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Communications thoughts

California Network Showdown #1

I have both AT&T and Verizon data plans now. It may seem crazy to some, but I really like bandwidth, and love the opportunity to see which offers more value for the money in my real world situations. Also, my AT&T contract is almost up, so I don’t plan on keeping it this way forever.

I stopped to get fuel on a roadtrip to and from Redding, CA and did a network speed test at one of the last stops at a Chevron just off of interstate 5

AT&T on the Edge Network

Well, there is not a lot of room for a slower connection than this.The good news here I see is that there are a solid five bars of signal strength, but only one kilobit per bar ratio for download speed. I suppose if I were to really thouroughly test this, I should have tried to make a call, but I had to attend to the pump, since the trigger released itself for some reason. Karyn does not have a lot of patience for my experiments going longer than a commercial break, especially when we have to get back on the freeway and make good time.

AT&T on the 3G Network

Not too bad. This is usable. I have no idea why it took four minutes to find the 3G signal, but I am glad it did. I did not turn off the 3G setting to get the first edge reading above, it just happened this way, oddly. I guess the edge network is what one uses to talk on while surfing the net with 3G?

Verizon on the 3G Network

Wow! This was way beyond
my expectations. I had to double check my network settings to be sure I was not connected to some other courtesy network. Nothing else around but freeway and grass besides this pump station.

Chevron Food Mart Location

Karyn was getting a few Gatorades at the food Mart, and I was not quite filling up our tank, besides doing these ‘geek tests’

MiFi on my dashboard

Today Verizon wins by an embarrassing landslide. I have never had a speed test result this high done from my iPhone while not on my home WiFi network

By ezraengle

I like to ride my bicycle.