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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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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.

After Verizon and AT&T both roll out LTE, will unlocked phones be able to switch?

My understanding is that voice and data will go on the same connection, and Verizon's and AT&T's frequencies are nearly side-by-side, so will an LTE phone be able to switch between the two?
(I recognize that the phone would probably only support either CDMA or GSM as a "backup" for when LTE is not available. So this is mostly an academic question. Actually, in that vein, why do so few phones support both CDMA and GSM? Cost?)

Its the same question on why do cdma phones don't have sim cards, the answer is simply business
the reason there are few phones that support both cdma and gsm is because these protocols are dependant on the chip (cost goes up) and both frequencies don't play along nicely
High-powered CDMA signals have raised the "noise floor" for GSM receivers, meaning there is less space within the available band to send a clean signal. This sometimes results in dropped calls in areas where there is a high concentration of CDMA technology. Conversely, high-powered GSM signals have been shown to cause overloading and jamming of CDMA receivers due to CDMA’s reliance upon broadcasting across its entire available band.
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theoretically a LTE equiped phone could switch between carriers, but this is highly unlikely due to the fact that verizon will never, ever EVER have sim cards therefore its carrier locked lol (the "sim" data is hardwired into the handset)

Slowest speed data connection?

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.

Nexus 5 poor signal strength on Ting...

Hello,
I have been seeing horrible quality of network service in my area on Ting. I have a white 32GB Nexus 5. I work in a three story building that seems to turn my phone into Digital roaming/CDMA 1xRTT network only going outside I barely get 3G. I have mapped it out and see more service in the area where people on Sprint are getting 4G LTE in the area or WIMAX. I was wondering if anyone on Ting/Sprint has the same issue.
I do see 3G on my commute and downtown Sacramento, California where I should see 4G LTE I am barely getting 3G 2 to 3 bars. Most of my day at work in Folsom, California area is all 1xRTT 2G or Roaming when inside my office, and lower end 3G outside. I have two 3G/WIMAX towers next to my area at work in Folsom and I should be getting some 3G.
I went through the cell network code to enable band 26, and band 41 and changed priorities on the band from 1 to 0 and individually tested each band in my area. band 41 seems to be the best and the others are pretty bad. Band 41 gets me -100 dBm, 99asu, 950ms ping on CDMA 1xRTT.
I now have it back to all priority 1 (Bands: 25/26/41) Band 26 and 41 enabled. I have updated my Profile and PRL multiple times.
I am running 4.4.2 with Xposed Framework version 1.5, with Franco kernel r33. I did see Franco kernel r34 and will probably flash the update ASAP to see if it works any better. I am not using any power save settings for cell network quality. I am also using a Spiegen slim-armor case and tried to see if it was interfering with signal strength, it wasn't.
So my question comes down to has anybody known a fix for getting solid 3G in an area where I should be seeing some LTE and atleast full strength 3G. I am barely seeing 2G most of the time. I am just crossing my finger it isn't an antenna issue with the phone itself.
Any help, tips, or tricks would be greatly appreciated!!!

