Slowest speed data connection? - Thunderbolt General

I'm writing because, on my first road trip with the Thunderbolt, there were a lot of places I expected to have some kind of internet service and couldn't get anything. On AT&T I could always fall back on GPRS if I had any signal, yet there's a lot of places I'll have 5 bars, but no 4G, 3G, or 1X icon up top, and be totally unable to get any data at all.
Does the Thunderbolt lack some capability other Verizon phones have? Is CDMA itself unable to be used for data transport? Is EVDO the "slowest" data speed Verizon offers? What options are there for being in the boonies wanting the most minimal service possible?
Thanks,
rektide

I've used data on 1x before so I know its possible. You might want to make sure you have data roaming turned on. You might have been on sprint's network.
I've been suprised a couple of times by lack of 3g/4g signal. It has been indoors both times, but really expected to have it. One time I was at the mall and only had 1x, turned on my time warner hotspot that runs on sprint's network and got 2 bars of 4g wimax which is supposed to have better building penetration.
Go figure.

Related

Does ATT throttle download speeds?

My speeds never go higher than 300 kbps on my Fuze, my Tilt, or BJ. Ive switched radios, ROMS, and sim cards but my speed continues to suck. The only other thing I can think of is that my speed is being limited. Does anyone know if they throttle speeds?
AT&T does not throttle download speeds. What you're experiencing is more than likely due to poor 3G reception in your area or an edge connection. Does your phone show a "3G" icon or an "E" icon?
If it is an E icon, you are connecting to EDGE, which means you probably won't get anything faster. If it says 3G, you've got a poor 3G connection and your area. Either way, there's not really anything you can do about it, unfortunately.
Sorry.
It doesnt matter what my location is. I live in NYC and have 3 - 5 bars of HSDPA everywhere I go. Turning off HSDPA and using 3g doesnt help either.
behrouz said:
It doesnt matter what my location is. I live in NYC and have 3 - 5 bars of HSDPA everywhere I go. Turning off HSDPA and using 3g doesnt help either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AT&T's 3G <i>is</i> HSDPA. By turning off HSDPA you're effectively disabling 3G. Keep HSDPA enabled and you should be all right.
Though you have a Touch Pro 2, which is a European model, and therefore not compatible with US 3G. The fix should work with a US Touch Pro, however.
Im using a Fuze. I plan on getting a TP2 when it (eventually) comes out. HSDPA and 3G are not the same. Enabling or disabling HSDPA disables HSDPA only and not 3G. Ive had the phone since November (and a tilt tweaked the ef out as well) and have done every tweak you could think of to it so Im not some dumb noob.
When youre used to getting pretty decent speeds (1000kbps-1500kbps) and all of a sudden cant even reach 350kbps regardless of device and location it makes you wonder wtf is going on.
i live in nyc myself and i think something is up with att network and they just not telling us cuz my speed do sometimes just decrease to crap randomly and sometimes it doesnt work at all period but thats very rare, sometimes annoying
Manhattan here. Can affirm the same. Used to be able to get over 2mbps on my Tilt. Now I'm impressed if I clear 800k at night. And during business hours the network is too slow to listen to a Sirius stream. Sometimes in edge territory and I too am no noob and have tried so many things I made a damn website about it.
I believe att is engaging in some kind of throttling or shaping or they are simply short on bandwidth, at least in our neighborhood, based on extensive testing, the biggest clues being better performance the further away from business hours. And the situation appears to be getting steadily worse. Put it this way, several months ago I wasn't experimenting with header compression and packet MTU sizes just to listen to Howard. Now I have to go with the low bandwidth stream.
Not cool, at&t, step your game up. We're noticing.
In addition to testing all the different radios and different devices I've used a variety of testing methods, reliable ones, and I even paid up for the isp.cingular wap which ain't better at the moment.
HSDPA is a type of 3G connection. It's the kind AT&T uses for their network.
To quote from AT&T's website:
"The AT&T 3G network uses HSDPA/UMTS technology (High Speed Downlink Packet Access/Universal Mobile Telephone System), which makes it possible to enjoy a variety of feature-rich wireless services. It also gives AT&T the advantage of offering simultaneous voice and data services. That means you can talk and use the Internet at the same time. How's that for multitasking?"
To use 3G on AT&T, you must have HSDPA enabled. As for your signal crapping out like that, what's probably happening is just a network bog down. In major metros, when a lot of people are connecting, it can cause speeds all around to drop. It's just the nature of cellular technology.
And I'm not out of my element, btw. I work for AT&T.
xxbadsushixx, I hope you are right. This would only go to prove the whole, post count shows how smart you are, theory that everyone seems to have.
