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What's the real deal with "4G"

I've heard everything. From you'll need a different Sim to get 4G speeds, you'll need to change your data plan, and at&t hasn't launched 4G yet. What's going on? I personal can't get speeds over 2.2 mbps and from what I've read nobody else can either. Whats the real deal here?
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

real deal is att just relabel their 3G as 4G!
on att map, it shows i got 4G coverage in bayarea, CA.
but speedtest is the same as my regular 3G phone (captivate)!

Heck Rochester NY my Captivate if faster than the "4G" speeds. I can get 3.3 down 1.2 up on average on the captivate. Inspire is around 2.2 and .2.

rob989_69 said:
Heck Rochester NY my Captivate if faster than the "4G" speeds. I can get 3.3 down 1.2 up on average on the captivate. Inspire is around 2.2 and .2.
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hmm i get about 3.1 in rochester and .38 down constantly. where are you in roc?

JetBlk said:
hmm i get about 3.1 in rochester and .38 down constantly. where are you in roc?
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Webster
10char

I'm in ca in the valley. 3g is around 3mbps Here... I can't seem to get over 1mbps today!. Argh
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

dirty secret of 4g
fake 4g vs real 4g

I was told by an att employee that they won't be launching the 4g until June. It will show up on your phone as 4g coverage but won't get the speed of it until June.

Anyone else read the title of this thread and think of "The Real Deal with Bill McNeil?"
Also, signs point to hspa+ not being turned on til some mystical future day.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

Getting around 3.5 down and 1 up. Was getting like 2 down, 1.5 up with my captivate

i'm getting up to 4.7

rob989_69 said:
Webster
10char
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ah im in henrietta

Any ETA on activating 4G in Miami?

jthornton71707 said:
I've heard everything. From you'll need a different Sim to get 4G speeds, you'll need to change your data plan, and at&t hasn't launched 4G yet. What's going on? I personal can't get speeds over 2.2 mbps and from what I've read nobody else can either. Whats the real deal here?
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
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I have 4G in Seattle.
I also was given a new Sim card, a bit different then the one I had for my Captivate.
I am getting anywhere from 2.5mb to 6mb DL.

The real deal is that AT&T (well all the carriers) lied to us and the newer speeds will be rolled out whenever they feel like it.
I don't know anyone who's in the prime 4G spots who gets decent speeds (without or without the patched HSUPA).
I like others on the forums have heard many mixed things about when they'll officially be rolling the faster speeds out but for the moment we all got duped.

Cwluc said:
The real deal is that AT&T (well all the carriers) lied to us and the newer speeds will be rolled out whenever they feel like it.
I don't know anyone who's in the prime 4G spots who gets decent speeds (without or without the patched HSUPA).
I like others on the forums have heard many mixed things about when they'll officially be rolling the faster speeds out but for the moment we all got duped.
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I am in Baltimore (launched 4G market) and I get better speeds in the 3G areas then I do in the center of the 4G areas.
Kinda ****ed up!

Patience
O.k. here is the real deal... an actual answer to your question rather than simply posting my speeds.
4g is being rolled out in several phases. Lets tackle them one at a time.
First AT&T is releasing HSPDA+ as 4G... technically it is not 4g but since T-Mobile is advertising it that way, so is AT&T. This has 2 different upgrades to make it work. 1) They had to do a software upgrade to the transmitters on the cell towers. I believe that it is either all complete or close to complete. So technically they are using a 4g network for those transmissions. However that leads to the second step. 2) They need to upgrade the physical wires feeding the towers to handle the additional speeds. This is a much more massive process and a much slower roll out. This is called backhaul and is creeping out now, tower by tower. (T-Mobile is in the same boat, and they also do not have their backhaul anywhere near done.)
Second phase is to upgrade the entire system to LTE (a true 4g) This process is not supposed to start until summer and not be significantly built out until mid - late 2012. Verizon also does not have much of their LTE network built out, and don't even have their LTE phone on the market yet (the Thunderbolt).
I still work in an area with only Edge... a little patience and it will get to you. I can tell you that even without the HSPDA+ network running, it is still a ton faster than my Tilt2.

