Wife's GMC Terrain has WiFi, costs an arm and a leg and really is far behind my Hughes Ultra plan.
I've talked to VW -- they claim things that are not really borne out by reality. The problem (for me) started when they came out with the unlimited service. From what I have seen on the forums, a lot of people noticed their speed take a giant dive then. Verizon tells me nothing's wrong. We agree to disagree.
@fuzwuz wrote:
There are different channels of wireless, at least for AT&T VIA A VW TOWER. Should your device get on a slow channel, it will not download file data fast. Talk to VW & have them to check if you are connecting on a slower than LTE channel, even if it says LTE on your device.
THIS COULD BE YOUR WHOLE PROBLEM OVER ANY LTE provider WIRELESS SERVICE.
When my iPhone DOWNLOADS DATA, slower than 20Mbits/sec, I CALL IN & AT&T MAKES SURE I'm really on an LTE channel, even though VIA a VW TOWER.
HOPE THIS HELPS. בובי
@maratsade wrote:I've talked to VW -- they claim things that are not really borne out by reality. The problem (for me) started when they came out with the unlimited service. From what I have seen on the forums, a lot of people noticed their speed take a giant dive then. Verizon tells me nothing's wrong. We agree to disagree
There's actually a couple of things going on here from my perspective:
1. This latest iPhone update does some weird things when it comes to indicating whether wifi or wireless (LTE, 3G, 1x) is being used. Many times the display at the top of the phone doesn't show reality. I've literally seen 'LTE' when the 5G wifi was showing as engaged in the wifi settings. The wifi symbol won't even show until I switch from 5G to 2G.
I'm also in an area where I can actually get LTE on 2 bars of signal. Sometimes it gets stuck on 3G when it shouldn't and can only 'get' LTE unless I physically toggle airplane mode on then off and wait for the wireless to reset itself and reacquire the tower. I say this like I have any complete faith I'm really in either mode dispite what the indicator says, but you have to trust something.
2. I too have Unlimited, mainly because it was cheaper than being on my older 2G plan and wanted a fairly good backup connection that was usable in a power outage (happens a lot here in C. Virginia). What I've noticed is that the resulting speed is very subjective to peak times of use, just like every other system. And yes, they will intentionally throttle your speed after you've reached a certain amount in your cycle. Wireless just seems slightly overall faster because of the ping times to the local tower are a lot better than to something several hundred miles above the equator. Can't change the physics and the speed of light is a governing factor. Too bad, so sad.
3. Verizon's LTE is rated at around 5-12Mbps, but I've only seen it get as high as 5 due to the signal quality I get here. Typically it's around 1-2 at best, depending upon how my phone is pointed, which floor I'm on, which way the wind is blowing, and whichever arm/leg I have held up - not an optimum full-time solution, but workable.
I don't have unlimited myself -- I have the 4 GB account. VW claims there's LTE in my area, and that may be true, but my speeds are never over 1 Mbps with their wireless. Before they unveiled their unlimited option, I was getting much better speeds (well, for VW), sometimes up to 5 Mbps, and pretty low latency. After they started offering their unlimited option, my speeds and latency plummeted. I often see the same complaint on the VW forums. I used to have 3G, and that was actually more consistent than LTE.
I get great speeds when I'm in a metropolitan area -- living in a rural area, I basically have to live with bad internet. It's just the nature of the beast. Not enough towers, not enough interest from providers, etc. It is what it is. 🙂