but to not make a useless post: I also believe that it has to do with where you live, and whether you are in a metro or rural area. Here in Orlando, if I am downtown on a friday night, 700+k is rare. When I get to my house 1000+k is easy.
computer double-posted. please delete.
livehigh said:
xxbadsushixx, I hope you are right. This would only go to prove the whole, post count shows how smart you are, theory that everyone seems to have.
but to not make a useless post: I also believe that it has to do with where you live, and whether you are in a metro or rural area. Here in Orlando, if I am downtown on a friday night, 700+k is rare. When I get to my house 1000+k is easy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's normal. I actually had the same issue, and customer complaints about it. I did some research, and it basically comes down to a single tower has a set bandwith. Lets pretend a tower has a max connection of 50mbps. if 50 people connect to it, they're pulling 1mbps each. if 100 people connect, they're pulling 500kbps each. It all comes down to what kind of load the tower can handle. If a tower gets too bogged down, it can hand off excess connections to another nearby tower, but if a single area has a significant number of connections, everyone suffers.
Think of it as going into a crowded coffee shop and everyone is using the wifi. Too many people connecting and using it at once, speed drops. That's almost exactly what's happening now to you guys.
For the record, my connection pulls about 500kbps at work, but at home almost 1.5mbps at home.
HSDPA and 3G ARE NOT the same..HSDPA is in essence 3.5 G..look it up and test it out..use the disable hsdpa regedit or use advanced config...and disable HSDPA..youl notice you wont (well in the past before speeeds went down the drain) get above 600kbps but enable HSDPA and you would hit iver 1mb..so they are different in every way...also this isnt att throttling..this all happened with the iphone 3g came out..i noticed the day it came out and the only time id get back full bandwidth (over 1mb) was at 4 am lol..sooo thank the iphone 3g users for stealing our bandwidth and soon att will push out 4g which will be wimax i think...but hsdpa is upto 7.5mbps even though att hasnt utilized the protocols speed capabilities because they need to upgrade all their towersbut they are only utilizing 3.5mb hspda right now
xxbadsushixx said:
That's normal. I actually had the same issue, and customer complaints about it. I did some research, and it basically comes down to a single tower has a set bandwith. Lets pretend a tower has a max connection of 50mbps. if 50 people connect to it, they're pulling 1mbps each. if 100 people connect, they're pulling 500kbps each. It all comes down to what kind of load the tower can handle. If a tower gets too bogged down, it can hand off excess connections to another nearby tower, but if a single area has a significant number of connections, everyone suffers.
Think of it as going into a crowded coffee shop and everyone is using the wifi. Too many people connecting and using it at once, speed drops. That's almost exactly what's happening now to you guys.
For the record, my connection pulls about 500kbps at work, but at home almost 1.5mbps at home.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If that was the case I wouldn't be so upset but its not. For example I was in a part of the city I don't usually hang around last night and opened up google maps (in a very drunk stupor) I had to wait an unacceptably long time for it find a route and load up the images. Granted it was NYC but it was also 4AM(!). Just how many iPhone users are chewing through data at 4am?
I believe att throttles 3g. My fuze has never produced a d/l speed above 350-450. Placing same sim in n-95-3 shows 1400 in the same location. Just my observation. Can't prove it. But I believe it.
u guys are confusing hsupa with HSPDA with HSUPA they are different,
HSUPA is faster than HSPDA, wich is the same as 3g
Unlocking the HSUPA is makes the connection noticeablly faster.. It is disabled by default on the FUZE
wiki it up if u need to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Speed_Packet_Access
lol hsupa IS FOR uplink ONLY hence the U instead of a D..same as uoploading..so yes web pages may load faster but speed tests and downloads will show nop change in downlink speed
You are all crazy
3G is UMTS...max speed of 384 if I remeber correctly.
3G can also be HSDPA if enabled in your area. Currently I believe this to be capped on phones at 1.2 and on laptop cards at 1.6. This also might change is you use isp.cingular...the tower may think you are a laptop card.
Think of the two HSxPA protocols as tower based upload/download compression algorithms for UMTS and you'll pretty much have a grasp of it. While not strictly correct in the truest sense of the definition, using this analogy will help understand 3G and 3.5G.
If you have no HSxPA, but a 3G connection then your raphael displays 3G all the time. HSDPA only enabled is indicated by an "H" icon appearing when your device is actually downloading data. Both HSDPA and HSUPA will be shown by a constant "H" being displayed.
AT&T's network works just fine with these protocols turned off.

