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Comment by shinratdr | Hacker News Reader

> LTE is not as important as you make it sound.

Except you then go on to explain for a couple paragraphs that it doesn't matter BECAUSE <insert a ton of active device management>.

Here is my process for connecting with my LTE phone: I turn it on. Speed is as fast as WiFi all the time. I have a 6GB plan and have never had to worry about hitting it. That's it.

I haven't used a free WiFi network outside of work in a year. LTE is way faster. Just like the touchscreen on the front of the phone, you don't know you want it until you have it. Then, you'll never give it up.

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Let's be honest here, speed isn't as fast as WiFi all the time. It's as fast as WiFi, with much higher latency, in the times you're within good range of the proper cell tower. Sorry, but its not the same as WiFi when you're sitting on the can in the windowless bathroom on the 8th floor of a big office building.

It is almost universally faster than free WiFi (i.e. at a coffee shop), which is what the post said.

I have unlimited data and a ROM that lets me tether, and it really is amazing how useful LTE everywhere is. There's no way this isn't the future of internet connectivity in general. (Unless everyone using it would somehow saturate the available spectrum?)

A big part of how much faster LTE is than HSPA+ (which the Nexus 4 ships with), is the fact that most LTE networks are massively under-utilised.

HSPA+ can run at 42Mbps in theory, but network congestion makes that a pretty much impossible situation in reality.

As more people join the LTE networks, they will get slower and slower, just as 3G has in crowded areas.

Hence why I couldn't be happier that Google is continuing to limit the Nexus line to 3G. That's the price of keeping costs low.

Much higher latency? I just tested 22 ms with my iPhone 5 on my home WiFi network, and 44 ms with LTE. Granted, that's a factor of 2, but 44 ms is pretty darn acceptable for any Internet usage, let alone mobile phone usage.

True, that one situation has caused me to switch on WiFi. However the rest of my office building and city is blanketed in pretty decent LTE coverage.

Latency is as low as 2ms. I never have latency problems on LTE.

Except I only do device management because the limited data plan is a problem that doesn't go away - and you have it too, because you're limited to 6 GB and that's not much.

This month I've been following the Coursera course on functional programming with Scala, while listening to other podcasts and stuff I follow. I like doing that in the morning, while drinking a coffee at a nice place. And because I wasn't careful about turning Wifi on (it was off for some reason), I depleted 2 GB of bandwidth in 2 hours, which was the bandwidth I had left - the connection was so good I didn't even realize that I was on 3G.

Also, I'm probably in a much better position than most people, because my monthly plan does not come with a contract, being a PrePay (PrePay plans are very competitive in Europe, especially Eastern Europe, compared to the US at least). So I can recharge as needed.

But other people are not so lucky and once you blow past the allocated bandwidth, the prices are freaking huge on a contract. I have an acquaintance who's kid watched movies on his phone and ended up with a 300 EUR bill.

So btw, if you're telling me that you don't do device management, just wait until you'll be a father.

Well, I live in Hungary (right next to you) and our pre-paid plans suck. Calling costs 2-3 times as much as on contracts, same with texting. A 3G plan with 3GB unlimited (that is they slow you down until the end of the billing cycle) costs 3500 HUF. For 4190 HUF you can get a 4G plan with unlimited browsing and 5GB for other purposes.

Using your home internet connection for intensive streaming instead of your data connection isn't device management.

As fast as WiFi? I'd hope it is faster. My home internet is 15mbps, this phone does 21, LTE does 70 or something. Do you really need to download a song in 0.5 seconds? Isn't 2 seconds fast enough?

With the LTE speed of 70mbps, you could use up your 6GB in 11 minutes.

3G doesn't come close to approaching those speeds in most areas.

It's not about how long it takes to run a download of a media file, you're completely missing the point. It's about the drastically improved latency and responsiveness in downloading complex modern web pages, streaming, and caching stuff.

For example, The Verge homepage is almost as big as a song. If the question becomes do you need to make every page load .5 seconds instead of 2 seconds then "yes" wouldn't seem so ridiculous.

Why would I do that kind of sustained downloading on my phone? That's what the server & home internet connection is for. LTE on the phone isn't for blowing through 6GB In 11 minutes, it's for grabbing the data you need as quickly as possible.

At first I thought LTE is overrated, after using it for 2 weeks, its hard to go back. If you constantly on the go and need to check things out quick on your mobile, LTE makes the experience 'keeping pace with your move', there is less 'little waits'.

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