Facebook in talks to hire Obama ex-aide Gibbs


White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs answers questions during the press briefing at the White House in Washington, September 30, 2010. REUTERS/Jim Young

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facebook, the social networking giant, is seeking to hire former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs for a senior post, The New York Times reported.
The newspaper reported on its website late on Sunday that Facebook is looking at Gibbs, once one of President Barack Obama's closest aides, to help manage communications in advance of an initial public offering planned for early next year. The Times cited people briefed on the talks.
The sources told the Times the talks were at an early stage and there was no formal offer yet.
The Times quoted the sources as saying that Gibbs, who left his White House job last month after a two-year stint, had planned to help establish Obama's 2012 re-election campaign before moving to the private sector.
But Facebook wants Gibbs to consider the matter more quickly, said the sources, who requested anonymity.
The Times said both Facebook and Gibbs declined comment.

Praise the lord? Religion linked to obesity in young adults

It might be the potlucks, it might be those long hours sitting in pews, but whatever the cause, a new study presented this week shows a link between religious activity and weight gain. The study, conducted by researchers at Northwestern University, found that young adults who frequently attended religious activities were far more likely to become obese than those who didn’t.
“Our main finding was that people with a high frequency of religious participation in young adulthood were 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age than those with no religious participation in young adulthood,” says Matthew Feinstein, the study’s lead investigator and a fourth-year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
“And that is true even after we adjusted for variables like age, race, gender, education, income, and baseline body mass index," he added.
The study, presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association, followed 2,433 men and women starting between the ages of 20 and 32 for 18 years. Study subjects were all of normal weight at the beginning of the study. By the end, however, those who had attended a religious function at least once a week were more likely to be obese, posting a body mass index of 30 or higher. Previous research by Northwestern Medicine has found a correlation between religious involvement and obesity in middle age and older adults.
Are church attendees praising the lard along with the Lord?
“We didn’t look specifically at the potluck factor, but anecdotally, we know that oftentimes at these religious gatherings people will eat traditional comfort foods which are often high in fat and calories and salt,” says Feinstein. “But, again, that’s not something we looked at in this particular study.”

Three kinds of potato casserole Jessica Ward, a 30-year-old notary public who regularly attends the Kent Lutheran Church, in Kent, Wash., says potlucks can definitely be filled with delicious temptation.
“You don’t see a lot of fresh stuff at most church potlucks,” she says. “You’ll see spaghetti and Swedish meatballs and three or four varieties of potato casserole or green bean casserole or Jell-O salads. Plus heaps and piles of desserts — lots of pies and cakes and cookies.”
Not all churches worship at the altar of sugar and salt, though.
Byron Krystad, director of operations at the University Unitarian Church in nearby Seattle, says sweets aren't often on the menu.
“People here are very much on the bandwagon with regard to organic foods and removing sugars and fats from their diet,” he says. “We get all sorts of feedback about what kind of snacks to have on Sunday morning during coffee hour. If somebody dares to bring out a cake, there’s an uproar about it.”
Feinstein says while obesity appears to be an issue for religious people, previous studies have shown that the faithful tend to live longer, be less likely to smoke, and to have better mental health status.
“The message is really an optimistic one,” he says. “Churches already have infrastructures in place, groups of people gathering regularly and providing social support. That’s hugely beneficial in implementing health intervention or implementing programs geared toward diet and physical activity."  

Libya raids hit Gaddafi hometown


Libyan rebels walk past a burning multi-rocket launcher at sunset outside the oil rich town of Ras Lanuf, 27 March 2011 Aided by air-strikes, rebels have been making swift progress westwards on the coastal road
Coalition air raids have hit Muammar Gaddafi's birthplace of Sirte, a key target for westward-advancing rebels.
A Libyan government spokesman said three Libyan civilians had been killed in the city's port.
Unconfirmed rumours that rebels had taken Sirte sparked celebratory gunfire overnight in their stronghold Benghazi.
They came as Nato took full command of the whole military operation in Libya, intended to enforce a UN resolution to protect civilians.
Foreign correspondents in Sirte said they heard several loud explosions in the city as aircraft flew overhead.
A rebel spokesman in Benghazi said Sirte was now in the hands of rebel forces - but there has been no independent confirmation of the claim, and international journalists inside the city suggested it was still in government hands on Monday morning.
Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said three young Libyan men had been killed in an air strike on a nearby fishing harbour, but that there was "nothing military or quasi-military" there.
The rebels believe the fall of Sirte followed a now-familiar pattern: powerful allied air attacks followed by a rapid rebel advance.
If Col Muammar Gaddafi has lost his birthplace, that would be an enormous blow to his attempts to cling to power.
Very little sign has been seen of pro-Gaddafi forces apart from burned-out trucks alongside the coastal road. Most people believe that if they were going to turn and fight they would have done it in Sirte and that they didn't is hugely significant.
The rebels are starting to believe that Gaddafi's forces have been demoralised or destroyed to the extent that they can no longer offer significant resistance.
Advance on Tripoli
Heavy explosions were also heard in the capital, Tripoli, late on Sunday. Libyan officials say more than a week of strikes have killed nearly 100 civilians but this cannot be independently confirmed.
The air strikes, intended to prevent Col Gaddafi's forces from attacking civilian targets among the uprising against his rule, have allowed rebel forces to push westwards at a rapid speed along the coastal highway from their eastern stronghold of Benghazi.
In the last two days a number of coastal communities and important oil installations, including Ras Lanuf, Brega, Uqayla and Bin Jawad, have fallen to the rebels since they took control of Ajdabiya.
Sirte lies about halfway along the coast between Tripoli and and Benghazi.
Journalists in the city on Sunday said it was swarming with soldiers.
"We want to go to Sirte today," rebel fighter Marjai Agouri told Reuters news agency.
"I don't know if it will happen," he said outside Bin Jawad with about 100 other rebels armed with rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns.
'Terrorist gangs' On Sunday, Nato's Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said the bloc was taking charge of the whole military operation in Libya "with immediate effect".