adramalech707 said:
Hello,
I have been seeing horrible quality of network service in my area on Ting. I have a white 32GB Nexus 5. I work in a three story building that seems to turn my phone into Digital roaming/CDMA 1xRTT network only going outside I barely get 3G. I have mapped it out and see more service in the area where people on Sprint are getting 4G LTE in the area or WIMAX. I was wondering if anyone on Ting/Sprint has the same issue.
I do see 3G on my commute and downtown Sacramento, California where I should see 4G LTE I am barely getting 3G 2 to 3 bars. Most of my day at work in Folsom, California area is all 1xRTT 2G or Roaming when inside my office, and lower end 3G outside. I have two 3G/WIMAX towers next to my area at work in Folsom and I should be getting some 3G.
I went through the cell network code to enable band 26, and band 41 and changed priorities on the band from 1 to 0 and individually tested each band in my area. band 41 seems to be the best and the others are pretty bad. Band 41 gets me -100 dBm, 99asu, 950ms ping on CDMA 1xRTT.
I now have it back to all priority 1 (Bands: 25/26/41) Band 26 and 41 enabled. I have updated my Profile and PRL multiple times.
I am running 4.4.2 with Xposed Framework version 1.5, with Franco kernel r33. I did see Franco kernel r34 and will probably flash the update ASAP to see if it works any better. I am not using any power save settings for cell network quality. I am also using a Spiegen slim-armor case and tried to see if it was interfering with signal strength, it wasn't.
So my question comes down to has anybody known a fix for getting solid 3G in an area where I should be seeing some LTE and atleast full strength 3G. I am barely seeing 2G most of the time. I am just crossing my finger it isn't an antenna issue with the phone itself.
Any help, tips, or tricks would be greatly appreciated!!!
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Go to about phone and check your Baseband version, if your modem driver is older you may want to upgrade it. Or if it is newer, potentially a downgrade has shown better performance as well. All depends.
Read this thread thoroughly and make sure you do a backup before doing anything and see if this helps.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2514095

adramalech707 said:
Hello,
I have been seeing horrible quality of network service in my area on Ting. I have a white 32GB Nexus 5. I work in a three story building that seems to turn my phone into Digital roaming/CDMA 1xRTT network only going outside I barely get 3G. I have mapped it out and see more service in the area where people on Sprint are getting 4G LTE in the area or WIMAX. I was wondering if anyone on Ting/Sprint has the same issue.
I do see 3G on my commute and downtown Sacramento, California where I should see 4G LTE I am barely getting 3G 2 to 3 bars. Most of my day at work in Folsom, California area is all 1xRTT 2G or Roaming when inside my office, and lower end 3G outside. I have two 3G/WIMAX towers next to my area at work in Folsom and I should be getting some 3G.
I went through the cell network code to enable band 26, and band 41 and changed priorities on the band from 1 to 0 and individually tested each band in my area. band 41 seems to be the best and the others are pretty bad. Band 41 gets me -100 dBm, 99asu, 950ms ping on CDMA 1xRTT.
I now have it back to all priority 1 (Bands: 25/26/41) Band 26 and 41 enabled. I have updated my Profile and PRL multiple times.
I am running 4.4.2 with Xposed Framework version 1.5, with Franco kernel r33. I did see Franco kernel r34 and will probably flash the update ASAP to see if it works any better. I am not using any power save settings for cell network quality. I am also using a Spiegen slim-armor case and tried to see if it was interfering with signal strength, it wasn't.
So my question comes down to has anybody known a fix for getting solid 3G in an area where I should be seeing some LTE and atleast full strength 3G. I am barely seeing 2G most of the time. I am just crossing my finger it isn't an antenna issue with the phone itself.
Any help, tips, or tricks would be greatly appreciated!!!
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Click to collapse
Look for the modem thread (didn't see you post it so if you did, sorry), and try flashing the .15 radio. That seems to be the best. The stock 4.4.2 radio (.21 or .23 can't remember) sucks. I could be halfway between towers and drop to 3g and not get LTE at all. The .15 holds LTE as long as there is really an LTE signal just fine.

i just read that ting uses sprints network. that might be the issue there, as sprint isnt known to have great coverage nor great data speeds.

