Database Users

Is t-mobile 2g faster than at&t's?

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.

HSDPA+ rolled/being rolled out to central florida, what to look for

Hopefully this isn't off topic.
What to look for if you still don't have it in your area:
Have had some issues the last few weeks with tmobile and noticed "funny" things like certain areas not having 3g but full edge when I knew they were capable of it. Most of the time this happened around 2am or later. Anyway I now can say without a doubt that HSDPA+ is in central Florida or in the process of being rolled out. Other odd issues I noticed was
Consistent min speed of 2.3mbit when before it was 500kbit min. Highest I got so far in my apartment which is a 3-4 bar area was 5.5mbit. Highest before was 1.5 and in a very strong 4 bar area close by 1.8 max. Upload still leaves *ALOT* to be desired with .23 to -.4 mbps upload. They seem to be using similiar technology to the burst seen on cable modems, ie road runner will give you 20mbit for their "turbo" with "bursts" up to 30mbit. This could also just be how hsdpa works anyway to make sure there aren't alot of re-requests for data due to a bad signal but it definately starts off around 300-500kbit and bursts up after 1-4 seconds to the faster speed.
Either way perfect timing tmobile.

I hope that's true. I've been having alot of 3g outtages lately.

JCopernicus said:
I hope that's true. I've been having alot of 3g outtages lately.
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I'm almost certain it is. I just called last night to complain about it because I was staying at my parents house sitting and it happened up there too, as well as by my girlfriend's house about 10 minutes down the road from my apartment.
I'm really bothered though by the upload speeds.. but i guess its whatever. It's either my area, or tmobile in general.. I've had a couple of swaps with the same issue so its not the phone.
As a side note.. does nexus support 21mbit hsdpa+?

no the nexus one only supports up to 7.2mbps

Orangeandblue302 said:
no the nexus one only supports up to 7.2mbps
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ouch I was really hoping that wasn't the case. any that go beyond to 21mbps?

I wish AT&T upgraded the towers here. I can't tell you how many times I go into a classroom at UCF and there's no reception.

mariolopezjr said:
I wish AT&T upgraded the towers here. I can't tell you how many times I go into a classroom at UCF and there's no reception.
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I'm pretty sure schools do that on purpose so you can pay attention in class.
The same thing happens at my university up here in Illinois, once you step outside the building, full bars again.

rolled out in Houston Texas
Hey - starting last week, I noticed flaky things with T-mobile in Houston area similar to what OP stated. But over the weekend, I realized they were rolling out hsdpa+ and then the next day - full blown hspa. I'm so happy.
Before today, the ul speeds were .5 - .6. Today, I'm getting between 1.5 and 1.8 ul speeds!

TurboTsi said:
I'm pretty sure schools do that on purpose so you can pay attention in class.
The same thing happens at my university up here in Illinois, once you step outside the building, full bars again.
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More than anything its the wireless spectrum they use and the fact that you're in a large buildling. Depending on the frequency your provider uses you'll have better luck than some indoors.. generally its all the same. Of course the number of towers is important too. But for example LTE on 700mhz will give verizon LTE speeds 8-10 miles from the tower, 2500mhz on wimax will give sprint 2-3 miles from the tower. Higher frequency means more bandwidth available however.
I'm in engineering at UCF and pretty good reception in HEC and engineering 1 as long as you're not in the inner part of the building and those hallways and labs you're good. Brick walls = signal drop with anything but the lower frequencies and a well covered area. It's pretty strong coverage over here though on this side of campus.
They do have paint and stuff that have metal in it I think because its illegal to have a device that emits a radio signal to jam cellphones, however blocking it with shielding isn't. I'm pretty certain its expensive though. This was years ago that I saw that link on it... don't know if it still exists.