In facts: Sirte

  • Birthplace of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi
  • Port city 450km (280 miles) east of Libya's capital Tripoli
  • Halfway along Libya's northern coast between Tripoli and rebel stronghold of Benghazi
  • Home to some ministerial offices as Col Gaddafi tried to transfer more authority
  • Population of around 140,000
Mr Rasmussen said Nato's goal was to "protect civilians and civilian-populated areas under threat of attack from the Gaddafi regime".
"Nato will implement all aspects of the UN Resolution. Nothing more, nothing less," he added.
"We are already enforcing the arms embargo and the no-fly zone, and with today's decision we are going beyond.
"We will be acting in close co-ordination with our international and regional partners to protect the people of Libya."
The BBC's Chris Morris in Brussels says the mission to protect civilians was more sensitive because it involved debate about what exactly were legitimate military targets on the ground.
There were disagreements notably between France and Turkey about political control of the mission, but they have now been resolved, our correspondent says.
The BBC's Matthew Price says there have been disputes within Nato about the role it should take in Libya
But the precise rules of engagement have not been revealed, he adds.
Alongside the Nato command structure will be a separate, high-level committee of representatives of all countries taking part in the military action, including Arab states. It will give what one official called "broad political guidance."
Meanwhile, the battle for Misrata, the last significant rebel-held city in western Libya, has continued.
On Sunday evening, a resident told the BBC that eight people had been killed and 26 wounded - five of them critically - as Col Gaddafi's forces advanced on the al-Jazeera residential area in the west of the city.
Libyan state TV earlier said Misrata was "secure" and life was "going back to normal". Security forces had arrested "terrorist gangs", it said.
Meanwhile, four people have been arrested after a woman claimed she was raped and tortured by Gaddafi supporters, Libyan officials said.
Iman al Obeidi said she was raped and tortured by men connected to the regime who detained her for two days.
She was bustled away by government minders while trying to talk to foreign journalists at Tripoli's Rixos Hotel in Tripoli on Saturday.

CELEBRITY GOSSIP

*' Pink
*' Rihanna

Twitter celebrates five years since first tweet

Twitter: funny, inspiring, up-to-the-second informative, witty, warm - but vile and cowardly as well. It's all what you make of it, says James Delingpole.
Today marks five years since Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder sent the first tweet – which said: “inviting coworkers”.
Twitter users have been wishing the service happy birthday using a special hashtag: #happybirthdaytwitter. One user, @FaktanyaAdalah, wrote: "Thanks for being there when we need u. Indonesia love you! :)."
Last week the company announced its fifth anniversary since the first code for the site was written and released a series of statistics to reflect the site’s popularity and global usage.
On average 140 million tweets are sent a day, which is up nearly 100 million on the amount posted on a daily basis a year ago.
More than 460,000 new accounts have been added every day over the last month and the number of mobile Twitter users has increased by 182 per cent over the last year. However, the company has not revealed how many people actually use the service via their phones.
The site has over 200 million registered accounts but Twitter has also not revealed how many of those are active.
The story of the ‘real first tweet’ by Dorsey can be read here.

