Database Users

Is it true? T-Mobile 3g on Xperia?

Ok so I did some reading and the past and I had confirmed that there wasn't 3G bands that supported T-Mobiles 3G on the phone so I had always disabled the 3G. Well recently I got a TM506 and started tethering that to my phone/laptop while on vacation and ran some speed tests getting around 7000kbps | 7.57Mbps | 968.75KB/sec (tested on www.mobilespeedtest.com). Today I was playing with my Xperia again, flashing new roms and deciding to keep it, was frusterated that wifi was slow. Just opened up a browser and noticed it loaded rather quickly... Ran a speed test and it was roughly 7000kbps | 7.57Mbps | 968.75KB/sec which is similar to what I had on my TM506 which is offically a T-Mobile 3G phone.
Can I come to the conclusion I am gettnig 3G on the phone? It seems like it. I ran multiple speedtests and the same speeds are being produced. Can anyone shed some light and help me be able to confirm this fully?

It's pretty obvious if you have a 3G connection, as a little "3G" box appears in the top menu bar (same place there is a "E" box for an EDGE connection).

So your saying if I don't get the "3G" on top but speed tests show differently then it can't be 3G? Doesn't seem to be very accurate to me....

if your using an X1a, then yes you most likely are hooked up to tmobile's 3G..about the 3G icon not showing up..if its a custom rom..i kno in some of this roms the 3G icon is sometimes disabled so you might wanna check in advanced config to see if its enabled or not..

I am on a X1i, with Jacks 3.0 Medium Rom. Just flashed .10 radio as well. 3G is enabled as well. Hope this stays as it might become useful for others that are on T-Mobile as they might be able to get 3G now.

I get very optmistic results from mobilespeedtest.com, try a few other testing sites or even better a large download for real world speeds. If you are getting more than 380 kbit/sec you must have HSDPA and should have the H icon (unless it has been disabled)

Where are you located?

North Dallas, tx. Near frisco. I tested in Denton, Lewisville, The Colony and Frisco. All supposedly 3G speeds.

Neither the X1i or X1a runs on TMO's 3G network as TMO requires two bands for 3G to work.
Are you sure you're not just connected to wifi?

ya. wifi is turned off. And I ran a check with wifi, it gave me roughly 3mb down but with without its 7mb down... could just be the site isn't reliable... i waitng to tether to my laptop to check speedtest.org

If you're using the epc.tmobile.com APN, it's likely the speed test is being accelerated by the gateway, especially if the results are calculated by the website and not the phone.

yeah.. I finally got wifirouter and set it up with my laptop and went to speedtest.net which to me is more accurate and i was only getting ~200kb down. Better than what I had before so I'm actually happier now. Just wished it was the real 3G. :| of well.

3G drops to GSM when receiving calls and during calls

I searched all the threads and found nothing on this as far as I can see. I have been having this since day one with my G1. Every time I receive a call on my G1 or during the call it drops from 3G to GSM. I had stock T-Mo roms on my G1 (Pre/Post Cupcake) then JF 1.51 and now cyanogen 4.0.2 and this problem persists. I called T-Mo a few times on this and they exchanged my G1 3 times and gave me a new battery and charger free of charge. Does anyone else have this issue or know of a work around? This happens when I am at home and work. I travel for work to different locations and it still happens. When my phone rings it automatically drops 3G and goes to GSM (no icon next to the radio icon in the status bar). While making calls it stays on 3G for about a few seconds before it craps out and drops to GSM. It totally skips EDGE and GPRS. T-Mo said they sent out radio antenna tech's to the antennas near my home and they said all is fine and dandy. I live In Queens NY and work in the Bronx. When I travel to Brooklyn its the same as well as driving though Manhattan. I hope someone can help me with this.

