BALTIMORE – During RCR Wireless News’ recent visit to Baltimore as part of the RCR Wireless News Mobile Broadband Tour, we decided to add another chapter to our series of “on-the-street” speed tests of mobile broadband networks.
(Check out the Philadelphia speed test; a test from the “fringe” and from New York.)
The Baltimore test pitted Verizon Wireless’ LTE network against Sprint Nextel Corp.’s WiMAX network and was conducted in the shadows of Baltimore’s historic Camden Yards baseball park.
The tests were run over similar smartphones running Google’s Inc.’s Android OS and using the Ookla Speedtest.net application.
First up was Verizon Wireless’ LTE network, which posted official results of 306 milliseconds in latency, just over 5.6 megabits per second in downlink speeds and just over 2 Mbps in uplink speeds. These results were at the low-end of what Verizon Wireless’ advertises for its network.
Coverage for the LTE network appeared to show full “bar” coverage, though as with anything wireless there is going to be variances from one test to the next.
Next up was Sprint Nextel’s WiMAX network, which posted a super-speedy 118 milliseconds of latency, more than 7.7 Mbps of downlink speed and just over 1.4 Mbps of uplink speed. Both speed measurements were at the high-end of what the carrier advertises for its network.
Coverage for the WiMAX network showed good, but not great reception at street level. It should be noted that tests conducted at higher elevations showed a quick drop off of coverage for the WiMAX network, while the LTE network remained solid.
As with previous speed tests, this provided just a snippet of what these networks were providing at the street level, and as much what consumers are experiencing with their devices. More intensive testing with more advanced equipment might show different results, but the aim of these tests is to show what real consumers are finding in actual usage.
