Database Users

Is there a point to 4G?

4G drains my battery like mad; I can easily last a whole day + more on 3G/Wifi, but 4G practically kills my battery in a matter of hours?

OP, is there a point to having Ferraris and Hummers? I mean, they all drink fuel like a drunk drinking booze! I mean, I can easily last for the whole 3 weeks using a Civic or a Prius but Ferraris and Hummers basically kill my fuel tank in like a couple of days?

jerryparid said:
4G drains my battery like mad; I can easily last a whole day + more on 3G/Wifi, but 4G practically kills my battery in a matter of hours?
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I think the real point of 4G is to use the phone as a hotspot for your laptop WHILE tethered to some power source, whether it's an AC outlet or the USB port of the laptop.
Even with the large battery drain, I still see 4G as useful if you're looking to download a lot of data quickly to the phone intermittently. You just have to be careful about turning on/off 4G as needed for those downloads. If 4G were available in my area, I'd be turning it on as I left the office to download updated podcasts for my ride home, then turning it off once the downloads were complete.

good point PoisonWolf.
I have been using 4G when watching the World Cup live on Sprint TV. So much smoother and better quality image over 4G.
I leave my phone plugged in when doing that though. I did a test once and it lasted almost 2 hours watching TV over 4G (very intensive and battery draining activity)
4G is nice to have for those times you need a speed boost.

I'm agreeing with the situational use. I've actually been really impressed with Sprint's 3G service. I'd have gotten this phone even without 4G.

I really on turn it on when im tethering

Properly managed, you should turn off anything you are not using. Especially 4G.

halorin said:
I'm agreeing with the situational use. I've actually been really impressed with Sprint's 3G service. I'd have gotten this phone even without 4G.
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I am not at all impressed with Sprint's 3G. I'm currently averaging 0.5mb/s download speeds on my EVO via 3G. This is both near my home, and near my office, which are far enough apart that they're not using the same tower. (edit: I'm in the suburbs of Los Angeles - San Fernando Valley.)
There's nothing wrong with the phone, as I did manage a 1.2mb/s test on Friday evening. Maybe this suggests that there's just too much congestion during the day? Though at 5:30 AM this morning I was only pulling 0.6mb/s.
For comparison, side-by-side tests with my other devices gave these results:
Sprint EVO = 0.5mb/s
AT&T iPhone 4 = 1.6mb/s
TMobile Nexus One = 2.5mb/s
There's a whole thread on here someplace about how slow people all over the country are getting with 3G from Sprint. It's very disappointing, and I'm considering canceling my service over this. Paying $10/mo extra for 4G, when I don't get 4G or even acceptable 3G speeds just doesn't sit right.
I used to have a Sprint datacard for my old MacBook Pro, and Sprint rocked. Faster than AT&T on average with about 1.6mb/s as I recall, but I gave it up a year ago when I got a new MacBook Pro that doesn't have the datacard slot. Based on my experience with Sprint datacard, I had no reservations about getting the EVO even though there's no 4G in my area, but unless they fix this issue quickly, I'm history. I wonder if I could get Verizon to let me use the EVO on their network.
To get back on topic - 3G speeds aside, if you can actually get 4G service with the EVO, and can use it responsibly, the EVO must really rock your mobile data world. I got the Seidio extended battery for mine, and it does add a noticeable amount of battery life to the phone, so if you're a heavy 4G user and aren't hooked to a power supply, it might be a wise investment.

distortedloop said:
I am not at all impressed with Sprint's 3G. I'm currently averaging 0.5mb/s download speeds on my EVO via 3G. This is both near my home, and near my office, which are far enough apart that they're not using the same tower. (edit: I'm in the suburbs of Los Angeles - San Fernando Valley.)
There's nothing wrong with the phone, as I did manage a 1.2mb/s test on Friday evening. Maybe this suggests that there's just too much congestion during the day? Though at 5:30 AM this morning I was only pulling 0.6mb/s.
For comparison, side-by-side tests with my other devices gave these results:
Sprint EVO = 0.5mb/s
AT&T iPhone 4 = 1.6mb/s
TMobile Nexus One = 2.5mb/s
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That's funny...because I live and work all around the San Fernando Valley as well. From Balboa near the 118 and 405 all the way to Calabasas near the 101; and I get 100-200 kilobytes per second on average... ? Never slow for me.. and consistant 150kb/s seem pretty damn good to me.
I hope we get our 4G coverage soon. :/

distortedloop said:
I think the real point of 4G is to use the phone as a hotspot for your laptop WHILE tethered to some power source, whether it's an AC outlet or the USB port of the laptop.
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damn, that's gonna take one long power cord for my evo to reach to the end of my street, at the intersection with no trees. and at that point, i'm pretty sure i'd need another extra long power cord for my laptop as well.
i really wanted to use 4G as a cable internet replacement, but since i can't even get a connection outside of my house, muchtheless inside my house, i guess it doesn't matter that i'm in a "covered area".

