Engadget and a few others are talking about AT&T trying to push users to 3G network and they think its so they can replace edge towers. Hope that means better late coverage and that when they throttle us it will be to 3G instead of three .10 edge
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using XDA App
The engadget coverage is incorrect in that it says its only happening in NYC right now. They have rolled out these messages in Boston before Engadget even covered the topic, and I have two friends that already upgraded their old, edge blackberries to Curve 9630s
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA
This is good, they are trying to refarm the EDGE spectrum to put 3G on there, which means if they do that, 3G coverage will increase crazily.
Absolutely unrequired ... instead of consistently fighting for more spectrum, they should be changing their receivers.
The old spin orbital momentum controlled signals aren't nearly as effective as orbital angular momentum ones ... they wouldn't even need to worry about different encryption techniques. Twisted signals are just so much better.
This would just remove a layer of fallback, unless they switch the 3G network to be IP-switched rather than circuit switched. That would be sweet, would save them a ton of money, not like they would pass that to the customers though. Except for cheaper long distance calling I guess.
They have been slowing edge connections drastically over the past year to nudge people who still have edge phones to move over to 3G.
This was the primary reason why the iPhone 4S shipped without a disable 3G toggle(previously you were able to toggle off 3G and go onto EDGE)
nest75068 said:
They have been slowing edge connections drastically over the past year to nudge people who still have edge phones to move over to 3G.
This was the primary reason why the iPhone 4S shipped without a disable 3G toggle(previously you were able to toggle off 3G and go onto EDGE)
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The 3G toggle is back in iOS 5.1
rjohnstone said:
The 3G toggle is back in iOS 5.1
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Yeah, they are bringing it back on ATT primarily because of the overwhelming response to it being removed.
Logically in some areas you can get better edge coverage for phone(as it penetrates better than 3G coverage) but I have a feeling with how slow edge is now, not many people will actually use it for their browsing.
I personally when I had an I4, had my phone jailbroken with SBSettings and had a toggle to toggle on/off 3G so I could squeeze more battery life out of the phone(edge requires a lot less battery power than 3G)
I wish this was something they thought of on the SR. I would love to be able to turn off LTE / 4G HSPA+ when at home (I live close to Denton and LTE coverage is minimal - 1 bar if any and 4G coverage in terms of data is horrible). If I didn't have something managing my radios, my battery would deplete in mere hours. Currently I have Juicedefender managing the radios(data network) and shutting them down when I am on a wifi network. This saves me tons on battery while at home(or out and about and can connect to a wifi network)
Is it a hassle, sometimes(specifically if I get an MMS - because I have to turn Wifi off, wait for juicedefender to turn my radios back on, and then download the mms) but that doesn't happen enough for me to be concerned.
Related
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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?
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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.
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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!
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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.
I know this is a question, but it's also the only Skyrocket forum. Sorry...
Does the Skyrocket get straight 3G reception? The AT&T Vivid does not. H+ and above work great, but in straight "H" areas the Vivid reverts to edge. I'm considering returning the Vivid and getting a Skyrocket because of this. Also, how's the battery life on the Skyrocket? The Vivid's is abysmal.
Thanks!!
Both the Vivid and Skyrocket work on 2G, 3G and LTE.
When the indicator says 4G without the LTE under it you are on 3G/UMTS/H/H+ whatever...
If you lose the 4G then you are on 2G/GSM/EDGE.
The LTE indicator only works for data. When you make a voice call the LTE will go away because the Ue falls back to 3G or even 2G if necessary. You can still talk and surf at the same time, but it will be at 2G or 3G speeds depending on where you fallback.
Thanks for the reply!
Unfortunately, that's not the way my Vivid is working. I have confirmed that my Vivid drops to Edge in several areas that my HD2 retains 3G. Plenty of bars, so good signal. It's just that the Vivid doesn't seem to stay on 3G in less than H+ areas. Lots of people reporting the same issue.
As far as talking and surfing simultaneously on edge/2G: Maybe it's different in your area, but getting an "E" ALWAYS coincides with failure to surf and talk and the same time here. I do believe you need 3G to do that.
What I'm looking for is a first hand report from a Skyrocket user about 3G reception in less than an H+ area.
Thanks!
Nakel said:
Thanks for the reply!
Unfortunately, that's not the way my Vivid is working. I have confirmed that my Vivid drops to Edge in several areas that my HD2 retains 3G. Plenty of bars, so good signal. It's just that the Vivid doesn't seem to stay on 3G in less than H+ areas. Lots of people reporting the same issue.
As far as talking and surfing simultaneously on edge/2G: Maybe it's different in your area, but getting an "E" ALWAYS coincides with failure to surf and talk and the same time here. I do believe you need 3G to do that.
What I'm looking for is a first hand report from a Skyrocket user about 3G reception in less than an H+ area.
Thanks!
