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Comment by hack_edu | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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