Database Info

does the g2x even have a 3g indicator icon?

ive noticed that i get a 4g and a 2g icon but wheres the 3g icon? has anyone seened it?

Travling through the middle of nowhere over the last 3 days I've seen, no signal, G, 2G, 3G, & 4G. It's there.

I also have not seen the 3G icon. I drive through the city and would think when I get out if 4G I would at least still be in a 3G area. Wonder if something may be wrong....
Sent from my T-Mobile G2X using XDA app.

Cyberdan3 said:
I also have not seen the 3G icon. I drive through the city and would think when I get out if 4G I would at least still be in a 3G area. Wonder if something may be wrong....
Sent from my T-Mobile G2X using XDA app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here but this is the first 4G device I have had and I know for a fact most of my city is covered by 4G. What is also weird is that in areas where I would have 1 or 2 bars with my Vibrant, it is telling me I have full bars worth of 4G with the G2X.

its there in the framwork i checked..
Im just wondering why it doesnt display 3G when its on UMTS... it sticks to 4G all the time...

very strange in the instruction manual it also shows 3g icon!

Rmoved
Sent from space

death1246 said:
its there in the framwork i checked..
Im just wondering why it doesnt display 3G when its on UMTS... it sticks to 4G all the time...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A lot of this has to do with the fact that T-Mobile's 3G towers == their 4G towers so if you're in an area where all of their towers have been upgraded to HSPA+ you will NEVER show 3G because you're always on a 4G tower. The only time you will show a 3G signal is if you're in an older area where they have pre-HSPA+ upgradeable towers. This is how T-mobile can say they have the biggest 4G network because almost all of their old HSPA/3G equipment has been turned into 4G equipment via software upgrades.

I have had my g2x for about 5 days and all I ever see is 4G or E never 3g. I have been checking in the settings/about phone/status and even when the phone is showing 3-4 bars of 4G it is still on umts. In the exact same location and within a minute or so when checking it with my Vibrant I will have 3 bars of H or 3G and in status it shows as hspda or hspda+. What is that about? I have checked this out at least 6 to 7 times a day and it is always the same only umts on the G2X and Hspda or Hspda+ on the Vibrant. I called CS and they wanted to send out another G2X I reluctantly said yes. I do really like this phone and will try to be patient but the device I have now has multiple issues. I am going to take the stance that this is an isolated case and the new one will be golden!!!

brentil said:
A lot of this has to do with the fact that T-Mobile's 3G towers == their 4G towers so if you're in an area where all of their towers have been upgraded to HSPA+ you will NEVER show 3G because you're always on a 4G tower. The only time you will show a 3G signal is if you're in an older area where they have pre-HSPA+ upgradeable towers. This is how T-mobile can say they have the biggest 4G network because almost all of their old HSPA/3G equipment has been turned into 4G equipment via software upgrades.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is true. There's pretty much no need for a '3G' icon. Though, technically, it's debatable whether or not T-Mo's (or any other carriers) offerings right now are actually '4G' (according to the standards committees that define those things), but that's a different argument
tl;dr: T-Mo's 3G and 4G operate on pretty much the same technology, so if you're in an area where there was 3G, you'll probably have 4G. It doesn't need to switch back and forth or be toggled like the other solutions (looking at you Wi-Max)

Only 2g or 4g.. never seen a 3g symbol!

Since purchasing my phone almost 2 weeks ago I have never gotten 3g. I have replaced my sim and also upgraded data. I have one day left to return and I'm wondering if you guys too are having this issue. Or perhaps is it a tower/radio issue?
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App

It won't ever show 3g
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

Yeah i saw the same thing. I think it's has a lot to do with TMO's 4G not actually being a different technology than it's 3G. So in most cases if you have 3G you also have 4G. Are there any areas where you know that TMO's HSPA+ network doesn't have coverage but the normal 3G coverage does? I'd be interested in that. I couldn't test in my area because the 3G coverage is the exact same as the 4G so the indicator would only change if I entered an edge only area.
The G2 only displays an H which can either be 3G or 4G but it's not differentiated on the phone. So I think it's just because of TMO's network not being a separate technology that requires a different radio. So the phone won't go from 4G to 3G to Edge. It goes straight to 2G because 3g and 4G is the same in technology. Only difference is speed and that that's with any network where you have different speeds in different places.

The 4G is a souped up version of their 3G so you won't see 3G ever AFAIK.

Thought i was the only one that noticed

As a t-mob tech rep I can confirm that this is true. The phone will either display 2 or 4. It was even in the brief training we received. No need to return it

Get Mobile Signal Widget if you want to see it go between 3G(UMTS) or H(HSPA+)
It will not show 3G/4G because it would flip between the two too much.

