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Hi Guys. I'm making the jump from ATT with an 8125 to Sprint with the new Mogul. I've got the phone now and it's wonderful. I live in an area that only has 1XRTT data available (Fort Scott, KS) and I was under the impression that this would provide data rates of around 50 - 70 kbs. I'm only getting around 12 to 14 kbs despite having a strong connection indicated on the phone (5 bars). I've contacted Sprint and they were helpful but didn't solve the issue. My question is: Is this about what I should expect in terms of a data rate or is there some tweak I can apply to the phone settings that would allow a faster data rate? I signed on to the SERO plan for 500 minutes and unlimited data ($30 per month, WOW...what a deal that is).
Thanks for any help you can provide. This forum has been great to me so I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Rick
Data rates that they give you are peak, and typically only burst rates. That's like saying that a 56k modem is supposed to give you 56k data but most people only DL at 8-10k. On EV-DO non A I get about 30k DL speed max, so your data rate is about right.
another important thing to realize is the diofference between bits and bytes
most ISPs (cellular included) give their speed in bits (kilobits, megabits, etc) while speedtests and software that shows your download speed will report it in bytes/kilobytes, since heres 8 bits to a byte this will seem much slower than advertised speeds
IE if you are getting 12 kilobytes per second from the phone, thats the same as 96 kilobits per second, which would be pretty good for 1xrtt
Thanks guys
Hey guys.
Thanks for the replies and for clearing this up for me. I just love this phone and Sprints coverage where I live has proven to be much better than ATT. I took the phone to an EVDO area and the internet just hums along there. I was hoping to have enough bandwidth to stream XMradio over the phone, but I suppose I'll have to keep dreamin .
Is there any way to know if Sprint is planning to improve their EVDO data coverage areas? See...I'm already being impatient.
Thanks again,
Rick
On Sprint's Business website it will tell you where different data rates are available, and if an area is EV-DO, it will let you know when they plan on delivering Rev A. Phone companies are not going to divulge when they plan on making faster service available because another carrier could beat them to it. Shame that's the way they are, but that's the way it is.
are you in a corporate area, or a sprint affiliate area? I live in iPCS land so I feel your pain.
dunno if this helps, but I'm using the "Mobile Satellite Radio" program to play XM online and it works fine, even in my very-very fringe 1X connection at work.
It *does* take a few seconds to actually buffer up, but once it does that, it seems to be fine.
I think I found a solution
I live in a Sprint covered area, but the dominant carrier here is Alltel. I heard that Sprint and Alltel share a roaming agreement, and I've noticed my phone switch to roam on occasion. On my phone settings, there is an option to force roaming and to allow data roaming. I selected both these choices and after a few moments, the phone showed that I was now roaming and the data indicator showed "EV" instead of "1X". I started internet explorer and it connected right up and worked much faster. Fast enough in fact that I could stream XM radio over the phone using the site http://www.xstreamxm.com/mobile/ and my login/password for xm. I have the SERO package with unlimited data but I thought I would check with Sprint to make sure this is allowed. I called Tech support and the guy I spoke to said it was fine to data roam.
I was wondering if anyone else has an unlimited data plan but had to pay extra for data roaming. Or if anyone knows a reason why I shouldn't do this.
Thanks again,
Rick
dcd1182 said:
are you in a corporate area, or a sprint affiliate area? I live in iPCS land so I feel your pain.
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i am a ipcs dealer here in south bend, in. they just turned on evdo for the weekend to test it out for all the extra fans comming in to see the notre dame game. so far its pretty fast. i have evdo where i live in michigan, but when i go to work down here its right back to 1x. evdo is comming soon to the ipcs markets. just be patient. we expect it by the end of this year. hopefully q1 08
zanda61 said:
I live in a Sprint covered area, but the dominant carrier here is Alltel. I heard that Sprint and Alltel share a roaming agreement, and I've noticed my phone switch to roam on occasion. On my phone settings, there is an option to force roaming and to allow data roaming. I selected both these choices and after a few moments, the phone showed that I was now roaming and the data indicator showed "EV" instead of "1X". I started internet explorer and it connected right up and worked much faster. Fast enough in fact that I could stream XM radio over the phone using the site http://www.xstreamxm.com/mobile/ and my login/password for xm. I have the SERO package with unlimited data but I thought I would check with Sprint to make sure this is allowed. I called Tech support and the guy I spoke to said it was fine to data roam.
I was wondering if anyone else has an unlimited data plan but had to pay extra for data roaming. Or if anyone knows a reason why I shouldn't do this.
Thanks again,
Rick
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i wouldnt go nuts with it, ive heard of peopel getting the accounts terminated because of excessive roaming (since sprint has to pay alltel for the use of their network)
but then again it could just be a rumor, personalyl i wouldnt overuse it
hey. the 1x is still about the same speed at the EDGE haha
So I ordered my N1 yesterday, and currently have at&t. wasn't too worried about the whole 3g thing, because I figured one of the smart guys here at xda would figure out a way to make it work. After looking in to it further, I realize the hardware just won't allow that. I would just switch to T-mobile, but they have no 3g coverage anywhere near me yet. this brings me to my question. is it worth switching to tmobiles coverage for faster 2g possibly, or in the hopes that they'll soon expand their network. I don't mind getting out of my contract with at&t, tmobiles rates seem to be a lot better. I'm just wondering if anybody has heard anything on T-mobiles future plans.
I think most anecdotal evidence by most users is that EDGE on TMO is much faster than ATT. Why? Even though the "transport" 2G technology is the same, ATT still suffers from not enough bandwidth at its towers for all the heavy 3G areas due to heavy usage. -- In other words, backhaul contention.
Also, the fact that in places where there is no TMO 3G... EDGE works quite well for the very same reason... Even with towers that only have several T1/DS1's in place instead of T3/DS3's or fiber
Cheers,
Kermee
In NYC, where I have 3G coverage as well, EDGE tops out at 10-15KB/s
hurrycaine3000 said:
So I ordered my N1 yesterday, and currently have at&t. wasn't too worried about the whole 3g thing, because I figured one of the smart guys here at xda would figure out a way to make it work. After looking in to it further, I realize the hardware just won't allow that. I would just switch to T-mobile, but they have no 3g coverage anywhere near me yet. this brings me to my question. is it worth switching to tmobiles coverage for faster 2g possibly, or in the hopes that they'll soon expand their network. I don't mind getting out of my contract with at&t, tmobiles rates seem to be a lot better. I'm just wondering if anybody has heard anything on T-mobiles future plans.