How big of a swath is it being rolled out to do you think? I am in Deltona and nothing has changed as of yet. I assume your talking about the Orlando metro area...
I am using the FRF50 radio by the way.

yeah you will get a increase in speeds due to the extra bandwith, but don't expect to get past the 7.2 mark, hell don't even expect to hit the 7.2 mark due to all the other factors.
not many devices out there to take full advantage of the added speed. new blackberry bold does........not sure what else, even the *cough* iphone 4 doesn't

saint327 said:
How big of a swath is it being rolled out to do you think? I am in Deltona and nothing has changed as of yet. I assume your talking about the Orlando metro area...
I am using the FRF50 radio by the way.
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I was up in deland when I noticed the problems 2 nights ago with the 2g and not going to 3g in an area that I knew had 3g. This was actually during the day. I just tested it again within the last day before leaving and it was working again. Give it a week or two and I'm sure you'll see it. It seems the whole area is being upgraded including you. I'm on the older radio... update-1 radio.
Also please report problems to tmobile as you see them. I'm going to report my ****ty upload speeds. Looking online it seems other areas have better upload than I do. I mean 200kbps max 400 and choppy is just terrible.

y2whisper said:
yeah you will get a increase in speeds due to the extra bandwith, but don't expect to get past the 7.2 mark, hell don't even expect to hit the 7.2 mark due to all the other factors.
not many devices out there to take full advantage of the added speed. new blackberry bold does........not sure what else, even the *cough* iphone 4 doesn't
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ATT is only going to 7.1 HSDPA... at least offically announced as of a month ago.. I guess that could change.. They're doing LTE after that.

Re 3g in O-Town.
I have had full 3g bars when I visit my younger brother around Alfaya and UCF.

As far as off-topicness goes I do think XDA is large enough to need carrier forums..
But yes, 3G/2G switching where it previously wasn't, weak 3G, no 3G, 3G not working, are all signs that 3G is being worked on for HSPA+ which includes going from T1's to fiber backhaul
My sig shows what I get with my slow G1. This is in a high traffic area, where before it was .10Mbps during the same time, yes.. that slow and congested.
Also if you're not getting HSUPA you need to make sure your Nexus One has it enabled. Stock roms do have HSUPA enabled, some custom ones don't.

blisk said:
I was up in deland when I noticed the problems 2 nights ago with the 2g and not going to 3g in an area that I knew had 3g. This was actually during the day. I just tested it again within the last day before leaving and it was working again. Give it a week or two and I'm sure you'll see it. It seems the whole area is being upgraded including you. I'm on the older radio... update-1 radio.
Also please report problems to tmobile as you see them. I'm going to report my ****ty upload speeds. Looking online it seems other areas have better upload than I do. I mean 200kbps max 400 and choppy is just terrible.
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Cool. I was discouraged back in January when they supposedly flipped the switch to HSDPA. As it turned out the backhaul wasn't here to support it. The max down I can remember is right at 1Mbps. Most of the time its around 900Kbps. Uploads usually come in around 350Kbps, with 500 being the highest I've seen. I live in Deltona, but work in Lake Mary and the speeds have been similar in both locations.
I hope that with this rollout everything will be in place.

HSDPA was already active on the network. The most they did was enable HSUPA.

blisk said:
More than anything its the wireless spectrum they use and the fact that you're in a large buildling. Depending on the frequency your provider uses you'll have better luck than some indoors.. generally its all the same. Of course the number of towers is important too. But for example LTE on 700mhz will give verizon LTE speeds 8-10 miles from the tower, 2500mhz on wimax will give sprint 2-3 miles from the tower. Higher frequency means more bandwidth available however.
I'm in engineering at UCF and pretty good reception in HEC and engineering 1 as long as you're not in the inner part of the building and those hallways and labs you're good. Brick walls = signal drop with anything but the lower frequencies and a well covered area. It's pretty strong coverage over here though on this side of campus.
They do have paint and stuff that have metal in it I think because its illegal to have a device that emits a radio signal to jam cellphones, however blocking it with shielding isn't. I'm pretty certain its expensive though. This was years ago that I saw that link on it... don't know if it still exists.
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You can be right about that, but I think it's mostly older buildings to blame and not the fact that they did it on purpose to block cell phone usage. Classroom Building 1 has horrible reception and around it too. At my job (in Millican Hall) the reception is horrible at my coworkers office (but it could be because the office is near a lot of beams). So structure is sometimes the cause.
I also get almost no reception in my cousin's house. She lives a little bit past Pegasus Pointe.

