[Q] Samsung Galaxy S2 on ATT - General Questions and Answers

I've spent a lot of time reading through this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1109983&page=1 thread and have a quick question. If I am seeing a H+ on my SGS2 does that mean I have 4G? For reference I have a 4g sim but when I gave the IMEI of my phone they didn't accept it for a 4g plan and gave me a 3g plan. I have a 4G IMEI but am wondering if I need to do this or not given the fact I am seeing the H+

i do not think so because my captivate shows the h+ symbol when i am on cm7 and i am pretty sure that i am not getting 4g speeds the highest speeds i have seen through speed test apps are 6mbps which i think is still 3g. all the h+ symbol means is that we can get the higher upload speeds not too much more in the way of download speeds.

Att so called 4g is really only 3.5 compared to the rest of the world. The icons are just that icons. Like mine says 10g. Use a speed check app to see if you are getting decent speeds for your area.(which can change depending on where you are)

Related

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.
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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...
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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.
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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)

Why does my phone say 4G?

I am in a 3G only area, why does my phone say 4G? The speeds are inline with 3G.
mycomputerisjunk said:
I am in a 3G only area, why does my phone say 4G? The speeds are inline with 3G.
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I don't think the phone can tell the difference as it's technically the same towers, and internal radio being used. Your phone can however tell the difference between HSPA(+) and edge, and would show you that in a heartbeat.
3G is read as 4G on the phone
Weird.
Paging Dr B said:
I don't think the phone can tell the difference as it's technically the same towers, and internal radio being used. Your phone can however tell the difference between HSPA(+) and edge, and would show you that in a heartbeat.
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It can tell the difference. Not sure about the TMO branded one because they use the "4G" icon and the unbranded ones show H but just yesterday I saw my unbranded one go from H to 3G a few times when I was in one area
Kinda pisses me off because I was stoked to see 4G on the phone and was looking forward to speeds above 500k.
T-Mobile or HTC really made this confusing. Because I have seen 4G, 2G, E, and G as data speeds. You would think they would be able to simplify it a little?
So, someone enlighten me..
4G = HSPA+ (up to 14mbit)
2G = ?
E = Edge (dial-up speeds)
G = GPRS (2.5G? 2x E?)
Ive seen a 3G icon on mine before...
mycomputerisjunk said:
So, someone enlighten me..
4G = HSPA+ (up to 14mbit)
2G = ?
E = Edge (dial-up speeds)
G = GPRS (2.5G? 2x E?)
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I believe so. HSPA+ can get more than 14 but the sensation can get 14. TMO just set up much higher speeds in a bunch of cities.
mycomputerisjunk said:
Kinda pisses me off because I was stoked to see 4G on the phone and was looking forward to speeds above 500k.
T-Mobile or HTC really made this confusing. Because I have seen 4G, 2G, E, and G as data speeds. You would think they would be able to simplify it a little?
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Have you talked to t-mo to see if those speeds are normal for your area? Even 3G speeds shouldn't be that slow. With t-mo 3g speeds you should be seeing between 1Mb - 6Mb down.
mycomputerisjunk said:
So, someone enlighten me..
4G = HSPA+ (up to 14mbit)
2G = ?
E = Edge (dial-up speeds)
G = GPRS (2.5G? 2x E?)
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Click to collapse
On the tmo version 2G= Edge I have yet to see it show an E mine goes from 4G, 3G to 2G no E
mycomputerisjunk said:
So, someone enlighten me..
4G = HSPA+ (up to 14mbit)
2G = ?
E = Edge (dial-up speeds)
G = GPRS (2.5G? 2x E?)
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Click to collapse
It goes GPRS < EDGE < 3G < 4G
EDGE is also known as Enhanced GPRS and they are both considered 2G. EDGE would be the 2.5G if you want to use that notation.
GPRS = 2.5 g (114 kbps)
EDGE = 2.75 g (250 kbps)
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