PeterC18st said:
I searched all the threads and found nothing on this as far as I can see. I have been having this since day one with my G1. Every time I receive a call on my G1 or during the call it drops from 3G to GSM. I had stock T-Mo roms on my G1 (Pre/Post Cupcake) then JF 1.51 and now cyanogen 4.0.2 and this problem persists. I called T-Mo a few times on this and they exchanged my G1 3 times and gave me a new battery and charger free of charge. Does anyone else have this issue or know of a work around? This happens when I am at home and work. I travel for work to different locations and it still happens. When my phone rings it automatically drops 3G and goes to GSM (no icon next to the radio icon in the status bar). While making calls it stays on 3G for about a few seconds before it craps out and drops to GSM. It totally skips EDGE and GPRS. T-Mo said they sent out radio antenna tech's to the antennas near my home and they said all is fine and dandy. I live In Queens NY and work in the Bronx. When I travel to Brooklyn its the same as well as driving though Manhattan. I hope someone can help me with this.
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ive always had this as well .. just never considered it a bug lol ... but i could see why someone would wanna keep their 3g while on a call .. reminds me of how sidekicks would lose data connectivity due to a call

xidominicanoix said:
but i could see why someone would wanna keep their 3g while on a call .. reminds me of how sidekicks would lose data connectivity due to a call
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Could you elaborate?
If you've had 3 G1's and a tech says there's nothing wrong with the network then it's clearly an issues with cupcake, be it a feature or a bug...
I don't really see why you would want to keep data conectivity while in a call, (unless you're downloading something in the background..?) so it sounds like a way to save battery..

AdrianK said:
Could you elaborate?
If you've had 3 G1's and a tech says there's nothing wrong with the network then it's clearly an issues with cupcake, be it a feature or a bug...
I don't really see why you would want to keep data conectivity while in a call, (unless you're downloading something in the background..?) so it sounds like a way to save battery..
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Here's a perfect example where 3G would rule when working properly.
I'm talking to my wife on my BT headset while driving home from work. I have my G1 on my dash with google maps running with traffic patterns showing. While talking I am able to talk clearly on 3G and still see where traffic is building so I can avoid it. Being stuck in rush hour in NYC sux homeless man [email protected] Whenever I do this and my 3G connection drops my call quality drops and we both hear it while we're talking and then it cuts in and out and the call drops then I dont get updates. It's a feature I would really like to have. Even when Im working and talking and downloading a new update of an app. This happens when I am at a static location as well. I know driving from cell tower to cell tower can have bad effects but it does the same when I'm just at home or any of my work locations. When 3G works properly which is rare its amazing. Its helped me get un lost and find my way many of times.
Point being when T-Mo released the 3G statement they said all users with 3G phones will expierence higher call quality from the extra bandwidth. Why would they cap or or disable it when they are promoting it? I see the the point of saving battery life but it still shouldnt be happening. 3G is made for that feature to work voice + data being accessed together.

It might just be there 3g network, imo tmobile reception is horrible. Like at my house it is so f'ed up, I can sit in my chair and have 3 bars then walk 2 feet and lose service. It does this all through my house and at my work. They said it must be something in the buildings I am in, bull**** I say because ATT never does that nor did vzw when I used them.

same thing happens with me and 3g and calls..also about the house thing, hows this one for u ill be sitting in the same spot and have good 3g reception and all of a sudden it drops to edge. I know a way around this is to set phone to 3G only but then in areas where theres non im screwed

I don't get it. My wife who had the original iPhone and then 3g and now 3gs never had this issue. She would stay on Edge and 3g depending if she waned to save batery life. My old BB 8700g would always stay on Edge never drop to GSM in my apartment. My 3G doesnt even fall to Edge it goes right to GSM. This is really annoying.

every t-mobile phone I have does this
I'm pretty sure its normal

No one knows if this is a hardware, software, or network problem. Except maybe HTC/T-Mobile/Google.
If your phone stays connected to 3G, it's all good. If it drops down to EDGE, even if for half a second, it will NOT reconnect to 3G until you hang up.