Data Speeds

Has anyone else had an issue with the data speed on their galaxy s 4g? I am getting "4g" but the when I run a speed test it stops a couple of times and then resumes. Maybe post up numbers of your speed tests in 4g areas?
It always seems to hesitate to hook up.
I have a rooted 4g fyi.
Ping
573ms
download
1773kpbs
upload
1420kpbs

Mine's decent.

Holy crap. What am I doing wrong? Is there a firmware update or something?

I'm on whitehawkx's deodexed KC1. That test was a good one, it's usually like 10-12mbps. what area are you in? Did you have better speeds before or has it always been at that speed? It may just be your area.
But there is an update available through kies mini.

Im in Salt Lake City. Most of the area is 4g with a few spots of 3g, at least so was the map that I looked at. I just barely ran a speed test on it for the first time because I noticed that the connection was rather laggy. Do you think a new sim may solve the problem? Because I am using one that is about 3 years old or so.

Yes. Activate the new SIM the phone came with. I've been told that the older SIM's aren't quite compatible with 4g. I had my last SIM card for about 6 years when I got this phone and finally decided to use the new one. And run the test several times, the first one is always the slowest.

I'll do that and report back lol. Hopefully it will improve.

He's right, you need to use the new SIM. The old SIM is probably not using 4G tower services and still using 3G tower services.

I have just put in the new sim and it's gotten much speedier but it's still not as fast as it should be. What are your network settings?

Even though vegas was on of the first cities turned up for 4G, I've never seen crazy speeds. I'm not complaining, the speeds are always good, just nothing crazy for a phone that is capable of doing 21.1 mbps.

I just did a speedtest comparison between my SGS4G and HTC THunderbolt. and man! Thunderbolt is getting 21mbps and My SGS4G is only getting 5mbps But Thunderbolt Battery sucks!

chadster214 said:
I just did a speedtest comparison between my SGS4G and HTC THunderbolt. and man! Thunderbolt is getting 21mbps and My SGS4G is only getting 5mbps But Thunderbolt Battery sucks!
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wow, what a big difference. any thoughts as of why?

My galaxy s 4g was faster then my buddies thunderbolt lol
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

Ichibahn SLC said:
My galaxy s 4g was faster then my buddies thunderbolt lol
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App
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I think it ALL depends on the area and carrier. Like tmobile 3g is way faster then cousins AT&P 3g. But in the next town His edge is faster than my edge!?!

Yes I agree, it all depends on the areas. Plus if you are on t mobile than you better only use 5gigs of data a month or below or they will throttle your speed
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA Premium App

Compared my (rooted, Continuum 5.5) Galaxy to my friend's iPhone in a speed test.

Both sitting at the same table in a wedding reception. I pull down a little over a meg, he pulls down over 3 megs.
I live inbetween the Philadelphia/New York area. Any suggestions on modems to use, and how to use them? My reception has been worse with the new ROM.

thehyecircus said:
Both sitting at the same table in a wedding reception. I pull down a little over a meg, he pulls down over 3 megs.
I live inbetween the Philadelphia/New York area. Any suggestions on modems to use, and how to use them? My reception has been worse with the new ROM.
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I did the same on Andromeda3. We received the opposite.
iPhone uses its own data network. Some places its better then others. . You will notice that he has his own iPhone data plan on his bill.
Andromeda3 is as quick as it gets for non-overclocked builds.

In between okc and Dallas I can pull 2.2 all day long. And my friends iPhone will at best pull 900k
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App

AdamOutler said:
I did the same on Andromeda3. We received the opposite.
iPhone uses its own data network. Some places its better then others. . You will notice that he has his own iPhone data plan on his bill.
Andromeda3 is as quick as it gets for non-overclocked builds.
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The iPhone has its own data network?? So, even though we're both on ATT... he's getting different ATT signals?
What about changing my modem?

thehyecircus said:
Any suggestions on modems to use, and how to use them?
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[Modems] - (Froyo & Gingerbread) - WCDMA 850 enabled grab KC1, JL3 and a few more. Flash using cwm.
I'm in upstate, near Binghamton, and KC1 is my modem of choice.

thehyecircus said:
The iPhone has its own data network?? So, even though we're both on ATT... he's getting different ATT signals?
What about changing my modem?
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Its more like reserved bandwidth for iPhones.

I have had best results with JP2 and KC1 I9000 modems on the custom roms I have been using.
I pulled 4.733 Mbps this morning on JP2 Atlanta.

