Horrible 3G - Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

My 3g has been worse than usual. Its like unbearable at times. Sprints 3g isn't fast yes but its been even worse than usual and has been slower to connect to 3g coming from 4g. Sending messages through fb messenger isn't very reliable and failed in yahoo messenger at least once. 4g is more reliable but sucks more power. I don't want 4g to have to be on all the time. Anyone else been having problems like this? This is messed up, 3g performance for me lately is horrid, its not 3g, something worse.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G

i get good speeds, ive been through like 5 cities today and lowest speeds i got were about 560 kbps. Im also on a nexus s 4g flashed to boost mobile with a bunch of speed tweaks and prl 12121. Highest i got today had to be over 1 mbps. Those are fine speeds for me. Faster than dialup

I have found that in cities that have 4g, Sprint's 3G is extremely slow.
I am a little perturbed at Sprint because the 3G speeds when I first got this phone were much much faster than they are now.
Sprint is so slow now that the phone is almost unusable. 4G coverage does help some, but the 4G coverage is so spotty, that it is a crap-shoot on usability.

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Nexus S 4G Have Data Speeds Like Htc Thunderbolt?s

The thunderbolt's LTE flies when using the web, will the sprint 4g come close in speeds?
I had the evo when it first came out and the 4g was a laugh here in Chicago. I have the nexus s on T-Mobile and their 4g speeds are TERRIBLE! Specially indoors, it crawls!
JasjarMan said:
The thunderbolt's LTE flies when using the web, will the sprint 4g come close in speeds?
I had the evo when it first came out and the 4g was a laugh here in Chicago. I have the nexus s on T-Mobile and their 4g speeds are TERRIBLE! Specially indoors, it crawls!
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It's the same WiMax network as the Evo - I wouldn't expect to see any sort of increase over what the current Spring 4G phones pull. Spring has plans to implement an LTE network but everything is still currently WiMax.
T mobile 4g on average is better than sprints 4g. No it wont be the same, its on two different networks and lte vs wimax
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
JasjarMan said:
The thunderbolt's LTE flies when using the web, will the sprint 4g come close in speeds?
I had the evo when it first came out and the 4g was a laugh here in Chicago. I have the nexus s on T-Mobile and their 4g speeds are TERRIBLE! Specially indoors, it crawls!
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funny, on my nexus s, on tmobile 3G, average speeds are from 4-6mbps in the nyc area. also, ive regularly been seeing speeds near 7mbps. so i have to say that this is just as fast if not faster than sprints 4G.
simms22 said:
funny, on my nexus s, on tmobile 3G, average speeds are from 4-6mbps in the nyc area. also, ive regularly been seeing speeds near 7mbps. so i have to say that this is just as fast if not faster than sprints 4G.
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Yeah same here. Its most likely because of the 42mbps so its increasing the speed of the network overall.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
When Clear first launched, they had download speeds similar to what you are seeing now on Verizon's LTE network. I used to get between 9-13 megs downstream on Clear when they first came out. The speed of their network gradually became worse and worse as they got more suscribers (from Clear and Sprint). I believe history may repeat itself again in that Verizon's speed may come down lower and lower as they gain more and more suscribers. Time will tell.