prscott1 said:
Hey - starting last week, I noticed flaky things with T-mobile in Houston area similar to what OP stated. But over the weekend, I realized they were rolling out hsdpa+
Before today, the ul speeds were .5 - .6. Today, I'm getting between 1.5 and 1.8 ul speeds!
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I think you mean HSPA. HSDPA wouldn't help your Uplink.

saint327 said:
Cool. I was discouraged back in January when they supposedly flipped the switch to HSDPA. As it turned out the backhaul wasn't here to support it. The max down I can remember is right at 1Mbps. Most of the time its around 900Kbps. Uploads usually come in around 350Kbps, with 500 being the highest I've seen. I live in Deltona, but work in Lake Mary and the speeds have been similar in both locations.
I hope that with this rollout everything will be in place.
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I use to get approximately the same speed at my apartment.. with a place I work on campus getting 1.8mbps down and .3-.5 mbps up and that was the best speed I've gotten around here. Its alot better now.. i'm sure they're still tweaking it.. I hope they are with the upload speeds.. its choppy and inconsitant.. sometimes just stops. Download did that a couple times too but that's probably related to the terrible upload (downloading needs upload to request the next bits of data to be sent.. it sends "acks" to acknowledge that the packet of data was sent properly). It's just really bad sometimes around UCF where it refuses to send a text, make a phone call, or go online as it just has that stuck up arrow thing. Really annoying.
I called tmobile to complain about the upload speeds and I guess they didn't want to fill a report out. Also HSDPA+ is only in Philly and there is no way I could get it in this area they claim.. gave me a hard time about things. So I asked what the max speeds I should be getting and I said well I'm getting much faster than that.. why is that? I think its cause I called twice recently and they already filled out one for each occasion. I had to really be forceful about them filling one out for me.. with the original person one not filling it out and then transferring me to pda support and then he didn't want to either. Both said they couldn't select nexus one as a phone when reporting a service issue and the second guy just decided to bull**** me off the phone the whole time after finally admitting that. I said bull cause I just had two filled out previously... they just kept discounting what I was saying.

T mobile vs. Verizon 3G

My samsung vibrant on t mobile
Vs
My wife's samsung fascinate on the nations largest 3G network.
Both pics were taken around the same time and right next to each other, I took the pc of mine from my wife's fascinate, and the pic of hers on my vibrant.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

only see one pic.

My wife's fascinate
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Cool Did you say where you live?

i was pulling down 6Mbps the other night
suck it, verizon

this is the reason i ditched verizon. most places i was hitting .6-.8 mbps and i almost hit 5mbps with tmo on my vibrant.

Verizon's service was a lot slower at times, but I REALLY miss having 3g literally EVERYWHERE
T-Mobile 3G isn't even in every major city here in Northwest Arkansas....let alone the rural areas

Tmobile has the fastest 3g around hands down. I have tried sprint and att. Both are slower, noticeably slower and the thing is t-mobile hasn't even started 4g or lte lol
Sent from my Samsung Vibrant

Tmo does have hspa+ though which can have an impact on data speeds depending on where you live
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Tmo will beat everyone on speed but man good luck on finding it. Sprint was slower but everywhere

T-Mobile is the fastest 3G carrier in the US right now IF you live in a HSPA+ area.

The real question is why does your wife have the outrageously high priced verizon while you sport the more economical t-mobile? Business issued?
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There are two main reasons Tmo typcially tops in speed:
Tmo has the fastest hardware right now. This will change, of course, seeing as both ATT and Verizon are working on their 4G networks and Tmo has no plans to go to 4G for the next two years. It is worth noting ATT and Verizon will have LTE not WiMax.
Tmo has a lot less customers so there is less demand on their towers. Less demand means faster speeds for those that do have Tmo.

