LTE is mostly about increased capacity - no one reaches the theoretical maximum unless they camp under an antenna. So while LTE will improve the network as a whole, don't expect too much from it as an individual user - and don't break a deal just for that...
Says who? I've benchmarked my friend's Verizon LTE phone and gotten consistent 20 megabits down and 20 megabits up in a variety of locations across the tri-state area (NY, NJ, CT). This is better than cable modem service in a lot of areas.
How many LTE terminals are running in the wild ? Too few to provide the shiny new LTE network with a normal load. Enjoy your empty airwaves before the unwashed Youtube consuming masses bum rush the show !
If you look at what happens after a user action in detail, you'll sometimes see a bit of upstream traffic, then a brief pause for serverside processing, then some downstream traffic.
Responsive interfaces have to do all that in a few hundredths of seconds. Say ten for routine clicks, twenty for actions that seem less routine to the user, as much as fifty for really exceptional actions. Even twenty is not very many, and shaving off one, two or four hundredths helps.
Does it seem stupid to say that a search available in 0.19s is better than one in 0.23s? But these things do matter.
Tethering. I like having decent speeds when I travel. Have you tried the abomination known as hotel wifi recently? I actually get better performance from a 3G phone with tethering than most hotel wifi.
It's 2012, dammit. Why can we not reasonably expect 100 megabits bandwidth in the continental US? I'd be happy with only 10 megabits, but with hotel wifi you can usually only get around 100kbps or less.