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I personally have ran on EDGE for awhile on tmobile and have never had a problem with wifi while I am at home/school... however the 3g is nice, though my house seems to have 3g signals
its simple business really, though 1 man cannot make a difference... as the company grows, the service grows... verizon has the best service because it has the most customers... i think the reason tmobile has struggled in the US (as opposed to being the number 1 world wide carrier) is because of the lack of appeal from phones... with more phones rolling out and tmobile always having its doors open to unlocked phones i see the company gaining some momentum and it starts with these new android phones making it big as well as now having the fastest network in the nation...
ive had bad experiences with both verizon (contract issues) and att (terrible customer service), tmobile has yet to steer me wrong (other than not giving me an upgrade for the N1 haha)
with that said, try em out, idk if companies still let you trial their service for a week or so but you could ask?
i honestly cant tel a diff between edge and 3 g lol they both are friggin fast as hell
VoLoDaR1 said:
i honestly cant tel a diff between edge and 3 g lol they both are friggin fast as hell
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It all depends on what you're doing Tweeting and reading tweets... probably not so much
Cheers,
Kermee
are you crazy? 3G is AT LEAST 10+ times as fast as EDGE.
I know on my touch pro using att 3g over edge. they have 3g where I work, but not at my house. so I always just use wifi at my house, but don't bother at work because the 3g is fast enough. I can definetly tell the difference. granted there is wifi almost everywhere these days, but with my touch pro I have to turn it off and on when I'm using it so my battery half makes through a day. It will be nice if the N1's is more of a automatic thing, if that makes sense. I guess if I knew that t Mobile would actually be implementing 3g in my area at all soon, it would be an easier decision, but I haven't found anything to make me think they'll be adding towers in York, PA any time soon.
Im in Dallas TX and just activated my phone. I was worried because people in some forums where saying phone kept switching to 2g. I just activated my phone and its been on 3 out of 4 bars on 3g last 30-40 minutes...I know this is kind of off topic, but thought it was important do to the nature of all the talk about speed on tmobile.
Ok im scared now, i just looked at the USA map on tmobile https://my.t-mobile.com/Plan/CoverageMap.aspx and looks to hardly be any 3g coverage! What! Tell me it aint so!
that's what I'm saying, I want 3g on this phone, but it's just not in my area on tmobile. we've established it's pretty much going to be impossible to get att's to work on this phone. It doesn't look like tmobile has 3g anywhere, atleast not hardly. what to do, what to do.
dallastx said:
Im in Dallas TX and just activated my phone. I was worried because people in some forums where saying phone kept switching to 2g. I just activated my phone and its been on 3 out of 4 bars on 3g last 30-40 minutes...I know this is kind of off topic, but thought it was important do to the nature of all the talk about speed on tmobile.
Ok im scared now, i just looked at the USA map on tmobile https://my.t-mobile.com/Plan/CoverageMap.aspx and looks to hardly be any 3g coverage! What! Tell me it aint so!
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thats called #4 carrier coverage
as for that map, its ancient... the thing has never worked properly and the maps take forever to load yet i wish i could get a decent detailed coverage map for tmobile somewhere...
hurrycaine3000 said:
I know on my touch pro using att 3g over edge. they have 3g where I work, but not at my house. so I always just use wifi at my house, but don't bother at work because the 3g is fast enough. I can definetly tell the difference. granted there is wifi almost everywhere these days, but with my touch pro I have to turn it off and on when I'm using it so my battery half makes through a day. It will be nice if the N1's is more of a automatic thing, if that makes sense. I guess if I knew that t Mobile would actually be implementing 3g in my area at all soon, it would be an easier decision, but I haven't found anything to make me think they'll be adding towers in York, PA any time soon.
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OMG i live in york to lol. ive asked tmobile many times if we'll ever have 3g and they told me december 09 but that never happened. who knows if we'll ever get it. but edge for me on tmobile works good unless u use media functions like youtube and streaming video but its good for web browsing and email
Make sure T-Mobile has EDGE all around your area because I've found that there are many places that don't even have EDGE on T-Mobile and are GRPS only. That being said, I do find that usually T-Mobile EDGE is faster.... The difference is so small that I wouldn't change networks over it though..
I get around 25KB/s or so, which works fine for streaming music and such. This is quite a bit faster than the AT&T users seem to get here.
Yeah you should be happy with what you've got. EDGE isn't amazing but at least with the 900mhz range you've got coverage. I'm not sure about T-mobile US thought but it has to be better than UK. I live in the UK just outside of town with 3 basestations surrounding my house just out of range with 2100 3g and 1800 2g. I can get signal occasionally with my Iphone 3gs, until I touch it...
The coverage is okish but I get Black-spots everywhere; literally, I can walk round the corner away from a basestation and lose signal. I can only use my phone if I'm underneath a basestation and even then the crappy 4.2Mbit/s (It may even be less than that) limited basestations are overloaded. Each user is then further capped at roughly 1.8Mbit/s
That's 3G and above, which I rarely get as I mentioned. When you get 2G you get EDGE. When I get 2G I don't get EDGE, I don't even get 2.5G, I get slower-than-dial-up GPRS which is unusable. None of T-mo UK's basestations are EDGE enabled; with common black-spots and poor 3G reception, this makes for an appalling network. I can't wait to switch to Three UK. Blanket UK 3g coverage with amazing deals: £15/mo rolling contract with 300 mins, unlimited texts, Unlimited (7.2Mbit/s) data. The only problem is they have shockingly bad phones (no problem for me, or so I thought...)
melterx12 said:
are you crazy? 3G is AT LEAST 10+ times as fast as EDGE.
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That pretty well sums up the problem with TMUS users.
They have no f***ing clue.