I live outside of DC, and I routinely get over 2000kbps using the speed test app on 3g with a latency around 90. With 4g, I've gotten 4900kbps outside my house with 1 bar.

healthpellets said:
damn, that's gonna take one long power cord for my evo to reach to the end of my street, at the intersection with no trees. and at that point, i'm pretty sure i'd need another extra long power cord for my laptop as well.
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Don't be ridiculous. "I'd need a long extension cord." LOL. How droll.
If you're at home or in the office, you have an AC outlet for both your laptop and your phone.
If you're in the car you have the DC outlet (ever hear of a car adapter/charger) for your phone - and if you need it, get an inverter for the car to get laptop AC out of the cigarette lighter.
If you're in Starbucks or the like, use the USB cable to tether the EVO to laptop. A modern laptop should be able to power both the EVO and itself for at least a couple of hours. If you're away from an AC or alternate power source for more than couple of hours, you're just gonna have to live without 4G. Big deal, get over it, or get a different device like perhaps Sprints MiFi or whatever they call it on their network.

distortedloop said:
Don't be ridiculous. "I'd need a long extension cord." LOL. How droll.
If you're at home or in the office, you have an AC outlet for both your laptop and your phone.
If you're in the car you have the DC outlet (ever hear of a car adapter/charger) for your phone - and if you need it, get an inverter for the car to get laptop AC out of the cigarette lighter.
If you're in Starbucks or the like, use the USB cable to tether the EVO to laptop. A modern laptop should be able to power both the EVO and itself for at least a couple of hours. If you're away from an AC or alternate power source for more than couple of hours, you're just gonna have to live without 4G. Big deal, get over it, or get a different device like perhaps Sprints MiFi or whatever they call it on their network.
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the point is, i spend 75% of my time at home or in my office (located, conveniently or not) in the same structure. and i have no 4G service in my home or outside in my yard, even though Sprint swears i have coverage. but like i said, i can get 4G at the end of my street at the intersection where there are no trees.

kyelerner said:
That's funny...because I live and work all around the San Fernando Valley as well. From Balboa near the 118 and 405 all the way to Calabasas near the 101; and I get 100-200 kilobytes per second on average... ? Never slow for me.. and consistant 150kb/s seem pretty damn good to me.
I hope we get our 4G coverage soon. :/
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Actually, those are EXACTLY the areas I'm talking about. Along the 118 out to Porter Ranch, and the 405 as far south as Sherman Way (Van Nuys Airport).
Also, did you make a typo with your speeds? 100kb/s is pretty damn slow, so is 150kb/s. I'm guessing you mean 1000 and 1500 kb/s, aka 1.0 and 1.5mb/s. I was reporting in mb/s as the app I'm running defaults to them.
Those are common speeds for me on AT&T and TMobile (higher actually, usually 1400 - 2000 kb/s), with Sprint EVO, since I started testing last week, only a couple of times over 1000kb/s, and almost always just in the 400-600 range. Pretty unacceptable when a different networks device right next to it is pulling 2-4x the speed at the same time.
Maybe we should hook up someplace and compare the two phones side-by-side to see if we get similar results. ;-)

healthpellets said:
the point is, i spend 75% of my time at home or in my office (located, conveniently or not) in the same structure. and i have no 4G service in my home or outside in my yard, even though Sprint swears i have coverage. but like i said, i can get 4G at the end of my street at the intersection where there are no trees.
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Ah, okay, fair enough, but that wasn't clear from your post, and it wasn't addressing the issue I was in the post you quoted.
Your issue is that you can't get 4G at all where you're at (regardless of Sprint's map), whereas I was pointing out that, as the OP of the thread said, 4G eats battery life like there's no tomorrow. Unless you're tethered to an AC or DC power source for your EVO, you just need to be intelligent about when and how often you use the 4G service, since it clearly eats battery life rapidly.
I turned on 4G to see if there was a signal where I was at the other day and forgot to turn it off. Two hours later my unused phone was down to <50% battery charge. With the 4G radio off, I can go a full day and then some without a recharge with my normal use - which is pretty amazing compared to the other iPhones and Android phones I've used.
WiMax is going to be a frustrating thing for many until it's fully built out, sadly, especially with Sprint using it as a selling point on one of the best phones on the market right now. :-(

