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[Q] Why 4G is the same speed as 3G, is it expected?

I understand that ATT 4G is really 3G+ but still I'm getting exactly the same perfomance from my Atrix as from my Captivate in the same location. Roughly 1 MB up and 3 MB down. Sometimes I get up to 5 MB down on Atrix but upload is always capped at 1 MB. Is it expected?

Then you're probably not in an HSPA+ coverage area. I don't get HSPA+ speeds at my home, but if I go into Atlanta, I'll probably get HSPA+ speeds.
Check coverage on this page: http://www.att.com/network/?

MdX MaxX said:
Then you're probably not in an HSPA+ coverage area. I don't get HSPA+ speeds at my home, but if I go into Atlanta, I'll probably get HSPA+ speeds.
Check coverage on this page: http://www.att.com/network/?
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It shows H+ on notification bar and I'm in north Dallas which has 4G already.

artisticcheese said:
I understand that ATT 4G is really 3G+ but still I'm getting exactly the same perfomance from my Atrix as from my Captivate in the same location. Roughly 1 MB up and 3 MB down. Sometimes I get up to 5 MB down on Atrix but upload is always capped at 1 MB. Is it expected?
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I'd have to say yes. Can't remember where I heard it but this is the "first wave" of 4g and the next wave is being worked on for the fall. I believe lte is the second phase.
I have had a similar experience coming from the captivate. But we will see as more rolls out.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

AFAIK, despite the icons showing H+ you are probably still using 3G.
I'm in NYC and I get various speeds depending on time of day and which APN Iuse, whether it's the custom APN for tethering or AT&T USA
Generally its around 4 down and 1.5-3 down
Even in an area like Long Island which doesn't have HSPA+, the H+ icon is still active and present when I use data.
It's weird though.
http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles...uments/StaticFiles/ATRIX_GSG_68014204002A.pdf
If you look at the section in the bottom with Icons and Battery Life, it says it's suppose to show 3G when 3G is being used.
The Atrix also has a help center app which has an icon section which shows 3G as an icon that should be present when 3G
If you were an early adopter of the Atrix, you would recall that when HSPA+ wasn't present in your city nor was it activated by AT&T, the H+ icon was present.
AT&T and Motorola as usual are misleading consumers.

Were I live in Louisiana I get up to 4 MB down highest I've seen so far and 2-3 upload pretty good compared to iPhone 3g half a MB both ways
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App

I've noticed this as well.
When I purchased my Atrix and began my AT&T services back in April, I spoke very in depth with the sales rep about the 4G network thing. I told him I had worked for VerizonWireless for quite some time, and from that point on he didn't seem like he was holding back any information or "dumbing down" anything.
This is what he explained to me:
AT&T (at that time, before Verizon's LTE network started being instituted) was the network that was the farthest along in the process of having 4G everywhere, not just major cities.
At this point in time, the HSPA+ is basically a "3-and-a-half-G" network, with speeds up to 4x that of 3G, BUT ONLY WHERE THE TOWERS HAVE BEEN UPDATED, which is only in major cities, such as Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, etc. (I'm on the East Coast, so I'm not sure about West Coast cities )
Sometime around first quarter 2012 is when they PLAN on having SOME towers broadcast FULL 4G services, which will be 6x faster than the HSPA+ (which as I stated above, is roughly 4x faster than 3G IN APPLICABLE AREAS)
SO, once all is said and done, and everyone with 4G capable phones is on a 4G network, it SHOULD be 10x faster than 3G, and 6x faster than HSPA+.
HOWEVER, the speed of the network is all dependent on the amount of traffic. If there is a lot of people accessing the 4G network, it won't be as fast, as well as if there AREN'T a lot of people on it, it will be faster.
I spoke to a Verizon rep at one of their stores, and he said that on his Thunderbolt, he was achieving speeds equivalent to his in-home FIOS, simply due to the fact that there are hardly ANY users accessing Verizon's "4G" network, LTE.
Hope this kind of helps clarify the whole "4G" rumor

fastest bs of a coverage map too. methinks atnt just copy and pasted their 3g map onto a new map and unhighlighted some less populous areas and said "TAADAAAA!! 4G *****es!!"

Must be the area/network.
Bell with the new update is really fast now.
reaching 10+ mbps down, 3.5+ mbps up
on avg. I'd say it's 5-7 mbps

What do you prefer and why 4G Late or 42+hspa

Which service is best...
Sent from my HTC Sensation

It probably depends on the area. DC-HSPA on T-Mobile actually runs faster than Verizon LTE in some areas just because Verizon doesn't open it up enough or have enough capacity or something. The nice part is that DC-HSPA is really just a fast 3G, so even if your phone only hits 14.4 HSPA, it still goes pretty fast. T-Mobile will deploy LTE next year and if that has problems it will have DC-HSPA as a fallback.