c2tmdsn said:
every t-mobile phone I have does this
I'm pretty sure its normal
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My coworkers Samsung t819 doesn't. That's regular cell phone not a smart phone.
Gary13579 said:
No one knows if this is a hardware, software, or network problem. Except maybe HTC/T-Mobile/Google.
If your phone stays connected to 3G, it's all good. If it drops down to EDGE, even if for half a second, it will NOT reconnect to 3G until you hang up.
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If any of those 3 know they should fix it or at the very least advertise that the calls you make are dropped to the lower bandwidth of the GSM network.
T-Mo finally got 3G for the last year don't dumb it down guys. Fix this.
Yes it is true once your phone drops beneath 3G it will not go to 3G until you hang up the call.

try running 3g only or wdma only by creating phone info shortcut on anycut .. im going to try that out and see if it ever drops .. should be a temporary fix for you atleast with the whole maps thing and such but if you ever in an edge only are your screwed

turboyo said:
try running 3g only or wdma only by creating phone info shortcut on anycut .. im going to try that out and see if it ever drops .. should be a temporary fix for you atleast with the whole maps thing and such but if you ever in an edge only are your screwed
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I changed it to wcdma only in phone info. Hopefully this works. Everywhere I travel to throughout NYC has 3G. Hopefully this works. Also I have noticed that when downloading anything from 3G be it the market or browser it would drop from 3G to Edge as well.

PeterC18st said:
I changed it to wcdma only in phone info. Hopefully this works. Everywhere I travel to throughout NYC has 3G. Hopefully this works. Also I have noticed that when downloading anything from 3G be it the market or browser it would drop from 3G to Edge as well.
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*UPDATE*
While at home downloading apps from Android Market on 3G with wcdma only selected the radio dropped with no netowkr connection. Bust.

PeterC18st said:
I don't get it. My wife who had the original iPhone and then 3g and now 3gs never had this issue. She would stay on Edge and 3g depending if she waned to save batery life. My old BB 8700g would always stay on Edge never drop to GSM in my apartment. My 3G doesnt even fall to Edge it goes right to GSM. This is really annoying.
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Did she use att or tmobile with the iphone? Because att has a much stronger 3g network then tmobile which could be why. I am pretty sure it is something to do with tmobiles network and not your phone, perhaps your area has to many users for it to stay on 3G. I have read about how the cell towers work and they have only so many bands for each user to access at any given time so if tmobile doesn't have enough towers or those things mounted on the towers it may be set up so you only get 3G for data usage and not calls since they don't technically require it to work.

crpercodani said:
Did she use att or tmobile with the iphone? Because att has a much stronger 3g network then tmobile which could be why. I am pretty sure it is something to do with tmobiles network and not your phone, perhaps your area has to many users for it to stay on 3G. I have read about how the cell towers work and they have only so many bands for each user to access at any given time so if tmobile doesn't have enough towers or those things mounted on the towers it may be set up so you only get 3G for data usage and not calls since they don't technically require it to work.
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My wife is on ATT. Isn't lower frequency better at penetrating through walls and such? (T-Mo 1700 MHz and 2100 MHz compared to ATT 1800 MHz) They haven't booted their 850 MHz antennas yet so I hear.
If that is true then why not boot me down to Edge or gprs why all the way down to gsm? I been living in the same area for 26 years. I have been with T-Mo before they even had antennas in my area and walking outside was the only way to get a signal with my phone. Now I get full reception in and out of my apartment and 3G connectivity in my apartment with a signal strength of -93dBm through out my apartment on 3G and -79 dBm on Edge.
T-Mo stated that this should not be happening. Hence the 3 phones new battery and charger and techs to the antennas. I'm starting to think its a HTC Android problem and not a T-Mo problem. Hopefully a new radio update can fix it.

I didn't even know GSM was still used in that way, I thought GPRS would be the bare minimum. How can you tell the difference? I use to only get a G icon and I looked it up and for the g1 it said that meant GPRS, what does it show for GSM? Not like any of this matters though.
I really have no idea why all this is happening to your G1 but I hope it gets resolved, good luck.
edit: on the tmobile coverage map it says edge/gprs and 3g, no gsm. does that make any difference? I checked for NYC overall not any specific boroughs.