Jens Lehmann set to start after Arsenal lose ground at West Bromwich

Arsenal goalkeepers Jens Lehmann and Manuel Almunia
 
Arsenal goalkeepers Jens Lehmann and Manuel Almunia, right, warm up before the match against West Brom. Photograph: Ian Kington/AFP/Getty Images
Arsène Wenger chose to play down his disappointment after Manchester United had moved five points clear at the top of the table but the Arsenal manager's magnificent obsession with the aesthetic aspects of football has left him with a blind spot when it comes to the basics of defending, and the lack of a reliable goalkeeper and effective centre-halves will almost certainly leave an otherwise admirable team empty-handed for the sixth season in succession.
Wojciech Szczesny's blunder in goal condemned them to defeat by Birmingham in the Carling Cup final and now Manuel Almunia's senseless charge out of his penalty area at The Hawthorns cost two points which could prove decisive as the title race enters its final furlong. Wenger would neither confirm or deny it but Jens Lehmann, persuaded out of retirement at 41, is in line for early promotion from the bench when the Premier League resumes after the international break.
It should never have come to this. For years now pundits and punters alike have been saying Arsenal need a top keeper and rock solid central defenders in the Adams-Bould-Keown tradition but Wenger, perversely, will not have it and continues to make do with inadequates, his persistence smacking of obstinacy.
Almunia, Laurent Koscielny and Sebastien Squillaci effectively handed Albion a 2-0 lead, necessitating a frantic fightback against modest opponents still threatened with relegation. Roy Hodgson's canny management has kept his new team unbeaten for five matches but he could hardly claim credit for either of their goals here.
The first, after only three minutes, saw Koscielny and Squillaci carelessly concede possession and a corner, then go missing in the goalmouth as Steven Reid scored with a powerful header. As comparatively new foreign imports, neither centre-half seems attuned to the intensity of the English game and Wenger should have recruited an alternative with suitable experience during the January transfer window. West Bromwich's second goal was a horror show, Almunia vacating his area to meet a hopeful punt from Youssouf Mulumbu and getting in an embarrassing tangle with Squillaci which left Peter Odemwingie to roll the ball into the unguarded net.
In extremis Wenger sent on Marouane Chamakh, then Nicklas Bendtner, and the switch to 4-4-2 had the desired effect, restoring equality through Andrey Arshavin's excellent finish and a close‑range nudge from Robin van Persie. It was, however, very much a case of two points dropped and yet another setback for Arsenal after their Carling Cup defeat and elimination from the FA Cup and Champions League. Wenger thought those demoralising results preyed on his players' minds.
"We had four targets and suddenly we have only one‚" he said. "You cannot go out of the Champions League like we did and be left with no doubts. After that we were a bit nervous at the start of this game." Of his team's elementary defensive errors he said: "We will be dealing with that. Our marking was not good for the first goal. I think we were a bit tentative at the start." Would he play Lehmann against Blackburn on 2 April? "I'm not going to get into that now. We have two weeks to decide. He has not been involved for a long time but he has kept fit. He needs to sharpen his decision making, and a bit more practice."
Hodgson, justifiably, was pleased with Albion's progress. They were good value for their point, consolidating the ground gained with that 3-1 win at Birmingham City, but their programme gets no easier. Their next four games are at home to Liverpool and Chelsea and away to Sunderland and Tottenham Hotspur.
Hodgson said: "The good thing about the league is that the teams at the top have got so much to play for that they aren't going to give anything away. If Arsenal had been sixth or seventh in the table, with nothing to play for, maybe they'd have been a bit less aggressive to get back in the game but they are playing for the title. Hopefully it will be the same for the other teams in our position when they meet the teams at the top."

Diet: Eating Fish Found to Ward Off Eye Disease

A new study reports yet another good reason to eat fish: women whose diet was rich in omega-3 fatty acids found in fish were at significantly lower risk of developing age-related macular degeneration.
The Harvard Women’s Health Study, which followed 39,876 women in midlife, had participants fill out detailed food-frequency questionnaires at the start of the study in 1993. After an average 10 years of follow-up, 235 of the women had developed macular degeneration, a progressive eye disease that is the leading cause of irreversible vision loss in the elderly.
But the analysis, in Archives of Ophthalmology, found that women who had reported eating one or more servings of fish per week were 42 percent less likely to develop age-related macular degeneration than those who ate less than a serving each month. (Researchers adjusted the data to control for other factors linked to the disease, including smoking.) Eating canned tuna and dark-meat fish like mackerel, salmon, sardines, bluefish and swordfish appeared to have the most benefit.
“We know that inflammatory processes are involved in A.M.D., and the omega-3 long-chain fatty acids do have an anti-inflammatory effect,” said the lead author, Dr. William G. Christen, an associate professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Libya: UN backs action against Colonel Gaddafi

The BBC's Ian Pannell in Benghazi: "Very jubilant scenes within seconds of that UN resolution"
The UN Security Council has backed a no-fly zone over Libya and "all necessary measures" to protect civilians short of an occupation.
It was not immediately clear what form intervention would take and when it would begin, though France signalled that action could start soon.
The resolution appears to give legal weight to attacks against Col Muammar Gaddafi's ground forces.
Col Gaddafi's forces have recently retaken several towns seized by rebels.
Rebel forces reacted with joy to the UN resolution in their Benghazi stronghold, but a government spokesman condemned UN "aggression".
Loyalist forces are bearing down on Benghazi, home to a million people.
'Threatens unity' Following the UN vote, US President Barack Obama called the French and British leaders to discuss the next move. They said Libya had to comply immediately with the resolution.

Analysis

Contingency planning in the UK, France and Nato has been going on for weeks, but will now be accelerated.
The UN resolution is so broad it allows military action against all threats to civilians - so could even involve bombing Col Gaddafi's forces on the ground if deemed necessary.
Britain could contribute Tornado GR4 ground attack aircraft as well as reconnaissance and early-warning aircraft and tankers for air-to-air refuelling.
The resolution means they could also attack Libyan helicopter gunships as well as Libya's fixed-wing aircraft, most of which are Soviet-era fighters as well as some more modern French Mirage F1s.
However, many of the crucial final details still need to be worked out between the nations contributing to the mission to ensure that all the necessary means are in place.
"Given the critical situation on the ground, I expect immediate action on the resolution's provisions," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"Strikes will take place rapidly," French government spokesman Francois Baroin said on Friday morning. But he added: "You will understand that there's no question of talking as early as this morning about when, how, which targets or in which form."
It is not thought that the US would be involved in the first strikes. The British and French, along with some Arab allies, are expected to play a leading role. Norway has said it will also participate.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says signals from Paris suggest that air operations could be imminent, but this may be an attempt to keep Col Gaddafi guessing.
US officials said an attempt to ground Col Gaddafi's air force could begin on Sunday or Monday.
The UK, France and Lebanon proposed Security Council Resolution 1973, with US support.
In New York, the 15-member Security Council voted 10-0 in favour, with five abstentions.
Russia and China - which often oppose the use of force against a sovereign country as they believe it sets a dangerous precedent - abstained rather than using their power of veto as permanent members.
'Killing must stop' French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, introducing the resolution, said: "In Libya, for a number of weeks the people's will has been shot down... by Colonel Gaddafi who is attacking his own people.
"We cannot let these warmongers do this, we cannot abandon civilians."

