Metro PCS And The Biggest 4G Lie Of Them All

Let me preface this rant by saying that I understand Metro PCS is a regional and budget minded carrier.  I am fully aware that they have fairly competitive prices compared to contracted national carriers and that by building a business model around that, they might have to cut a few corners.

A few corners.  Not all of them.

I'm currently using T-Mobile and have been with them since the days of EDGE data.  I bought a G1 back when nobody knew what Android was and 3G hadn't made it to my hometown until a year and a half later.  Even those speeds were mildly acceptable.  EDGE speeds on t-mobile generally mean anything from 150 kbps to 300 kbps, generally sitting right in the middle at 200-225.  Fine.

When 3G launched, I saw anything from 500 kbps to 1 Mbps.  With "4G" and my new G2 came around 3-4 megs.  Sweet.  I got a MyTouch 4G off craigslist and nearly simultaneously had 42 Mbps launched in my area, and that phone can easily pull down 6-10 Mbps.  WIN.

Then I got curious.  I'm over the whole contract thing.  If you sit down and actually do the math, it's almost always better to grab a phone off craigslist or whatever you might have in your area instead of getting a brand new phone on a contract over the course of those 2 years.  It can be a difference of almost 500 dollars depending on the phone and plan.

So I walk into Metro PCS over here because I started seeing signs around town that they launched 4G services.  Not just 4G, but ACTUAL 4G in the form of LTE.  Well, AT&T LTE sees speeds upwards of 30-40 Mbps and verbatim for Verizon, but I had heard that Metro's offering might not exactly be that fast.  Forums posts on various mobile sites have claimed anything from 3-4 Mbps, a very few as high as 10 Mbps.  First, I run a speed test on the MyTouch 4G fresh out of my pocket:

Connection Type: HSDPA/HSUPA
Download: 6290 kbps
Upload: 1976 kbps
Ping 69 ms

Not the fastest I've gotten, but I'm indoors and on two bars of signal.  I can live with that.  Then I fire up Metro's top of the line Android offering with a full five bars of signal, the LG Esteem:

Connection Type: LTE
Download: 1542 kbps
Upload: 1290 kbps
Ping: 143 ms

Are you freaking serious?  I ran it five more times to be sure, then the salesman crept up on me.

"Are these typical speeds for LTE around here?"

"Yep, its pretty fast."

Then I pull out my MyTouch results and place the screen right next to the Esteem.  He gets this face like the jig is up.

Why even roll out LTE when you can't even cap out 3G speeds yet?  Sure, I suppose it's future proof now, and if they actually add bandwidth to the towers, it'll scale wonderfully.  At the moment, however, it looks less than pathetic.  They can't beat a 3G technology faking it as 4G.

So let's do some math here.

T-Mobile Value Plan:
$59.99/mo includes
Unlimited Minutes
Unlimited Texts
2 Gb Full Speed Data, Unlimited Data Overall
You pay for the phone, there are plenty on craigslist/Ebay/etc or you can purchase one for full price in the store.  Most of T-Mobile's phones for the last 3 years can pull at least 14 Mbps from the tower if it's provided.

Metro PCS 4G LTE Plan:
$60.00/mo includes
Unlimited Minutes
Unlimited Texts
Unlimited Data and Multimedia Streaming (Yes they separate the two)
You pay for the phone and you're pretty much going to have to buy it retail.  There aren't a lot of 4G LTE Metro phones out there yet.

The least expensive 4G LTE phone from Metro PCS costs $199.00 and comes in the form of either the Samsung Galaxy Attain 4G or the Samsung Galaxy Indulge 4G, both of which have very small 3.5 inch screens and HVGA resolution.

T-Mobile has a ton of phones floating around the Internet for under $200 such as the T-Mobile G2, Samsung Galaxy S 4G, MyTouch 4G, LG G2x, Wildfire S, and Sidekick 4G.  All but one of those have a full WVGA resolution screen and at least 14 Mbps service, if not 22.  I've seen MyTouch 4Gs going for as little as $75 in the last week.

End of story?  The term 4G needs to be regulated.  Sure, AT&T has upgraded to LTE in a few areas and made it a non-issue, but really what's happening here is people are getting tricked into buying 4G service and not getting anywhere near 4G speeds.  Metro PCS has taken the cake on this one.  In a rant just under a year ago, I made note that I thought it was pathetic that AT&T was claiming 4G service and giving its customers speeds in the 2-3 Mbps range.  Metro has not only missed that mark, they've made AT&T look like saints and speed demons.