How do I check my phone's speed?

[sirin]

How do I know if I have LTE advanced?   The display just shows 4G.Other posts indicate that their phones  Dispay "LTE". I'm in a city with coverage and I have a Galaxy S7.  How do I check my phone's speed?  Thanks

[Acrillix]

There is no indicator that LTE Advanced is being used. There are a few different indicators that you will see.

1x: This is the basic voice signifier. No data is available, only voice and basic SMS messages can be used.

3G: The first generation of data. Slower, and less reliable.

4G: The second generation of data. Faster, more reliable etc.

LTE: The third generation released alongside 4G. Allows more devices to connect to the network.

Then theres LTE Advanced. It's available on all new devices and will take effect if in a LTE Advanced City.

[smith6612 · Accepted solution]

Your speed can be checked by using https://www.dslreports.com/speedtest or the http://www.speedtest.net/ app. Just be aware that these speed tests are designed to use data and measure speed - they can and will eat up a good portion of a data plan if you run them too much. Verizon does not whitelist these tests against the data caps.

On the Verizon Samsung devices, Verizon/Samsung has locked out the engineering mode which would allow you to view whether or not LTE-A is in use. LTE-A would include 4T4R/4T2R (MIMO)  or it would include carrier aggregation. No clue if Verizon is planning to use QAM256 anytime soon, as right now the only carrier I know of using it is T-Mobile, and a Qualcomm X12 or better modem is needed to make use of QAM256

But if you are curious about what LTE bands you are on, LTE Discovery from the Play Store can help. LTE Band 13 is Verizon's legacy LTE Band. LTE Band 4 is what Verizon calls "XLTE" and offers more capacity. Band 2 will appear in areas where old 3G Wireless frequencies have been "re-farmed" to LTE, for even more capacity. Each of these bands is a carrier, and Carrier Aggregation bonds these together to increase speeds. QAM256 as I mentioned above is a modulation rate, and increases the speed of the LTE network. 4T4R/4T2R is the antenna configuration, and how many antennas are being used to communicate. Generally, more antennas improves reliability and speed. Newer phones use Carrier Aggregation, 4 Antennas, and QAM256 for hitting over 300Mbps on LTE (in theory).