Start Quote

Mr Obama's reticence, deliberately or not, has helped make the UN relevant again”
End Quote
He added: "We should not arrive too late."
The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said: "This resolution should send a strong message to Colonel Gaddafi and his regime that the violence must stop, the killing must stop and the people of Libya must be protected and have the opportunity to express themselves freely."
But Germany, which abstained, will not be contributing to the military effort. Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said his government sees "considerable dangers and risks" in military action against Col Gaddafi.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Beijing had "serious reservations" about the resolution but did not veto it "in view of the concerns and stance of the Arab countries and African Union and the special circumstances that currently apply in Libya".
'No mercy' In rebel-held Benghazi, locals cheered, fired guns in the air and let off fireworks to celebrate the imminent no-fly zone.

UN resolution

  • Imposes "ban on all flights in Libyan airspace" except for aid planes
  • Authorises member states to "take all necessary measures" to "protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack"
  • Excludes occupation force
  • Toughens arms embargo by calling on all member states to "inspect in their territory vessels and aircraft bound to or from Libya"
  • Widens asset freeze to include Libyan Investment Authority, Central Bank of Libya and Libyan National Oil Company among others
But Libya's Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaaim said the vote amounted to "a call for Libyans to kill each other", AFP news agency reported.
"This resolution shows an aggressive attitude on the part of the international community, which threatens the unity of Libya and its stability," he was quoted as saying.
Shortly before the vote, Col Gaddafi told Portuguese television: "If the world is crazy, we will be crazy too."
Earlier on Thursday, addressing the people of Benghazi, Col Gaddafi said his troops were coming "tonight" and there would be "no mercy".
Shortly before the UN vote on Thursday, anti-aircraft fire and explosions were heard in Benghazi, where forces loyal to Col Gaddafi reportedly launched their first air attacks, targeting the airport at Benina.
'Amnesty offer' The Libyan military earlier warned that civilian and military activities in the Mediterranean would become "the target of a Libyan counter-attack" following any foreign operation.
In other developments:

UN Resolution 1973 - Votes

10 For - France, UK, Lebanon, US, South Africa, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Colombia, Portugal, Nigeria, Gabon
0 Against
5 Abstentions - China, Russia, Brazil, India, Germany
  • Col Gaddafi's forces were reported to be bombarding the city of Misrata. Libyan state TV had claimed the city was almost entirely under government control, but rebels and residents denied this
  • Pro-Gaddafi forces attacked the rebel-held town of Ajdabiya, a key objective before launching a ground assault on Benghazi, but rebels deployed tanks, artillery and a helicopter to repel the assault
  • Official Libyan news agency Jana reported that government forces would cease military operations from midnight on Sunday to give rebels the opportunity to hand over their weapons and "benefit from the decision on general amnesty"
Following the toppling of the long-time leaders of neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year, Libyan protesters started to demand that Col Gaddafi step down after more than 40 years of autocratic rule.

Carlos Slim tops Forbes rich list as wealth jumps 38%

Carlos SlimCarlos Slim has seen a huge increase in wealth over the past year
Mexico's Carlos Slim has topped the latest Forbes magazine rich list, as his wealth grew by more than a third.
The telecoms magnate's fortune rose by $20.5bn (£12.65bn) to $74bn, again beating Microsoft founder Bill Gates ($56bn) into second place.
More than 200 people joined the billionaires list as their numbers rose to a new record of 1,210, Forbes said.
Six billionaires connected with Facebook are now on the list, including Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker.
They are joined by Facebook investors Peter Thiel and Yuri Milner as well as co-founders Eduardo Saverin and Dustin Moskovitz, who is the youngest person on the list at 26.
Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad was the biggest loser, down $17bn to $6bn.
He fell from eleventh spot to 162 and was unusual amongst the billionaires in seeing his wealth decrease.
The collective wealth of the billionaires on the list also hit a new record of $4.5tn.
Russian rich

How rich?

A billion:
  • 1,000,000,000
  • One thousand million
A trillion:
  • 1,000,000,000,000
  • One million million
The world's largest economy, the US, continues to have the most billionaires, with 413.
Asia, for the first time in a decade, has more billionaires on the list than Europe, with 332 against 300.
China and Russia have 115 and 101 billionaires respectively, with Moscow now home to more billionaires than any other city in the world.
The city has 79 billionaires, and Russia has the most billionaires in Europe. Germany is in second place with 52.
Meanwhile, Europe acquired 50 new billionaires in 2011, taking it to 300 in total, with a collective worth of $1.3 trillion.
The UK has 32 billionaires on this year's list, three more than last year.
Despite the property slump, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor and family remain the wealthiest Britons, with a net worth of $13bn, up $1bn on a year before.

