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NYC Drag Race: T-Mo FTW! (Updated w/ video, pics, rage)

potentialtmobilegirlcandidateAs we discussed, I lit out Wednesday packing an AT&T Nexus One and a T-Mobile Nexus S for a tour of Manhattan, speed testing the phones side by side at various sites along the way. The tests illustrated consistently that T-Mobile’s network is excellent and AT&T’s is the opposite of excellent. Pardon my unjournalistic tone but man, AT&T sucks so bad that in two locations the bandwidth was too nonexistent to get a reading.

I did not stack the deck against AT&T in any way and AT&T’s performance was consistent with what I’ve consistently seen, suffered from and bitched about for years? With another camera I took excessively high def video of the races for proof should anyone feel the need to cross examine me. I’ll youtube that below the data table but don’t watch it if you’re lucking for excitement. All right boss, you ready? Ready for the numbers big guy?  Think you can handle it chief? You sitting down holmes? Bam!

Location / Time AT&T down AT&T up AT&T ping T-Mo down T-Mo up T-Mo ping
106 & CPW, 11:43am 2196kbs 1239kbs 151ms 3971kbs 1766kbs 74ms
72nd & Bway, 2:40pm 1852kbs 921kbs 139ms 3802kbs 1810kbs 54ms
Time Square, 3pm 2kbs 33kbs 300ms 2033kbs 1295kbs 144ms
NYSE, 3:45pm 680kbs 74kbs 388ms 910kbs 1309kbs 146ms
Bryant Park, 4:44pm 0kbs 73kbs 145ms 1382kbs 830kbs 66ms
Columbus Circle, 5:11pm 139kbs 13kbs 144ms 1380kbs 1271kbs 136ms
Central Park, 5:29pm 1295kbs 1110kbs 145ms 1543kbs 791kbs 131ms
Averaged… 880kbs 495kbs 202ms 2146kbs 1296kbs 107ms
How much better is T-Mo? 2.4x better! 2.6x better! 1.9x better!

Here’s the footage. Want more eyes on this so please and mention it somewhere, shortlink:  http://goo.gl/eYpBk.

mapofATTgettingitsasskickedbytmobileThe video’s boring but the highlights are Time Square at 4:57 in, Bryant Park at 8:51. The Columbus Circle test, 10:42, was in the subway but both phones had a good signal. Click the map on the right to blow up a visual of where these tests went down if you’re not great with geography. Though AT&T did all right at the Stock Exchange, I had to wait a while for it to squeeze its way onto 3G from edge. To AT&T’s credit, good throttling trick to keep the network functional for the brokers to field T sell orders.

Other writers out there, feel free to use those numbers instead of PC Mag’s. I didn’t catch AT&T on a bad day, this is exactly what they get away with selling in my city. Because of Google, Samsung and because AT&T, from their shitty network to what they call customer service, I’m delighted I can use my phone, as those numbers imply, wherever I go in the city with plenty of speed to, for example, refresh my RSS reader a block away from the subway entrance, or to be able to send an email or an instant message in midtown without also sending a text too hoping my wife gets at least one of those, five minutes pass without a response and then I’m thinking screw it I’ll just call her. Damnit, stupid call dropped, don’t think it even rang.

badassgrocerycartPeople of AT&T who are not happy with AT&T, give another carrier, any carrier, a try, just in case, like me, you’ve been missing out on great service unnecessarily for so damn long. After the test I was so psyched that I twittered at the offical TMobile account (I think) who actually retweeted my ass!

hi_tmo_iloveyouAnd should this article make its way to some suit at T-Mobile, just keep on doing what you’re doing and you’ll be fine. I’m of course just referring to the pretty women in your ads, can’t just win the game on sexy spokesgirls alone, though they do help. Glad to meet you T-Mobile! And damn, nice ping responses!

Doug Simmons

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