crpercodani said:
I didn't even know GSM was still used in that way, I thought GPRS would be the bare minimum. How can you tell the difference? I use to only get a G icon and I looked it up and for the g1 it said that meant GPRS, what does it show for GSM? Not like any of this matters though.
I really have no idea why all this is happening to your G1 but I hope it gets resolved, good luck.
edit: on the tmobile coverage map it says edge/gprs and 3g, no gsm. does that make any difference? I checked for NYC overall not any specific boroughs.
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GSM is what Edge Gprs and 3G run off of. Think of it as a progression. GSM>GPRS>EDGE>3G.
The way I know it is on GSM is to the left of the Radio icon on the home screen there is another icon that shows the network your on. 3G=3G E=EDGE G=GPRS and no icon means GSM. GSM is still being used. Most SMS and MMS messages get sent to your from through GSM while you are on a call.

internet problem?

hi, i have not had a smart phone before and am not to sure on how the bands work but think i have a problem.
my phone is from Virgin mobile and running 1.48 stock rom, manila and radio 2.05.
few questions i'd like to ask before you read what i think my problem is.
1. is the internet supposed to run off 3g when not on wifi?
2. is 3g faster than "H"?
my problem: 3g is active, data connection is off. i open opera (or anything else) and 3g trys to connect, 3g sign disappears and "H" appears. data connection is on and using "Virgin GPRS".
i called virgin mobile tech support and they said it is meant to go through gprs.. lie?
i called htc and they said they don't think it is a problem with my phone...
i have done a hard reset.
i think it is either the 3g doesn't work, or there is something really wrong with the settings, or virgin mobile makes it like this?
please help as i may want to return it if this causes a big problem for me.

Sunil_237 said:
hi, i have not had a smart phone before and am not to sure on how the bands work but think i have a problem.
my phone is from Virgin mobile and running 1.48 stock rom, manila and radio 2.05.
few questions i'd like to ask before you read what i think my problem is.
1. is the internet supposed to run off 3g when not on wifi?
2. is 3g faster than "H"?
my problem: 3g is active, data connection is off. i open opera (or anything else) and 3g trys to connect, 3g sign disappears and "H" appears. data connection is on and using "Virgin GPRS".
i called virgin mobile tech support and they said it is meant to go through gprs.. lie?
i called htc and they said they don't think it is a problem with my phone...
i have done a hard reset.
i think it is either the 3g doesn't work, or there is something really wrong with the settings, or virgin mobile makes it like this?
please help as i may want to return it if this causes a big problem for me.
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There's nothing wrong with the phone mate.
You've got GPRS (2G) and 3G which includes HSPDPA (and HSUPA). HSDPA is the fastest of those types, 3G slower, and GPRS the slowest. Your phone will try and use the best connection available, and that just depends on the coverage in your area (and how good the phone's reception is). If you're getting a strong and steady signal, I really wouldn't worry about it.
Basically, HSDPA is a faster version of 3G.

but my sisters 3g (on o2 iphone) is faster (by a lot... and then some) than mine.
ran the same video on youtube (wifi disabled) and she got done in a matter of seconds while i was buffering mid stream
with the coverage checker i ran before i got the phone it said my area was "very good" and i get 3 bars usually.
o it is connecting through gprs not HSPDPA, in the connections screen it shows "Virgin GPRS"

Sunil_237 said:
but my sisters 3g (on o2 iphone) is faster (by a lot... and then some) than mine.
ran the same video on youtube (wifi disabled) and she got done in a matter of seconds while i was buffering mid stream
with the coverage checker i ran before i got the phone it said my area was "very good" and i get 3 bars usually.
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Click to collapse
All I can say is that she must have a better signal with O2 than you have with Virgin.