distortedloop said:
Actually, those are EXACTLY the areas I'm talking about. Along the 118 out to Porter Ranch, and the 405 as far south as Sherman Way (Van Nuys Airport).
Also, did you make a typo with your speeds? 100kb/s is pretty damn slow, so is 150kb/s. I'm guessing you mean 1000 and 1500 kb/s, aka 1.0 and 1.5mb/s. I was reporting in mb/s as the app I'm running defaults to them.
Those are common speeds for me on AT&T and TMobile (higher actually, usually 1400 - 2000 kb/s), with Sprint EVO, since I started testing last week, only a couple of times over 1000kb/s, and almost always just in the 400-600 range. Pretty unacceptable when a different networks device right next to it is pulling 2-4x the speed at the same time.
Maybe we should hook up someplace and compare the two phones side-by-side to see if we get similar results. ;-)
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I get 100-200 kilobytes per SECOND. That's very normal for a 3G connection on any network? Correct me if I'm wrong. My buddies usually get around 70-120 kilobytes per second on their networks...AT&T and Verizon when we compare. They are usually jealous of my speeds [;
If you test results give you .5 megbits per second, then youre getting 62.5 kilobytes per second.
I think you have your data screwed up... .
The term mb/s means megabytes per second. (kb/s is kilobytes per second)
The term "mbps" refers to megabits per second. (kbps is kilobits per second)
You divide you're mega/kilobits per second by 8 to get your mega/kilobytes per second.
So if I'm getting about 150 kilobytes per second, then my speed would be 150x8= 1.2mbps....which definetely ain't bad on a 3G connection...

4G is nice, yes it does drain a lot of power but that doesn't bother me.
when i'm out and about 3G is powerful enough for my phone, i get good speeds on sprints 3G to be fine on the phone. When I tether i'd want more speed, so I turn on 4G but then it drains my battery. Magical solution, i'm tethering so i'll just plug my phone in to charge on my laptop, now i get 4G without the power drain, WOW!

kyelerner said:
I get 100-200 kilobytes per SECOND. That's very normal for a 3G connection on any network? Correct me if I'm wrong. My buddies usually get around 70-120 kilobytes per second on their networks...AT&T and Verizon when we compare. They are usually jealous of my speeds [;
If you test results give you .5 megbits per second, then youre getting 62.5 kilobytes per second.
I think you have your data screwed up... .
The term mb/s means megabytes per second. (kb/s is kilobytes per second)
The term "mbps" refers to megabits per second. (kbps is kilobits per second)
You divide you're mega/kilobits per second by 8 to get your mega/kilobytes per second.
So if I'm getting about 150 kilobytes per second, then my speed would be 150x8= 1.2mbps....which definetely ain't bad on a 3G connection...
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Click to collapse
Not that many people use Megabytes and Kilobytes for network transfer speeds they use Kilobits and Megabits for identifying network transfer speeds.

kyelerner said:
I get 100-200 kilobytes per SECOND. That's very normal for a 3G connection on any network? Correct me if I'm wrong. My buddies usually get around 70-120 kilobytes per second on their networks...AT&T and Verizon when we compare. They are usually jealous of my speeds [;
If you test results give you .5 megbits per second, then youre getting 62.5 kilobytes per second.
I think you have your data screwed up... .
The term mb/s means megabytes per second. (kb/s is kilobytes per second)
The term "mbps" refers to megabits per second. (kbps is kilobits per second)
You divide you're mega/kilobits per second by 8 to get your mega/kilobytes per second.
So if I'm getting about 150 kilobytes per second, then my speed would be 150x8= 1.2mbps....which definetely ain't bad on a 3G connection...
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Click to collapse
Okay, I'll correct you, since you're wrong. At least in terms of correcting my use of kb/s and mb/s.
I'm not sure how you're getting your speeds. Are you downloading files and timing them by hand, then doing the math to get the speed? Your results may be accurate, but your terms are incorrect.
All I do is use either Speedtest.net or Xtreme labs Speedtest apps, or hit one of the various speedtest websites. I'm just reporting the numbers that are displayed in the applications and websites I am using to check my speed.
Since I am just parroting the numbers off the tools I use, if I am doing it wrong, then the various speedtest apps and websites are as well. I doubt they're all doing it wrong after all these years.
It's always been my understanding that BITS are expressed with a small case b and BYTES are expressed with a large case B - a kb is kilobit, and kB is a kiloByte. Traditionally, also, if it's a "k" its 1000 (decimal) and if it's a "K" its 1028 (binary).
Also, there is no difference between the terms kbits/sec, kb/s, and kbps in terms of data rate transfers. They are all interchangeable. In this context, the "ps" is the same as "/s" - both are read as "per second". The small "k" stands for 1000 in decimal and the small "b" stands for "bits" as in a binary 1 or 0 (1/8th of a byte).
My understandings of all the above seem to be confirmed by Wikipedia's use of the terms in the same manner as I am: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate_units#Kilobit_per_second
which explains the following:
Kilobit per second
A kilobit per second (kbit/s or kb/s or kbps) is a unit of data transfer rate equal to:
1,000 bits per second or
125 bytes per second.
and further in the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate_units#Kilobyte_per_second
Kilobyte per second
A kilobyte per second (kB/s or kBps) is a unit of data transfer rate equal to:
8,000 bits per second, or
1,000 bytes per second, or
8 kilobits per second.
Anyways, I think you confused me when you used the terms kilobytes per second and kb/s interchangeably and stated you thought 150kb/s was great for 3G service in this post:
kyelerner said:
...and I get 100-200 kilobytes per second on average... ? Never slow for me.. and consistant 150kb/s seem pretty damn good to me./
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and I focused on the 150kb/s part, which trust me, is not good for 3G, it's more like EDGE.