T-Mobile is increasing 3G coverage a bunch recently. They just gave Puerto Rico 3G coverage and I've been hearing of other places getting 3G recently.
Verizon 3G is much slower here, you can hit 1.9Mbps but you're usually under 1Mbps like T-Mobile 3G before HSPA+. 3G coverage isn't all that either, EV-DO drops out sometimes at my house but I can't complain.
3G is also slightly on JI2 now that the -dBm reading is more accurate within the Android system. The Vibrant grabs onto a 3G signal much better than ANY phone I've had on T-Mobile. (G1, CLIQ, myTouch, TM506, TouchPro2, Nuron).
This is what I typically see with T-Mobile. Data speed is much better than all 3 of the carriers combined here for me. Still needs work in some areas though! Not going to lie.. but overall, it's better.
You would be lucky to get 500Kbps with AT&T or Verizon during peak hours. The Sprint EV-DO network is taking a huge hit due to the new smartphones on their network. It went from being underutilized to being over used.

As a former verizon/sprint/att/and uk versions f#ckee, ive never been more happy with a carriers service/price.
Tmo Hpsa ftw ..see sig

98classic said:
Tmo will beat everyone on speed but man good luck on finding it. Sprint was slower but everywhere
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Sad but true. I'm TM all the way, but F#$#, I hate how it's so limited still to a small area. Granted they are still expanding...Anyway, here's my pictures below...
I wouldn't quite knock Verizon...they'll kill TM on coverage on the mainland...but in some areas TM kicks @$$ over all....
Here's the true coverage ranking, hate it or love it, it's real:
1. Verizon
2. AT$T
3. Sprint
4. T-Mobile
Don't get me wrong, I get sick speeds...super fast...but only in certain areas...
My speed test pic is below...

Sprint coverage is way below T-Mobile coverage. 3G yes but I'd like to keep my calls.

heygrl said:
Sprint coverage is way below T-Mobile coverage. 3G yes but I'd like to keep my calls.
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As a trucker having gone through all 48 states with both carriers this is just not true
Well maybe in WU tmo might have slight better coverage

98classic said:
As a trucker having gone through all 48 states with both carriers this is just not true
Well maybe in WU tmo might have slight better coverage
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Roaming on Verizon in most of those states no?
When you lose the signal in a big city you can't just roam the rest of the time because the phone will try to pick up the weakest bit of Sprint signal. Sprint drops out often here. Deadzones in stores where T-Mobile manages a good usable signal? Check. Signal drop outs when driving down the road? Check. Lesser amount of coverage overall? Check. Dropped calls when signal fades and roaming switches over? Check.

heygrl said:
Roaming on Verizon in most of those states no?
When you lose the signal in a big city you can't just roam the rest of the time because the phone will try to pick up the weakest bit of Sprint signal. Sprint drops out often here. Deadzones in stores where T-Mobile manages a good usable signal? Check. Signal drop outs when driving down the road? Check. Lesser amount of coverage overall? Check. Dropped calls when signal fades and roaming switches over? Check.
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Lol must be the vibrant that sucks then cuz in a 1000 mile stretch of road I might get 3g 3 times for a few minutes, and speed is the worse while moving,. Just last night in portland, stopped, in the driver seat I had 3g, if I moved back to the sleeper 3 feet away it dropped to edge. Might be the phone that only gets 3g in wide open spaces like a satellite

Hsdpa capped?

So after the update my hsupa (upload speed) is fine but my hsdpa (download speeds) are still bad.. im lucky if i get 2mbps (i get it 1/17 times)
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I didnt mean to say hsdpa is still capped i meant slow...sorry
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The download and upload speeds are still impacted by network capacity and limited backhaul. At&t still doesn't have enough bandwidth from the tower to the web in most areas to provide 4g speeds. The amount of people using the same tower impacts speed as well.
Think of it like a funnel. You can have as many people as you want pouring in the big end, but the only thing flowing is whatever fits out the skinny end.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App

goscrewsir said:
The download and upload speeds are still impacted by network capacity and limited backhaul. At&t still doesn't have enough bandwidth from the tower to the web in most areas to provide 4g speeds. The amount of people using the same tower impacts speed as well.
Think of it like a funnel. You can have as many people as you want pouring in the big end, but the only thing flowing is whatever fits out the skinny end.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
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Don't you think that's something that's getting out of control from ATT. They chronically are refusing to spend their money on beeping up the backhaul and they are sitting on billions. No 4G launch dates nothing is firm in ATT land yet they claim they have almost 100% of their territory covered with hspa+
It's a shame folks.
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