Sunil_237 said:
hi, i have not had a smart phone before and am not to sure on how the bands work but think i have a problem.
my phone is from Virgin mobile and running 1.48 stock rom, manila and radio 2.05.
few questions i'd like to ask before you read what i think my problem is.
1. is the internet supposed to run off 3g when not on wifi?
2. is 3g faster than "H"?
my problem: 3g is active, data connection is off. i open opera (or anything else) and 3g trys to connect, 3g sign disappears and "H" appears. data connection is on and using "Virgin GPRS".
i called virgin mobile tech support and they said it is meant to go through gprs.. lie?
i called htc and they said they don't think it is a problem with my phone...
i have done a hard reset.
i think it is either the 3g doesn't work, or there is something really wrong with the settings, or virgin mobile makes it like this?
please help as i may want to return it if this causes a big problem for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) Yes
2) No. H is a faster type of 3G.
My only worries with Virgin and 3G are wether they cap the actual download bandwidth available to handsets at 384kbps (despite the phone connecting with HSDPA - I had this problem with T-Mobile), wether they cap the upload speed at 44kbps and wether they block the Skype ports.
The connection name, Virgin GPRS, is just the name they gave to their data connection when they setup your phone. It could actually say anything you want if you change the settings in the phone.

Sunil_237 said:
but my sisters 3g (on o2 iphone) is faster (by a lot... and then some) than mine.
ran the same video on youtube (wifi disabled) and she got done in a matter of seconds while i was buffering mid stream
with the coverage checker i ran before i got the phone it said my area was "very good" and i get 3 bars usually.
o it is connecting through gprs not HSPDPA, in the connections screen it shows "Virgin GPRS"
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Click to collapse
It's possible that she has a better signal than you but I find that 3G coverage on O2, especially HSDPA coverage is generally significantly worse than coverage on T-Mobile (Virgin use their network).
However it could also be that the bandwidth is capped at a pretty low level on Virgin (3G rather than HSDPA despite the symbol), which I mentioned in my previous post.

o ok. ok ok. ok lol satisfied with some logical and knowledgable answers.
i believe they will have capped the data rate then (i haven't had signal problems for 7 years now on 4 different providers and the coverage map showed a very good signal for 3g here), if you can provide me with an app which would test.. o maybe speedtest.net may work i'll try them now and let you know.

[Q] Is HSDPA and HSPA+ the same thing?

Im coming from a couple HD2's and Vibrants and from my understanding, HSDPA is only 3.5G. Well, I only see HSDPA connection on my phone, and not a HSPA+ signal.
So am I even getting 4G?

You wont really see anything different to distinguish between the 2 besides running a speed test, Im on cm7 so I either see an "H" which is hsdpa or hspa+ but only a speed test over 3.5 will let me know for sure if I'm on the Hspa+ then theres the 3g icon which is usually umts but can be hspa, like I said just use the speed test ap thats the only way I ever know

also the highest Ive ever seen my 4G in los angeles is like 7.5mb on the normal it hovers around 4mb which never leaves me quite positive im on hspa+ because my wifes 3g Nexus S usually pulls down around 3.8

are you using T-Mobile or simple. I am having an issue as well but the plus sign is a huge difference.

i dont even know if you will ever see the HSDPA+! the way to check is go to settings>about phone>network> now here is where it gets tricky. where is says Mobile network type: it will tell you when you are on GPRS and EDGE! when my phone is on 3G is says UMTS, when it is in 4G, is says HSDPA. this is based on me doing speed tests while phone was on said network types. also i use a widget called "mobile signal widget". as you know the status bar never tells you the difference if you are on 3G or 4G, but the widget does! when the widget says 3G on it, when i flip to settings it says UMTS. when the widget says H on it, when i flip to the settings and it says HSDPA.

Stuck on GSM/GPRS network

Anyone else have issues where the phone gets stuck on GSM/GPRS? Today in few places the phone has showed GPRS and been really slow/not connecting to internet at all even though I know for certain there is HSPA available (places where my old GNex was always on H+). It takes some twiddling in the settings to get the G2 back to H or 3G. Usually if I force it to CDMA I get H with full bars even though just a moment ago the phone was stuck on GPRS. If I set the phone back to GMS/CDMA/LTE it usually works normally on HSPA again. But if I pass an area where the phone goes to G it will be stuck there.
Oh and is there some kinda H+ icon.. if there is I've never seen it even though my GNex showed it.
I like the phone's speed and slim size with big display. Not too keen on the LG bloatware. Waiting for Cyanogen or some other stock'ish ROM