adramalech707 said:
Hello,
!
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Sacramento is entirely legacy lucent equipment. Basically **** sucks and won't get better anytime soon till they cluster launch the area. They won't fire up anything (3g / 800 mhz / 4G LTE) until they cluster launch. They can't cluster launch the area until all 200 or so sites are fully upgraded which is a ways off.
B41 is running of old Clearwire sites for now and should be mostly done by around may but you cannot connect to them unless you force LTE only mode and do the PRL update work around (i.e. PRL update every time you reboot the radio) and even then it leaves much to be desired.
So your option is to stick it out on the ****ty legacy network or find another provider that suits your needs. ATT is running 5 mhz on LTE 700 B, Tmobile has a 10x10 FDD-LTE network on AWS that is spotty as **** in around south sac area and drops to Edge when you go indoors which is probably a no go for you.
Probably the best option for you is an ATT MVNO considering your needs are inside a building.
-- Though if you do stick it out Sprint has quite an amazing portfolio in the Sacramento area with full access to eSMR 800 (5x5 mhz FDD-LTE band 26) + eSMR 800 1xAdvance, 20 mhz of PCS A-F + the 10mhz of PCS G (5x5mhz FDD-LTE Band 25) along with 55mhz of BRS (2500) + innumerable EBS (2600). Right now they're running B41 on EARFCN 40978 which is about 2630mhz or smack dab in the EBS block.
Tmobiles is here at 40mhz of AWS and ~30 mhz of PCS + the 700A later this year. They run 10x10 for FDD-LTE Band 4 and DC-HSPA+ on the other 20 mhz of AWS. They run a single PCS 5 mhz WCDMA 3G carrier and the rest of the PCS is GSM. Their 700A Band 12 will be limited to about 3x3mhz FDD-LTE when they deploy later.
ATT has quite a mishmash of spectrum. 12 mhz of 700B Band 17 (5x5 mhz FDD-LTE), 700D block Band 29 which is unpaired and unusable, the Cell 850 A block, 10mhz of AWS good for 5x5 FDD-LTE on Band 4, and 20 mhz of PCS A + D which is split for numerous WCDMA 3G + GSM carriers. So they're probably going to run AWS LTE and aggregate it with their 700B block LTE and then moving onto refarming PCS carriers later. IE -a nightmare.
Take your poison.

I'm not in your area, but Ting has been swell for me in Minnesota. Sprint's coverage map shows NO LTE in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis & St. Paul, though it exists well to the west in rural MN. Imagine my surprise to get it at my home in Hopkins, at least 75 miles away from Sprint's nearest report of coverage. Phone service is unchanged from when I was a Sprint customer.

SomeTing wong
Sent from my Nexus 5

Yes som ting is wong
Firstly it looks like when you got your service you only provided them the ESN number which they can provide you 3G and 1X
however you need a sprint 4G lte sim to actually get LTE along with 3G and 1X ask ting about it.

Does 4G have a more extended range than 3G?

Hello,
I was wondering if 4G antennas have a bigger range than 3G antennas. I will be moving to a more remote location and I will depend on the signal from a nearby town.
I was wondering if I should buy a 4G dongle for my mobile internet or just stick with my phone, which has H+. I know there is a signal there, but I don't know which type (3G or 4G). Considering the 4G dongles are way more expensive, I wouldn't like to invest in one and have a 3G signal. I also can't test the signal because I don't have a 4G phone.
So let's assume the antennas are in the same place, one is with 3G technology and one is with 4G and I am pretty far away (let's say 3/5 max bars of signal). From which antenna would I have a faster internet connection?

keeekeeess said:
Hello,
I was wondering if 4G antennas have a bigger range than 3G antennas. I will be moving to a more remote location and I will depend on the signal from a nearby town.
I was wondering if I should buy a 4G dongle for my mobile internet or just stick with my phone, which has H+. I know there is a signal there, but I don't know which type (3G or 4G). Considering the 4G dongles are way more expensive, I wouldn't like to invest in one and have a 3G signal. I also can't test the signal because I don't have a 4G phone.
So let's assume the antennas are in the same place, one is with 3G technology and one is with 4G and I am pretty far away (let's say 3/5 max bars of signal). From which antenna would I have a faster internet connection?
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Well 4g is not available everywhere. It depends on what carrier u have and where u are. But from what I noticed is 4g is not as strong as 3g. I get 4g at home but if I go in my basement or in the woods I only get 3g. It's very picky but if you get 4g you won't regret it, even if you don't get it everywhere.

4G is open to certain areas. The main areas I would say is the city. 3G range is allot better as its universal, although 4G is faster, 3G is good.
I can't say we can compare these two networks as 4G isn't universal and it currently isn't available everywhere.