Yesterday I saw it just said "G". Phone was slow as ****. I love this thing.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App

joeyklatzko said:
The 4G is a souped up version of their 3G so you won't see 3G ever AFAIK.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's the same on the G2x that I had briefly.

good to know cause im in love with my phone and didnt wanna chance a exchange! its really not enough good about this phone on here but for any of you on the edge its a great phone coming from a hd2 which was also the SH!T !!

Just a little extra info on this. EVERY 3G cell site in T-Mobile's network is HSPA capable so whenever you are on a 3G site your have HSPA access BUT not every site is HSPA+ (4G speeds). With that said, your phone does not know the difference so even if we wanted an icon to show the difference we couldn't have it. There is one more mode and that is UMTS. This only shows when your phone is idle and not doing data (not very often). It does NOT mean your don't have HSPA access on that site, it just means your phone is not currently doing data. So, we could have a 3G icon for when your idle but your phone would be constantly switching from 3G icon to 4G or H (whichever you have) and that would be annoying. Hope this helps.

setzer715 said:
There is one more mode and that is UMTS. This only shows when your phone is idle and not doing data (not very often). It does NOT mean your don't have HSPA access on that site, it just means your phone is not currently doing data. So, we could have a 3G icon for when your idle but your phone would be constantly switching from 3G icon to 4G or H (whichever you have) and that would be annoying. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what it did for the HD2 & it let me know when I was actually pulling down data, just look for 3G or the H

xnifex said:
That's what it did for the HD2 & it let me know when I was actually pulling down data, just look for 3G or the H
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You will still know with the data activity arrows.

setzer715 said:
You will still know with the data activity arrows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the Sensation yes, HD2 running WM though it was about the only way to know

Its a lie. It just says 4G instead of 3G. Never 3G. Its a ploy to make you believe they have 4G everywhere.

I have an unbranded Asian Sensation and it shows 3G once and a while. There is this one area I notice it switches from the H(4G) to 3G. I know TMO changed the H icon with a 4G one so maybe they removed the 3G one show it always shows 4G even if on 3G??

Ive seen it switch to 3g and its like not having internet. Speeds around 50-100 kbps . A friend with mt4g confirmed.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App

~~Tito~~ said:
Its a lie. It just says 4G instead of 3G. Never 3G. Its a ploy to make you believe they have 4G everywhere.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tito, long time no see!
LOL, true that t-Mob is trying to brainwash the XDA gang

DeezNotes said:
Yesterday I saw it just said "G". Phone was slow as ****. I love this thing.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You were on a regular GSM connection, those are old and slow. Not your phones fault, it was basically trying to use data over a rotary phone.

Is your device from tmobile?

Difference between H and H+

Just want to ask, what is the difference between H and H+ on Inspire 4G..
H = 3G?
H+ = 4G??
cheers

Yes. The ITU classifies HSPA+ as a 4G technology even though it will never hit their own definition of 4G speed. Wikipedia has a great article about the different 4G technologies. Would post a link if I weren't mobile.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using the power of the dark side.

limx said:
Just want to ask, what is the difference between H and H+ on Inspire 4G..
H = 3G?
H+ = 4G??
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there is no difference for this phone. In other countries they don't have this magical H+ that AT&T thinks they need to fool their customers with and call it 4g
H and H+ are essentially the same thing when it comes to this phone and Roms. Roms that originate from desire hd land will indicate your 'H+' connection with a simple 'H'

limx said:
Just want to ask, what is the difference between H and H+ on Inspire 4G..
H = 3G?
H+ = 4G??
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea if you're talking about the icon, you can't really rely on that. Currently ATT has a 3G network which is UMTS. They improved this network a few years ago and were able to push faster speeds and deemed this their HSDPA network, widely referred to as 3.5G. They've just started rolling out their new network, HSPA+, which, like biglittlegato said, is technically a 4G technology. Now they're about to start rolling out LTE, which is also a 4G technology, but capable of faster speeds then HSPA+
But again, different chefs use different network indicators, as do different bases that ROMs are built off of, for the different networks. If you want to know what network you're actually connected to -
Settings - About Phone - Network and look at Mobile Network Type