Forbes list of world's richest people

Name Wealth Main business
Source: Forbes magazine
Carlos Slim
$74bn
America Movil, telecoms
Bill Gates
$56bn
Microsoft, software
Warren Buffett
$50bn
Berkshire Hathaway, investment
Bernard Arnault
$41bn
LVMH, luxury goods
Larry Ellison
$39.5bn
Oracle, software
Lakshmi Mittal
$31.1bn
ArcelorMittal, steel
Amancio Ortega
$31bn
Zara, fashion
Eike Batista
$30bn
Mining, oil
Mukesh Ambani
$27bn
Reliance Industries, Petrochemicals to oil
Christy Walton
$26.5bn
Wal-Mart, retail

4G Wireless Speed Tests: Which Is Really the Fastest?

4G mobile broadband services and devices. But beyond all the buzzwords and hype, which companies can reliably provide next-generation speed?
We decided to find out by testing each of the four major national carriers--AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon--in 260 locations spread among 13 U.S. cities. We found some clear winners and losers, and some good news about wireless service in the United States as a whole. Here are our conclusions.
Wireless data speeds have soared: Since this time last year, the major wireless carriers, as a group, have increased their average download speeds for laptop-modem users by more than threefold, an apparent result of their urgent transition from 3G to 4G network technology. (We measured the best service we could get--3G or 4G--in each testing location.) Over laptop modems, the Big Four carriers now have a collective average download speed of roughly 3.5 megabits per second in our 13 testing cities, versus a nearly 1-mbps average download speed in those cities at the beginning of 2010, a remarkable improvement.
In our previous wireless-network performance studies, we measured the "reliability" of the data service, expressed as the percentage of tests in which we could obtain a good connection. But our test results show that network service has improved to the point where it's rare to find an unusable signal or no signal at all. So we have retired our reliability measurement--another testament to the dramatic improvements of the past year.
Verizon's 4G LTE is for real: Verizon's 4G LTE service, which is now in 38 U.S. markets, was widely available in 12 of our 13 testing cities. (We didn't go out of our way to test in areas served by Verizon's LTE network; we haven't changed our list of testing cities in the three years we've done these tests.) Our laptop-modem tests on Verizon clocked speeds that were far faster than those on competing 4G networks in the same tests (twice as fast as the second-fastest service, in fact). Verizon's network had an average download speed of roughly 6.5 mbps and an average upload speed of 5.0 mbps.
One important caveat: A relatively small number of Verizon customers currently use this new network. During our testing period, Verizon offered only two laptop-modem models that worked on the network, and none of the company's smartphones could take advantage of the new 4G speeds. The performance of Verizon's network could degrade as more people--and devices--connect to it.
And there's a downside to Verizon's 4G success. While the new 4G LTE network is lightning-fast, our smartphone-based tests suggest that the 3G CDMA network that most Verizon smartphone customers use today may actually be getting slower. The connection speeds we measured on our Verizon (3G CDMA) testing smartphone (a Motorola Droid 2) stayed the same or decreased in 10 of our testing cities since last year. And at the moment, those CDMA phones are all that's available to Verizon Wireless customers.
T-Mobile smartphones are fastest: Verizon may have the fastest network for laptops, but in our tests T-Mobile had the speediest results for smartphones. The T-Mobile HTC G2 we used for testing produced a 13-city average download speed of almost 2.3 mbps; that's about 52 percent faster than the second-fastest phone, Sprint's HTC EVO 4G, which had an average download speed of 1.5 mbps.
T-Mobile also impressed in our laptop-modem tests. Although only half as fast as Verizon's, T-Mobile's download speeds averaged almost 3 mbps in our tests--more than a threefold increase from the carrier's nearly 0.9-mbps average download speed in our January 2010 survey. With these laptop- and smartphone-based results, T-Mobile is proving to be a worthy challenger to its much-larger competitors.
AT&T continues to grow, but perhaps not fast enough: AT&T, the big winner in our January 2010 survey, has continued to ramp up throughput speeds at about the same pace, judging from this year's survey results. Its average download speeds in our laptop-modem tests grew 76 percent to a roughly 2.5 mbps average this year. But each of its competitors showed bigger jumps in download speeds over the past year, resulting in a third-place finish for AT&T in this year's speed results.
And AT&T's speed gains didn't translate well to our smartphone-based tests: The average download speeds we measured on our Apple iPhone 4 (1.4 mbps) increased only 15 percent over the speeds we measured on the same device in early 2010. However, AT&T intends to launch its own 4G LTE network later this year, a move that might tip the balance of the 4G speed race in its favor once again.
Sprint needs more 4G: In the cities where Sprint offers its 4G WiMax service, customers saw large speed increases over the past year. Sprint's average download speeds grew 170 percent to 2.1 mbps in our tests this year; the result would have been even better had the WiMax service been more consistently available throughout our test locations. But in cities such as New Orleans, Phoenix, and San Diego, where Sprint still relies on its 3G CDMA network for data service, download speeds have fallen, and remain well below the 1 mbps mark.
Next page: The test results, and our methodology
4G Speed-Test Results: Reading the Charts