I have the TP2 on Verizon, and I would like the HD2. My biggest concern is dropping and poor cell reception. I'm in Orange County, CA, but I do travel around the U.S. occassionally. Please be honest and let me know how people who are on T-Mobile U.S. service what you think. Do you drop calls a lot? Poor connections? Dead zones?
I've had Verizon for 9 years, so I've been spoiled with great cell service. I RARELY get dropped calls and dead zone (I'm being honest). So I'm wondering what people think about T-Mobile.
you won't be disappointed
I haven't dropped a call in chicago though i wish data was like philly lol
whiteblazer01 said:
I have the TP2 on Verizon, and I would like the HD2. My biggest concern is dropping and poor cell reception. I'm in Orange County, CA, but I do travel around the U.S. occassionally. Please be honest and let me know how people who are on T-Mobile U.S. service what you think. Do you drop calls a lot? Poor connections? Dead zones?
I've had Verizon for 9 years, so I've been spoiled with great cell service. I RARELY get dropped calls and dead zone (I'm being honest). So I'm wondering what people think about T-Mobile.
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I've never had a dropped call... but the 3g signal sucks. It doesn't get 3g signals in buildings or houses. I really regret leaving at&t, which had great 3g signals. Also, looking at the t-mobile signal map, it looks like there's a lot of places in the US that don't get t-mobile.
I would suggest, if you can afford it, get the Telstra 9193 HD2 imported from australia and use At&t. You'll get much better service, at least 3g service.
3g & signal are great for me better than my friend with an iphone at&t i had tmobile since it was voicestream & the service has always been good but i say it all depends on your area givie it a try if you are not satisfy you could always go back as soon as you dont pass the 30days
Not for the HD2. Reception on this phone blows chunks. It makes a low signal a no signal. It switches over to EDGE at the drop of a hat. Anyone that switched to T-Mobile for the HD2 can't make a good evaluation based on that device, it truly blows. T-Mobile has an good soon-to-be HSPA+ Network in Orange County but I would avoid the HD2 at all costs.
Service
I live in Idaho. I have Att, it is ok, but don't get 3g. But I'm ok with edge. I have tried Tmobile,It was great in the town 14 miles from my home. But lost signal all the time. I would say from what other people say, is it's ok in big cities, but not rural. I would pay the extra, & get telstra, on Att. Actually, I did similar thing, just put my sim in from 10.00 data plan. I don't use much data so I'm not going to pay higher plan,, My bud in Pa has telstra,on att, loves it, no tmobile probs.
Former AT&T user for about 10 years - really depends on the area. I just got a T-Mobile HD2 and while the phone is phenominal compared to the current AT&T offerings (build quality, screen, etc.) the network in St Louis is VERY spotty. As others have said the 3g is very weak - as soon as you move say into a parking garage (3g worked with AT&T) it will immediately switch to Edge. Also there seems to be a ton of dead spots even in urban areas. The 3G speeds here at most get in to the 800 range where AT&T was well over 1200 BUT the latentcy and browsing speeds on AT&T seem slower. iPhones in this area suck up tons of bandwidth.
Traveling from say St Louis across to Atlanta on major interstates - AT&T is pretty much on Edge EXCEPT in really major cities like Nashville but other than that its Edge all the way to Atlanta. Used a AT&T Tilt and 8525 for this run. DON'T believe the coverage maps - as soon as I left St Louis it was Edge through Kentucky unless I passed a very populated city and the speeds were mediocre at best.
Until a radio ROM update is released that hopefully fixes the reception problem the phone will have issues. Call quality is just "ok" with some popping, hissing etc.
I think you'll be ok if you use it in MAJOR urban areas but if you go off route or go to some of the smaller cities/towns coverage will be pretty poor.
I only paid about 75 dollars for the phone with a two year commitment so I can't really complain - the only really bad decision on Tmobile part was to spec the phone differently than the European HD2 - finding cases, screen protectors that fit the phone at the moment is pretty difficult.
Nope you are better off with the htc incredible and stay on verzion
stim141 said:
Former AT&T user for about 10 years - really depends on the area. I just got a T-Mobile HD2 and while the phone is phenominal compared to the current AT&T offerings (build quality, screen, etc.) the network in St Louis is VERY spotty. As others have said the 3g is very weak - as soon as you move say into a parking garage (3g worked with AT&T) it will immediately switch to Edge. Also there seems to be a ton of dead spots even in urban areas. The 3G speeds here at most get in to the 800 range where AT&T was well over 1200 BUT the latentcy and browsing speeds on AT&T seem slower. iPhones in this area suck up tons of bandwidth.
Traveling from say St Louis across to Atlanta on major interstates - AT&T is pretty much on Edge EXCEPT in really major cities like Nashville but other than that its Edge all the way to Atlanta. Used a AT&T Tilt and 8525 for this run. DON'T believe the coverage maps - as soon as I left St Louis it was Edge through Kentucky unless I passed a very populated city and the speeds were mediocre at best.
Until a radio ROM update is released that hopefully fixes the reception problem the phone will have issues. Call quality is just "ok" with some popping, hissing etc.
I think you'll be ok if you use it in MAJOR urban areas but if you go off route or go to some of the smaller cities/towns coverage will be pretty poor.
I only paid about 75 dollars for the phone with a two year commitment so I can't really complain - the only really bad decision on Tmobile part was to spec the phone differently than the European HD2 - finding cases, screen protectors that fit the phone at the moment is pretty difficult.
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I don't see exactly what you're getting at. It's the HD2, not the network.. the signal might be weak but the HD2 totally drops the signal. Swap out your HD2 for a Motorola CLIQ or CLIQ XT and you'll see what I'm talking about. I'm not saying it won't ever switch over to EDGE again because the network still has some EDGE-only towers sprinkled in (said to be rectified in 2010+Fiber to the sites) but it will greatly reduce the occurrence.
8 years with verizon, 5 lines in south florida
Switched one line specificly for HD2 to tmobile. SUx 3g signal
Most of the tiem ti shows 3g or H but the connection is weak, i get mostly 300-500 range, once ina while it may spike to 800.