Please quit being a tool. AT&T is constantly improving the network, and backhual is in place in many of the major markets. As with anything, this isn't just a switch that can be thrown to make stuff faster, it takes time and money. 19B is being spent on this backhaul, and everyday new cell sites are being put into major areas. The 4g craze just started, there are only a couple of devices that even support the speeds, and laying all new fiber isn't an overnight thing. Tell verizon to get their LTE everywhere overnight, see how that works out for you.

Updated and all my DL speeds are the same and in some cases better. Upload is way better of course. Web browsing is noticeably faster too.
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I thought i'd pop the ole simcard back into the captivate to see how it worked. I was getting almost double the download speed then on the 1.83 update for atrix (upload was about the same, slightly in captivates favor).

Speeds
My HSDPA speeds vary. Ignore the horrifically low speeds...terrible signal @ work

link12245 said:
Please quit being a tool. AT&T is constantly improving the network, and backhual is in place in many of the major markets. As with anything, this isn't just a switch that can be thrown to make stuff faster, it takes time and money. 19B is being spent on this backhaul, and everyday new cell sites are being put into major areas. The 4g craze just started, there are only a couple of devices that even support the speeds, and laying all new fiber isn't an overnight thing. Tell verizon to get their LTE everywhere overnight, see how that works out for you.
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I don't think anyone (else) is coming across as a tool. I'm sure they are working hard and writing checks left and right, but the fact of the matter is that they consistently boast 4g coverage and near 100% hspa+, and I have yet to hear of anyone that is getting consistent speeds of anything that would even remotely resemble 4g.
I completely understand that this isn't an overnight process, and I am pretty sure most of the XDA community gets that as well, but when basically every other carrier has faster data speeds you are going to get backlash from your customers. If they were a bit more committed to giving people a timetable, then I think they could avoid so much criticism.
I don't know if I'd say the "4g craze just started", but somehow AT&T was the last one to get the memo.
-Doogs™

I get download speeds between 1-5 Mbps dependent on location and time. Upload is between 1-1.2 Mbps. Think that's more than ok and I never got faster speeds on t-mobiles's "4G" either.

Yeah i just posted in another thread...I'm getting 50% faster DLs than my iphone4 roughly 4000 kbps consistently...but the upload speeds are identical on a handful of tests 1275 kbps...
I guarantee AT&T is again capping upload albeit at a higher speed now....

Location is such a HUGE factor in speeds. I live in Virginia Beach, VA. No Verizon LTE here, Tmobile has their 4G up to about 5 miles from my house, no Wimax from Sprint, just left them b/c fastest 3G I could get was 700kbps. AT&T here is just 3G, but I get 1.5-4mbps everywhere I go. I am no fan of only having 4 major choices and none of them caring about me except for my money, but the grass isn't always greener......and for some of you, it doesn't matter who you had, you would be complaining about something. Just saying.....

milan03 said:
Don't you think that's something that's getting out of control from ATT. They chronically are refusing to spend their money on beeping up the backhaul and they are sitting on billions. No 4G launch dates nothing is firm in ATT land yet they claim they have almost 100% of their territory covered with hspa+
It's a shame folks.
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please stop spouting misinformation. AT&T is spending money on backhaul, improvements, etc. It doesn't happen overnight. They just announced at the beginning of April that $100 million was being thrown into Denver's (and the rest of Colorado) network, including enhanced backhaul and new cell sites.
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17772169