In the nyc area my captivate dust iphones in all speed test. Likely due to the high congestion of iphone users
Sent from my I897 using XDA Premium App

There is no way iPhones and other smartphones use different data on ATT
Same network same data

AdamOutler said:
Its more like reserved bandwidth for iPhones.
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I don't know where you are getting this piece of information from but I can tell you for 100% certainty that iphones for AT&T are on the same network as all other AT&T phones who use the same 3G radio frequencies which include all AT&T branded Android phones except those equiped with "4G" radios in area where AT&T has "4G" coverage.
Edit: I should clairfy one point. iPhone 4 has HSUPA enabled which gives that device greater access to AT&T's 3G network. But if you install a HSUPA enabled modem on your Captivate there is nothing keeping you from having the same access. The network doesn't have any kind of QOS that gives apple phone's data packets priority over any other brand on the same frequency.

I beat all the iPhone in my area. South East Florida for the record...
I always have H. Plus I use badass ROMs like Firefly back in the day and lately, Mosaic. JK4 and JL2 or whatever it is works wonders.

picklesnickles said:
There is no way iPhones and other smartphones use different data on ATT
Same network same data
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It's called throttling. They get throttled as a group. The minute I got rid of my iPhone, my data sped waaay up. one 3g phone to another. The reason is that they have so many users here.
Look at the bill "iPhone Data plan"... we have "data plan".

After having every smartphone currently on at&t, my iPhone 4 absolutely shames all my other phones. Period.
I'm an android guy now, but my iPhone was the most consistent and fastest data device to date. Don't really know why, and I work for at&t....
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totalimmortal363 said:
After having every smartphone currently on at&t, my iPhone 4 absolutely shames all my other phones. Period.
I'm an android guy now, but my iPhone was the most consistent and fastest data device to date. Don't really know why, and I work for at&t....
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA App
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Wife has an iphone 4. I have miui running on my phone. The only thing better about her iphone is battery. Every other option is either faster or equal on my captivate. And her phone looks as boring as every other iphone. Bunch of apps and folders, no personality
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AT&T 4G are you on it?

After getting very poor speeds, I never got above 4.1, I stopped in my local AT&T shop.
Turns out that when I went from my Blackberry to the Infuse, they never put me on the 4G plan, only on the unlimited data plan.
I haven't been up to Nashville to test whether my Infuse is now connecting at AT&T's 4G, but I just wanted to let everyone know. That if you got grandfathered in, they may not have put you on the 4G unlimited plan.

4g umlimited plan is just what their calling their data plans for "4g" devices right now. There 4g network is just a spruced up 3g network and since we use 3g sims it doesnt matter what your plan is you should get faster speeds if they backhauled the network ware you live.
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Truckerglenn said:
After getting very poor speeds, I never got above 4.1, I stopped in my local AT&T shop.
Turns out that when I went from my Blackberry to the Infuse, they never put me on the 4G plan, only on the unlimited data plan.
I haven't been up to Nashville to test whether my Infuse is now connecting at AT&T's 4G, but I just wanted to let everyone know. That if you got grandfathered in, they may not have put you on the 4G unlimited plan.
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I doubt there is a 4G data plan. I am using a 3+ year old SIM (doesn't even say 3G on it) and am getting 5mb speeds and haven't spoken with ATT in years.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using xda premium

MisterEdF said:
I doubt there is a 4G data plan. I am using a 3+ year old SIM (doesn't even say 3G on it) and am getting 5mb speeds and haven't spoken with ATT in years.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using xda premium
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so you doubt there is a 4g data plan because you have had the same sim card for 3 years and get 3g data speeds???
bottom line there are different data plans for 4g hspa+ data, (same price but different feature code/provisioning) those who dismiss this idea as some kind of att conspiracy theory, well i dont know what to tell you, but maybe you should put some tape over the front facing camera on your phones so "they" cant watch you!

Tomdg07 said:
so you doubt there is a 4g data plan because you have had the same sim card for 3 years and get 3g data speeds???
bottom line there are different data plans for 4g hspa+ data, (same price but different feature code/provisioning) those who dismiss this idea as some kind of att conspiracy theory, well i dont know what to tell you, but maybe you should put some tape over the front facing camera on your phones so "they" cant watch you!
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LOL well said my man. I got that camera on my Thrill 4G as well makes you think huh? Maybe the big blue monster of AT & T really is watchinge type this. Muahahaha!
Sent from my LG Thrill 4G using XDA Premium app.

