Cricket is faster than MetroPCS, and MetroPCS is faster than Cricket

Cricket wireless market, I have not seen the commercial referenced in this Philadelphia Inquirer article. Apparently Cricket tested two phones that both they and MetroPCS sell, the LG Optimus (M and C) and the Huawei Ascend. Unsurprisingly, Cricket came out way ahead when tested in the Philadelphia market. There’s really no dirty trick involved here. Cricket runs on EVDO, while Cricket runs on 1X. For the non-technical, it means that Cricket’s network is necessarily faster than MetroPCS’s. There is one addendum, though: this only applies to comparable phones. MetroPCS does have that whole LTE network thing. We know that MetroPCS already has a number of LTE networks live, and it has the Samsung Indulge, an Android-powered LTE handset. In markets where MetroPCS has LTE live, the Indulge blows away anything Cricket has to offer. Of course, Cricket has no reason to mention that in their marketing material, as they’re simply comparing the two networks on the same phones. But while Cricket’s Optimus might be 10 times faster than Metro’s version, Metro’s Indulge is probably 10 times faster than Cricket’s Ascend. Cricket will eventually answer Metro with an LTE network of its own, which will give them new ground on which to do battle. But for now, it’s pretty clear cut. EVDO is faster than 1X, and LTE is faster than them all. All other marketing material is just noise. ]]>