:/ i live in a small-ish town... i bet we wont have any improvements for months or maybe even years
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MrCooper2012 said:
I don't think anyone (else) is coming across as a tool. I'm sure they are working hard and writing checks left and right, but the fact of the matter is that they consistently boast 4g coverage and near 100% hspa+, and I have yet to hear of anyone that is getting consistent speeds of anything that would even remotely resemble 4g.
I completely understand that this isn't an overnight process, and I am pretty sure most of the XDA community gets that as well, but when basically every other carrier has faster data speeds you are going to get backlash from your customers. If they were a bit more committed to giving people a timetable, then I think they could avoid so much criticism.
I don't know if I'd say the "4g craze just started", but somehow AT&T was the last one to get the memo.
-Doogs™
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that was directed at co.ag.2005 the guy with the Verizon logo as his avatar. Just trying to start stuff for no reason.
Per what you said about every other carrier has better speeds, that's not true at all. AT&T is still the fastest nation wide. Yeah, with verizon you can get 12mb/s, but only in what, 48 cities now? T-mo has like 52, and Sprint has the most with 80 something. Either way, from coast to coast, at&t is the fastest, and you don't find many 3g areas where you'll get the 800kb/s that you get with Verizon's 3g. The only real 4g competition is Sprint because they have so few people using their network that there is alway free bandwidth. AT&T was only last because we were trying to stay away from the 4g hype until t-mo started touting HSPA+ as 4g, so we had to jump on that wagon because, as a hole, consumers are pretty dumb. The HSPA+ is rolled out 100% (all the towers have been upgraded to new nodes to support the faster speed), but fiber has to be laid to the towers. For that we have to pay contractors that work for Time warner, cox, verizon ect (local landlines providers) to get the faster speeds. Until that gets done, we have no control over the speeds that go out. Technically, the 100% hspa+ roll out is true, and because they are a business they will tout those features because, again, most consumers are dumb. They see that AT&T has the largest 4g footprint and they buy products. Just as any business, there's fine print to be read. Don't be mad because your Honda doesn't get the 46mpg they say you will.

jank0023 said:
Yeah i just posted in another thread...I'm getting 50% faster DLs than my iphone4 roughly 4000 kbps consistently...but the upload speeds are identical on a handful of tests 1275 kbps...
I guarantee AT&T is again capping upload albeit at a higher speed now....
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I guarantee your wrong. AT&T has no way to cap upload on your device once HSUPA is enabled. There are no tiers of upload speed, it's either on or off. Thanks for the misinformation though.
(check for articles online about how the speed test apps aren't all created equally, and make sure your testing on the same servers)

No, I believe it's just ATT has the worst setup out of the big 4 (at least in the NYC/Tri-State Area).
Our "4G" is considered to be 4-5 down, 1.25 up where as true 4G speeds from what i've been hearing from Verizon and T-mo users are 20 mbps.... And we are lucky if we get 5/1.
And ATT had the nerve to sell a device labeled as "4G" and CAP the uploads, I don't see how a company could deceive its customers that way. I mean, the data plans are ALREADY capped at 2gb for most new users, thats a huge letdown on its own!
Currently, I get max 3/1 with an average of 1.5/350.

after updating to .83 i am getting around 1.6 upload speeds.
so i don't think that they are capped at 1.25.
maybe it is a regional thing.

Prior to updating my network icon showed H+, now it only shows E.

fsturbo15 said:
No, I believe it's just ATT has the worst setup out of the big 4 (at least in the NYC/Tri-State Area).
Our "4G" is considered to be 4-5 down, 1.25 up where as true 4G speeds from what i've been hearing from Verizon and T-mo users are 20 mbps.... And we are lucky if we get 5/1.
And ATT had the nerve to sell a device labeled as "4G" and CAP the uploads, I don't see how a company could deceive its customers that way. I mean, the data plans are ALREADY capped at 2gb for most new users, thats a huge letdown on its own!
Currently, I get max 3/1 with an average of 1.5/350.
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You've been misinformed if you think t-mo is getting 20mb/s. Tmobile has hspa+21, which has a theoretical speed of 21mbps, but you will only get between 5 & 7mbps. As far as verizon's speeds, they get around 20, but only in the few areas they have lte, and that's only because they don't have any traffic on their lte network yet. Around the Tampa area, most people I know are getting around 12mbps. Get the facts straight please, no more misinformation.

