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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.
Which would you choose in my situation? Keep the TP w/ATT or keep HD2+T-Mobile? I live in Hawaii if that helps.
Main problem...
ATT= Better coverage with 3G. Almost every place I go, it stays at 3G 95% of the time, but either it's the small Touch Pro 1, or the 3G is slow.
Touch Pro= Small screen(hate to say this but my eyes have gotten worse in the last year. Very hard to read), GPS takes minutes to get a lock, and my GPS programs always lags at least 3-5 seconds of where I really am. Bluetooth doesn't work well with Microsoft Voice Command.
AND
T-Mobile= 3G is weird. I have signal 60% of the time. But if I walk indoors, I could be at 50% signal, but it might switch to Edge (not sure if it's the HD2 fault). When I have a 3G signal, I swear it seems faster than the same bars for the ATT 3G.
HD2= LARGE SCREEN! I LOVE IT! GPS signal locks in 10-30 seconds at most. And the GPS has maybe at most a second lag of where I really am. Bluetooth and Microsoft Voice has issue. And my Igo8 doesn't play well with TTS on the HD2, when it works on my Touch Pro.
SO which choice should I go with? It seems I should stick with the HD2, but T-Mobile signal bothers me. Its weird to see 3G go away and E pops up. And once in a while no phone signal, but if I dial when that happens, it gets a signal and dials. So as a PHONE, it works. But using the Internet on Edge is not so good. BUT the phone is awsome compaired to the Touch Pro I have.
I'm running out of time, so I thought I would ask your view.
On a side note, I vacation once a year to CA to take kids Disneyland and Legoland etc, how good is the coverage for 3G in your experience for ATT and T-Mobile?
T-Mobile is upgrading HSPA+ so for a few months in major cities it will be the fastest and strongest network until verizon rolls out LTE. So you should see some increase in the coming months. I care more about the device than the network speed but thats my personal preference. I used EDGE on my iPhone 3G instead of 3G better battery life, edge was actually faster lol. Any who I hated the Touch Pro or FUZE w/e and swapped it out after 3 months of use. Had the iPhone until last sunday when I bought myself a HD2. This phone blows everything out the water right now. I would never switch back.
Also A 3rd option would be buy a HD2 full price and unlock it. Thats what I did.
I chose to go with the HD2 on AT&T's network.
Is Hawaii 1900 or 850 for AT&T?
3G on AT&T has been a lot better lately, they're finally getting enough capacity in to deal with all the iPhone tards here in the Bay Area.
sgtcurry said:
T-Mobile is upgrading HSPA+ so for a few months in major cities it will be the fastest and strongest network until verizon rolls out LTE. So you should see some increase in the coming months. I care more about the device than the network speed but thats my personal preference. I used EDGE on my iPhone 3G instead of 3G better battery life, edge was actually faster lol. Any who I hated the Touch Pro or FUZE w/e and swapped it out after 3 months of use. Had the iPhone until last sunday when I bought myself a HD2. This phone blows everything out the water right now. I would never switch back.
Also A 3rd option would be buy a HD2 full price and unlock it. Thats what I did.
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I don't know if HSPA+ is being released in Hawaii...
Miwa said:
I chose to go with the HD2 on AT&T's network.
Is Hawaii 1900 or 850 for AT&T?
3G on AT&T has been a lot better lately, they're finally getting enough capacity in to deal with all the iPhone tards here in the Bay Area.
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You got me there. But AT&T while, it didn't seem fast, I seem to always have a 3G signal. More often than I care, I notice the "E" showing up on the HD2. Even when it tells me it had 3 bars on 3G before changing to E with 3-5 bars.
I have T-Mobile HTC HD2 service and I work in orange county near Disneyland (within 3 miles). The signal strength is very good and I rarely see an EDGE signal popping out.
San Diego also has good signal strength similar to Orange County. My girlfriend lives in San Diego so I go down once in a while.
I would get T-Mobile HD2 and you can always use Wi-Fi from home if you do not have very good 3G coverage there.
I use Wi-Fi at home even I have 3G anyway! My home is at LA county and it is still got pretty good 3G speed.
I have yet tried my 3G coverage in northern California but will get to try it in a few weeks since I am attending my friend's wedding up in the north close to San Jose.
Hope this helps and you really cannot go wrong with the HD2~!
Just came out of ATT to buy this awesome device... no question HD2 & T-Mo. Ofcourse, 3G coverage is less, but in the SF city I have full coverage (better) & most importantly, no more freaking dropped calls!
I have both, HD2 all the way. So far in OC, signal quality is about the same (2G/3G) except T-Mobile doesn't drop my calls, and call sound quality is slightly better.
starstreak said:
Which would you choose in my situation? Keep the TP w/ATT or keep HD2+T-Mobile? I live in Hawaii if that helps.