kyelerner said:
So if I'm getting about 150 kilobytes per second, then my speed would be 150x8= 1.2mbps....which definetely ain't bad on a 3G connection...
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I think we're really hijacking the original thread here and getting way off topic, and it might be better to move to another thread for future responses re: 3G speeds, such as this one: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=707751&page=3 , but while I won't argue that 1.2mb/s isn't bad, it's not that stellar for a modern 3G network, either.
I routinely get 1.4 to 1.9mb/s on AT&T iPhones, and 1.8 to 2.2mb/s on T-Mobile Nexus One here in the San Fernando Valley...and I got comparable speeds to that on my EVDO datacard from Sprint before I canceled it last year. 1.2mb/s in the big city here is the minimum I would allow as acceptable performance, I know that Sprint has done much better in the past, and that the competition is doing much better in the present.
FYI - Since you mentioned speeds along the 118/405 earlier, I tested after getting off the 118 at Woodley Avenue from the 118 Fwy all the way down to Sherman Way this morning, I did speedtests at every other major intersection. The results:
Devonshire = 1534kb/s, Lassen = 696kb/s, Nordhoff = 941kb/s, Roscoe = 457kb/s, Sherman Way = 806kb/s. I didn't dual test the whole way, but at Sherman Way the iPhone 4 pulled 1871kb/s. In my office just now it's averaging LESS than 300kb/s. There is definitely something wrong with Sprint's 3G in this area.
Back on topic:
If they'd hurry their butts up and get 4G to Los Angeles and the valley, I wouldn't give a rat's a$$ what 3G was like. I bought the EVO for two reasons - the large screen, and the gamble that 4G would be in LA pretty quickly and that I could live with 3G until it got here. I can't live with 3G if it's 400kb/s - I might as well go back to tethering my old Motorola Razr for that kind of speed!
I wish I had the problem that the original poster did: the ability to wonder if 4G is worth the battery life it costs you!

Anyone who has rooted and has slow 3G, try this please

I posted this in the PRI bounty thread but don't want it to get lost and I'm curious what other people's results will be with it.
I noticed something interesting today that may be an Evo bug... So I turned 4G on when I was in traffic on 6th Avenue to run some speed tests... got 8megs, no surprise there... but I left it on... later I was in Denver waiting for my group therapy class and was downloading and browsing and noticed it was flying. Did a speed test and I was getting 1.7-2.1Mbps consistently.
I shut off 4G and went to test later and was back to 500-900 speeds. Turned 4G back on and was immediately back to the 1.7-2.1Mbps levels.
I noticed when I turned on 4G that the 3G data arrows started moving like crazy each time, then stopped.
Can someone test this for me? To do this test you need to be on a tower that you KNOW can handle the faster speeds. I tried it all over the place today and even at home where I can't usually pass 300, I got 600. Turned off 4G and back down to 300. Turned it back on, back up to 5-600. Hit 900 at one point.
Just did a test in my room with 2 bars and got 750... turned off 4G and shut the phone on, turned it back on and got 500 consistently. Turned 4G back on and got 876, 1114, 1140, 865, and 974.
Maybe the PRI update fixed the link between 4G being turned off and slow 3G speeds? Try it and post your results...
Oh and use the Xtremelabs speedtest - speedtest.net is crap.
EDIT: By the way, previous to this, the fastest I ever saw my phone go was 1Mbps - in the same areas I was testing today.

What the F, Batman!?! Definitely makes a big difference. From 75 kB/s to 139 kB/s in one test. Bars of service shot up from 0-1 to a solid 2, also.
Sent from my EVO, the true iPhone killer!

Sorry...cannot confirm. I had no discernible difference with 4G on or off. I have 5 or 6 bars with 500-1000 kbps download and 150-200 kbps upload. Get the same readings on Xtremelabs with 4G on and off. Sorry.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Seems to work on my end. That's an interesting find. Seems if you turn 4g on and its nor available where you are they boost the 3g speed. Very interesting.
Sent from my cursed EVO using 4g speed

I could be wrong but it seems like I get better data speeds with the 4G radio turned on in a non 4G area.
I'm not rooted. Running the latest software release.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Went back to the house where I have one or two bars of signal and I still do not see any difference except that my overall speed is about half what it was. But no difference between 4G on or off. I'm running Fresh 3.1.0.1 with stock kernel in a non-4G area.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

I ran three speed tests with it off and three with it on and then averaged the max. While it was running, the sustained throughput was almost exactly the same. The averages were:
with 4g off: 1142 down 199 up
with 4g on: 1156 down 217 up
Not much difference.

