Database Info

How many data channels does a cell tower provide?

I am trying to find out if there is a limit on how many phones can establish a data connection to the same cell tower at the same time.
Here is why: 4 users in the same room on Cingular's network. Two can connect to Edge network and get service and two can't. Sometimes all have Edge and sometimes only one. It seems random. The office complex where this happens is full of other people also having cell phones, not all the same provider but probably many also use Cingular... we don't necessarily have that much choice ;-)... The office also happens to be near a very busy shopping mall.
I've been doing some reading about the channels (on HowStuffWorks) and it talks about a certain amount of channels being available. So I figure the reason why sometimes some of us lose connectivity is due to the tower being overloaded - too many people accessing the tower at the same time.
Does anyone have some data on how this all works, or where I can go to find out about it? Does someone work with this stuff, like putting up towers for one of these cell phone companies, who has experience with this? I think it would be of interest to others, too.
Sadly Cingular isn't much help... "Maybe you sweat too much and got your phone wet and that's why..." can you believe he actually suggested that? We even had Cingular replace one phone which was particularly prone to this phenomena, only to find that it didn't change.
Food for thought....

ATT Edge Data Speed

Just like many others, I am a US ATT user with a Euro version --- so I am not getting 3G but....
My real problem is not just putting up with the lack of 3G. I got my TyTNII Kaiser back out today and started toying with what I suspected. In side by side comparisons the Edge data speed (thus Opera, OperaMini, etc etc) was 20 - 40% slower on the HTC Touch Pro compared with the TyTNII. I think it seems to me that it relates to radio differences (or maybe antenna). Since having the Touch Pro for several weeks I noticed that I dropped calls fairly regularly and I think the decreased receprtion in general is effecting my data speed.
Has anyone else experienced this? If so, I wonder if all our probelms will be solved even if the guys figure out out to "turn on" 3G for us

jcrompton said:
In side by side comparisons the Edge data speed (thus Opera, OperaMini, etc etc) was 20 - 40% slower on the HTC Touch Pro compared with the TyTNII...
... if the guys figure out out to "turn on" 3G for us ....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it is real 20-40% then considered yourself are lucky. According to my benchmark via speedtest.net on Tilt, EGDE is about 60 - 140Kbps, meanwhile H is 700 - 1.4 Mbps. Hence, it must be 1,000% slower
Wait 'til the Fuze come out to see if it might availbale.

Not exactly what I meant -- I mean that if I force my TyTNII to Edge only (NO 3G) it still out performs the HTC Touch Pro
..... I believe it may be that it's reception is worse even at the same place ? worse radio ? worse antenna ???

That's odd, and quite troubling... Your EDGE speeds should be identical with both phones in the same location. Might it be that the Diamond just takes longer to render the web page, and the connection speed isn't actually slower? Try going to speedtest.net on both devices and see how they stack up against each other.

I actually ran www.dslreports.com mobile speed test form the Internet Explorer (PIE) on both devices. The numbers proved that the Edge (non 3G) speed was definitely less on the Touch Pro vs the Kaiser, which was obvious with just daily use ...
I am really surprised that no one else has noticed this ???
If I add this to the "fear" that we may not get 3G it's just really is disappointing . I've actually carried the Kaiser the last several days to see if I could go back to it after carrying the Touch Pro for several weeks - the speed issue ssure has made it easier.

3G data performance

Hi All
I changed from a SE p1i to a HTC Touch Pro. In terms of phone easiness and functionalities I lost a lot but in terms of HW I though I gained a lot. However I started to realise that although it has HSDPA and HSUPA the internet over 3G was very, very slow. I sent it to repair and come exactly the same. The best speed I can get is 61Kbps DL when 3G provides 384Kbps and HSDPA 7.2Mbps. Since the latency is very very high, I cannot get the complete rendering of a complex page if the http server gives time-out too early. Using the PC with the VPN is a nightmare.
A friend of mine that is a radio engineer in Nokia told me that this is a "well know problem of Windows Mobile that cannot cipher/decipher the 3G radio packets in real time". I searched on the internet and couldn't find nothing however I tried several HTC and Samsung phones with Windows Mobile, on several operators and countries and all are very very slow. And comparing them with the SE pi1 that worked like a clock... until it broke :-D
Henrique