Cant even compare to Verizon, i had Droid.
Thinking to go wimax for Sprint. Same phone but better data output.
I've been with them all - Verizon, Tmobile, AT&T - even dating back to 'Cellular One'. I also used to travel far more in the US than I do now and I've never been disappointed with what is now AT&T's network or service area. Tmobile had been spotty for me.
If you're looking into an HD2, I'd recommend buying a T9193 and going with AT&T. It'll cost you more for the hardware but you won't be forced into a $30+/month data plan for two years because you can go with their 'MEdia Net' unlimited plan for $20/month instead, saving $10 per month over the data plan that iPhone users are forced into. IOW, the $240 it'll save you over two years will help reduce your private purchase of the phone to about $500 or less, if you shop hard and wait for a deal.
it would really depend on your own location i've had verizon< noproblems though many years ago. then moved over to nextel< its nextel:x then moved over to at&t (found this site) at&t I would always have drop spots, not random alsways a consistant few locations other than that it was fine. I recently switched to t-mo for the hd2 on no contract as i plan on moving over to sprint once the evo comes out. so far the best service has come from verizon though at the time I only had a flip phone. I would go back but haven't liked any of the phones and that was the only reason i left. I would stick with verizon and try out the incredible. I haven't encountered any issues being in the OC myself with t-mo service but its only been about a month and I haven't traveled out of OC.
picassoianctions said:
8 years with verizon, 5 lines in south florida
Switched one line specificly for HD2 to tmobile. SUx 3g signal
Most of the tiem ti shows 3g or H but the connection is weak, i get mostly 300-500 range, once ina while it may spike to 800.
Cant even compare to Verizon, i had Droid.
Thinking to go wimax for Sprint. Same phone but better data output.
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LOL.. I really hope you do pick up a WiMAX phone. If you think you're disappointed now just wait. Also the connection has nothing to do with it, if you're getting slow speeds that's because the backend of the network is still on one T1. When HSPA+ is enabled it will blow WiMAX out of the water.
BillTheCat said:
I've been with them all - Verizon, Tmobile, AT&T - even dating back to 'Cellular One'. I also used to travel far more in the US than I do now and I've never been disappointed with what is now AT&T's network or service area. Tmobile had been spotty for me.
If you're looking into an HD2, I'd recommend buying a T9193 and going with AT&T. It'll cost you more for the hardware but you won't be forced into a $30+/month data plan for two years because you can go with their 'MEdia Net' unlimited plan for $20/month instead, saving $10 per month over the data plan that iPhone users are forced into. IOW, the $240 it'll save you over two years will help reduce your private purchase of the phone to about $500 or less, if you shop hard and wait for a deal.
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When did you have T-Mobile?
whiteblazer01 said:
I have the TP2 on Verizon, and I would like the HD2. My biggest concern is dropping and poor cell reception. I'm in Orange County, CA, but I do travel around the U.S. occassionally. Please be honest and let me know how people who are on T-Mobile U.S. service what you think. Do you drop calls a lot? Poor connections? Dead zones?
I've had Verizon for 9 years, so I've been spoiled with great cell service. I RARELY get dropped calls and dead zone (I'm being honest). So I'm wondering what people think about T-Mobile.
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I have T-Mobile as my personal phone (Proud owner of The HD2) and have AT&T phone as my business phone (company gave it to me to use it)... So, here is the comparison:
Where I live the reception is very strong for both T-Mobile and AT&T - when you check their maps... T-Mobile has not failed me in last 5 years. I recall only one outage I have experienced and that was due to bad weather where I simply was not able to make phone calls to certain people. So my rating for T-Mobile is and stays 5 stars hands down...
Now AT&T - it appears to have faster 3G - like it is a big deal since I do not use it at all - but anyway, having faster 3G that's where everything stops. Call Reception is terrible, dropped calls all over the place, you get into the building you loose reception easily, etc. Therefore, can easily rate AT&T with lousy 2 stars - which they get only based on faster 3G.
Bottom line T-Mobile is definitely better in service where I live which is Chicagoland Northern burbs - but comparing it to Verizon? Well, I never had Verizon as I am not fan of CDMA networks - more like GSM person (habbit I brought from Europe I guess lol)... I heard Verizon is good with coverage; not that great in Basements - but having HD2 in mind - I do not think you will regret it...
PS test it out and see how it works - you can get that done and see for your area if it's working or not... good luck!
I don't know how many here use podcast app that download mp3 files such as google listen, but for me this has recently been very slow unless using wifi. No mater wich app, kernel, modem, rom... I can only get 10kB/s. I'm not over the 5 gig limit either and everything else is plenty fast as it should be.
It appears that tmo is slowing all mp3 files down except the amazon mp3 app. Has anyone else been having issues with this?
I've found one other thread on the tmo forums about the issue.
XDA App
My data connection was pretty crappy last week. Back to normal this week.
This has been going on for almost two months for me
XDA App
I haven't been able to dl car talk via npr podcast apps on 3g as of late, this would explain why
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk
Amazon MP3 is slow on AT&T or T-Mobile for me.
This is impossible unless they are targeting particular hosts, but I think that might be illegal.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
It's definitely not impossible. As to the legality of it, that may be more of a gray area. They can make many seemingly reasonable claims to justify it, including improving the efficiency of their network.
XDA App
Well I really hope this is not true because this will heavily sway my current somewhat positive view of them.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA Premium App
SeanFloyd said:
Yeah, **** tmobile. Never realized how ****ty the network was till my gf got a Samsung Epic on Sprint. ****s all over tmobile.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
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Sprint is garbage around these parts and they have traffic shaping as well - all carriers do. 4G a horrible experience because of the constant disconnects/loss of signal.
heygrl said:
Sprint is garbage around these parts and they have traffic shaping as well - all carriers do. 4G a horrible experience because of the constant disconnects/loss of signal.
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Can't comment on the 4g sentiment but her 3g on Sprint seems at least twice as fast as T-Mobile's 3g. I am living in the Phoenix area so there should be ample coverage.