I think that many people don't get that the 3g speeds are subject to change at any given time, that is why there can be drastic changes in speed. Too many people on this board are succumbing to the placebo effect. Just my observation.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

RTC88 said:
I think that many people don't get that the 3g speeds are subject to change at any given time, that is why there can be drastic changes in speed. Too many people on this board are succumbing to the placebo effect. Just my observation.
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agreed.
10 chars

Im just waiting for the fix to the PRI issue hoping that when it comes out people find their 3G speeds remains the same. Now how eventful would that be. Cause maybe its is just a matter of towers cause I'm on 1.34 pri and 3G test still hits 1016 down and 200 up.

im0rtalz said:
Im just waiting for the fix to the PRI issue hoping that when it comes out people find their 3G speeds remains the same. Now how eventful would that be. Cause maybe its is just a matter of towers cause I'm on 1.34 pri and 3G test still hits 1016 down and 200 up.
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Click to collapse
Then they will just say that the pri fix is broken!

Sorry it didn't have positive effects for everyone.
In the Denver area, at the very least, I've confirmed it on my Evo and a coworkers Evo. We regularly are getting two megs now... if we shut off the 4G, it takes about 10 or 15 minutes but we will drop back to 900 and stay there. Turn it back on, back to 2megs.

Just for grins I tried turning on the 4G to test my results.
I'm not rooted and running 2.2
3G alone = 1296kbit/s
4G on (no 4G service) = 1102kbit/s
So, it didn't do anything for me.

As I said, this is for SLOW 3G speeds, meaning >600kbps - with those speeds, you're probably not being affected by any sort of a bug. I had never seen 1Mbps much less 2 on this phone until that fix.

I still doubt the PRI has much of an effect, but perhaps there is hope that you can go back to 1.40 soon and find out.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7602569&postcount=70

3g speed varies from evo to evo?

started two weeks ago, I could feel that 3g speed was dramatically slower than before. speedtetst shows ~300kbps. I went to sprint store today. There are two EVOs in the store. Interesting thing is: one of them has similiar 3g speed as mine, another one is really fast ~ 1.7Mbps - 2Mbps. watching sprintTV & youtube are really enjoyable. nothing is different from software&hardware. I can't image how come the performance of the devices are way off each other. Is it EVO or Sprint?

I also noticed this in a weird way. Rebooting my Evo will give me significantly different speeds / pings.

Think is had to do more with the towers. Sprint tends to jump from tower to tower quite often, even if the tower is futher away. I get pretty poor speeds in KC, but when I go to Wisconsin, get 3 to 4 times the speeds. So it is possible for two phones right next to each other to have different speeds, if they are on different towers. Look up antennas apps in the market and see what tower you are connected too, and how often it changes towers while you are stationary.

I tried antennas, it did not work well on EVO. Just found that we have partial 4G coverage around bay area. I tested it out today. the speed is pretty amazing inthe range of 3M - 7M bps . Hopefully we could have all coverage of 4G.

werxen said:
I also noticed this in a weird way. Rebooting my Evo will give me significantly different speeds / pings.
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Click to collapse
during reboot, I think there are couples of things going on: initializing RF driver/firmwire and re-registration of cell, handshake on the fly to finalize signal/channel/speed rate etc which might result different quality of connection.

T-Mobile is Growing: Data is Slowing Down

Anyone else notice slower data? I used to average 7.2mbps on my Vibrant, I even scored 10mbps on a G2.
Nexus S averages out at 4mbps.... Sometimes 2.5. Highest I've got it to was 5 on a lucky day. My GF has my old Vibrant and she is getting the same download speeds.
Don't know if I should be happy or sad Lol!
Anyone else notice speed slowing down in the last 6 months?

Anderdroid said:
Anyone else notice slower data? I used to average 7.2mbps on my Vibrant, I even scored 10mbps on a G2.
Nexus S averages out at 4mbps.... Sometimes 2.5. Highest I've got it to was 5 on a lucky day. My GF has my old Vibrant and she is getting the same download speeds.
Don't know if I should be happy or sad Lol!
Anyone else notice speed slowing down in the last 6 months?
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HSDPA or HSPA+ makes no difference in the end. Reason we get a performance boost from HSPA+ even though we dont support it is HSPA+ is all in the backend.
which means faster speeds for all. Imagine what the speeds would be without HSPA+

I realize this. But speeds have been slowing down lately.
We do get the boost from HSPA+ but what slows it down is the fact that T-Mobile is getting tons of new customers... The network may get clogged and we could have an AT&T disaster!