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At the basement of our office for supplies, I revert to 4G on my Skyrocket. Once I go upstairs, LTE comes back. I can confirm making a phone call and surfing the web in the basement on pure 4G (3G+).
truciet said:
At the basement of our office for supplies, I revert to 4G on my Skyrocket. Once I go upstairs, LTE comes back. I can confirm making a phone call and surfing the web in the basement on pure 4G (3G+).
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Thanks! My Vivid works great on 4G too. My problem is that it drops to Edge in areas where my HD2 stays on 3G. I'm not sure why; some people are reporting the Vivid doesn't recieve pure 3G. I have no idea what--if any--the difference is between 3G and 3G+.
How's the battery lfe on your Skyrocket?
Yeah, my bad...you can't talk and surf at the same time on 2G/EDGE.
And sadly I have great coverage at my house. And I have not had my Samsung long enough to compare it to the Vivid for reception or battery life. But when you fire up these big screens and start hitting the LTE juice it can really drop.
I am not sure what people are saying about "pure 3G". All the H/H+ is just for data. I only know of 1 flavor of 3G that supports voice calls.
So we've been testing a Verizon and T Mobile phone (currently have Sprint) as Sprint has been pretty poor in our area as of late. The T Mobile phone is a Galaxy Blaze, and with it we get amazing 4G signal in the street outside our house. However, we can move literally 3 feet closer to the house, and the signal will drop to absolutely nothing. Inside the house it just frequently switches between very low 4G and very low Edge signal. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Is there any chance that a different phone (we want Nexus 4's) would have stronger reception and not have this problem, or is our house pretty much screwed?
Different internal radios will be different, yes.
However, I get absolutely no signal in my house with my T-Mobile S3. I don't find this to be a problem since T-Mobile has native calling over WIFI. Whole house is covered by strong WIFI signal and the call quality has been pretty great when used that way. I don't know if you can get WIFI calling onto the Nexus 4, I would guess probably not but who knows (maybe someone has found a way) - I'd have to research that.
I don't know how well a signal repeater would work, but it seems like it could since you could place it outside the home where it would have access to a great signal and repeat it inside.
If your Sprint phone can roam on Verizon, I'd question how much of a difference it would make to switch to Verizon itself. I have had both and the signal in my home was basically the same - the Sprint phone was connected to the same Verizon towers the Verizon phone was. I'm sure there might be some technical reasons there would be differences at some point (radios, how roaming is dictated), but I never noticed them in practical use.
Depends on the plans you're looking at and where you're willing to compromise.
For whatever reason, roaming doesn't seem to fix the problem on Sprint here. Verizon gets great signal, but 4 days in the 2gb plan is clearly not going to work. This pretty much leaves T-Mobile our only choice. T-Mobile also seems to just get better and faster service everywhere we go, so it would still be better than Sprint, as we're used to not having service at home anyway. It would just be unfortunate to have to continue like that.
I have been using my nexus 5 on ATT since the Nexus 5 debuted. I just switched over to Tmobile for the $80 unlimited plan. I feel like I made a mistake. Since the switch, service has been less than stellar, I get maybe 3 bars of LTE in most places and even on the main interstate its still a bit dodgy.
the main gripe is that I now cant even go a day on a single charge with my nexus 5, when I was on ATT I could go almost 2 days with my GPS, wifi, Data all enabled and all apps greenified.
and Yes I did check the coverage map and every area I am in has full LTE coverage per their map. frommy Home, my route form home to work and even my work. all LTE yet i still only get a few bars and constant switching back and forth between 3G, HSPA and LTE. Many times my phone wont make it back to LTE from HSPA, I have to use airplane mode to toggle it back. when I was on ATT i had none of these problems.
I was wondering if anyone else in here has made the switch from AT&T to TMobile and how was their experience with service and battery life?
This is totally subjective. Completely depends on where you live and work and what the tmo signals are like vs att
sent from my hammerhead
I switched to T-Mobile back in the Beginning of April with a Galaxy S4 international. The 3G coverage sucked., and that model could not do LTE. Before May I ended up buying a Nexus. The default Google Kitkat ROM had kinda sucky battery from what I remember, but I only had it for a day. I switched to Cyanogenmod and have much better battery life. Depending on what I do on the phone, I can end up with 30-80% battery left. There is a bunch of variables to my usage such just checking emails to playing games and listening to music on the phone and playing Pandora or Stitcher in the car.. And I use a Live wallpaper.
LTE coverage is fair but not great, but I am saving over $25 a month.
ldubs said:
This is totally subjective. Completely depends on where you live and work and what the tmo signals are like vs att
sent from my hammerhead
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Where I live, the AT&T and Tmobile LTE coverage maps are virtually identical and I notice no difference in LTE signal strength just going by the bars in the phone screen.
even at home, i always only got 1 bar ot LTE with AT&T and its the same with Tmobile.. only 1 bar of LTE.
my battery drain stinks with Tmobile service on my nexus 5. i put in my wifes ATT SIM and tried it out for a day and battery life was much better with no other changes. so I know its the tmobile service thats doing it.