SeanFloyd said:
Can't comment on the 4g sentiment but her 3g on Sprint seems at least twice as fast as T-Mobile's 3g. I am living in the Phoenix area so there should be ample coverage.
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You're kidding right? You must be in an area with a ton of T-Mobile customers because the last time I was out there Sprint 3G was complete garbage and I was getting 2-5Mbps easy with T-Mobile's 3G. Not to mention, Sprint's data card was switching back between 1X and EV-DO on Sprint and downloading any type of file at 27KB/sec. It was really pathetic and still is. There are rampant complaints about Sprint 3G in Phoenix right on this forum.. look in the Evo section.
This is definitely real. Just google it, people are complaining lots of places. It's odd because I can download other audio formats of the exact same file (or any other type of file I've tried) at normal speed. Speedtest confirms a solid 5.5mbps connection. I hit tmo up on twitter about it but haven't heard a response. Haven't tried calling them but others confirm they have.
I not sure it's illegal as of now. They control their networks until some form of net neutrality is passed.
yea ive noticed the same thing
I've noticed the same thing, google listen downloads over 3g are slow, wifi fast. When listening to shows on rapid transit, invariably the TCP connection will either break or I will hit the 'end' in the middle of the down load, and I'm left with like half a friggin download to listen to.
Slowing it down is easy to do. There are traffic shapers, the most popular ones are Sandvine and the Cisco Service Control Engine, that can pick out traffic and traffic signatures and rate limit them in hardware.
The legality is questionable if they don't disclose what they are doing up front.
I've been meaning to setup a vpn with home and the phone to avoid this slow down, but haven't found the time.
I actually spoke to a tmobile rep about this cuz I had experienced this problem for about a month. they went through the usual steps..... Turn off phone, take out sim card and battery, and ofcourse clear my browsers cache, that was a load of crap. Anyways the rep told me that I had an outdated sim card in my phone, I got a new one and still my downloads of twit podcasts and other MP3 files are slow as hell.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Same issue with a Nexus S. Called tmobile, claimed they have never heard of the problem, but their engineers will look at it when they get a chance since it is a low priority issue. So lame. However, not everyone is having this problem, it almost seems to be affecting people in certain area's I for one am in Orlando.
It's not a problem, you've just wasted your time by calling in.. it's intentional to manage network traffic. Even Slacker streams are shaped.
heygrl said:
Sprint is garbage around these parts and they have traffic shaping as well - all carriers do. 4G a horrible experience because of the constant disconnects/loss of signal.
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Sprint has a bigger network 3G network than T-Mobile - Voice too. T-Mobile depends on Roaming for voice, and they aren't building out their data network - just upgrading them to HSPA+ (Software upgrade, not hard or expensive).
Traveling around with an AT&T or Sprint phone is a different experience than T-Mobile. Driving to Houston, my Vibrant was drops signal (Voice and Data) between major cities like nothing.
That never happened when I had an AT&T phone. I could basically be on 3G the whole way there... My phone would never become useless while traveling.
With T-Mobile if you travel to some cities you also run the risk of having nothing but GPRS for voice and no decent data connection. The risk of that with the larger carriers is much less. T-Mobile is decent in bigger cities, but outside of them (I'm talking, drive 3-5 miles out of some of them) they are terrible.
They're cheap because the service is cheap, compared to other carriers. AT&T and Verizon get by with charging more because their networks are huge by comparison, and while AT&T has had issues they have been consistently building their network out and adding capacity. T-Mobile and Sprint haven't (not that they need to, they aren't that large). AT&T just put up a new tower here, for example, so they're the only carrier around here with 3G/HSPA coverage.
T-Mobile gets voice coverage due to roaming contracts. Verizon and Sprint get little to no coverage here...
EDIT: GSM 3G is faster than CDMA 3G. There's really no argument about that. Of course, if T-Mobile doesn't have great towers/service where you live that can flip. But Coverage and Reliability > Speed, and that's why T-Mobile is still the smallest carrier despite having the best prices/plans. Their 3G network is too small, and unreliable especially if you travel and/or live outside of major cities.
ibous said:
It's definitely not impossible. As to the legality of it, that may be more of a gray area. They can make many seemingly reasonable claims to justify it, including improving the efficiency of their network.
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Horrible since with that excuse they cap everything,while still selling in BIG LETTERS The FASTEST 4G NETWORK.
N8ter said:
Sprint has a bigger network 3G network than T-Mobile - Voice too. T-Mobile depends on Roaming for voice, and they aren't building out their data network - just upgrading them to HSPA+ (Software upgrade, not hard or expensive).
Traveling around with an AT&T or Sprint phone is a different experience than T-Mobile. Driving to Houston, my Vibrant was drops signal (Voice and Data) between major cities like nothing.
That never happened when I had an AT&T phone. I could basically be on 3G the whole way there... My phone would never become useless while traveling.
With T-Mobile if you travel to some cities you also run the risk of having nothing but GPRS for voice and no decent data connection. The risk of that with the larger carriers is much less. T-Mobile is decent in bigger cities, but outside of them (I'm talking, drive 3-5 miles out of some of them) they are terrible.
They're cheap because the service is cheap, compared to other carriers. AT&T and Verizon get by with charging more because their networks are huge by comparison, and while AT&T has had issues they have been consistently building their network out and adding capacity. T-Mobile and Sprint haven't (not that they need to, they aren't that large). AT&T just put up a new tower here, for example, so they're the only carrier around here with 3G/HSPA coverage.
T-Mobile gets voice coverage due to roaming contracts. Verizon and Sprint get little to no coverage here...
EDIT: GSM 3G is faster than CDMA 3G. There's really no argument about that. Of course, if T-Mobile doesn't have great towers/service where you live that can flip. But Coverage and Reliability > Speed, and that's why T-Mobile is still the smallest carrier despite having the best prices/plans. Their 3G network is too small, and unreliable especially if you travel and/or live outside of major cities.
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Verizon has better cover than both from what i read.
But here in Puerto Rico T-mobile is good,and i have data pretty much any were i go,they are cheap because they are the smaller guys not the big ones,and have a much better customer service than AT&T which ranked last.