[APP] Roam Control

I have been searching for this since I got my EVO. Over at android forums MrGreg has posted an app in the market that allows forced roaming on the EVO. I can confirm it works. I am in no means associated with this guy. This is something I have been waiting for since my Pre. Below is the link
http://androidforums.com/application-announcements/162379-app-roam-control.html
I was so glad to see this. I have been asking for this since I got my Moment, and then for the EVO. I jumped on it as soon as I saw it and it does work as advertised. I am quite a happy camper now!
Still waiting for the price to drop...
Not seeing it in market and app brain can't find it either, what's up wit dat?
sent from my iPhone 4...........destroyer.
For those who are having trouble finding it:
Get AppBrain and the Fast Web Installer, then just click Install on AppBrain.com from your computer.
For those with CyanogenMod 6:
Congrats, already have this, for free, built into CM6: Settings>Wireless & networks>Mobile networks>System select.
Apologize for the noob question, but why would you want to force roaming?
If you live in an area with poor Sprint signal (say, -100dB) but there's a strong roaming signal (-70dB Verizon), the phone will cling to the Sprint signal and wear down the battery (anything below -100dB, and it starts to really hurt).
If your signal is really bad (like at my work), you'll wind up constantly switching back and forth between roaming, and Sprint, causing you to be disconnected from the network, miss calls, get delayed texts and voicemail alerts, poor audio quality on calls, etc. The worst part, is that if there's ANY Sprint signal over -120dB (aka, if it's detectable at all), your phone will automatically jump from the roaming network, and onto Sprint's, and then back again when it loses Sprint's signal. In other words, even though you've got a strong roaming signal that you're attached to, your phone keeps on scanning for Sprint, and keeps on jumping to it whenever it can, draining your battery like mad.
At my work, there's a Verizon tower a 1/2-block down the road, and I get around -80dB when roaming, but otherwise get -105dB or worse when on Sprint, just because the frequencies used by Sprint are poorer at penetrating walls. So, I looked at my battery stats since I was only getting about four hours of battery life, and saw that my Time Without Signal was anywhere between 20-50%! I switched to Affiliated Networks in my settings (aka, roaming-only)
The trade-off is, you can only get 1X data when roaming like this, not 3G data. To get 3G roaming, you'd have to load a Verizon PRL, which you can't do on an AOSP ROM, since you need the EPST app.

[Q] Bad radio or terrible coverage?