I have T-mobile and I easily get 22mbps down, 2mbps up. My husband has Verizon and he gets 23mbps down, 7mbps up. The downlink speeds are comparable. The only difference is in the uplink speeds. Verizon has the edge here. However, I have used both phones side by side and for most tasks, there isn't a huge difference.
Snowflake approved this message....

4G Late?
4G LTE
-Destroys Battery life
-Sales Gimmick
4G HSPA+
-Fast enough
-Better battery life

Can anybody really distinguish, with the naked eye, which is faster? Whose testing website is really accurate? Besides bragging rights and marketing fanfare, does it make any difference?

Hi guys,
I do not need LTE due to those facts:
1) HSDPA is fast enough.
2) in common cell phone contracts over here in Germany your speed is reduced to 64kbit after you used up 300mb per month. If I had more than that we could talk about LTE.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app

Looneytoon98 said:
Can anybody really distinguish, with the naked eye, which is faster? Whose testing website is really accurate? Besides bragging rights and marketing fanfare, does it make any difference?
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Nope.
Snowflake approved this message

LTE plans here are more expensive. That's a good reason.
Sent from my XT883 using xda app-developers app

LTE not Late
Mesaman2012 said:
Which service is best...
Sent from my HTC Sensation
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FYI there is no "Late 4G", it is called "LTE". Actually there are two types of 4G; LTE and WiMax.
LTE was first used by Verizon, but is now also used by ATT. Due to marketing "schemes" some believe the Apple iPhone 5 has 4g. False! it has HSPA+, not 4G/ Sure, HSPA+ is a ton faster than 3g, but it is still not 4G.
Sprint, and T-Mobile are now also starting to use LTE. Unfortunately I don't believe LTE is standard worldwide, meaning they use different frequency bands. Similar to how a GSM american phone, may or may not work in Europe

I'm sorry that I ever put up such a topic would you ladies and gentlemen please not respond to this stupid topic.I would like to apologize for spamming the thread with this ignorant topic. Takecare
Sent from my HTC one x

Either way, we won't be hitting 4G for another 5/10 years. Although, I can't imagine why the hell a phone needs 1Gbps down and 100Mbps up. Maybe 30 years from now those speeds will be standard.

LTE and WiMax are still 3G. They're marketed as 4G (read: FauxG). They're really 3.9G.
Only LTE-Advanced is a certified 4G tech. All the others are still 3G
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

times_infinity said:
LTE and WiMax are still 3G. They're marketed as 4G (read: FauxG). They're really 3.9G.
Only LTE-Advanced is a certified 4G tech. All the others are still 3G
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
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I know that was the case originally, but it's my understanding that the group behind the 4G standards was pushed enough to bend what it qualifies as 4G. Originally 4G was when you had a minimum of 100Mbps download, but now HSPA+, WiMax, and LTE are all considered 4G technologies.

geoff5093 said:
I know that was the case originally, but it's my understanding that the group behind the 4G standards was pushed enough to bend what it qualifies as 4G. Originally 4G was when you had a minimum of 100Mbps download, but now HSPA+, WiMax, and LTE are all considered 4G technologies.
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By name only. The carriers cried and whined for it, so the ITU caved. It's STILL "faux G" as far as many people are concerned.
Call it whatever you want. It doesn't change the fact that it's still technically based on an older technology.
Snowflake approved this message....

Would prefer HSPA than 4G. On 4G, it's really a battery eater. However, the highest HSPA speed I've gotten was around 3mbps and around 1-2mbps upload compared to 30-45mbps download and ~20-30mbps upload.
Normally the HSPA speeds is almost the same as running on GPRS during peak hours until the three local telco was fined for providing below standard data speeds/coverage then it managed to peak around 4-5.

Clubbysupercharged said:
Would prefer HSPA than 4G. On 4G, it's really a battery eater. However, the highest HSPA speed I've gotten was around 3mbps and around 1-2mbps upload compared to 30-45mbps download and ~20-30mbps upload.
Normally the HSPA speeds is almost the same as running on GPRS during peak hours until the three local telco was fined for providing below standard data speeds/coverage then it managed to peak around 4-5.
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That's your carrier. I've seen HSPA speeds hit 20Mb down and LTE speeds hit 60Mb down almost from seeing other speedtests.

MrObvious said:
That's your carrier. I've seen HSPA speeds hit 20Mb down and LTE speeds hit 60Mb down almost from seeing other speedtests.
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Or his location (or the hardware limitation of the handset)
Hickory, Dickory, Dox...Snowflake approves of my HOX....