Some of the best phone plans here were made by a company call Movi Star,before Movi start everything cell phone related here in Puerto Rico was ultra expensive.
In fact by the late 90's here you were charge by the minutes,in plans of 400 minutes and so and they counted both ways in or out,text ultra expensive as well,like .30 cents a text or more.
Movi Star actually came with the first all call receive free plan,and it was a hit,they also boosted the first pre-pay phones with unlimited receive calls free as long as you had balance to make calls as well.
Not only that they also came with the first plan here in Puerto Rico,that included both calls incoming and outgoing unlimited for a fixed price,in that time it was $99 dollars i remember it,it was like 1998 i think.
By that time the PRTC,Cellular One were the tops dogs here,and a 1000 minute plan on any of the 2 could cost you almost what Movi Star charged,but you only have 1000 minutes that counted both ways,with Movi Star it was unlimited.
Now that company is call Open Mobile and they sell just pre-pay phones,they are not as attractive to customers because they don't have a huge selection of phones,and they sell the phone to you without financial,unlike T-mobile and AT&T which sell you the phone cheap or free to tie you in the contract.
In fact they have the cheapest plan of any company here in Puerto Rico and have good signal to,they charge you $55 for unlimited calls, unlimited data,unlimited text.unlimited US long distance calls,Unlimited roaming in US,and even 411 (information to ask for numbers) Unlimited.
All that for $55 dollars,the only down side is that they don't use sim cards,and that only some Sprint phones are compatible out side the ones they sell you,and android phones like the hero are expensive like $300.
So you see usually the best plans comes from the smaller guys,because when they are big like AT&T they charge people what ever they want,is the number 1 reason why AT&T and T-mobile merge should not be allowed,because once T-mobile is in and the rest of the contracts are up,the abuse will begin,and believe me they will rise they price once your contract is done.
T-mobile service is not cheap because is bad,is cheap because T-mobile is not as big as AT&T and Verizon so to bring customers in they have to offer better prices,just because AT&T over charge for their services doesn't mean that what T-mobile is doing most be because their signal is bad.
I was just wondering what the opinions of T-mobile was for the members here. I have been on a Radioshack/AT&T employee plan since 2006 and even though I quit in 2008 I have continued to be on this plan. It was amazing (2000 minutes, unlimited text, and unlimited data for $25 a month), however I just received notice today from my old AT&T rep that I will finally be taken off it. I am currently looking at switching to one of the major US carriers and am looking at the plan prices. I want to stick with an Android phone, so I'll need data. Verizon's cheapest plan looks to be $89.99/month for what I want (450 minutes, unlimited text, 2GB of data), with AT&T and Sprint's around $10 cheaper. I rarely use minutes (average of 250 a month), but I text quite a bit so I would want unlimited text. I also don't use data much. My max in the past year has been 134MB, however I know if I have a faster phone I will probably use data more. I was looking at T-mobile's plans and noticed they are drastically cheaper. $49.99/month for 500 minutes, unlimited text, and 2GB of data. Is their service much worse than AT&T, even though they are both GSM? I'd hate to switch to them and end up hating my service.
So in short, does anybody who has had AT&T and T-mobile notice a major difference between the two? Would I be better with sticking with Verizon or AT&T or are they all about equal nowadays?
Thanks in advance!
I recommend you buy an unlocked phone (hello Nexus!) and get a sim card from Straight Talk. They are a MVNO that runs on the AT&T network. I believe plans are $45.
It always depends on your area. For years I used Cingular(now At&t) and I had pretty decent service. About 5 years ago, T-Mobile was carrying a phone I wanted, so I decided to switch. (This was before I knew about the glory of unlocking ;P). T-Mobile's network was so horrible I never (read:NEVER) got service within a 2 mile radius of my home, and about the same at work.
I couldn't make a phone call with out it dropping, so I was forced to switch back to At&t. The guy at T-Mobile pulled up a "coverage map" and it claimed I should have the best service right in the area I needed it. So it was a bunch of bull if you ask me.
My suggestion has always been to talk to people who you know in the area of where you will be using your phone. I know some people from around my area who get great reception with T-Mobile and get awful service with At&t. I honestly have no idea how it happens, but it does.
Another route would be to get the phone to test (perhaps one of their pre-paid, no contract options?) and use it for a few days. If you are unhappy, simply return it. If you are returning it because of bad coverage they HAVE to take it back and give you a full refund.
I still think the asking people around the area is the best option. Perhaps you could give a general location, and ask people on the forums who are located near by to give you some of their opinions on their coverage? Its probably the best way to be sure, if you ask me.
T-Mobile was great to me in the East Bay area of northern California, until last November, when they instituted traffic-shaping policies that meant every single JPEG image on the internet was horribly compressed into an ugly mess of artifacts and banded gradients.
I really miss T-Mobile's HSPA+ speed. AT&T just can't quite get as fast. But I'll take a 20-25% slower connection that isn't adulterated over a faster one that's been tampered with.
I've had ok experiences with T-Mobile. When I lived in Atlanta there were many areas where I simply didn't get a signal, but that's probably due to to the terrain. As suggested you should probably ask others in the area where you will be how their coverage is. In regards to plans, I'm on a contracted unlimited talk/text, 2GB data for $90. I'll be modifying that at the soonest opportunity... I guess at least the phone itself was cheaper at the time :/
Thanks for info!
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I've had T-Mobile for a few years now, and I can't wait to leave this company. I'm currently in the process of jumping ship. I've driven from California to Tennessee, Tennessee to Iowa, Iowa to Michigan, and back again. I've never seen such garbage coverage from a cellular company. I have a 4G compatible phone, but I've only ever seen 4G when I fly through Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Their 3G coverage area is also terrible.
So, Cons are as follows:
4G: What 4G?
3G: Doesn't exist
2G: Covers the entire country with data speeds barely faster than dial-up, unless you live more than 25 miles outside a big city, or in North Dakota in general.
Reception: It's a well known fact that T-Mobile cannot maintain or even guarantee any sort of standard level of service indoors.
Pros:
Pricing: They are cheap for a reason.