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Click to collapse
I can't comment on ATT's 3G coverage in HI but just to throw another option in here, if you wanted to go with the ATT network (I used to have Tmobile and wasn't crazy about it), then look for an HD2 T9193 on Ebay or elsewhere and you're good to go. It has the 850mhz hardware to support the ATT 3G network. I'm thrilled with mine so far. You'll be spending more on the hardware but you don't get forced into a higher priced data plan - you can opt for their 'MEdia Net' for $20/month (rather than $30+/month) and no no contract, which IMO is an 'upgrade' in and of itself.
Just go to t-mobile give it a shot, you have 30 days to cancel your contract so you can always go back to att.
Has anyone else had an issue with having the phone drop out of 3G coverage, and not want to reconnect by itself?
It seems to me as if when there is no 3G coverage it falls back onto GPRS and doesnt check if 3G is available.
I've set it to WCDMA (3G) only mode just to get on 3G, but it sucks cause I have no fallback and am out out of coverage often enough to take some advantage of GPRS.
Also 3G signal seems pretty weak compared to my HTC Magic in same locations...
Any ideas?
Might be something about your area, I haven't lost 3G once since I got my phone.
Once I put it on 3G only mode it seems to be alright but the odd building I wont have anything cause I have no GPRS to go to unless I manually switch it back and forth.
Maybe I'll call up rogers tech support and see if theres any known issues, but usually Im more informed then they are. :S
I have had this problem, for the first week or so the 3G was rock solid and i was getting pretty good speeds. Then things started playing up and Orange in the UK told me to switch to GSM only, data speeds sucked big time, timescape would fail to update etc etc. So i called up and they are sending a replacement handset out.
The 3G coverage where i live and work is excellent according to the Orange website, so there shouldn't be any issues there.
I could not put up with the slower internet speeds, so i hope it was just a duff handset.
i drove across the US and i had 3g where there were 3g and it was on edge where there weren't any 3g. it went back to 3g once i reached 3g area.
my setting is on gsm/wcdma preferred.
i dunno why yours isn't going back up to 3g in a strong 3g area ??
which carrier are you with?
Rogers in Canada
i would check with your carrier and see a map of coverage. did you get the phone from them?
the only other way is to repair the phone. but losing 3G in a 3G covered area is the first i've heard from the X10. i've heard that the NEXUS ONE has somewhat of the same issue....
Well I know the coverage is there because when the phone is set to WCDMA (3G) only mode, I will have coverage. But when it is set to dual mode, as soon as it drops to GSM it seems like it doesn't even bother checking or reverting back to 3G, even though I am back in 3G coverage.
i'd probably talk to the carrier about it and troubleshoot it. maybe you can see if the phone is defective or not by doing that. and hopefully get a new device.
arcticreaver said:
i'd probably talk to the carrier about it and troubleshoot it. maybe you can see if the phone is defective or not by doing that. and hopefully get a new device.
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lol troubleshooting with rogers is like putting a sawed off 12 guage in your mouth and pulling the trigger...
wow rogers service is that bad?
yup sadly. I have dealt with all the majors in North america (even worked for att) and rogers is THE WORST.
"power concedes nothing without a demand. it never did. it never will."
They have been the premier carrier in canada for many years, only recently has telus been catching up. So now they're changing... but they still hire idiots for tech support.
Case in point, instead of giving me apn settings they said my x1 was defective. Found the apn settings and x1 worked perfectly.
Ive had pretty good luck with rogers so far, and I've worked for all the big carriers.
I think with tech support its really hit and miss but id have to say bell is probably the worst for issues, account and phone related...
IMO ...
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Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App
Funny you said that, I just was toying with my X10 (running on AT&T in Bay area, bought from Rogers Wireless) and its doing the same. Once it goes to Edge, doesnt bother to check for the 3G.. hmmmm.... let me play a bit more.. if i find something .. i will update !!
I lost 3G while in a tunnel today, lots my radio stream and it went Edge, once I was back in the clear it recovered properly.
The program Power Manager, has a 2G / 3G toggle on it, maybe you can use that to force switch it back if its not auto switching.
Ya that would probably work, I'll try it out. Thanks
I was just hoping for fix rather than a work around, lol :S
midnight79 said:
Funny you said that, I just was toying with my X10 (running on AT&T in Bay area, bought from Rogers Wireless) and its doing the same. Once it goes to Edge, doesnt bother to check for the 3G.. hmmmm.... let me play a bit more.. if i find something .. i will update !!
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Click to collapse
my rogers on us atnt switches back to 3g. is it because the 3g signal where you are is weak so it just stays on the stronger edge signal ?
cause i swear i drove from somewhere with 3g though many many parts without 3g and now i have 3g again. strange.....
I can go to a location where i know there is full 3G coverage (by switching to 3G only mode) but it wont switch back after being dropped (down to EDGE in low coverage) but it doesn't want go back to 3G by itself for whatever reason?
dan.expo said:
I can go to a location where i know there is full 3G coverage (by switching to 3G only mode) but it wont switch back after being dropped (down to EDGE in low coverage) but it doesn't want go back to 3G by itself for whatever reason?