I left sprint for the galaxy S 4g on the the day it was available, and have been very, VERY unhappy with the reception on the phone. I checked the coverage maps on t-mobile.com before I switched, and both my work and home locations are supposed to be in "maximum coverage" areas for voice AND data, but I am getting only 1 - 2 bars and edge (EDGE!!!) most of the time. often the phone drops to "no service" at my work location.
I love the device, but I never, NEVER had these issues with sprint. I can't believe that I actually see the E network symbol at the top of the phone, and not at least 3G.
Could this be a radio problem? Or are the coverage maps at t-mobile.com that inaccurate?
At least for the two locations where I have less-than-ideal coverage, the T-Mobile maps hint at that.
Both on a Nokia N900 (3.5G) and my SGS4G, what I actually get is probably a notch or two down -- for example, "4G Good" means I probably get 4G outside, but more likely am getting 3.5G or 3G, especially if I'm inside.
Life in LA said:
I left sprint for the galaxy S 4g on the the day it was available, and have been very, VERY unhappy with the reception on the phone. I checked the coverage maps on t-mobile.com before I switched, and both my work and home locations are supposed to be in "maximum coverage" areas for voice AND data, but I am getting only 1 - 2 bars and edge (EDGE!!!) most of the time. often the phone drops to "no service" at my work location.
I love the device, but I never, NEVER had these issues with sprint. I can't believe that I actually see the E network symbol at the top of the phone, and not at least 3G.
Could this be a radio problem? Or are the coverage maps at t-mobile.com that inaccurate?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are getting EDGE you are in a 2G area. I have a 2G tower close enough that it would smash my motorhome if it fell over. I get between 4 to 16KB/sec transfer rate. From the research I've done, T-M is putting up new towers but they have a long way to go before the coverage is going to be available. Also I have found that when I am surfing the web, My phone misses calls. When I am talking on the phone, my computer can't surf the web very well. T-M claims they have 4G in place in major service areas but the reviews I've read they are lucky if it's 3.5G.
thanks
I am swapping the device today after work. hopefully, it resolves my issues. If not, it's back to sprint. (they called me with a "win back" pitch the other day, maybe they'll refund the ETF I paid...
Life in LA said:
If not, it's back to sprint.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had to chuckle a bit with the recent announcements in the business world. Thankfully, any device we just bought will be obsolete by the time any merger goes through...
Bummer
well, it wasn't the device!
Brand new unit, and I'm sitting here at work with 1 bar and EDGE network! (despite the fact that the coverage maps show me in the maximum coverage area for voice and data!) NEVER in the 2 years I had sprint did I ever see the edge network pop up on my phone.
Back to sprint I go!
Life in LA said:
Brand new unit, and I'm sitting here at work with 1 bar and EDGE network!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How are you holding the device? do you have a shock-case for it?
Nearly every cell phone i have ever used suffered from the "Grip of Death" problem that was over-hyped on the iPhone. It's a normal and natural interaction that if you are holding both sides of the phone your signal will be crap.
T-Mobile just has spotty coverage in some areas. I live in a highly populated area, and I still lose 3G in certain places. I don't even get reception in my apartment, but my laptop with Verizon 3G does. I left AT&T because of a lack of Android devices, and my wife and I were sucked in by T-Mobile's free smartphone sale thing. Now AT&T has the Atrix and another cool phone and we're stuck with crappy coverage.