I think you will find you are getting 61 kiloBYTES per second which equates to 488 Kbps, I use it with VPN and it's great, how are you connecting your PC to your phone, hopefully not via internet connection sharing or it will fail the VPN security check and boot you off quickly

Hi Everyone,
I too was noticing speed issues and they are for sure there. People on these boards have been seeing upto 2Mbit downloads speeds so it can be done. As my sig shows I got 1.7Mbit with 1-2 "H" bars.
I loaded a new radio on mine and that seemed to almost double my bandwidth, I was using the standard .32 radio and was getting around 600 to 700Kbit and then switched to the .28 radio and was getting 1100 to 1300Kbit. Only do your speed tests by tether unless you feel you have a good mobile website to do your testing. I was using www.dslreports.com/mspeed but the results are junk, theirs servers are not able to supply enough bandwidth for a good test.
Secondly I installed a new ROM, specifically I am using NATF's 2.3. This will make the phone way faster in terms of performance. It also allows me to tether via the USB and use my VPN without any problems.
I have an AT&T data card for my laptop (it's a work thing) and I get equal coverage/speed on the fuze as I do on this dedicated device, that is without the radio change that is.
Give the above items a try, the information for making the changes can be found in the ROM development area

Thanks All
Thanks for the feedback guys.
I used GoToMyHelp.com to make the test and provide me the results in both Kbps and KBps... 7.6KBps they said... GPRS speed.
With 3G only the results vary from 17Kbps to 60Kbps, when I turn HSDPA on I always get 61Kbps... looks like the phone cannot handle more than one major WCDMA code with the most robust and slowest modulation code...
But if people reported higher speeds then it means I really have an HW problem and so I have to insist with the service centre... I guess...
Henrique

But...
Although from the comments received looks like the problem is more acute on my device I tried a Samsung with Windos Mobile 6.1 and it is as slow as mine... I think it is too much coincidence.
Does anyone has any information regarding the so called "well known limitation of the cipher/deciphering in real time of windows mobile?
Thanks for any feedback...
Henrique

i get from 800kpb - 1000
never tested upload.
is tehre another test?

I only trust speedtest.net through a hardline tether (not bt) for speed test results. This moves as much processing power as possible from the phone to a full fledged computer, reducing such variables as screen drawing speed, free memory, cpu utilization, etc.
I find the fuze to perform almost exactly in line with my 881u (best speed ive seen on that is just over 2400 down, 900 up) - the only discernable difference is latency, slightly better on 881u (which is to be expected as there isnt ICS running as a proxy in such a situation)
As to the fastest speed you'll see on the device itself, I have not been able to clock over 1700 on speedtest.net running in flash lite 3.1 in opera mobile on my wifi, where i score 5500+ on the computer, so i think testing via phone's browser is not a very good measurement.

I don't know, I just switched my Settings > Phone > Band to GSM to see if it saves substantial battery, opposed to the 3G and even further "H" icon HSxPA I was using before.
The "E" icon GSM-Edge doesn't seem to slow down my Google Maps updates very much.

Thanks
Thank you all for sharing your experience.
The tests I made were using the phone as a modem via USB, so the processing on the phone was at a minimum.
The site I indicated before, GoToMyHelp.com, is used by a Firefox extension I have. After trying several sites this was the one that always gave me the best perceptible match between the browsing experience and the measured figures...
Now comes the hard part to convince the customer services that the phone has problems...
Henrique

I think I have the same problem. I am getting crazy low speeds on G and H, 30Kbit/sec and 60 Kbit/sec respectively. I have tried various tweaks found on the forums, I've flashed a couple of cooked roms and various radios but can't get it any higher. I've tried the SIM in the wifes iphone so I am sure that it's not a problem with that.
Let us know how you get on, are you going to call HTC direct or go through the company you bought it from?