In our study we tested both with representative smartphones and with a laptop employing a USB modem recommended by the carrier. The laptop-based testing, which uses the Ixia industry-standard testing software, provides more precise metrics than smartphone testing does. The laptop results are a good measure of the maximum performance possible on a network and are a satisfactory predictor of the speeds that the network will likely deliver to smartphones in a year or so.
We use Ookla, an FCC-approved Web-based speed test, to measure data rates on smartphones. Those results aren't as precise for a number of reasons: we must use different smartphones on different networks, and the results necessarily reflect the limitations of the smartphone's radio chipset, processor, and battery, and the test itself comes with a somewhat higher margin of error.
The charts below (click to see enlarged versions) list the cities in the leftmost column; moving rightward across the chart, you can see the speed averages and network latency times for each of the four wireless networks. Speeds are expressed in megabits per second (mbps). Latency (or the time it takes a single small packet of data to travel to a network server and back) is represented in milliseconds. We recorded download and upload speeds and latency times during our laptop-modem tests, and download and upload speeds in our smartphone tests. (For more details, see "How We Test.")
Speed-Test Methodology in a Nutshell
Our testing method is designed to approximate the experience of a real laptop-modem or smartphone user on any given day in their city. PCWorld's testing partner, Novarum, tested in each of our 13 cities during the first six weeks of 2011. At each of our 20 testing locations in each city, we took a "snapshot" of the performance of each wireless service, testing for upload speed, download speed, and network latency.
We looked for the fastest signal available for each carrier, searching first for 4G service and then, failing that, defaulting to the carrier's 3G service. In all, we ran 177,000 timed performance measurements from 260 testing locations in both urban and suburban environments. (See "How We Test" for additional information.)
Because we couldn't test every city in the country, we chose 13 cities that are broadly representative of midsize and large wireless markets in terms of size and topography: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, New York, Orlando, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle. Because wireless signal quality depends to a large extent on variables such as network load, distance from the nearest cell tower, weather, and time of day, our results can't be used to predict exact performance in a specific area. Rather, they illustrate the relative performance of wireless service in a given city on a given day. Each speed number has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent.
Next page: Verizon's new 4G network impresses, but its 3G network stagnates
Verizon's new LTE service smokes," says Novarum CTO Ken Biba, who helped test the network. The speeds tell the story: Verizon's 13-city average download speed for laptop modems is roughly 6.4 mbps, more than double the average download speed of our study's second-place finisher, T-Mobile.
And that average includes Verizon's result in Portland, the only city in our study that has no LTE service yet. Excluding Portland and looking at the performance of the LTE network only, Verizon's average download speed jumps to almost 7 mbps. Only in Orlando did the network average less than 5 mbps, coming in at roughly 4 mbps.
Upload speeds were just as impressive. Overall, Verizon's upload speeds averaged roughly 5 mbps in our 13 testing cities; average upload speeds reached nearly 9 mbps in San Diego and San Jose. LTE networks differ from older 3G networks in that they are designed to be symmetric--that is, the pipe going from the client device up to the network is as wide as the pipe going down to the client. In many of our 260 testing locations, the Verizon network delivered upload speeds that were faster than its download speeds. San Diego's average upload speed was faster than its average download speed.
Such fast upload speeds can make bidirectional apps like videoconferencing, online gaming, and, later, mobile Voice over IP (VoIP) work far more smoothly and look and sound better. In these apps, the data you send from your device is just as important as the data you receive.
Verizon's LTE service is available, latency times averaged just 114 milliseconds, significantly shorter than latency times in the HSPA+ and WiMax networks we tested.
Verizon's LTE network gives us a nice look at the future of wireless service, but only a minority of the operator's customers are using the network at the moment. Verizon currently sells only two models of USB modems that can tap the network, and the company isn't saying how many modems it has sold. New LTE phones aren't likely to arrive until this summer. So Verizon's LTE network currently handles nowhere near the number of devices it will have to support in the future.
"Verizon's new 4G network is a screamer, but that's partly because there's hardly anyone using it yet," says Craig Moffett, a senior analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.
Verizon has been assuring skeptics that its network will remain just as fast when loaded up with devices. "We're very comfortable with the speeds we have said all along that our customers should expect: on average, 2 to 5 mbps on the uplink and 5 to 10 on the down," says Verizon Wireless spokesperson Thomas Pica. "That's on a fully loaded network.''
Moffett accepts that claim: "Even as [the network] begins to get loaded with the first smartphones this summer, it will probably keep the crown; as usual, theirs is the network to beat."
Still, at present, Verizon's smartphone subscribers rely on the company's 3G CDMA network. And that network, as demonstrated in our tests, actually became slower over the past year.