MrObvious said:
That's your carrier. I've seen HSPA speeds hit 20Mb down and LTE speeds hit 60Mb down almost from seeing other speedtests.
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I know, that's my carrier problem. Their HSPA speeds is really pathetic.

Thanks for sharing

LTE>HSPA+
My best friend bought the black Iphone five (64 gig) when he came down to Jax, and in town, we compared our speed test results.
Iphone five (lte on at&t) first test- 68 mbps down/16 mbps up
Htc Amaze (faux g) best result that day-23mbps down/3 mbps up
So, strictly speed wise, he consistently was able to pull high 60's down, while my phone that theoretically can hit 42 mbps, never reached 30's. So it seems that location is an important factor, but none the less, I cant kid myself, I rooted my phone and changed the values in the build.prop file to command the phone to max out the radio, while his was straight out of the box. Imagine if he were to jailbreak that monster, its capable of 80 mbps down. The only problem is that his screen is smaller than mine, and he has some crappy plan that wont let him tether, as oposed to us, we can hack out phones to utilize our signal on something easier on the eyes.
Now bear in mind, I am just commenting on data speed, and he is back in Greensboro, North Carolina, and he only gets 20mbps down at best. Then again, 20 mbps down would be my phone on a good day in the middle of the night.

Slow hspa speeds on T-Mobile?

I got around 12 Mbps with my old s3 at work and I did a speed test with my n4 same spot and can only get maybe 6 Mbps what gives I thought this phone had the 42 Mbps radio??
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Same here, my internet doesn't seem to be working like before. Sometimes it will work other times it won't.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

Exactly.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

it can be many different factors:
- location
- case/grip
- kernel
- baseband

thought i was the only one

horr1blek1tten said:
I got around 12 Mbps with my old s3 at work and I did a speed test with my n4 same spot and can only get maybe 6 Mbps what gives I thought this phone had the 42 Mbps radio??
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
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Check about phone > status and make sure you are getting an hspa+ connection. Check it when the mobile network is active and data is transmitting because it will drop down to regular hspa while idle. Also, in order to get DC-HSPA (which is required for 42mbps) it has to be available in your area. Not a lot of markets have it yet.

I get anywhere from 15-22 Mbps here in NY and that's with the $30 plan.
Sent from my Nexus 4

24mbps in seattle area

This might not seem like much to you guys but I live in a rural area with no 4g and on my HTC sensation I got about 1mps
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

I'm getting between 5Mbps to 10Mbps speeds with my Nexus 4 in Phoenix AZ.
Which is an improvement from my Galaxy Nexus that got 1Mbps to 3Mbps (yeah, that was HSPA+).

I'm on T-Mobile here in NYC and just received 19.5mb down and 1.6mb up.

dcarpenter85 said:
Check about phone > status and make sure you are getting an hspa+ connection. Check it when the mobile network is active and data is transmitting because it will drop down to regular hspa while idle. Also, in order to get DC-HSPA (which is required for 42mbps) it has to be available in your area. Not a lot of markets have it yet.
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I am getting hspa+:15 in the settings with speed test running in the background. What does that mean? 42mbps? Speed tests 6-7mbps at best with 1sec latency! Latency is worse than what I had on hspa 14 on the Samsung exhibit ii.
I am in Philadelphia. I thought we got hspa+ 42 a long while ago here. Although the network seems to always be congested here, often coming to a complete halt, forcing me to go to edge to send and receive emails.
[EDIT]: I think I was wrong on HSPA+ 42 being available in Philadelphia. We're still on 21. According to an article on android central we will get HSPA+ 42 on the 1900Mhz band here instead of 1700Mhz AWS. HSPA+ category 15, which is what the reading in the settings are showing, refers to HSPA+ 21 ... so no DC-HSPA here ... I hope the upgrades come soon, and take care of the congestion issues around the busy parts of the city during the day. It's stupid to have a smart phone that cannot even send an receive emails !

Here in Charlottesville, VA (where HSPA+ 42 is supposedly available), I am getting less than 512 kbps down with over 1000 ms ping. This was in an area that indicated HSPA+:15.
Did I get a phone with a bad radio? Or just a location thing?

This is consectutive tests on different servers further and further away (started with closest last is in south Dakota - pings suck but speeds are great)

glenroebuck said:
This is consectutive tests on different servers further and further away (started with closest last is in south Dakota - pings suck but speeds are great)
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You have a 3G icon... my Nexus 4 only shows H for HSPA. Are you on a custom ROM?

nope stock it switches back and fourth from 3 to H when I am not using the internet it is 3 I do something internet and H pops up.

glenroebuck said:
nope stock it switches back and fourth from 3 to H when I am not using the internet it is 3 I do something internet and H pops up.
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I've never seen 3G pop up on my Nexus 4. Strange. Either way, I guess my terribly slow speeds are a result of being in Central VA.

it is to save battery life it sits on idle afaik on 3g until you call up 4g - there is a post on it on the qa forums.