Anderdroid said:
I realize this. But speeds have been slowing down lately.
We do get the boost from HSPA+ but what slows it down is the fact that T-Mobile is getting tons of new customers... The network may get clogged and we could have an AT&T disaster!
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hm, i noticed this too, and also, theres at least 20+ people that i know that used to have ATT/Verizon that has jumped over to tmobile in the past month or 2.

I haven't noticed any noticeable difference in average network performance over the past seven months. I haven't been clocking it, though; just speaking from my personal sense of how quickly it was downloading.

Yes, I've definitely noticed a slow down in the past 60 days.
I used to get 3800 to 4400 Kb/s on my N1. Once I switched to the NS, I've never seen faster than about 3000 Kb/s. I posted in a different thread yesterday that I ran some tests with both the N1 and the NS (using the same sim card in both) and found that the N1 no longer goes over 3000 Kb/s.
Conclusion: the service has degraded around here.
But it just occurred to me that I had been "throttled" for being a data pig last November, and the throttling was supposed to last until mid-December. Here's the interesting part, even "throttled" my speeds only declined to about 2800 Kb/s; which means I'm still getting those speeds that I got while "throttled". I wonder if they forgot to "un-throttle" me.
I'll call customer service today and double check. I'll also complain about the drop in speeds.
Is it possible you're being throttled and missed the notification?

I'm in central Florida and can say there has been a big decrease in speed here in the past 3 months. I too came from a Vibrant that my wife now uses and can say the same as the OP.

I think its a mix of things. New customers on high data use handsets utilizing that advertised 4g speed. I also think it being winter time that people are staying inside and using their phones and devices more, much like how gas use in homes goes up in the winter time. There's less to do outside, etc, so you are connecting more through electronic means. Hopefully tmo continues to expand their back haul, and they will have to to achieve those even faster than 21mbps speeds. I think conversely that in the summer you will see your speeds come back.
Sent from my HTC Dream using XDA App

Glad I'm not the only one! Let's hope it's just for the winter! Heh

Wouldn't winter help more? Since having wireless in the home? By your logic it would be worse in the summer because it's nicer weather and people travel more and need mobile data to facebook it up.
If you want to test if the service is slowing down due to many people, test it at least 4 times throughout the day with at least twice at night such as 1am and 3-4am, shouldn't be many people on then.

About 6 months ago I was on T-Mobile at which time I switched to Sprint for yearly updates and a supposedly cheaper plan. When those two things ended up not happening I switched back and I can say without a doubt that my speeds are faster. This could be due to the fact that I had a MT3G before and now have a NS or that when I was on Tmo before their HSPA network was not really available or it could be just that its faster. Either way I'm much happier as with Sprint I was topping out at 1.5mbps on 3G and now on Tmo I'm getting up to around 3.5 some times even closer to 4.

About 20 days ago I started experiencing data slowness. Before I was averaging 3.0-4.0 I called Tmobile multiply times to reset me with the towers. No luck. I have the nexus S and my girl has the vibrant. Now we can barely hit 1.0 its very frustrating I thought I was the only one but after googling and finding this thread I see Im not alone.

I have no complaints here in terms of TMOs speed. With the NS I get about 4-5mb consistently. When I was at best buy playing around with phone the MT4G hit 11mb down, although the average speed was closer to 9mb

jlevy73 said:
I have no complaints here in terms of TMOs speed. With the NS I get about 4-5mb consistently. When I was at best buy playing around with phone the MT4G hit 11mb down, although the average speed was closer to 9mb
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What part of Los Angeles are you in?
It was 3.8 - 4.2 pretty consistently near the Van Nuys Airport for a while, but now it's never more than 3.0.

distortedloop said:
What part of Los Angeles are you in?
It was 3.8 - 4.2 pretty consistently near the Van Nuys Airport for a while, but now it's never more than 3.0.
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I'm in the Hollywood area.

