4g "extended coverage" in Spring, TX

ShabaDabaDoo

So I've had my new Droid Charge for a little ove a week. Up until today, I've been nothing short of blown away by the LTE service. Just ask my friends... They're all tired of my bragging. My home address is in the so-called "extended coverage" area, though I had not had a single issue getting 4g from my house... Until tonight...

Edit: silly me, forgot rule number one of network device troubleshooting, reboot it to see if the problem persists. Rebooted the Droid and now it's back to normal. Mid to high teens in Mbps. Hope this helps someone else if they come across my post.

I know all about the asterisks that come with the extended area. What I'd like to know is just how variable service is expected to be in this area. Because this is the first time I've failed to get less than 8 Mbps(most often well over 10) from my house. Now the speeds, when testing from a server in Houston, are in the 1 Mbps range, on 3G. Only getting 1-2 bars as well.

I would still like to know these though:
Shouldn't signal and service be consistent?
What environmental factors could cause signal to be so much weaker, and service so much slower?

Also, even for 3G these are pretty poor speeds. I got 3G speeds of 5-6mbps on a regular basis with T-mobile(vibrant 3G, and htc hd2).

Thoughts anyone? I'd really like to know what my expectations should be.

Ann154

1-2Mbps is fairly normal for Verizon 3G. At 1-2 bars of signal that is really good. Usually at that signal strength you could be lucky to even break the 1 Mbps download speed and normal range of 300-800 kbps.