Speed tests are not that great...
Well i have noticed that the two major speed test apps are not really that good testing. They are too all over the place, but i can tell my speeds are gaining every day a little bit. 4G is in my area, which i am not supposedly connecting to it fully because i have to wait a while, and I am on the uckd5 modem which seems to work best for me. What is the best speed test app?

I've thought about flashing the uckd5 modem just to see if going back makes a difference.

Truckerglenn said:
I've thought about flashing the uckd5 modem just to see if going back makes a difference.
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D5 isn't going to give you better speeds just by virtue of it being the stock modem that came with the phone...
E3 is supposed to be an improvement on D5... same with G3, but that's it's own special case, since it is the Rogers modem. and H1 is supposed to be an improvement over E3.
i have noticed that they are all very similar when it comes down to it. i get the same speeds with each of them, signal is the same within 10 dbm, and call reception is not different enough among them to notice.
too many variables at play (atmosphere, tower usage, time of day, etc.) to really make a fair determination that one of them is much better than the other.
but yeah, i guess my point is that you won't see better speeds just because you are switching to the modem that the infuse came with, and is "supposed" to be using.

mfpearson said:
D5 isn't going to give you better speeds just by virtue of it being the stock modem that came with the phone...
E3 is supposed to be an improvement on D5... same with G3, but that's it's own special case, since it is the Rogers modem. and H1 is supposed to be an improvement over E3.
i have noticed that they are all very similar when it comes down to it. i get the same speeds with each of them, signal is the same within 10 dbm, and call reception is not different enough among them to notice.
too many variables at play (atmosphere, tower usage, time of day, etc.) to really make a fair determination that one of them is much better than the other.
but yeah, i guess my point is that you won't see better speeds just because you are switching to the modem that the infuse came with, and is "supposed" to be using.
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I could get 6mb download with stock infuse rom, now on infused 2.1 or serenity 7, I can't over 4, think it's just coincidence? I really don't know that much about the modems and their software, I'm a noob at this stuff.
Sent from my SGH-I997 using Tapatalk

steadly2004 said:
I could get 6mb download with stock infuse rom, now on infused 2.1 or serenity 7, I can't over 4, think it's just coincidence? I really don't know that much about the modems and their software, I'm a noob at this stuff.
Sent from my SGH-I997 using Tapatalk
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Those are Rogers GB based ROM's, which are known to have HSPA+ problems.

steadly2004 said:
I could get 6mb download with stock infuse rom, now on infused 2.1 or serenity 7, I can't over 4, think it's just coincidence? I really don't know that much about the modems and their software, I'm a noob at this stuff.
Sent from my SGH-I997 using Tapatalk
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not a coincidence at all. that's how it should be. if you are truly supposed to be getting 4g speeds in your area, you probably won't see those speeds on a GB based ROM until we no longer have to use Rogers GB as the base for those ROMS.
once the infuse gets the GB update, and the ROMS are based on that update, speeds should be what they are supposed to be.
but your issue is the ROM you are on - not the modem you are using.

My thought.
I am running infused v2.1 with the kd5 modem. I see that the longer i stick with one modem, speeds start increasing. This happens a lot faster with the original modem. Does any one else notice this?

Ryanscool said:
I am running infused v2.1 with the kd5 modem. I see that the longer i stick with one modem, speeds start increasing. This happens a lot faster with the original modem. Does any one else notice this?
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now THAT actually is a coincidence, haha.

Why are my "4G" speeds so incredibly slow?

I know not to expect LTE speeds from AT&Ts HSPA+, but it shouldn't be what it is in my opinion.
Average is .9/1 D/U with speedtest. Ping is 100-200ms most of the time, never lower, sometimes higher.
Fastest result I EVER got is 3/.1 that was at 3AM in a rural area (HSPA in rural areas you say? yep.). So is my phone's hardware bad, is Minnesota bad for HSPA+ in general, or is it something else?
Most people get at least 3/3 on average, and I haven't gotten that once.

Depends on where u are at. I got 6/3 around DC. Back in raliegh it is usually 3/1 d/u.
I think att just does not have 4g in many places.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using xda premium

It's HSPA+, that I know. I asked them at the store, I've looked at maps, and I believe a few of my friends with ATT "4G" phones get HSPA+ in my house.
3G is like 150Kbps, even though my "4G" is 6x faster, that's not exactly fast. It's like dial up compared to 512k DSL.