Three network vs T-mobile (Pay monthly)

Hi guys, I have a pay monthly sim which is from T-mobile and it will end in 4 Months and i am waiting for Samsung s4 release. Basically which network provider is better? I want to swap to Three because they have cheap and good plan for the S4.. What is your experience with this network provider? Do they have fast internet? are they better than T-mobile?
Regards.

LTE has been deployed in a few cities already and the DC-HSPA speeds are pretty good. Not sure about Three though as I've never really heard of them. LTE speeds seem to be consistently 20Mbps down and around 30-50msec pings from the screenshots I've seen for KC and Vegas. And getting the $30 5GB plan is really good.

I assume you're talking about the UK? Three aren't rolling out 4g until q4 of this year, tmobile will never roll out 4g, you need to go to EE for that. Three's dchspa is great from my experience-
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

Jme369 said:
I assume you're talking about the UK? Three aren't rolling out 4g until q4 of this year, tmobile will never roll out 4g, you need to go to EE for that. Three's dchspa is great from my experience-
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
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Oh duh. lol

Tmobile just launched 4G Lte march 27th.
Sent from my HTC Sensation using xda app-developers app

I have a Nexus 4 on Three currently, using their £12.90 plan with AYCE data, speeds seem to fluctuate alot for me, between 0.5Mbps and 12Mbps in the same room of my house, depending on the day. Ping times are lower than 100ms 80% of the time, so fast page loading. My Mum is on T-Mobile (using an iPhone 4 so no DC-HSDPA, not sure if T-Mobile support it anyway) and her speeds are never higher than 2Mbps down with 200ms ping, haven't tried her sim in my phone so can't comment on if it's phone related or network, but what I suggest is get a Three payg sim, top it up with a bit of credit and check the speeds in your area, also check their coverage map as they don't have a 2G backup everywhere (only rural places with little to no 3G)

T-Mobile Speed Tests

I was wondering what type of speeds everybody was getting and whether they noticed worse or improved cell coverage. These are a few speedtests I ran in my area while I was out. Cell service seems just as good as before but would love for them to turn on band 12 so I can convince coworkers to switch.

Pretty good speeds....

i wish i was getting speeds in the 60 mbps range.

Seeing good speeds in midtown Atlanta.

Crontab-e said:
Seeing good speeds in midtown Atlanta.
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WOW 85 Mb down? I wish it was that fast here in Norcross. Here it's around 20Mb/s down.

Oh no.

Speeds faster after update. But I couldn't complain then or now I've got great speeds...lol
.

I'm getting way better signal.
This one is from this morning after the update.
The second one, I included WiFi because, I get 30 more megs download speed compared to my LG G3, it's so weird.
I'm also able to get 4G inside my house now where's to with my LG g3 I was only getting a 2 G signal.
Sent from my SM-N910T using XDA Free mobile app

They probably turned on band 2 LTE in your area. The Note supports band 2 and G3 doesn't.

I'm using mine on AT&T and I have a lot better speeds than on my note 3 both cellular and WiFi

After the upgrade speeds are insane. I'm in Houston Texas.

I ask the question why do phone need such crazy speeds lol

20 or so. Not too happy about it either.

Is band 2 faster than band 4? Is it one or the other or does the phone pair them together?
My 6+ (band 2 and 4) gets 35 Mbps while my hotspot (Sierra 313u, band 4) gets 24 Mbps.

Where the crap do you guys live to get such fast wireless speed?I don't even get that on my at home cable internet...
I get 10-20 on my Wi-Fi and 1-5 on my "LTE"...

Are you guys kidding me !. the top speed I have experienced is around 5mbps !! __ india

If you post speeds, please post location also. I'm going to switch to T-Mobile from Sprint and would like to see coverage.

North Columbus Ohio area . I was on sprint for 16 years. . Now I am happy.
Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

My coverage and speeds are very similliar to my GS5 so I am pleased . I am in the St.Louis Area . I max out at around 60 Mbps and average 30 Mbps which is more than good enough considering I use no more than 1 to 2 GB a month since Im on wifi 90% of the time.

htc_doc said:
Is band 2 faster than band 4? Is it one or the other or does the phone pair them together?
My 6+ (band 2 and 4) gets 35 Mbps while my hotspot (Sierra 313u, band 4) gets 24 Mbps.
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do you mean carrier aggregation?