It's area dependent.
Brooklyn
in 18th/68th, I get top speed (up to 9Mbps with N900), average 4-5
in home area (N train Bay Parkway), I also get top speed
in Bay Parkway/86th, the speed is slower (2-3Mbps)
in Downtown (Fulton/Jay, A/C/F/R train station), the speed is barely workable
Manhattan
in Lower Manhattan (both Canal Street and City Hall), the speed it up to 2Mbps
in Midtown (Empire State Building), the speed is much slower (no more than 1Mbps)
in Inwood (A train 207 Street), the speed is good (4-5Mbps)
The speed test was conducted with either MT4 or NS except stated.

mingkee said:
It's area dependent.
Brooklyn
in 18th/68th, I get top speed (up to 9Mbps with N900), average 4-5
in home area (N train Bay Parkway), I also get top speed
in Bay Parkway/86th, the speed is slower (2-3Mbps)
in Downtown (Fulton/Jay, A/C/F/R train station), the speed is barely workable
Manhattan
in Lower Manhattan (both Canal Street and City Hall), the speed it up to 2Mbps
in Midtown (Empire State Building), the speed is much slower (no more than 1Mbps)
in Inwood (A train 207 Street), the speed is good (4-5Mbps)
The speed test was conducted with either MT4 or NS except stated.
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Click to collapse
Wouldn't the MT4G get higher speeds and skew the results since it can access HSPA+ while we can only rid the coattails of it? Since only the MT4G can access the HSPA+ (the G2 can do HSPA, I believe but it cannot do the higher speeds) wouldn't that mean that the number of devices slowing that network was significantly smaller and therefore the amount of throttling due to network bottleneck would be significantly lower. Therefore to make an accurate speed test you would have to use the same type of phone (or to be completely scientific, the same phone).

mingkee said:
It's area dependent.
<snipped>
The speed test was conducted with either MT4 or NS except stated.
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I've always said cell service is like real estate, it's all about location, location, location.
Your point doesn't address the real issue. Sure, in different parts of town with different devices that have different speeds abilities we're going to see different speedtest results. We'll even see different results depending on the time of day in some areas.
The issue is that those of us who were averaging some particular speed, using the same device, in the same location, at the same time-of-day are now seeing reduced speeds.
For me it's a 25% reduction, consistently, on two different devices...

insanemachine said:
Wouldn't winter help more? Since having wireless in the home? By your logic it would be worse in the summer because it's nicer weather and people travel more and need mobile data to facebook it up.
If you want to test if the service is slowing down due to many people, test it at least 4 times throughout the day with at least twice at night such as 1am and 3-4am, shouldn't be many people on then.
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Click to collapse
My last speedtest was at 4am lol

jlevy73 said:
I have no complaints here in terms of TMOs speed. With the NS I get about 4-5mb consistently. When I was at best buy playing around with phone the MT4G hit 11mb down, although the average speed was closer to 9mb
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Click to collapse
It's as I feared. They're throttling non 4g devices so that the 4g devices get worlds faster. I used to max out at 7.2mbps on Vibrant. I wonder if the G2/MT4g still get 10mbps around here. Damn.
The Nexus S does get HSDPA and benefits from HSPA+. It should be maxing out at 7.2 if MT4g is getting over 7.2.
I mean. I am getting 3-5. Which is still awesome... But. I want my 7.2 back.

4G speeds...

I have a USB Data Card. u301. I have an antenna plugged in to it mounted on the roof and I get full service. Speeds at around 13.6 Down, 1.40 up. I plug the Epic in and with full service. Speeds at around 2.61 Down, 0.42 up. WTF? huh...

I get 4-6 Mbps down on average with bursts above 8. 1.4 on the download. My speeds have actually gotten better over the past 2 months.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium

My average with the very little 4g i have here is 2mb and lower then 1mb up download so your lucky to get what u get..
When i went to chicago a few weeks ago, i got 12mb and 1ish upload
I was impressed in chicago

4G is an absolute dead end for anyone in New York (unless you're smack in the middle of the city). Here on the upper west side, 4G is far less reliable than 3G and when it does work offers no substantial speed increase.

Just ran a few speedtests from inside my apartment here in downtown Portland, OR
12006kbps down, 1486kbps up was the best.
Pretty beefy!

dead78 said:
4G is an absolute dead end for anyone in New York (unless you're smack in the middle of the city). Here on the upper west side, 4G is far less reliable than 3G and when it does work offers no substantial speed increase.
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thats not entirely true. i live in brooklyn ny and i have great 4g. averages around 7-8mbps

I've tested 4g speeds all over Denver since it came here, and have seen a striking contrast in different areas that are only a few blocks apart.
Aurora seems to range from around 3 mb/1.5 mb on the high side to just under 1 mb/0.3 mb, but there are a lot of holes in coverage (and the in-and-out coverage areas at the edge of said holes, of course). Once in a while, I have seen dl speeds up to 5 mb, even 7 on two occasions, but that only lasted for a half hour at best... ul speeds have never exceeded 1.5 mb for any of my tests.
I have seen more consistent ~5 mb upload speeds in parts of southwest denver and surrounding areas (englewood, littleton, etc.), though upload still signed like it was capped at 1.5 mb. But even some of those areas have had dead zones and flaky signal.
I have had one intermittent problem that could be my phone or the network - once in a while, everything will appear as if my phone is connected just fine, but I can't reach the internet. Go back to 3g and I'm fine, but when I reconnect to 4g, whether immediately or after a few minutes, it still behaves like a local network with no internet... Anyone else have this problem in Denver?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