I get between .7 and 2+ at my house. When I'm up & around Nashville I get 2 to 5 on average. I'm sure that once att releases gingerbread for us, the dev's will have some good roms finished.
Cranky...

I hear some Carriers reserve the right to throttle a user's bandwidth if they decide that the user has used too much bandwidth for the month (e.g. by tethering, making the phone act as a server, etc.)
Sent from an unrooted DroidX using XDA app.

You know... every samsung android phone I've owned has had the problem. Except, for me, it will sometimes be really fast, and other times be really slow, all on 4g and all in the same area. It's very strange.

I browse a bit and download apps, I don't tether or anything. And I have a 200MB plan so it's not like they would even do anything about tethering, a full sized computer uses than in 10 web pages.
My friend with an HSPA+ phone is coming over in a few hours, I'll get his phone from him and see what his speeds are. If they're much higher than mine I'm complaining to AT&T or Samsung.

strychninetwitch said:
My friend with an HSPA+ phone is coming over in a few hours, I'll get his phone from him and see what his speeds are. If they're much higher than mine I'm complaining to AT&T or Samsung.
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when your friend comes over why don't you both run some tests, than swap sim cards and run same tests, this will help validate if issue is with your phone or with your account/line being routed improperly or something.
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Tomdg07 said:
when your friend comes over why don't you both run some tests, than swap sim cards and run same tests, this will help validate if issue is with your phone or with your account/line being routed improperly or something.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using xda premium
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Will do.
10char

What ROM are you running?

I also had a problem switching from an iphone, I only had a 200mb data plan, then I got the infuse never told them I switched. I was getting really slow speeds I called at& t they said I need to upgrade to a 4g data plan. After that my speeds improved immediately after a reboot.
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@Entropy, it happens with any ROM, but in case you wanted to know for some other reason... infused 2.3.3
@BadFisH, it's a 4G data plan. They activated it at a kiosk in a mall and it's a 4G labeled SIM (not that that ACTUALLY makes a difference).

strychninetwitch said:
@Entropy, it happens with any ROM, but in case you wanted to know for some other reason... infused 2.3.3
@BadFisH, it's a 4G data plan. They activated it at a kiosk in a mall and it's a 4G labeled SIM (not that that ACTUALLY makes a difference).
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Including stock Froyo?

Entropy512 said:
Including stock Froyo?
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Stock froyo for me was super fast especially with uckh1 roms do seem to slow it down but Idc
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tyshemi said:
Stock froyo for me was super fast especially with uckh1 roms do seem to slow it down but Idc
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Any Froyo ROM should be fast, but since he's talking about complaining to AT&T and Samsung - well you've gotta be on an official release to have a valid complaint.

Yeah stock froyo is the same as any GB or other custom ROM. And yeah you have to be on stock for a claim, but I can easily use the unbricker to go back to stock.

strychninetwitch said:
Yeah stock froyo is the same as any GB or other custom ROM. And yeah you have to be on stock for a claim, but I can easily use the unbricker to go back to stock.
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Try testing at an off-peak time... I'm surprised you have full HSPA+ service in a rural area.
FYI all of our Gingerbread ROMs are known for poor data performance. One of the top three known issues with UXKG3. However if Froyo (esp. stock) is also problematic - it's likely that your area doesn't actually have HSPA+ service deployed yet.
Don't believe lowly store reps. If they had more of a clue they wouldn't be working in a retail store...

On stock froyo I was getting 3-5 dl and maxed at a little over 12, then when I went to gingerbread im getting 4-6 but capped at about 9-10. My overall speeds are way faster, but my max is a little less, I'm guessing it has to do with the launch of a bunch of new 4g devices and more users are on the network. Other than that I'm happy with my infuse running GTGs Infused 2.2.3.

The Infuse is the fastest device I've ever seen. Typically, I see devices in my area get 1-3 mbps down and .7-1 mbps up. Without fail, the Infuse gets triple, sometimes quadruple that (uploads generally the same).

My friend's atrix only got around 100Kbps higher when we ran speedtest at the same time. Guess it's crap HSPA+ out here, though it IS HSPA+.