AT&T's 4G LTE network goes live in Chicago; images reveal impressive speeds

By on Aug 29, 2011 at 2:10 PM
Exclusive August 29, 2011

AT&T’s 4G LTE network went live this past weekend in the Chicago area, and initial speed tests reveal impressive download speeds. AT&T has yet to announce the availability of LTE service in Chicago or any other launch market, but BGR has obtained exclusive images and speed test results from a source who has tested the network there. Ahead of an official launch, AT&T 4G LTE service is likely to be available only intermittently during testing, though it is also possible that Chicago has been soft launched following the launch of AT&T’s first two 4G LTE devices last week. Read on for more.

Our source used an AT&T Elevate 4G LTE mobile hotspot to perform speed tests in the Chicago area. Using both an iPhone 4 and a MacBook connected to the Elevate via Wi-Fi, he found that download speeds topped out at around 13Mbps and upload speeds reached just over 2Mbps. It should be noted, however, that the speeds achieved during these tests do not necessarily represent the data speeds AT&T subscribers will see once the network officially goes live. In addition, our source said that the Elevate never had more than three bars of service during the tests, which is another indication that AT&T’s 4G LTE network is not in a launch-ready state. Images of 4G LTE speed test results on the iPhone 4 and MacBook can be seen in our photo gallery, which is linked above.

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  • http://twitter.com/epbnation Elliott Brown®

    Finally… That’s as fast as Sprint’s WiMax in NYC on a good day, but still not close to VZW’s 30 down and 5 up.  

  • Guest

    Wow, one city. Have fun playing catch up ATT. Verizon is going to slaughter you in the LTE war.

  • Anonymous

    To be perfectly blunt those speeds are not that impressive. The speeds are on an “unloaded network” as they’re called. This just goes to show that AT&T’s LTE is going to be slower than Verizon. AT&T has 5+5 (MHz for up, 5MHz for down) while Verizon has 10+10 for LTE. So I would expect about half the speed of Verizon’s LTE in the real world (6Mb/s down, 1-2Mb/s up). And that’s assuming AT&T’s backhaul holds up (I haven’t seen any speed increases in my neck of the woods even though AT&T has supposedly upgraded us to “enhanced backhaul” per their 4G page). 

  • JOHN

    HAHAHA. PATHETIC!!! I GET THOSE SPEED ON A REALLY BUSY DAY AT VZW.. PRETTY SLOW FOR A NETWORK WITH NO ONE ON IT.. AT&T 4.5G NETWORK IS A JOKE.. IM ASSUMING THATS WHAT THEYLL CALL IT SINCE THEY ALREADY CLAIM THEY HAVE 4G.. NO WONDER YOU GUYS WERE RATED THE WORST IN THE NATION BY JD POWER.. VERIZON ALL THE WAY!!

  • Evilbox

    I got 9mbps on Tmobile’s populated network here on Chicago. Piss off att…

  • Anonymous

    Is there any room to bash AT&T speeds or is everyone finally done?

    Yall turned it from a great snide remark to an e-penis contest on who can post the fastest speeds…

    • fredd0

       verizon is john holmes… the rest are just waiting for sloppy seconds…

      • Anonymous

        John Holmes died from AIDS…

  • Anonymous

    0.02 gb must be the bandwidth cap

  • http://mediamonstrosity.com person287

    Looks nice, now if we could ever get 4G in the UK then that’d be good…

  • CMC

    Wonder if their LTE network is going to be as ‘good’ as their ’3g’ network.  You know, the one that was just ranked worst in America.

    • Anonymous

      Power and associates should be shut down. Like any company, money driven yet people take it for law. Money talks. Dropped call percentage for example on 1 carrier could be off by .02% and labeled as “worst” due to only 2 actual carriers left in the U.S. Marketing…gotta love it. This is obviously Hspa+ and an attempt for the already inept writers from bgr to rile up a few teenagers. Funny how you jump their sack for posting iphone or analyst “crap” frequently yet this article is “fact”. Sheep.

      Forget the numbers and actually use the network real world comparison. The only reason verizon customers think their current speeds seem fast is due to past evdo which was a joke. And try staying on any “4g”… good luck with consistency. Been there done that.

      • http://twitter.com/Mrt1connect Mrt1connect

        Here here man. Amen.

  • Anonymous

    It’s either HSPA+ Category 14 (21.6/5.76) or they are intentionally rate limiting.

    I’d say the former.

  • Justin Wion

    I work for at&t in Houston and the network is Live!!! people i dont know why all these sites say its not. I sold a at&t elevate modem to a couple this past weekend and I ran a speed test and i got 24mbps down and 6.14 up i was shocked so i took a picture of it my boss has been testing it and getting around 15mbps on a normal basis.

  • Tester

    I know I am a little late to comment on this post, but there is a simple answer as to why the download/upload speeds in Chicago are roughly half of the download/upload speeds in Atlanta and answer is not good news for Chicagoans.  The simple answer is spectrum.  Specifically, wireless spectrum at the 700MHz.  Chicago is running a 5+5 network: 5 MHz for the download, 5 MHz for the upload.  In Atlanta, they are running a 10+10 network: 10 MHz for the download, 10 MHz for the upload.  AT&T is setting up to run LTE on their AWS spectrum also.  Chicago is in the exact same situation there, running a 5+5 network on their AWS spectrum.  Until LTE rel10 is released to where you can combine separate bands of spectrum to increase your data speeds, I’m afraid that AT&T LTE in Chicago is going to be slower than Verizon (which IS running a 10+10 network).  If I had to choose one service in Chicago for my LTE needs, I would have to pick Verizon based on this fact alone.  A bigger pipe will always be able to move more data than a smaller pipe.  FYI…Miami, FL is in this exact same scenario.

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