dead78 said:
4G is an absolute dead end for anyone in New York (unless you're smack in the middle of the city). Here on the upper west side, 4G is far less reliable than 3G and when it does work offers no substantial speed increase.
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Nah I live in the bronx and I get great 4g lol when I'm outside though. Myhouse is a lead box, apparently. I get 1 bar inside but it barely holds on to it.
There are a few dead spots though around the city. Like, BLATANT holes inthe coverage.
But other than that, I'm completely satisfied with 4g...I even get 1MB (yes byte) consistently when I'm chillen outside.
They could lower the ping though...1MB speed is still garbage when it takes a second for your command to go through.
I remember when I bought my epic downtown the first thing I did was turn 4g on and it connected...this was in october BEFORE 4g became official in the city lol I ike sprints commitment to nyc
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA Premium App

what are you guys using to test these speeds and what modem(s) are you running?

2.3 modem? Mine does that anywhere. Lol. Like it just feels like taking a break whenever.
I'm on the latest leak. Prob what it is. With full service I should be getting up to where my card is. Its like its caped.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

I've noticed that the clear 4g network is going through a lot of throttling changes. I've noticed they have been keepin the phones below 8Mb most of the time and clear itself is using a bandwidth throttle that doesn't seem to have a clear reset period. Streaming video has brought my home modem and usb modem to a .67 Mb crawl for thelast few days. But when I'm not being throttled I see up to 14Mb down.one last note I have yet to see any bandwidth throttling on the phones 4g tho. Blemh I think I have to go back to comcast for home internet:-(
sent from "The Other Woman"

I've never really used 4G on my phone. It's only functional if I turn data off, then turn 4G on and stay stationary. If I'm driving it simply stops working. At least half the time it just connects, goes to sleep and stays that way until I toggle it off.
This plus the Overdrive I used to have is pretty much a fail sandwich.
Seattle/Lynnwood/Redmond areas primarily. SRF ROM, though it's pretty consistent across ROMs.

I use speedtest.net for my tests, both on my phone with the app and my tethered laptop via the website. I have tried all but a couple of the modems (I didn't bother with some of the leaks that came out almost back to back, because there was already a newer leak when I found time to flash). The results did vary slightly between modems, but not significantly enough for any one modem to stand out as the best or worst - some almost seemed to have good and bad times of day, and not necessarily the same times between modems (probably coincidence due to the random fluctuations in connection quality that I described in my previous post)
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

I decided to try it and got 12MB down lol
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

styles420 said:
I use speedtest.net for my tests
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I'm going to try this tomorrow for both 3G and 4G and will report back with the results.

dead78 said:
4G is an absolute dead end for anyone in New York (unless you're smack in the middle of the city). Here on the upper west side, 4G is far less reliable than 3G and when it does work offers no substantial speed increase.
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I agree completely with the above. In my apt on Upper East Side, 4g speeds are fine - but I get constant drops and terrible speeds (as in slower than 3g) on Upper West in my office. Have wifi at home so don't need 4G there, but would love to tether off 4G in my office. Sprint 4G sux

a454nova said:
I have a USB Data Card. u301. I have an antenna plugged in to it mounted on the roof and I get full service. Speeds at around 13.6 Down, 1.40 up. I plug the Epic in and with full service. Speeds at around 2.61 Down, 0.42 up. WTF? huh...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What antenna did you use?

what does 995kB/s dl translate to? lol, it was insanely fast only a couple of times I tested it like 5 months back in san diego... I must have been the only guy that connected because now my 3g speeds tend to be on par with my 4g... and that was on 2.2...
Joey

Ok so I ran a few tests on the Upper West Side this morning and the results were mildly surprising.
On 4G, I maxed out at about 6.0 Mbps down and 0.65 up with pings in the 140 range.
3G, on the other hand, maxed out at 0.3 Mbps down about 0.5 Mbps up with pings of roughly 260.
So, we've basically got no difference between 3G and 4G upstream and glorified dial-up for 3G down.
I'll try some more later from a different location.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

so I had to do a bit of driving around Manhattan today and decided to test 3G and 4G speeds in several areas. the short version of what I found: my neighborhood has the absolute worst 3G and 4G of any of the other neighborhoods I drove through. most of the Upper West Side south of me boasted around 4.6 Mbps down and 1.4 Mbps up. 3G was roughly 1.0 Mbps down and 0.85 up. In midtown, 4G was roughly 3.3 down a 1.0 Mbps up.
Compare that with my neighborhood where 3G doesn't crack 0.3 Mbps down and actually has faster upstream. I called Sprint and they claimed there is a "tower down" relatively close to me, and after some pressing, gave me a $25 credit for the down time.