Wireless Internet (4G + 3G) vs wired. Who will win?

Wired Internet in the near future will be irrelevant if we are talking about a minimum speed of 10-20 megabits.

Already this year, some Muscovites can fully transfer to 4G wireless Internet.
Among them:
- legal entities that pay thousands of rubles for wired internet
and
- Physics, which:
a) the quality of the wired internet does not suit
b) they want to pay for one mobile Internet, which will work almost throughout Moscow, Moscow region (4G) and even across Russia (3G)

I propose to compare prices, as well as to understand all the pros and cons of wired and wireless Internet, in order to decide how to use the Internet in the near future.
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The information provided below (tariffs, speeds and other conditions) is current as of May 14, 2012

The prices of Moscow wire providers with full anlimit:

Beeline Internet (Corbina.ru) (15mbit 450 rub; 30mbit 650 rub)
Akado.ru (20mbit 550 rub)
MTS Internet (formerly Stream.ru) (20mbit 600 rubles)
MGTS mgts.ru/home/internet/tariffs (20mbit 530 rubles)
OnLime.ru (20mbit 500 rub)
2Kom.ru (20mbit 490 rubles)
NetByNet.ru (20mbit 450 rub)

Prices of wireless providers with full unlimited:

Wifi

BeeLine (500 rub)
coverage area is still very weak: internet.beeline.ru/wifi/mapup.wbp
I do not think that such a network should be further developed when there is 4G / LTE. wifi
+ The Internet works in most cases slowly (in most cases lower than 15 megabits).

3G

While 3G does not make sense to consider, since, at the moment, the maximum speed is achieved in ideal conditions up to 28 megabits (this is in theory, and in practice, no more than 14 megabits), the average speed is 3 megabits .

Wimax

Comstar (up to 10 megabit 690 rubles)
good coverage, but so far only within the Moscow Ring Road and with large restrictions.
In fact, anlim conditional, as when pumping more:
10 GB in the accounting period - a limit of 1 megabit.
20 GB in the accounting period - a limit of 128 kbps

Torrents do not shake :)

The maximum speed is limited to 10 megabits . still not enough, and even with traffic restrictions. It is possible and does not make sense to consider this rolling technology.

Yota (already irrelevant!)
May 10, 2012 completely switched from Wimax technology to 4G.

4G + 3G

Yota (4G 20mbit 1400 rubles)
it is not yet known whether Yota will have a 3G network leased from a megaphone
but above 20 megabits do not give. speed cut at the modem level.

MegaFon (3G up to 21mbit only 8gb, 4G anlim up to 90mbit 1500 rubles)
Actual at the moment:
When you buy a modem for 3000 rubles, we get a two-month Internet (until June 15) for free. the price is about 1500 rubles, which allows you to use anlim not only 4g, but also 3g.

Today (May 14) at a press conference the megaphone announced its official tariffs:

"Maximum Tariff (all Russia)
4G without speed limits, without volume limits
3G 1mbit, 8GB
and all this for 1500 rubles / month. "

As I expected, 1500 rubles is a good price for 4G anlim without any restrictions on speed and traffic. I hope that by the end of the year the price tag will drop to at least 1000 rubles.

The average speed of 4g in Moscow, judging by tester reviews, is 10 megabits.
40-50 megabits is my average speed. and the maximum speed reached as much as 88.48 megabits .

Let's test the speed of Yota and Megaphone together through SpeedTest Wave

screenshots of my speed:



Through the torrents, 11 gigs swung in 28 minutes at an average speed of 6-8 megabytes per second! Fantasy!

screen torrent torrent:


Perhaps this is due to the fact that the megaphone has not officially launched yet and the base station is not currently loaded. let's see what will happen in a month.

in Moscow, 3G produces about 2-7 mbit. At the dacha (Leningradka 50 km) 3G flies stably 7-12 megabits! really tested on holidays and again via a megaphone modem. maybe some kind of priority is given to this modem. It will be necessary to compare with the mobile phone.

Megafon's usb-modem supports connecting an external antenna, so for those who have a low speed, it makes sense to buy an antenna with a signal of 7-30 dB and tune it to the nearest base station. On the other hand, by the end of the year, the megaphone promises to cover the whole of Moscow with a high-quality signal, so you can wait.