"Unlimited" Data Plans: They "throttle" them after a certain amount of time, and it's throttling to less than 2G speeds. In fact, you should try being throttled while trying to drive across the country using Google maps...
Customer Service: The only pleasant part of my time with T-Mobile.
cdchris12 said:
I've had T-Mobile for a few years now, and I can't wait to leave this company. I'm currently in the process of jumping ship. I've driven from California to Tennessee, Tennessee to Iowa, Iowa to Michigan, and back again. I've never seen such garbage coverage from a cellular company. I have a 4G compatible phone, but I've only ever seen 4G when I fly through Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Their 3G coverage area is also terrible.
So, Cons are as follows:
4G: What 4G?
3G: Doesn't exist
2G: Covers the entire country with data speeds barely faster than dial-up, unless you live more than 25 miles outside a big city, or in North Dakota in general.
Reception: It's a well known fact that T-Mobile cannot maintain or even guarantee any sort of standard level of service indoors.
Pros:
Pricing: They are cheap for a reason.
"Unlimited" Data Plans: They "throttle" them after a certain amount of time, and it's throttling to less than 2G speeds. In fact, you should try being throttled while trying to drive across the country using Google maps...
Customer Service: The only pleasant part of my time with T-Mobile.
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Those may have been YOUR experiences and I'm not discounting that BUT....
I have FIVE LINES with T-Mobile
NEVER HAVE I HAD an issue with signal or coverage indoors.
Full bars in my home, excellent signal (68dBm-72dBm).
Very good coverage in Jersey City, NJ where I live.
My husband whom travels all over the tri-state area (NY,NJ,CT) doesn't have any reception issues either.
Fast HSPA+ (yes, it's a 3.5G technology) speeds depending on the device used. (I have the Amaze,,Sensation and, a Nexus S on T-Mobile ATM)
Wasn't me!! I didn't do it!
I completely disagree with cdchris12 however I always lived in area with good T-Mobile coverage and their throttle speed is fast enough to view website and use Google Maps. I do find that depends on the phone, usually older ones can have problem keeping data and gps in door, unless you're next to a window. With newer big phones with good antenna is not so much a problem.
I'd say get an unlocked phone and go with T-Mobile prepaid $50/month plan which give you unlimited everything and throttle to 2G after 2GB of usage. Unless you need roaming which isn't available with prepaid. I have family and friends who use ATT 3G and T-Mobile 3G network is always faster to me. In fact, with a Galaxy SII with dual HSPA+ antenna I get speed excess of 20mbps. Straight Talk has the same plan for $45 I believe and they go through T-Mobile network.
T-Mobile also allows you to tether which ATT don't, although recently I heard they changed that for people with $70 plan.
You might also find this useful: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=21604722&postcount=2
To get T-Mobile 3G you need a phone that support 1700/2100Mhz band.
In the East Bay area T-Mobile's HSPA+ speeds are really quite fast. I often saw 8-9Mbps downstream on my Galaxy Nexus before I switched to AT&T.
Unfortunately a fast internet connection is useless if your carrier alters all images on the internet so everything looks like dogpoo.
I have no idea what you are talking about, you might be accessing website through some kind of proxy like Opera Mini/Turbo. I know you will reply that that isn't the case, but I really can't think why that would be the case, but it has to be through some kind of proxy. I also notice some roms are set to connect to SimpleMobile by default instead of T-Mobile, which also causes problems. With Opera Mobile using desktop user agent, it looks exactly like my PC, and I've tried 5 different Android phones with T-Mobile. I haven't heard of millions other T-Mobile users complaining about degrading pictures quality from browser.
eksasol said:
I have no idea what you are talking about, you might be accessing website through some kind of proxy like Opera Mini/Turbo. I know you will reply that that isn't the case, but I really can't think why that would be the case, but it has to be through some kind of proxy. I also notice some roms are set to connect to SimpleMobile by default instead of T-Mobile, which also causes problems. With Opera Mobile using desktop user agent, it looks exactly like my PC, and I've tried 5 different Android phones with T-Mobile. I haven't heard of millions other T-Mobile users complaining about degrading pictures quality from browser.
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It's a proxy, but the proxy is on T-Mobile's end, not mine. It's a transparent proxy and it works exactly like the Opera Mini proxy, but I can't choose to turn it off. Connecting through a VPN would obviously fix the problem, but there's no easy way to force Android to auto-connect to a VPN every time I open the browser.
Trust me, I was thorough. The user agent wasn't an issue. The APN was set correctly. I spent over ten hours on the phone with T-Mobile's technical support and I hard reset the phones on both lines multiple times, restored to unrooted stock multiple times, and nothing fixed the issue. When I bought my Galaxy Nexus, I tested it before unlocking the bootloader and rooting it, and had the same exact issue.
Just to be absolutely sure, I even tested the issue on an iOS device (iPhone 3GS) and a WP7 device (HD7) with the same results--heavily compressed JPEG images when viewing any unencrypted page.
It no longer matters since I left T-Mobile for AT&T, which uses no such proxy.
Edit: I should note that I'm not the only one with this problem. Every person I know in the SF Bay area who uses T-Mobile has this problem. It may be automatic traffic shaping algorithms used on a tower-by-tower basis (which would explain why some people don't have the problem), but yeah, it's all over the place here. I tested demo phones in every T-Mobile store I could easily reach in the area--three in SF, two in Oakland, one in Berkeley and one in El Cerrito, and they all exhibit the same problem.
For example:
Actual quality, downloaded over wifi (180kb)
Very low quality, downloaded over T-Mobile 3G (55kb)
Yea, the compression thing on TMo is a well known thing. It doesn't bother me personally.
To throw in my experience with AT&T/T-Mobile here, I review phones as a side project. I've noted several differences in the two networks. Most are well known things that others have commented on. T-Mobile EASILY has better customer service. They always have. They pride themselves in their outstanding customer care. As long as you aren't being retarded or yelling at them, they will do everything possible to make you a happy customer.
As far as coverage goes, check the maps. AT&T has a bigger network footprint. T-Mobile has better network speeds. I get better speeds on T-Mobile 3G than on AT&T LTE. Obviously this is very dependent on location, but that's how it is here.