Pirateghost said:
there is no difference for this phone. In other countries they don't have this magical H+ that AT&T thinks they need to fool their customers with and call it 4g
H and H+ are essentially the same thing when it comes to this phone and Roms. Roms that originate from desire hd land will indicate your 'H+' connection with a simple 'H'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 on using it to fool customers ...but I do have to admit, I get that warm fuzzy feeling when I see the H+ hahaha.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using xda premium

cwhitney24 said:
+1 on using it to fool customers ...but I do have to admit, I get that warm fuzzy feeling when I see the H+ hahaha.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, its a long story, but for a while I didn't have a data plan activated on my work phone (the Inspire) all of the sudden it is on, I now get the "H" with CM7 Nightly #179.
So I ran speed test on the Inspire and my OG Droid (VZW 3G), here's some interesting results
So the Inspire (H) got 264ms Ping, 3584kbps d/l, 1679kbps u/l
OG D1 (3G) 228ms, 0.10Mbps d/l, 0.33Mbps u/l
I haven't traveled much since I just got data, but two questions, does anyone know if CM7 shows H+? 2nd, if not, what ROM's may actually goto 4G?

Ronin3178 said:
I haven't traveled much since I just got data, but two questions, does anyone know if CM7 shows H+? 2nd, if not, what ROM's may actually goto 4G?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no CM7 does not show H+
and i dont understand why its so hard to comprehend. the symbol means literally nothing. there is no secret 4G network that only the inspire can access. its the same network its been for years. its an icon. it means literally nothing. they all get "4G"
im going to say it again, because this question comes up all the damn time.
THE H/H+ ICON MEANS NOTHING

Pirateghost said:
THE H/H+ ICON MEANS NOTHING
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 Well stated..!
Sent from my Inspire 4G using xda premium

Pirateghost said:
no CM7 does not show H+
and i dont understand why its so hard to comprehend. the symbol means literally nothing. there is no secret 4G network that only the inspire can access. its the same network its been for years. its an icon. it means literally nothing. they all get "4G"
im going to say it again, because this question comes up all the damn time.
THE H/H+ ICON MEANS NOTHING
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed it really doesnt and I have started a thread to maybe put this to rest once and for all. HERE

Pirateghost said:
no CM7 does not show H+
and i dont understand why its so hard to comprehend. the symbol means literally nothing. there is no secret 4G network that only the inspire can access. its the same network its been for years. its an icon. it means literally nothing. they all get "4G"
im going to say it again, because this question comes up all the damn time.
THE H/H+ ICON MEANS NOTHING
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, part of my confusion may have been b/c because my D1 showed in Mbps, while the Inspire showed in kbps. Call it a brain fart, even though the speedometer showed properly during the test how much faster the inspire was, it threw me for a loop.
Since I never had data service with the stock I only had the user's manual to go off of, it shows H+ but no H.
That may be the cause the confusion for most too.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using xda premium

OP: I see you are running Android Revolution. I've noticed that it doesn't display H+ whereas the stock rom does show H+. I just rooted and installed ARHD and was thrown off by the plain "H".

Why is a 4G phone getting 3G speeds

So on my phone It says 3G at the top. Sometimes. It says H. But I have miui Tom currently and probably forever? Most of the time when I wana download something from the market I have to pull down the drop down menu and turn off the data icon and turn it back on to refresh the data. Wait for a few seconds and let it work again. I have no problems texting and receiving them. Or browsing the internet. But for the market I'm having to refresh the data. Wondering if there is anything I could do
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda premium

the lack of an h or 4g is just indicating that you dont have a hspa connection which has more to do with your area than your phone. the infuse is a 3g device but t-mo started advertising the hspa+ as 4g and att followed. it still operates on the same network and technology as 3g but is faster. 4g is lte (which the infuse doesn't have.) or wimax i guess but that is crappy sprint 4g that is not faster than att 3g and is only deserving of the 4g title because it is literally there 4th generation data network, not because it is actually comperable.
in other countries h and h+ are refered to as 3.5g and/or 3g+ because it is not truely a new generation of network, just 3g made faster.
the market problem is probably do to it being a i9000 port. i dont know what the nature of the bug is but it shows on the i9000 roms and i havent run an aosp rom so i dont know if it is normal for miui or not.

Dani897 said:
the lack of an h or 4g is just indicating that you dont have a hspa connection which has more to do with your area than your phone. the infuse is a 3g device but t-mo started advertising the hspa+ as 4g and att followed. it still operates on the same network and technology as 3g but is faster. 4g is lte (which the infuse doesn't have.) or wimax i guess but that is crappy sprint 4g that is not faster than att 3g and is only deserving of the 4g title because it is literally there 4th generation data network, not because it is actually comperable.
in other countries h and h+ are refered to as 3.5g and/or 3g+ because it is not truely a new generation of network, just 3g made faster.
the market problem is probably do to it being a i9000 port. i dont know what the nature of the bug is but it shows on the i9000 roms and i havent run an aosp rom so i dont know if it is normal for miui or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ohh OK. So 4G doesn't mean 4G speeds. It means 4th generation. As in new. I always thought 4G meant speed 4 ghz or something of high speed data. Something to do with speed. Now that I think of it. G stands for Generation. Anyway thanks
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda premium

