5 min read

First Train Trip to Reading Terminal Market (11/29/21)

I made my first train trip for this site today.  I took the SEPTA Trenton line from the Levittown-Tullytown Station to Jefferson Station.  Some parts of the trip went underground and there were some occasional glitches with my tracking phone (drops in reporting in some areas) due to loss of GPS signal I believe.

Nonetheless, there is still a great deal of information that was gathered during this trip.

Executive Summary

Approximately 4000 Datapoints Across all Three Carriers Collected

Good Aspects:

Best Average Download Speed: T-Mobile (202 Mbps)
Best Average Ping Time: AT&T (49 ms)
Most Node/Cell Density: T-Mobile
Highest Single Download: T-Mobile (650 Mbps)
Least Bad Quality/Level Points: T-Mobile (7)

Bad Aspects:

Most Bad Quality/Level Points: AT&T (30)
Highest Ping Deviation: T-Mobile (177 ms)
Lowest Single Download: T-Mobile (104 bytes/second)
Highest Average Ping Time: T-Mobile (97 ms)


Description of Travel

45-minute ride from Tullytown-Levittown station South to Jefferson Station.

Map of Areas Travelled

Disregard some of the gaps. I believe this was due to loss of GPS signal and slow refresh-time of app

Verizon

RSRP

RSRQ

Download Speeds (Average of 111.7 Mbps Including NPERF)

Bands

Bandwidth

Up to 65Mhz of Bandwidth at Jefferson Station (Over 500Mbps)

Bad Signal Level/Quality (23 Plots)

Other Metrics

Average RSRQ: -12.587
Average RSRP: -101.048
Unique Nodes: 48
Unique Cells: 114
Average Ping Time : Around 53 ms
Average Download Rate: 111.732 Mbps
CA Used: Approximately 28.4 % of Time (Mostly when downloading in underground tunnel)
Number of Points Where RSRQ <= 17 AND RSRP <= -116 (5th percentile): 24
PingAvg Under 35 ms (5th percentile): 2
PingAvg Above 676 ms (95th percentile): 0
Ping STDEV : 51 ms
Number of Times Download was below 1315 Kbps (5th percentile): 0
Number of Times Download was greater than 495 Mbps (95th percentile): 1

Verizon Synopsis

Verizon performed very well in the underground tunnel area of Jefferson Station.  With 65 Mhz of aggregated LTE (almost 600 Mbps down).  This high download pushed Verizon's average download speed to a respectable  111 Mbps (second to T-Mobile).  Verizon is usually in last place in regards to the speed but today, they were second.  AT&T beat-out Verizon by only a few milliseconds with average ping but Verizon was still very good.

AT&T

RSRP

RSRQ

Bands

Bandwidth

Bad Signal Level/Quality (30 Points)

Other Metrics

Average RSRQ: -11.081
Average RSRP: -99.192
Unique Nodes: 39
Unique Cells: 88
Average Ping Time : Around 49 ms
Average Download Rate: 62.9 Mbps
CA Used: 0 % (None)
Number of Points Where RSRQ <= 17 AND RSRP <= -116 (5th percentile): 30
PingAvg Under 35 ms (5th percentile): 0
PingAvg Above 676 ms (95th percentile): 0
Ping STDEV : 51 ms
Number of Times Download was below 1315 Kbps (5th percentile): 0
Number of Times Download was greater than 495 Mbps (95th percentile): 0

AT&T Synopsis


AT&T showed the most problematic spots today in regards to RAN (30 bad spots) but overall, they had the best ping times.  

T-Mobile

RSRP

RSRQ

Bands

All LTE today for some reason (No 5G At All). There was also some band L41/L25 that is not shown here

Bandwidth

Various CA Configurations (Up to 50 Mhz Total)

Bad Signal Level/Quality (7 Plots)

Other Metrics

Average RSRQ: -11.459
Average RSRP: -97.982
Unique Nodes: 86
Unique Cells: 133
Average Ping Time :  97 ms
Average Download Rate: 201.917 Mbps
CA Used: Approximately 99.4 % of time
Number of Points Where RSRQ <= 17 AND RSRP <= -116 (5th percentile): 7
PingAvg Under 35 ms (5th percentile): 4
PingAvg Above 676 ms (95th percentile): 0
Ping STDEV : 177.83 ms
Number of Times Download was below 1315 Kbps (5th percentile): 1
Number of Times Download was greater than 495 Mbps (95th percentile): 4

T-Mobile Synopsis


T-Mobile has the best RAN out of the three carriers from the data collected today but there are still issues with receiving a consistently low ping and high download speed (lots of deviation across test runs).  Their numbers are all over the place.  They have some of the best download/ping numbers but also the worst.

This is a lot of the same information I've seen with my previous tests. There are times when they seem better but we always come back to a lot of inconstancies.  

I have mixed feelings about T-Mobile.  Sometimes I am very excited because they were the first to have a nationwide 5G network (including standalone) and they have the most bandwidth to play with but the implementation still needs a lot of work.

Keith Calligan