chrisrich said:
I think I have the same problem. I am getting crazy low speeds on G and H, 30Kbit/sec and 60 Kbit/sec respectively. I have tried various tweaks found on the forums, I've flashed a couple of cooked roms and various radios but can't get it any higher. I've tried the SIM in the wifes iphone so I am sure that it's not a problem with that.
Let us know how you get on, are you going to call HTC direct or go through the company you bought it from?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im getting 820kb/s in a suburaban area. It works great. Did you enable HSPDA. AT&T turns HSPDA by default (probobly to save bandwidth). All you have to do is fix it...im not sure how search the forum. I am using DA_G Clean fuze rom and it has it built into the ROM

OMG i just tethered my PC and I got some crazy speeds
And that was the lowest one. It went all the way up to 1900..obviously it flutuates a lot but it is still leveling off around 15k....which is crazy because I only have TWO bars!
this is my home
Its crazy that my phone gets speeds half as fast as my DSL and it only has two bars and im in the suburbs!

i tried iphonespeedtest.com on 1.07 proven and got about 400 at highest
tried it when i used his 1.08 i got 1200 kbps
its sick
Northern VA area

Is it possible that while tethered the phone is capable of more data throughput that isn't possible while browsing on the phone? Similar to the problem of encrypted WiFi being slow due to the processor load of encrypting and decrypting data.
From a technical standpoint when you're tethered all the phone does is pass data from the 3G connection to the USB port. The only processing needed is basic lower level networking to re-address the data packets to a new port, thus the processor has a low load and can dedicate more cycles to simply moving data. The phone can focus all of it's power on getting the fastest connection with the 3G tower.
But when you browse on the phone the processor needs to terminate the data packet and unload it into a program. On top of that even more processor power goes towards running the program itself that is using the data. Since the processor is busy multitasking by running a program, terminating data packets, and trying to maintain a connection with the 3G tower, it's more likely to drop packets or lose it's connection.
This would also explain why you lose that weak 3G connection and drop to EDGE when you open a program that has high processor demands.

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.
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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.
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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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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.

Data speeds vs sprint

For $35 a month for technically sprint i will plunk down $300 for this beauty but how fast are the downloads?

Seems faster than my tmobile vibrant 3g was.
Sent from my MOTWX435KT using XDA App

it all depends on service and tower loads.. like at around 6pm i get 300kbps and at 6am i get 1400-1500 kbps... right now its 8:30am and im getting 850kbps... so it all depends sometimes i get 100kbps all the way down to 30kbps.. but the triumph was faster than my Buddy droid x and he had two bars i only had one.. at least 3 times faster ( both on 3g)

I was on SERO 500, and my Sprint phone died, so I want to upgrade to SEROP, but calling Sprint (5 times, they know what is SEROP but would not give it to me), email ecare (3 times, then no one reply anymore). So I am now on VM $25 plan w/ Triumph.
The phone itself is just like any other Android phone. At home, I get almost no Data. Phone and SMS go thru no problem. Google Map, Browser, Youtube 90% of the time would not load, and complaint no connection. When I walk out of the apartment building Data works.
The problem is, my old Sprint phone is Touch Pro, and it got perfect Data.
So does Sprint has any special rule for VM phone? Since I am new to VM and Android, I am reading now how to update PRL.

the main difference is that sprint plans allow roaming on verizon towers. otherwise, the data speeds are the same. any speed difference you're seeing is likely caused by device differences (e.g. antenna, radio, ...)

VM doesn't roam, so it will never have as good reception as a sprint (or AT&T or Verizon) phone. Part of that $80-$100 a month you are paying them is for roaming access fees between the carriers.
Long and short of it is if you want the bet reception and data speeds, you need to pay for it. You aren't going to get top notch network performance for $25 a month.

emkorial said:
VM doesn't roam, so it will never have as good reception as a sprint (or AT&T or Verizon) phone. Part of that $80-$100 a month you are paying them is for roaming access fees between the carriers.
Long and short of it is if you want the bet reception and data speeds, you need to pay for it. You aren't going to get top notch network performance for $25 a month.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed, but you can get get top notch service for $35 a month. In some areas the best signal for a Sprint phone will be from Sprint towers; in that case, a Virgin phone (using only Sprint towers) will get the same service as a Sprint phone unless the actual phones are different.

