A new report from Twin Prime claims LTE is faster than Wi-Fi in most locations, while U.S. provides faster speeds across both
Consumer demand for mobile data connectivity has placed an increased emphasis on the performance of cellular-based LTE and local area-based Wi-Fi networks, with a new report suggesting LTE has the edge in most major cities around the world.
Twin Prime, which describes itself as a provider in mobile application acceleration, notes in its “State of Mobile Networks” report a noticeable performance edge for cellular connections compared with Wi-Fi in places such as Shanghai, Sydney, Milan, Paris and Buenos Aires. The firm claimed its testing, based on “billion of mobile network requests from over 150 countries,” found LTE connections downloaded files up to 100% faster than Wi-Fi connections.
The report also found Wi-Fi and LTE download speeds were faster in the U.S. than in Europe, with at least in the case of LTE going against previous claims of inferior network speeds. Twin Prime’s report claims Wi-Fi speeds are up to 65% faster in the U.S. and up to 35% faster when using LTE than what was recorded in Europe.
“Penetration rates of LTE are more than 75% for both of these developed markets,” Twin Prime noted in its report. “So, the question is no longer when will LTE appear, but how good are the networks. From our dataset, we see that across all file sizes, the U.S. experiences 13% – 35% faster download times than the LTE networks of Europe.”
For consumers still rocking 3G devices, Europe did come out on top in terms of network performance, with U.S. 3G networks taking up to 80% longer to download the same content compared with European-based 3G networks. This stat is likely due to CDMA-based U.S. operators like Verizon Wireless and Sprint ditching upgrades on their 3G networks in favor of rolling out LTE or WiMAX services, while GSM-based operators in Europe moved forward with higher-speed HSPA upgrades to their 3G networks before rolling out LTE.
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