technokid said:
Ohh OK. So 4G doesn't mean 4G speeds. It means 4th generation. As in new. I always thought 4G meant speed 4 ghz or something of high speed data. Something to do with speed. Now that I think of it. G stands for Generation. Anyway thanks
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The speeds do get faster as the generations progresses, but actual 4g speeds were supposed to be 100mb lol that failed haha. Anyway the market problem happens to me too. If you search apns in CM7 or the MIUI forum there is a fix. I applied it before, and it worked. I am just too lazy to do it again because for me it is not that big of a pain lol.

You won't always have 4G speeds. It's more like 3G+ lol. HSPA+. Get it? Lol if you want 4G speeds for LTE
Sent from Optimus-Prime's Asus Transformer.

Seriously? Another dumb post about phones not getting 4g. Some 4g phones have h and some have 3g icons. Read other threads and maybe you will learn something for once in your life.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using xda premium

Ryanscool said:
The speeds do get faster as the generations progresses, but actual 4g speeds were supposed to be 100mb lol that failed haha. Anyway the market problem happens to me too. If you search apns in CM7 or the MIUI forum there is a fix. I applied it before, and it worked. I am just too lazy to do it again because for me it is not that big of a pain lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks I'll look That uhp
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda premium

I heard somewhere that MIUI doesn't support 4G the same as the stock ROM. When I used MIUI I got slower speeds than stock. Not significantly slower, but "meh" speeds. Otherwise there isn't much of a difference, it only switched to actual "4G" when you're downloading something anyway..

H symbol vs 3G - difference?

hello,
Kind of a noob here... I have an att inspire 4g, rooted and android revolution rom. At home I have what I was told is 3g service (and have an H symbol). When I got to work (out in the country) I have edge service (E). When I came back into town the other night, my data symbol went from E to 3G, not H like it usually did... Now this morning it was back to it's usual H. Can someone explain the difference between these, and is this normal or a glitch in the rom?
Thanks!

Search please...this topic has been discussed so many times around here...
I got your 10 char right here
abso Bacon Mod

I did search on the Q&A portion, seems like I'm not alone on this, but I never found a definitive answer/solution. I did see that the 3g symbol will result in slower speeds than H. (personally I thought the 3g symbol looked cooler than the H though).
It hasn't really affected me at all, and only happened once, so it's not really a big deal, was just curious.

apbling said:
I did search on the Q&A portion, seems like I'm not alone on this, but I never found a definitive answer/solution. I did see that the 3g symbol will result in slower speeds than H. (personally I thought the 3g symbol looked cooler than the H though).
It hasn't really affected me at all, and only happened once, so it's not really a big deal, was just curious.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The symbols mean absolutely nothing. You can make the symbols whatever you want them to be. If you want to know what network your phone is connected to, go to Settings-About Phone-Network. The Inspire connects to these networks (on ATT) and corresponds with the following icons:
GSM shows a "G" icon
EDGE shows an "E" icon
UMTS shows a "3G" icon
HSDPA shows a "H+" icon on ATT ROMs and "H" icon on other ROMs
Supposedly the Inspire connects to HSPA+ too, but no one's ever seen this as a network type. Again, you can change these icons to anything you want. See my tutorial in Themes/Apps (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1300389)

homeslice976 said:
If you want to know what network your phone is connected to, go to Settings-About Phone-Network.[/url])
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On my Inspire it's settings-about phone-status-mobile network type (maybe this depends on the ROM?)
Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

Yup. Depends on the build
Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using xda premium

Its like "3.5G" not the same because sometimes it'll fluctuate between H and 3G
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA App

jnl1211 said:
Its like "3.5G" not the same because sometimes it'll fluctuate between H and 3G
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hsdpa is commonly referred to as 3.5g. Umts is 3g. Hspa+ is technically 4g but doesnt touch LTE speeds. Hsdpa and hspa+ are designated with either a H or H+ icon...depending on the ROM
Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using xda premium

homeslice976 said:
Hsdpa is commonly referred to as 3.5g. Umts is 3g. Hspa+ is technically 4g but doesnt touch LTE speeds. Hsdpa and hspa+ are designated with either a H or H+ icon...depending on the ROM
Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. That's a fancier version of what I said lol
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA App

Sorry for reviving an old thread but is it normal to keep switching between 3G and H? How come it doesn't make it's mind?