I disagree. I have the phone and the web browsing speed was horrible as well as the download speed for apps. You guys may have towers closer to you. I stay in washington, dc. I did the prl swap, now i feel as though my data speeds are much faster, possible 300% more faster. I browse facebook, zoom! check out a youtube vid and no buffering on a 6minute video. If you have slow data speeds do the prl swap! You will appreciate the phone much more!
http://androidforums.com/triumph-all-things-root/395533-big-difference-data-speeds.html

Which PRL did you use, hitsndc? 01115? 01119? 01120? These are the 3 PRL's I've seen mentioned across the forums.

MarkMcCoskey said:
Which PRL did you use, hitsndc? 01115? 01119? 01120? These are the 3 PRL's I've seen mentioned across the forums.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used 01115

I just swapped to 01115; will advise if it makes a difference. I also attempted to force the phone into EvDO-only mode in the build.prop file - that MAY make a significant difference in places where the radio "hunts", which mine DOES when mobile.
If it works I'll post a "how to" which is more-or-less like what's been posted, with one exception - there's an easy way to get the phone to ALWAYS have the diag enabled using "anycut".
Update: EVDO-only lock is NOT effective, however with 01115 the phone re-selects to 3G much more reliably and quickly than with the base PRL and is also connecting to towers it never did before (as shown in "Open Signal"), so at least here it appears to be an improvement.

I swapped to 01115 myself.
Speed test are about the same, which I understood would be the case. As long as my connection is more consistent, I'd be happy. I've had a couple dropped calls. Will have to wait and see with this PRL.
I should check Google maps to see if it detects me closer/more accurately. I've had times where it was miles off, when I know there are towers closer. So hopefully I have better access to the closer towers.
Would still like to know the difference between the PRL's (01115, 01119, 01120, or any others that would work with the Triumph).

Genesis3 said:
I just swapped to 01115; will advise if it makes a difference. I also attempted to force the phone into EvDO-only mode in the build.prop file - that MAY make a significant difference in places where the radio "hunts", which mine DOES when mobile.
If it works I'll post a "how to" which is more-or-less like what's been posted, with one exception - there's an easy way to get the phone to ALWAYS have the diag enabled using "anycut".
Update: EVDO-only lock is NOT effective, however with 01115 the phone re-selects to 3G much more reliably and quickly than with the base PRL and is also connecting to towers it never did before (as shown in "Open Signal"), so at least here it appears to be an improvement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for sharing, with regards to locking into 3G more reliably, do the phone signal decibel levels improve as well? And how about voice quality?

Voice quality was never an issue here - this phone is capable of holding a voice call and being stable when it shows ZERO bars, which none of my other handsets have ever done.
The big difference I see is that there are other towers that now appear in the neighbor list and the handset does connect to them where it didn't before, so I am definitely "seeing" connection sources that I didn't know existed in the past.
It hasn't made a material difference in data rate performance that I can see from my house - the real test will be whether it makes a difference of materiality when I'm in the car and such, which is where I've seen a lot of "hunting" down to 1x and "sticking" there. We'll see if that is gone or not.
I'm keeping 1115 for now but have the original PRL in the event I need to go back to it.

Once I swapped my prl and added the EvDo line my Data more than doubled in speed. Like hitsndc said I am now able to stream a whole 4 min video with no buffer. Once I removed that line it would stop every few seconds. Added the line, back to no Buffer. I tried this a few times before I came to the conclusion that it did make a difference.
Once I updated the PRL I used opensignal from the market to see my towers and now I was locked on to a tower close to me that wasnt even showing up on the map before.
Im alot happier with my phone now. Once we get 2.3 on here Ill be good

Where did you put the EVDO line? In build.prop? That's where I stuck it - it made no difference for me; I still occasionally "hunt" to 1x service, but the PRL change DID make a difference as I now "see" towers (and connect to them) that I wasn't before.

Look guys I only had one bar.
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