Faster speeds with verizon + att or verizon + verizon or att + att cellular connections?

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I ran into something the other day in the context of a different experiment, where the aggregation of lines definitely was better than a single line.

Background:

  • Dual modems, one with Verizon (regular), one with Visible.com (a Verizon MVNO)
  • Single band LTE, band 13, for both lines.
  • Encrypted SpeedFusion to a Balance 380 hub (on a 1 Gbps connection)

Observations:

  • The download speed was quite awful - slower than the regular single line by a lot. A lot slower than simply running a speedtest with an even balance outbound policy.
  • The upload speed was faster than a single line.
  • The Visible.com line suffered a 150ms additional latency compared to the Verizon line. (e.g. 50ms vs. 200ms)

Test:

  • Swap out the Visible.com line for a second Verizon line

Observation:

  • Yowza! The two Verizon lines together outperformed the single line by a lot. (Variably so, 50+% seemed a common reading, sometimes a lot better.)

Conjecture:
Might SpeedFusion be so sensitive to latency differences that the 150ms extra for one line over the other caused the slowdown?

I have dismantled the test set-up, so this is it for now.

Cheers,

Z

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