comes with Cat. 3, 4, 6, 9, 11

 

Apparently Rogers and Bell are the only 2 carriers in Canada that has reached Cat. 6

 

I might be wrong, but Telus is still at Cat. 3

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@dearmusic nope, Telus has LTE-Advanced.  I see 4G+ from time to time on my phone. It only seems to kick in when the phone is actively tansmitting/receiving, and then reverts back to regular non-advanced 4G LTE afterward.


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Michael6
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen
If you have to argue about it, it means it's not an issue.

Maybe if the other providers throttled their prices this might be an issue.

dearmusic
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

@sheytoon

 

This definitely looks like 4G speed VS 4G+ speed...

Did Bell get LTE-Advance already, but not telus?

@sheytoon  wow I wish I could get those speeds. my best with PM  is 12.2 up and 7.3 download here in Victoria

 


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dearmusic903
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

This is what I got at pearson airport using Public Mobile

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/2464912397

 

It says Telus, but I am using Public Mobile.

 

If they throttles, then not sure what speed they throttled at...

echf
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

If I remember correctly, Bell is the only carrier right now that had three carrier aggregation (Max speed 335 Mbps). Rogers and Telus are still using two carrier aggregation (Max speed 225 Mbps).

In the Toronto area near a site that I like to use for testing.

username
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@sheytoon Great information, thanks! Out of curiosity, where were these speed tests performed? 

I finally managed to do some testing with a Bell SIM and PM SIM during off-peak hours under excellent signal conditions (SINR 25+ dB) with the tower unloaded.

 

AMBR value is not the issue. It is set to 1 Gbps downlink for both Bell and PM subscribers. However, DL speeds are consistenly lower on PM.

 

I used the same phone, 5 speedtests with Bell using 3 different servers, followed by 4 speedtests with PM, using the same 3 servers. eNodeB (tower) usage was very close to zero at all times. I verified this but cannot share the screenshot on a public forum.

 

Here are the AMBR confirmations:

Bell-signal.jpgPM-signal.jpg

 

Here are the speed test results:

Bell-speed.jpgPM-speed.jpg

 

This was tested on a site with B2 + B4 CA, which the phone supports and was verified active for all tests. I don't have a Telus SIM to compare, so I can't be sure if this is strictly a PM issue, or all Telus subscribers. What is clear from this test is that there is definitely a limitation for PM users at the very least (possibly all Telus users). Either way, the issue is with Telus, and not Bell.

Smcanada99
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen
I have been doing speed test on a site with that name & .net at the end of it and I have gotten varied results on 4g the speeds are very slow depending upon the server it pings buy on LTE the speeds are pretty good!
Just now it was on LTE and it gave these stats 37 DL and 3 UL.

gmd
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

I just switched a phone from Koodo prepaid to PM, and we can see a difference on speedtest...

 

Effect in real life: should be next to nil...

 

On the other hand, a speed test on Koodo prepaid is expensive 🙂

smilingeyes70
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

It does seem to be a bit slower than Telus (my previous carier) but for the value we get with PM - no complaints at all!

 

IMG_0040.PNG

username
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@jgorman Oh, absolutley. My interest is largely academic.

jgorman
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen
For the price of PM who could complain. It's great
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