In our January 2010 survey of 3G service, we measured average download speeds of around 1 mbps in almost all of our testing cities (the 13-city average was 1.078 mbps) on our Motorola Droid smartphone. In those same cities this year, we saw very similar performance on our Droid 2 smartphone--again, most speed results were grouped around the 1-mbps mark, but the 13-city average download speed was 7 percent lower than last year's, at 1.008 mbps.
We found further evidence of a stagnant CDMA network in laptop-modem tests in Portland, where the Verizon LTE service is not available. We found an average download speed of 0.8 mbps in Portland last year, and clocked an average speed of only 0.55 mbps this year. This, of course, is lousy news for Verizon smartphone users, including those who recently bought the new Verizon iPhone.
Did Verizon build its impressive LTE network at the expense of further upgrades to its 3G CDMA network? Are the majority of Verizon subscribers paying the price for the blazing speeds enjoyed by just a few? Verizon chose not to comment on these questions.
Next page: T-Mobile's HSPA+ network offers competitive speeds
HSPA+ network service and phones as "4G" this year. Its ad campaign promoting the offering--you know, pretty girl, polka dots, poking fun at AT&T--has been hard to avoid. But our test results show that the carrier has been spending its money on far more than ad campaigns.
In short, T-Mobile's network is fast--far speedier and more reliable than it was just a year ago--and is indeed pumping out speeds that are competitive with the 4G services of the other providers. T-Mobile scored the fastest download speeds in our smartphone tests, and took a respectable second place behind Verizon Wireless in our laptop-modem tests.
T-Mobile more than tripled its download speeds in our smartphone tests since last year. In our smartphone tests using the T-Mobile HTC G2, we measured a 13-city average download speed of 2.3 mbps. T-Mobile's 13-city average a year ago (testing on an HTC G1) was 0.72 mbps. In Denver and Seattle, our T-Mobile phone averaged download speeds of more than 3 mbps. We were able to achieve a connection speed of more than 2 mbps in 52 percent of our tests.
Upload speeds also rose dramatically from last year, improving from a 0.134-mbps average last year to almost 1 mbps this year. The T-Mobile network produced average upload speeds above the 1-mbps mark in five of our testing cities: Baltimore, Boston, New York, Orlando, and Seattle.
T-Mobile also scored very well, and improved considerably, in our laptop-modem tests. The network averaged almost 3 mbps for downloads, with average results nearing the 4-mbps mark in New York, Orlando, and Seattle. Overall, T-Mobile's download speed in our 13 testing cities grew 226 percent from last year's (very 3G-like) 0.87-mbps average speed. Latency times averaged 173 milliseconds, not high enough to disrupt services like HD streaming video, but enough to degrade VoIP call quality slightly.
T-Mobile's competitors say that the HSPA+ technology it uses is not really 4G as T-Mobile claims. That may be technically true, but T-Mobile has proven that through systematic software enhancements it can deliver speeds that are competitive with the 4G networks of its rivals. Given the near-term upgrade path of HSPA+ technology, T-Mobile will likely be able to continue doing so for the next few years.
Next page: AT&T's HSPA+ network delivers 4G-like results, but the growth of data speeds is slowing
AT&T's HSPA+ service is definitely delivering 4G-like speeds. In our laptop-modem tests, the service produced an average download speed of 2.5 mbps in our 13 testing cities.
AT&T tells customers to expect download speeds of "up to approximately 6 mbps" in "key markets such as Chicago, Houston, and Charlotte [North Carolina]." Although we didn't see many 6-mbps scores in our laptop-modem tests, the network did hit download speeds of more than 2 mbps most of the time (64 percent of the time, to be exact). In fact, AT&T showed average speeds of roughly 2 mbps or greater in all of the 13 cities in which we tested. The network produced its fastest average download speeds in Chicago (3.3 mbps) and San Francisco (3.0 mbps).
AT&T's upload speeds were also strong, and similar to T-Mobile's. Upload speeds in our laptop-modem tests grouped around the 1-mbps mark, with Baltimore hitting a high of almost 1.4 mbps. This is a substantial step up from AT&T's 13-city average upload speed of 0.77 mbps in last year's tests, if not as dramatic an improvement as we saw in AT&T's download speeds.
AT&T's HSPA+ network produced latency times that were very similar to T-Mobile's. We measured an average delay of 169 milliseconds across 13 cities (T-Mobile's average was 173 milliseconds); we saw the highest average latency scores in San Diego (273 milliseconds) and San Jose (226 milliseconds).
Yet the growth of AT&T's data speeds has slowed. Last year we found that AT&T's data speeds had increased 72 percent over the previous eight months. This round, AT&T's speeds continued to grow over the past year, but not as rapidly, and certainly not as swiftly as its competition.
Consequently AT&T finished third in both our laptop and smartphone performance tests. In our laptop-modem results, AT&T trailed T-Mobile only slightly, but showed well less than half the download speed of Verizon LTE.
AT&T's slowing growth was even more apparent in our smartphone tests. In our early-2010 study, we measured a 13-city average download speed of almost 1.3 mbps on our AT&T iPhone 4, an improvement of 54 percent over the previous year. In this year's tests using the same phone, that number moved up to 1.5 mbps, an improvement of only 15 percent.
Some cities were better than others for AT&T smartphones: Chicago saw an average speed of 2.5 mbps while San Diego averaged only 0.8 mbps. Upload speeds improved dramatically, however, as our AT&T smartphone averaged 0.2 mbps in our 2010 tests and improved to just about 1 mbps this year.