I'm pretty sure this is just like all of tmo's other 4G phones. The stock ROMs don't show 3G, even if you have a 3G signal. It will only ever show 4G, 2G or G on our phones. My G2 and MT4G were like this too, except it showed H instead of 4G, but never 3G. I had to root and get a custom ROM for it to differentiate between 3G and 4G.
That being said, I saw a few people in this thread say they have seen 4G on their phone... Screenies? On my rooted Glacier I saw it switch from 3G to 4G all the time in my house, and now with this phone I only see the 4G icon even with 3G speeds...
Edit: I would imagine the whole not showing 3G thing is a Tmous thing, so if you have the international version and you are seeing 3G, that would not surprise me. I think it's its a marketing thing, they don't want to sell these high end "4G" phones and then have the user see 3G if they live in a 3G area only.
TJBunch1228 said:
I'm pretty sure this is just like all of tmo's other 4G phones. The stock ROMs don't show 3G, even if you have a 3G signal. It will only ever show 4G, 2G or G on our phones. My G2 and MT4G were like this too, except it showed H instead of 4G, but never 3G. I had to root and get a custom ROM for it to differentiate between 3G and 4G.
That being said, I saw a few people in this thread say they have seen 4G on their phone... Screenies? On my Glacier I saw it switch from 3G to 4G all the time in my house, and now with this phone I only see the 4G icon even with 3G speeds...
Edit: I would imagine the whole not showing 3G thing is a Tmous thing, so if you have the international version and you are seeing 3G, that would not surprise me. I think it's its a marketing thing, they don't want to sell these high end "4G" phones and then have the user see 3G if they live in a 3G area only.
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Click to collapse
I remember you from the mt4g forums. I think I hooked you up with the keyboard manager app that let you switch kb's based on landscape or portrait
TJBunch1228 said:
I'm pretty sure this is just like all of tmo's other 4G phones. The stock ROMs don't show 3G, even if you have a 3G signal. It will only ever show 4G, 2G or G on our phones. My G2 and MT4G were like this too, except it showed H instead of 4G, but never 3G. I had to root and get a custom ROM for it to differentiate between 3G and 4G.
Edit: I would imagine the whole not showing 3G thing is a Tmous thing, so if you have the international version and you are seeing 3G, that would not surprise me. I think it's its a marketing thing, they don't want to sell these high end "4G" phones and then have the user see 3G if they live in a 3G area only.
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Click to collapse
The same thing happened with the HD2 as well. It would never change unless you swapped out for different taskbar icons
It probably depends on the 3G network type.
To the OP: You're probably in an HSDPA 3G area (which is also used for 4G if the phone is capable of HSPA+), if you're in a UMTS 3G area the 3G icon will show. 2G = Edge, G = GPRS.
Not a big deal...
graffixnyc said:
I remember you from the mt4g forums. I think I hooked you up with the keyboard manager app that let you switch kb's based on landscape or portrait
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Haha yep that was me! I was just talking about that app in a different thread last night. It was seriously the best app ever. Now Swype 3.0 has included better support in landscape, with a good autocorrect dictionary, so I am able to survive without KB now. Thanks again for hooking me up back when.
4G = HSPA+ (up to 14mbit)
2G = ?
E = Edge (dial-up speeds)
G = GPRS (2.5G? 2x E?)
4G= WiMaX/LTE/HSPA+(generally over 1mbps up to the phones theoretical max of 14 mbps)In the USA T-mobile and AT&T use HSPA+, Verizon and AT&T use LTE, sprint uses WiMaxx
3G/H= Regular HSDPA/HSPA
2G/Edge= Speeds similar to dial up= the speed your data is throttled to on T-Mobiles "UNLIMITED DATA PLANS"
G/1G/GPRS=Really slow spleeds alot of the time you cant even surf data on these speeds
I'm always in the city and I have only seen it switch from 4G to a 2G icon, nothing between.
rawr4dj said:
4G= WiMaX/LTE/HSPA+(generally over 1mbps up to the phones theoretical max of 14 mbps)In the USA T-mobile and AT&T use HSPA+, Verizon and AT&T use LTE, sprint uses WiMaxx
3G/H= Regular HSDPA/HSPA
2G/Edge= Speeds similar to dial up= the speed your data is throttled to on T-Mobiles "UNLIMITED DATA PLANS"
G/1G/GPRS=Really slow spleeds alot of the time you cant even surf data on these speeds
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Click to collapse
HSPA+ actually still falls under 3G but thanks to great American marketing everyone & their mother now thinks it's 4G.