hsdpa vs umts

Ok so I bought an HTC inspire 4G and it has hsdpa network and I'm normally getting 2.3 Mbs download. I went into the ATT store and the Samsung infuse uses utms and it was getting up to 5-7 Mbs download speed.
I read other forums that said hsdpa was suppose to be better. If so can anyone please explain it to me. I'm all about network speed and I wanted to know if I should just get the infuse or will the hsdpa improve later on.
Hsdpa will get faster speeds once its turned on in your area. For example in Austin, Texas I get 6mb down with the inspire. The Infuse also has hsdpa. In some areas utms is faster. I'm a huge HTC fas so I will always choose HTC over other brands. If your leaning toward Samsung wait until the Galaxy S 2 comes out for ATT.
Overall you will not feel much of a difference on the phone... you can have a nice and fast looking speedtest but the difference will be within seconds.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA Premium App
ThEiiNoCeNT said:
Overall you will not feel much of a difference on the phone... you can have a nice and fast looking speedtest but the difference will be within seconds.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA Premium App
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agree on that
att stores also setup their own in store micro cells so it looks like they have phenomenal service when you try stuff out in stores.
I'm getting about 6M down, 1up in good coverage area
I am speaking HSDPA with AT&T in east suburbs of Portland, OR. I do hit 7M down though somewhat routinely. Giddy / tingly when that happens . Oh and phone is still totally stock. Since Gingerbread OTA reportedly coming in a couple weeks by this forum, gonna wait until after that to root...skert...never rooted before, but I'm fairly certain I will at some point.
Edit: With Inspire 4G
I've had UTMS coverage on my Inspire 4G...
I saw it one time when I geekin over starting to get such high speeds, and checking what kind of network I was on a lot in the >About Phone setting. There is a youtube of a dude with an Inspire 4G when testing network speeds (and *****ing that it was slow...probably because HSDPA was not turned on in his area yet) that had this show up on camera. He acted surprised and didn't know what that meant. So my conclusion is that Inspire 4G supports UTMS...why I duuno
EDIT: The youbute video where a guy has UTMS coverage on camera on his Inspire 4G is entitled "Is AT&T Misleading about HSPA+ on the Inspire 4G"...well I'm happy with my speed so whatev's.
I was getting speeds like the OP with HSDPA at first
but lately i think AT&T has been sprinkling the magic "4G" dust on the towers around here, because my speeds have obviously improved dramatically, and the HSDPA status hasn't changed...
UMTS = 384 kbps.
HSDPA = 3.6 Mbps (much higher lately on att).
So I'm not sure what was happening with the phone you saw.
RogerPodacter said:
UMTS = 384 kbps.
HSDPA = 3.6 Mbps (much higher lately on att).
So I'm not sure what was happening with the phone you saw.
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I wasn't speed testing when I saw it it in my About Phone menu. I was in my employers cafeteria showing someone else where to check for what network one is currently on, and I saw the UMTS on my phone. Only saw it one time. The video name I posted is about how the H+ icon(in his opinion) is a sham, because it doesn't specify "3G". When he popped about settings it was on UTMS was visible in his About Phone menu. He made some comment about he didn't know what that was all about.

[Q] 2G is useless

Anyone else notice when you switch to 2G the S4G the data is almost nonexistent? I don't wanna run 4G all day cuz that would be battery homicide. On my N1 I can run 2G all day and still have blazing data speed.
also what i noticed is that if i move from a 4G area, the phone goes to 2G. like wtf am i gonna do with 2g. completely skips 3g which i dont understand y...its frustrating
Well of course 2G is useless.
From a quick google search:
2G networks were built mainly for voice services and slow data transmission.
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Hardly a fault of the Sensation, or any phone for that matter.
On my N1 I can run 2G all day and still have blazing data speed.
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Then your N1 is displaying the wrong connection symbol. Even GPRS (2.5G) is only 56 kbit/s to 115 kbit/s.
for the tmous Sensation they swapped out the E for edge & put in 2G. They left the G for GPRS.
I'm guessing the reason you won't see 3G is because Tmobile has upgraded most of their 3G network to HSPA+ so it'll show the 4G
They use "2G" to mean Edge?
Edge is 2.75G, strictly speaking, but I suppose the symbol only has room for a couple of numbers/letters. Very misleading, though.
I guess the OP will have seen relatively fast speeds with a "2G" symbol then, but I still wouldn't associate the phrase "blazing data speed" with "Edge"!
Well to update. Lately the 2G speed on the S4G has increased, quite a bit. I'm thinking it needed time to kick itself into gear since its still brand new.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App

[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.

Slow 3g speeds?

I did a speedtest on 3g with my phone and compared with a iphone 5 also on 3g. My phone got .4 mbps and the iphone got over 1 mbps. Im just speechless here, since this makes no sence. 4g speeds are comparable with other devices on 4g, its just 3g thats the problem. Would it matter that im on cyanogenmod 11? Thanks

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