4G / 3G coverage: moscow.megafon.ru/help/coverage

The advantage of a megaphone over Yota:

1. 3G / 2G with large coverage throughout Russia
2. there is a seamless transition between 4G, 3G and 2G networks. Yota is not yet 2G / 3G
3. give full anlimit at virtually the same prices as yota
4. the megaphone will have more 4G base stations than the Yota.
   license already obtained: www.rsoc.ru/communication/register/license/?id=95692

MTS (there is no 4g in Moscow yet)
official launch of 4g (via the Scartel network) is expected in June 2012
Also, in February 2012, MTS acquired its own license for LTE (4G) frequencies , which allows you to develop your own base stations in Moscow and the Moscow Region.
Moreover, MTS has already deployed its 4G network in Uzbekistan in 2009, but did not get to Moscow due to organizational issues.

Beeline (4g is not in Moscow yet)
there is no 4g in Moscow yet and there is no information anywhere about launch dates
There is a preliminary agreement with Scartel, but it seems that they didn’t even begin negotiations on the use.
Beeline has already launched a 4g network in Kazakhstan back in 2010, but in Moscow it’s still not in a hurry to create a network through scartel. Perhaps they do not want to hurry with Scartel and wait for the remaining eigenfrequencies, which by the end of May will be allocated by competition .

The most interesting thing is that MegaFon shareholders now own Scartel (Yota brand).
MTS (Wired Stream) and Beeline (Wired Corbina) may not have wanted to buy options to purchase shares of Scartel and the whole company went to the owner of MegaFon .

There is no talk of merging Scartel with MegaFon, says Streshinsky: it would be wrong, it would be much better if Scartel remained independent and cooperated with different operators.

Of course, the speech does not go :) otherwise you may encounter with the Federal Antimonopoly Service.
Putin was assured that there would be no 4G monopolist and competition would continue between operators:

An interesting point:

Most of the purchased base stations for 3G networks already support LTE, and to transfer them to a new mode of operation, it will only be necessary to update the software without rebuilding the network again (which is significantly cheaper). ( Source )

Therefore, MTS and Beeline will be able to easily deploy their own networks in Moscow, which will be no worse than Iota. But it all comes down to deadlines. In my opinion, it is easier to start cooperating with Scartel and add your own BS ​​already, as did Megaphone at the moment.

Tests of the wire and wireless Internet:

Tested Acad and Megaphone 4G

speed check through services:

1. Speedtest (RuTube server)

megaphone 4g (D: 22.63 Mb / s, U: 21.07 Mb / s)
Acado (D: 39.75 Mb / s, U: 1.92 Mb / s)

2. 2IP

megaphone 4g (D: 4.61 Mb / s, U: 5.10 Mb / s)
Acado (D: 34.69 Mb / s, U: 1.84 Mb / s)

3. Host-tracker Speed ​​Test

megaphone 4g (D: 15.11 Mb / s, U: 4.75 Mb / s)
Acado (D: 12.48 Mb / s, U: 6.12 Mb / s)

pumping youtube video: (1080p HD full screen, file 100Mb)
I measured it with a stopwatch.
megaphone 4g (time: 02:02)
Akado (time: 02:05)

pumping torrent file:
megaphone 4g (file 599.9 Mb) (time: 02:12) (peak speed: 6 megabytes per second)
Acado (file 597.1 Mb) (time: 02:17) (peak speed: 5.1 megabytes per second)

Pros and cons of wired internet:

+ low price
+ the possibility of obtaining external IP
+ Digital TV is loaded (a pleasant bonus for which you need to pay extra)
- works only in a limited space (for example, within the office, apartment, house)

Pros and cons of wireless Internet (4G + 3G):

+ works almost all over the territory of Moscow and the Moscow region (where 4g does not catch, 3g works)
- high price in relation to the wired Internet (although you can afford 1500 rubles for the mobile Internet with full anlim)
- speed limits (for now only Yota, I hope the speed of the megaphone will not be cut)
- there is no digital TV (although in the near future it will be possible to watch HD TV via the Internet, as 4G operators will be able to transfer content using LTE frequencies)
- you cannot distribute the Internet to other devices (this is a temporary minus of a megaphone), but by the end of the year they promise to start selling a 4g wifi router .

And they say that the Yota wifi router can go up to the sim card of the megaphone.

“About the Yota router and MegaFon SIM: they say they should try. There is a seal and can be locked. But theoretically it should work. "( Source )

If someone has earned, write in the comments.

Conclusion:

If Megafon together with Yota will develop 4G, so that the average speed in Moscow and other connected cities will be at least 20 megabits, and also make an adequate price tag for full anlim (at least 1000 rubles), then you’ll get a real bomb! Then the connection to the wire providers will become irrelevant.

ps Ask any questions on the topic, I will try to answer. I studied this direction for two weeks and I am extremely happy about the appearance of 4g!