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HSPA+ Upgrades going on in Red Deer/Lacombe
Okay, I've been watching this phone since I purchased it last week. I came from a history of Android devices (as seen in my signature). I have been with T-mobile for 6 years and I pretty much know when I'm going to loose 3G and drop to edge at specific locations. For example, the bottom floor of my work building I've always dropped to Edge no matter what. I work for AT&T so there is an AT&T cell tower right next to this building and anybody who has AT&T never loses 3G on the bottom floor.
So since I've had this phone (for about a week now) I have yet to see it drop to edge. One thing I have noticed is that it will go to 0 bars of 3G and stay when I'm in those known Edge locations but my internet will still be full speed. When I had my other Android phones it would drop to 0 bars of 3G and go to Edge within 10 seconds. Now this isn't something that is just taking longer to drop to Edge, it never drops at all. I eat lunch for an hour down stairs and it stayed at 0 bars of 3G with fast Internet browsing.
I have the option checked in the settings for "Data Roaming" under Settings > Wireless and Networks > Mobile Network Settings.
I read that the Vibrant works with AT&T 3G which would mean that the chip supports the AT&T 3G spectrum.
As far as I know, with T-mobile, there are no Roaming charges.
Does this mean that I have 3G coverage from the T-mobile AND AT&T towers?
Afaik there is no 3g roaming agreements between ATT and TMo. The Samsung probably does a better job at hanging onto 3g than most other phones....
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
I currently have the the G2 on the T-mobile network. I frequently switch back and forth between 3G and Edge which is driving me nuts. Is this a phone issue or a network issue? Do people with the Desire Z on the ATT network have the same issue?
Its a network issue with your location, It happens on any phone including the iPhone. Its if the carrier has that service available where you are.
I am located in Minneapolis which supposedly has very good T-mobile 3G coverage. A friend of mine who has a G1 on T-mobile here in Minneapolis always sees solid 3G. This makes me wonder whether this is a phone issue. Flashing the 17 radio did improve reception, but not satisfactorily. Could any ATT users share their experience?
I mean, the phone and radio and rom will play a factor somewhat in it but not that much. To be fair, edge and 3G dont have too much a difference in speed or at least not here in Florida, but i run 4G almost everywhere anyways.
GermanGuy said:
I currently have the the G2 on the T-mobile network. I frequently switch back and forth between 3G and Edge which is driving me nuts. Is this a phone issue or a network issue? Do people with the Desire Z on the ATT network have the same issue?
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Click to collapse
For the MOST part, this is a network issue. The phone Radio will have an impact on the quality of cell signal you get but the network carries the most weight. Not all phones are created equal as far as reception goes. My DZ is average. Its not great like my previous BB Bold was but doesn't drop calls like my gf's phone.
I do on occasion drop from 3G to Edge but only when I'm in rural areas. I work in a jail on occasion and of course the concrete walls aren't great for cell signal. I usually switch from 3G to Edge when I'm there because Edge just holds the signal better rather than the phone killing itself trying to find a solid 3G signal.
Also, like the other user mentioned, 3G and Edge aren't night and day per-say. For example, sometimes Edge can be FASTER depending on how much traffic is on the network at that time. I experienced this on a day trip to San Francisco. With 3 gazillion Iphones in the city, I couldn't get my phone to connect to anything with 3G. When I switched to Edge, it was moving steady no problem...
Just my 2 cents.
Is Negri Electronics still the cheapest place to buy the Desire Z NAM or are there other sites with better offers? I checked ebay and all the phones there are more expensive when you calculate in shipping.
Possible Fix
Here is one thing that may fix the problem, as it has for me. Set your phone to WCDMA only by dialing *#*#4636#*#* . A menu will then appear. Select Phone Information. Change Set Preferred Network Type to WCDMA Only.
Hope this helps!
KingAndroid said:
Here is one thing that may fix the problem, as it has for me. Set your phone to WCDMA only by dialing *#*#4636#*#* . A menu will then appear. Select Phone Information. Change Set Preferred Network Type to WCDMA Only.
Hope this helps!
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Click to collapse
Yes, already tried that as well, but then I lose connection completely intermittently instead of switching between edge and 3G.
Are u running a custom rom? Check ur apn
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
m0bstar said:
To be fair, edge and 3G dont have too much a difference in speed or at least not here in Florida
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I feel very sorry for you then. EDGE makes me want to claw my eyes out versus 3G. Everywhere in New England on AT&T, the difference in speed between EDGE and 3G is like the difference between throwing a bullet and shooting it. Even more so with the "4G" HSPA+ backhaul recently done by AT&T in many areas. But even before that, it was a big difference.
My Desire Z very seldom switches from 3G to EDGE. When it does, its in areas of very weak 3G coverage. As others have mentioned, its likely a network issue. Flashing a new radio is pretty easy (and you can always flash back to stock), so it may be worth a try. But it may or may not have any significant impact.