[Q] Data speeds?

So I know all the issues with older 2g sims affecting speeds, I called tmobile, and they said that I was in fact registered with a 2g sim, so I had them activate the sim that came in the box, but I have no improvement in speed. I'm still getting nowhere above 2mbps, most of the time around 1. I know I have a 4g data plan, they added that when I got the phone for immediate activation, not next billing cycle. Even in areas where my old mytouch 3G slide got 4 mbps on the 3G HSPA network, I can't get much above 2 on the HSPA+ network. What gives? If the new 4g sim and data plan aren't working, what's the issue here? Anyone else having issues?
Are you sure that you're connected to HSPA+? And, even if you are connected with good reception to a HSPA+ tower, that doesn't mean that the tower has good bandwidth backhaul. If its a low traffic tower, T-Mobile might not want to pay for a large amount of bandwidth for it.
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using xda premium
I suppose I can't be positive, but the icon says 4G. Although I've never seen a 3G icon, only G, 2G, and 4G, meaning they probably just replaced the 3G icon with the 4G icon since the phone can't technically display a different icon for HSPA and HSPA+, can it? I've never seen a 3G icon so I might just be connected to 3G. But even in populous areas, like downtown, at night, I top out at 4, MAYBE 5 mbps. I've heard people getting 4 or 5 on a bad day, 7-8 average and 10-12 if they're lucky. I'm wondering where that's at, maybe it's a flaw in the stock rom and an AOSP or other custom rom would be better. I seem to remember having bad speeds on sense on my Slide too.
During data transfer, I went to the about phone>network menu, and mobile network type reads HSDPA and then reverts to UMTS after a period of inactivity. It does not specify HSDPA+ though, it just says HSDPA. I understand that the 3g and 4g networks on tmobile are technically one and the same, HSDPA+ is just an advancement of the 3G technology, but I'm wondering if something just isn't clicking and the phone isn't taking advantage of HSDPA+. I checked the coverage map, and the entire region I live in, minus a few rural areas, are supposed to be covered by 4G data.

[Q] Why no 4g?

Well the name of the phone is the samsung infuse 4g. My phone is rooted running CM10. And for some reason, since I got it, it has always run on 3g (or some other network). Is it an additional service to pay for to get 4g? I have AT&T
It is not true 4g even though it is in the name.... AT&T calls it something like 3g+ with enhanced backhaul.
By editing a few image files, I can make your phone show that it's running on a 6g+ network.
The rom that you are using is probably showing closer to the real connection that you'really getting.
sent from outer space.
Exactly as both have said...infuse doesn't have real 4G...it has H+ which like pony said said is more like 3G+
And with a simple edit to the framework-res you can make it display whatever you want...doesn't mean you will actually
Have it but it will be displayed...back in the gb days I ditched out the h+ icon for a 4glte icon so the phone displayed 4g LTE even though it was on H+
Cyanogenmod only displays up to H. They also have a more accurate service "detector"
Sent from my HTC Holiday using Tapatalk 2
like they said. the infuse has faux-g not 4g. atleast not lte 4g. bassically att has had umts with hspa for a while which is technically 3g+ or 3.5 g in othe rcountries. att just decided to advertise it all as 3g so that they can say they have the fastest 3g network with a huge 3g coverage map even if the area didn't have the hspa aspect of it working instead of a huge 3g map and a small 3.5 g map. then they came out with hspa+ with "enhanced backhaul" which now things get confusing do they call it 3g++? or 3.75g? nope some government agency decide that since we have different technologies running on different networks 4g is not a definition of service type but as long as the theoretical speed is above 10mbps or something they can advertise 4g. so att does, they just put a little disclaimer in the fine print "4g speeds made availible through hspa+ with enhanced backhaul"
well the infuse takes this a step further in the factory firmware and doesn't report 3g, hspa and hspa+ as seperate connection statuses. it just assumes h+ anytime you have a umts connection.
so basically you've been lied to by your phone and deceived by marketing practices. all the cell companies deceive. they select the information that makes the look best and only show you that.
Its LTE not 4g. That's why it usually says H+ instead of 4g
Either way 850KB/s is enough for me. (Sorry for the weird picture my screen is 160dpi)
P.s. my GPS didn't lock in time. I'm in Sacramento and the server is 3000 miles away in Florida. (350 ping)
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda app-developers app

[Q] Anyone know how to enable 4g with 4.4.2 slim kat?

I've since it done on other versions of the galaxy and I tried to mimic what they did to see if I could get into a menu to change the settings. I found one that worked for me you just go to dial and enter *#*#4636#*#* then it will take you to the menu where you can change what preferred network type you want to use but keeps changing it back to default. Anyone know how to possibly save this setting or something?
Why do you believe you aren't getting "4G" on the phone? Is it the "H" that you are seeing when you are sending/receiving data and the "3G" when you are not? If so, that is completely expected behavior. The SGS4G is not a true 4G phone in the sense that it is not capable of using LTE.
Okay I see your point, mine does "3g" "h" and "e" figured when I had it back on gingerbread it said "4g" that it could handle "4g" coverage but now I'm assuming "h" is now the term it says for having "4g"?
T-Mobile, at least when this phone was released, did not have significant LTE coverage, but did have HSPA+ (21-42 Mbps download speeds). They advertised HSPA+ as "4G"
They probably weren't the only ones that "fudged" on that. It is definitely faster than 3G speeds for HSPA, but not all consider HSPA+ a "true" 4G.
T-Mobile ROMs and those "cooked" from them, not surprisingly, promoted the HSPA+ connection as "4G" in the UI. AOSP, CyanogenMod, and similar ROMs were a little more "honest" about things. There are patches somewhere to change the icon to "4G" if it makes you smile more.

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