As more and more consumers move their digital media libraries to the cloud, the benefits of LTE will become crystal clear. Streaming high-quality music or HD video files can be a nightmare over HSPA+ or slower networksespecially if you're driving or traveling and dropping in and out of wireless coverage areas. You'll still probably lose your LTE connection occasionally when traveling, but you'll also transfer files and download streaming media quicker, so your playback won't always be affected when the network drops out.

A Boston radio station I've listened to for years (WFNX) recently went off the air and moved to an online-only format, . The station quickly released mobile apps for radio streaming, and I've been using them ever since. The problem: When I use them on an HSPA+ device the music drops in and out somewhat regularly. When I stream RadioBDC over LTE, music is very rarely interrupted.

I'm also a big baseball fan, and I watch games on MLB.tv, a service that lets you stream MLB content to your mobile device using the MLB At Bat mobile apps. Baseball games look great in HD on the Samsung Galaxy S III display when streamed via LTE, and the quality is noticeably worse when I stream over HSPA+.

3)

I've been using mobile hotspot features on a number of smartphones for a couple years, but I never realized the true value of mobile hotspots until I got an LTE phone. My LTE mobile hotspot is as fast as or faster than the Wi-Fi in my home office. Because I live in an area with widespread LTE coverage, I got Wi-Fi-like speeds in most of the areas I visit in an average day. That means I can bring my laptop and my LTE device and actually work without any interruption or frustration over slow data.