Just switched from T-Mobile to Sprint and am getting much worse coverage...?

Couldn't really post my entire question in the title. But what I wanted to finish asking if it this was to be expected? I live in the south Houston region around League City(77573) where the coverage map claims that mostly I'll get optimal performance in and out doors. However my 3G speeds are a joke most of the time. Up at work, where my desk is right next to tons of windows, I get 5-6 bars constantly, but 3G speeds are constantly fluctuating. I recently transferred from T-Mobile and of course am using the Epic flashed with Syn. Frozen.
One test will yield 500-800ms ping, with 200-300 kbps down, 50-100kbps up, and SOMETIMES the upload will be higher than the download.
Sometimes I'll get 1200-1500kbps with about half of that as my upload, with around 100-200ms ping.
At home, in my house, I constantly get 0 to 1 bars constantly, and often enter data roaming. Speedtest results usually report 800ms(if it can even find a server), and about 30-100kbps down and even lower than that in upload.
I honestly didn't expect it to be this bad. Can anyone share their thoughts? I doubt its the device or the towers; I suspect its just a low quality network.

Welcome to the club of Sprints slowness. I kind of regret the switch as well but I had to leave Att. I'm in Atlanta and 4g constantly sleeps even downtown where I'm suppose to have the best connection. And 3g is slower than a Snail.
I hate "Top Flight Security Mods"

I would say your speeds of 1200 to 1500 down should be about average for 3g (I'm in ohio).
However network strength is a tricky subject as 9000 things can be going on at any given time. But I can not speak for your market. Sometimes sprint has the best tower alignment in an area, sometimes t-mobile, verizon, and I guess in theory at&t.
Honestly it sounds like you have 2 separate issues going on. The 3g bouncing around like that is not normal and sounds like something is going on.
Your house however sounds like you just have crappy coverage.
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crazynotion said:
.....Your house however sounds like you just have crappy coverage....
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that is what I am also thinking, Daj don't put 100% on the 3g coverage map it is a joke and the 4g coverage map is even more of a joke like a hit and miss. I been with Sprint 13 yrs so I am already a pro on the areas that have 3g coverage and the limits/cut off signal level down here in S. Tx

I get 5-6 bars at work and depending on the time of day can get 400kbps, to 1.7mbps on 3G. I cannot really complain about the speeds I get...
At home though, I get bad coverage. Called Sprint and complained and they sent me an Airave free of charge. Now I get great speeds at home.

How much did u need to tell sprint to get that?
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When I had sprint for the past 10 years, signal at my house was terrible. In the past year, signal was drastically improved. T mobile has terrible signal at my house even now. It varies but sounds like you need an airave.
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as retarded as this might sound i don't really want to go the airwave route. I just might just return the phone and get a g2. the airwave sounds like a half baked fix; ive NEVER talked to anyone in my life whos needed some sort of external apparatus(in this case itd be like having a hearing aide)to help them with their cell service and quite frankly, where i'm at, there really should be no excuse for the low signal.

Count your lucky stars... at work with full signal I get 50 kilobits down. Sometimes the speedtest won't even run. Halfway home this evening I was next to a tower with full signal again. 29 kilobits down / 90 kilobits up! WOOHOO!! Full 3G signal.
I roam on Verizon 3G quite a bit at work due to the slow speeds

Been a Sprint customer for over a decade and finally canceled service today due to having to put up with painfully slow 3G and spotty to no 4G coverage as compared to my new Verizon 4G LTE phone. Been hanging on hoping for improvement but it's wishful thinking.

If you update your prl and profile once a month to stay current your 3G should be fine. But thrn again some areas just have bad coverage.
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you can get tmobile family plan with 5 phones all with 200mb 4g for about 190 with university discount (google). I'm currently paying $270 for 5 phones with sprint w/ my university discount! i know its a little off topic but just throwing it out there..