TeliaSonera LTE network “significantly better than 3G” early testing reveals

Early testing on TeliaSonera’s LTE network in Finland saw maximum download speeds hitting 48Mbps with an average of 36.1Mbps. This compared with average 3G speeds of 4.1Mbps. Meanwhile LTE network latency averaged 23ms, some five times faster than the average 3G latency of 117ms.

The figures were revealed in a new report by British network intelligence firm Epitiro. The company performed the tests over a five day period with over 20,000 data points collected. A ‘consumer experience’ test probe was used to ensure real world results and the tests included basic web browsing, file downloading, VoIP calls, video streaming and gaming.

For voice testing, VoIP calls were made to a UK VoIP network. According to ITU-T PESQ MOS analysis, line quality was judged to be “excellent”, with less than 0.3 per cent of calls being considered as having inferior quality. There were no dropped calls.

While Epitiro said that it had a 95 per cent confidence level in the accuracy of its results it admitted that as the current subscriber base for TeliSonera’s LTE network is quite low it is still too early to judge the effect that contention will have on real world performance. Equally, as the network is only available in a relatively small radius the results are only indicative of stationary performance and it is not know how it will stand up in-motion, such as on trains and cars.

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TeliSonera’s LTE network has been online in Finland since November 2010 and is available in Turku and Helsinki. It operates on the 2.6GHz frequency and speeds of between 20Mbps and 80Mbps had been predicted. Estimates for the end of 1Q11 from Informa’s WCIS put the firm’s LTE subscriber base at just 2,000 users, compared to a total user base of 3.3 million.