Constant network issues

I am on my 3rd device in 3 days. First one was rooted, second one was not. This current one is also not rooted as well.
Unless I am very unlucky, I am going to assume there is a definite issue with the network configuration on this device. Status says I have 3 bars of 4G coverage, however I cannot connect to the internet at all.
Network Signal Info says I am on UMTS with a -93DBM, data is connected. However nothing will load. If I put the phone into airplane mode and then turn airplane mode off the networking comes back online. Speeds are slow though, barely able to perform basic mobile web browsing and watching youtube and such isnt possible. Too slow an too long to buffer.
This doesn't only happen at my house, it happens in other areas as well but it does happen constantly at home. I a not a heavy data user on my account, 1-2GB monthly, so Tmo says they arent throttling me. They have replaced the SIM every time with the devices as well.
Suggestions? If I cannot figure this out soon I am going to cancel my service as I cannot pay for a service and phone that just doesnt work. Tmo seems stumped. They just keep replacing phones since I am within my 14 day return/exchange period.
However, 3 devices all having the same issues sure seems to either prove the phone has an issue, or m general area of Tmo service.
I live in downtown Tempe, AZ.
Your wifi works?
I have the same issue in my house... I have a weak signal and 4g drops down to 2g which is terrible.... 4g downloads are 3Mbps, but uploads are under 100kps
I changed the network mode to wcdma only which helps significantly. 4g drops, but quickly returns...
Give it a try...
I'm having the same issue here in Orlando. I've had 2 phones now (first one was just a bad unit) and both have had horrible network connectivity and reception. I take my SIM card out and put it in my 2 year old MT3G and it gets perfect reception and fast data transfers while the G2x is choking on network transfers.
Go complain here in LG forum. This is software issue.
http://www.lgforum.com/forum/boards/general/lg/topics/g2x-wifi-problems
have full bars but cant download anything. just sits at waiting for data connection.
We really need a baseband modem that works better. My bars goes to zero then to edge and then to 3g constantly. Any time it switches between the connections then the the bars goes to zero and it says there is no conection. Also noticed that 3g connection fluctuates very bad while doing a speed test.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
ceroglu said:
We really need a baseband modem that works better. My bars goes to zero then to edge and then to 3g constantly. Any time it switches between the connections then the the bars goes to zero and it says there is no conection. Also noticed that 3g connection fluctuates very bad while doing a speed test.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How are you getting 3g? Unless you meant to say 4g?
himmelhauk said:
How are you getting 3g? Unless you meant to say 4g?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
T-mobile only has 3g connection avaliable where I live, of course it says 4g on the phone but in reality it is only 3g.
ngerasimatos said:
I am on my 3rd device in 3 days. First one was rooted, second one was not. This current one is also not rooted as well.
Unless I am very unlucky, I am going to assume there is a definite issue with the network configuration on this device. Status says I have 3 bars of 4G coverage, however I cannot connect to the internet at all.
Network Signal Info says I am on UMTS with a -93DBM, data is connected. However nothing will load. If I put the phone into airplane mode and then turn airplane mode off the networking comes back online. Speeds are slow though, barely able to perform basic mobile web browsing and watching youtube and such isnt possible. Too slow an too long to buffer.
This doesn't only happen at my house, it happens in other areas as well but it does happen constantly at home. I a not a heavy data user on my account, 1-2GB monthly, so Tmo says they arent throttling me. They have replaced the SIM every time with the devices as well.
Suggestions? If I cannot figure this out soon I am going to cancel my service as I cannot pay for a service and phone that just doesnt work. Tmo seems stumped. They just keep replacing phones since I am within my 14 day return/exchange period.
However, 3 devices all having the same issues sure seems to either prove the phone has an issue, or m general area of Tmo service.
I live in downtown Tempe, AZ.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wonder if there is an issue with our network in Arizona?? I live in Chandler, and work in Scottsdale. my data times out ALLL THE TIME. Both here at home, and at work. Same with my text messaging. Literally, I do exactly what you do with the "airplane" mode. That's the only way to get my data and text working again (besides restarting).
Here are the issues I posted in the LG Forum:
http://www.lgforum.com/forum/boards/carriers/t-mobile/topics/few-issues-with-g2x#26861
(first issue posted is what you are talking about)
I dont think this is a regional issue. Downtown Minneapolis here, and I cant get it to stay on wifi or Edge/4g for more than a few minutes at a time. G1 has no trouble and shows strong 3g while my sisters mt4g shows full 4g. 4g/E symbol just flickers on my g2x leaving me with no connection. I can connect to wifi fine, but even with wifi sleep set to never it still disconnects every few minutes, and has to be toggled on/off to reconnect. Until toggling it just sits flickering 4g/E with no data connection.
I've never seen my Evo drop a E/4g/wifi connection and struggle to reconnect once in the year I've had it. My g2x does it almost every time I pick it up.
Did you try going into Mobile Networks in Settings and changing the mode to WCDA Preferred or something? That'll stop the flip flopping. That's what I have it on and that's what the phone came with out of the box.Also try Auto in that menu.

[Q] CDMA Data

I just switched to VZW, and I'm somewhat confused: should I be able to get data over CDMA? EvDO is 3G, are my options 3G, 4G, or bust? GSM has GPRS, which will faithfully deliver me data nearly wherever I am.
I don't know whether my VZW phone is simply mis-configured, or whether EV-DO is required for data access.
evdo rev a is verizon and sprints 3g
Is there anything slower than evdo on Verizon?
FFS one of you has got to bleeding know.
in some rare areas there might be evdo rev 0 witch is a tad bit slower.
1x which is national acesss and will be slower than dial up...
i almost never saw a "1x" / 1xEV-DO / cdma2000 icon on my phone during this trip. when i very rarely did see some icon on screen, it was usually 3G.
would you expect this on a somewhat-off-the-path road trip? i often had 5 bars, but still no data service; that seemed extremely odd to me coming from AT&T.
cdma has a 1x, it's like a gprs in gms
thanks for the help all. seems clear enough now.
now if only 1X had the availability/saturation of gprs, which seemed available basically everywhere.

Categories

Resources