If you have coverage from T-Mobile and don't mind the picture compression, I strongly suggest it. I lived without 3G from T-Mobile for 2 and a half years while I was in the Army on base in Georgia. EDGE speeds are respectable from them. Their customer service and my ridiculously old $50 unlimited everything plan kept me going.
T-Mobile does throttle users once you reach your limits. I've never been throttled personally, but I've maxed out a test SGS2 just to see what it's like. You are still able to browse the web. No videos or streaming music, though. Speed tests put the throttling at around 70-110 Kbps. This is within EDGE speeds. Their unthrottled EDGE speeds are between 160-320 Kbps here. By comparison, GPRS speed drops down to about 20-40 Kbps.
My preference is for good customer service. T-Mobile has always been there for me, even when things got tight for me. I see no reason to leave them now. Look at the news just within the last 6 months. AT&T couldn't care less about its customers. It doesn't change anything until it gets sued.
cajunflavoredbob said:
Yea, the compression thing on TMo is a well known thing. It doesn't bother me personally.
To throw in my experience with AT&T/T-Mobile here, I review phones as a side project. I've noted several differences in the two networks. Most are well known things that others have commented on. T-Mobile EASILY has better customer service. They always have. They pride themselves in their outstanding customer care. As long as you aren't being retarded or yelling at them, they will do everything possible to make you a happy customer.
As far as coverage goes, check the maps. AT&T has a bigger network footprint. T-Mobile has better network speeds. I get better speeds on T-Mobile 3G than on AT&T LTE. Obviously this is very dependent on location, but that's how it is here.
If you have coverage from T-Mobile and don't mind the picture compression, I strongly suggest it. I lived without 3G from T-Mobile for 2 and a half years while I was in the Army on base in Georgia. EDGE speeds are respectable from them. Their customer service and my ridiculously old $50 unlimited everything plan kept me going.
T-Mobile does throttle users once you reach your limits. I've never been throttled personally, but I've maxed out a test SGS2 just to see what it's like. You are still able to browse the web. No videos or streaming music, though. Speed tests put the throttling at around 70-110 Kbps. This is within EDGE speeds. Their unthrottled EDGE speeds are between 160-320 Kbps here. By comparison, GPRS speed drops down to about 20-40 Kbps.
My preference is for good customer service. T-Mobile has always been there for me, even when things got tight for me. I see no reason to leave them now. Look at the news just within the last 6 months. AT&T couldn't care less about its customers. It doesn't change anything until it gets sued.
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This^^^^ %110. That being said, I've only experienced image compression in NYC, in a few areas (mostly midtown Manhattan). I live in Jersey City, NJ and haven't experienced it here. Even with image compression, images don't look THAT BAD....at least IMO.
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Babydoll25 said:
This^^^^ %110. That being said, I've only experienced image compression in NYC, in a few areas (mostly midtown Manhattan). I live in Jersey City, NJ and haven't experienced it here. Even with image compression, images don't look THAT BAD....at least IMO.
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For me, they looked so bad I was willing to pay $40 more a month to AT&T in order to make it go away permanently. The other line on my account is used by my partner, and she would frequently read manga raws on her phone. When the image compression started, the Japanese characters in the raw manga scans became totally illegible. She was, to put it mildly, rather upset. This is probably 90% of why she owns a smartphone and is willing to pay for it, so I'm sure you can see the issue here.
For me it was an aesthetic issue, but for her it was a functionality issue. In any case, we pay a little more a month, but we also get more--and I personally prefer AT&T's method of handling data. At least on AT&T if I want more than 3GB a month I can pay to get extra GBs. On T-Mobile, you'd get throttled regardless and EDGE in the East Bay is completely unusable.
I would have stayed with T-Mobile had I been able to figure out how to automatically log into a VPN every time I opened an app that pulled image assets from the web (the browser, the Android Market, etc). Unfortunately, the only solution I found also wakelocked the phone permanently, preventing it from sleeping and killing any semblance of good battery life.
synaesthetic said:
For me, they looked so bad I was willing to pay $40 more a month to AT&T in order to make it go away permanently. The other line on my account is used by my partner, and she would frequently read manga raws on her phone. When the image compression started, the Japanese characters in the raw manga scans became totally illegible. She was, to put it mildly, rather upset. This is probably 90% of why she owns a smartphone and is willing to pay for it, so I'm sure you can see the issue here.
For me it was an aesthetic issue, but for her it was a functionality issue. In any case, we pay a little more a month, but we also get more--and I personally prefer AT&T's method of handling data. At least on AT&T if I want more than 3GB a month I can pay to get extra GBs. On T-Mobile, you'd get throttled regardless and EDGE in the East Bay is completely unusable.
I would have stayed with T-Mobile had I been able to figure out how to automatically log into a VPN every time I opened an app that pulled image assets from the web (the browser, the Android Market, etc). Unfortunately, the only solution I found also wakelocked the phone permanently, preventing it from sleeping and killing any semblance of good battery life.
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I think that's the main problem with the way TMo handles it. It's not consistent. It seems to be worse based on location and usage. More compression in more populated areas or something. For me, I can tell that the images are compressed if I zoom in inside a webpage, but otherwise, it's business as usual.
Same with the data speeds. A lot of people say that it drops to regular GPRS speeds when they get throttled. I only tested it the one time with that review unit SGS2, but it wasn't that bad. 100Kbps is fine for web browsing. The problem seems to be that it's all very much a "your mileage may vary" situation.
AT&T is evil, but at least they are consistent.
They're all evil. We simply pick the lesser evil in any given location.
I'm kind of surprised that nobody's mentioned T-Mobile's Wifi Calling. It allows you to get service anywhere that has a Wifi network available, and you can do everything as normal (Call, text, internet) through your plan. I use it everyday, and I think it's great.
theholyfork said:
I'm kind of surprised that nobody's mentioned T-Mobile's Wifi Calling. It allows you to get service anywhere that has a Wifi network available, and you can do everything as normal (Call, text, internet) through your plan. I use it everyday, and I think it's great.
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It's nice to have, but kind of crappy that it still counts against you, even though you aren't using their towers...