AT&T believes that its new 4G smartphones (which weren't available at the time of our testing) and other devices will better utilize the speed of its network. "AT&T has introduced two 4G phones--the Motorola Atrix and the HTC Inspire--and has announced plans for about 20 4G devices this year," the company says in an e-mail. "Regarding network speed, thorough and expansive testing has concluded time and time again that AT&T operates the nation's fastest mobile broadband network."
AT&T's speed increases over the past two years can be attributed to software upgrades and infrastructure improvements. The operator completed a networkwide upgrade to HSPA 7.2 technology in late 2009, then announced earlier this year that it had finished another upgrade to HSPA+ technology, which it says allows for maximum theoretical download speeds up to 14.4 mbps. AT&T also has been investing large amounts of capital in fiber-optic lines for the movement of cellular data to and from the core of its network.
AT&T plans to launch its own 4G LTE network, as well as some 4G LTE smartphones to match, later this year.
Next page: Sprint's WiMax network offers good speeds, but inconsistent availability
Sprint offers its WiMax service in most of our test cities, actually connecting with the WiMax signal using our Sprint 3G/4G modem proved a hit-or-miss proposition. For instance, in San Jose, California, we measured download speeds of below (sometimes well below) 0.5 mbps in 8 of our 20 testing locations, a sure sign that no WiMax service was available in those places.
When the 4G service is unavailable, Sprint devices downshift to the company's 3G CDMA service, which, our laptop-modem tests suggest, may have slowed somewhat over the past year. Average download speeds slowed considerably in New Orleans (-24 percent), Phoenix (-31 percent), and San Diego (-24 percent)--the three cities in our tests where no WiMax is available.
Sprint says no such slowdown has occurred. "The 3G speed results you saw do not match what we see, and what the independent third party testing our network has reported," says Sprint spokesperson Stephanie Vinge-Walsh. "We haven't seen any significant degradation in 3G from last year to this year; our 3G speeds remain in the same range and at the same high dependability levels."
Sprint's 13-city average download speed of roughly 2.1 mbps represents a mix of CDMA and WiMax--3G and 4G--connection speeds. Overall, we recorded throughput speeds of more than 2 mbps in about half of our tests. In the majority of our test cities where WiMax was available, we noted (anecdotally) a roughly 50-50 chance of connecting to the service. There were exceptions: In Baltimore, Boston, and Chicago, the laptop-modem speed results reflected that the 4G network was available throughout the cities, with a few exceptions.
Of its 4G WiMax service, Sprint says users should expect average download speeds of between 3 mbps and 6 mbps, with peaks of more than 10 mbps. Our tests left us skeptical of Sprint's claim. We never saw a speed higher than 7 mbps, and we reached speeds of 6 mbps or more in only 5 of our 260 testing locations. The WiMax network produced a fair number of speeds within the 3-to-6-mbps window, but not consistently.
Sprint's upload speeds also tell the tale of a 4G service with spotty coverage. In many of our testing cities, we saw mainly two kinds of upload speeds: those of 1 mbps and above, suggesting that we had managed to hook into the WiMax service, and those that were below (sometimes well below) 0.4 mbps, suggesting that we had connected to the 3G CDMA service. Overall, Sprint's average upload speed remains stalled in 3G-land, at just 0.6 mbps.
Sprint's CDMA and WiMax networks, combined, produced the worst average latency score in our tests, at 214 milliseconds. Such network delay can begin to degrade the smooth operation of real-time applications like video chatting and VoIP calling.
The same disparities in Sprint's 3G and 4G networks showed up in our smartphone tests. In locations where WiMax coverage was spotty or nonexistent, average download scores were well below the 1-mbps mark. In cities where we could regularly connect with the WiMax network (Boston, Chicago, and New York), we saw download-speed averages of 2 mbps or greater.
Despite its overall speed gains, Sprint's service ranked last in both download speeds and upload speed in this year's laptop-modem tests. Had Sprint's WiMax network been widely available in all of our testing cities, the results would have been much different. The 4G network isn't slow, it's just not in enough places.
"Coverage has always been their Achilles' heel in 4G, and financial problems at [WiMax partner] Clearwire have slowed down their 4G network expansion nearly to a stop," says Sanford C. Bernstein's Moffett. "A year ago, they were first to market; now they're at real risk of falling behind."
The 4G Cometh
An important transition from 3G to 4G is under way and will continue raising the bar for fast mobile broadband. If speeds continue increasing at the rate they have been over the past year, 3G data service (and speeds) will soon become just an unpleasant memory. Our tests show, conclusively, that the 4G wireless service the carriers now offer--if it's available in your neighborhood--is already significantly faster than 3G service.
What will that mean? The 4G service will very likely speed up your consumption of Web-based content, and smooth the operation of services such as streaming video. In fact, 4G speeds are likely to let you do things with your mobile device that you simply couldn't do with a 3G connection, applications such as video chatting, online gaming, and VoIP calling. 4G is the first incarnation of wireless broadband that might finally free people from the desktop, allowing us to manage our online lives whenever and wherever we want.
Next page: How we test mobile network speeds
Test Your Smartphone Data Speed."