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So I ordered my N1 yesterday, and currently have at&t. wasn't too worried about the whole 3g thing, because I figured one of the smart guys here at xda would figure out a way to make it work. After looking in to it further, I realize the hardware just won't allow that. I would just switch to T-mobile, but they have no 3g coverage anywhere near me yet. this brings me to my question. is it worth switching to tmobiles coverage for faster 2g possibly, or in the hopes that they'll soon expand their network. I don't mind getting out of my contract with at&t, tmobiles rates seem to be a lot better. I'm just wondering if anybody has heard anything on T-mobiles future plans.
I think most anecdotal evidence by most users is that EDGE on TMO is much faster than ATT. Why? Even though the "transport" 2G technology is the same, ATT still suffers from not enough bandwidth at its towers for all the heavy 3G areas due to heavy usage. -- In other words, backhaul contention.
Also, the fact that in places where there is no TMO 3G... EDGE works quite well for the very same reason... Even with towers that only have several T1/DS1's in place instead of T3/DS3's or fiber
Cheers,
Kermee
In NYC, where I have 3G coverage as well, EDGE tops out at 10-15KB/s
hurrycaine3000 said:
So I ordered my N1 yesterday, and currently have at&t. wasn't too worried about the whole 3g thing, because I figured one of the smart guys here at xda would figure out a way to make it work. After looking in to it further, I realize the hardware just won't allow that. I would just switch to T-mobile, but they have no 3g coverage anywhere near me yet. this brings me to my question. is it worth switching to tmobiles coverage for faster 2g possibly, or in the hopes that they'll soon expand their network. I don't mind getting out of my contract with at&t, tmobiles rates seem to be a lot better. I'm just wondering if anybody has heard anything on T-mobiles future plans.
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I personally have ran on EDGE for awhile on tmobile and have never had a problem with wifi while I am at home/school... however the 3g is nice, though my house seems to have 3g signals
its simple business really, though 1 man cannot make a difference... as the company grows, the service grows... verizon has the best service because it has the most customers... i think the reason tmobile has struggled in the US (as opposed to being the number 1 world wide carrier) is because of the lack of appeal from phones... with more phones rolling out and tmobile always having its doors open to unlocked phones i see the company gaining some momentum and it starts with these new android phones making it big as well as now having the fastest network in the nation...
ive had bad experiences with both verizon (contract issues) and att (terrible customer service), tmobile has yet to steer me wrong (other than not giving me an upgrade for the N1 haha)
with that said, try em out, idk if companies still let you trial their service for a week or so but you could ask?
i honestly cant tel a diff between edge and 3 g lol they both are friggin fast as hell
VoLoDaR1 said:
i honestly cant tel a diff between edge and 3 g lol they both are friggin fast as hell
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It all depends on what you're doing Tweeting and reading tweets... probably not so much
Cheers,
Kermee
are you crazy? 3G is AT LEAST 10+ times as fast as EDGE.
I know on my touch pro using att 3g over edge. they have 3g where I work, but not at my house. so I always just use wifi at my house, but don't bother at work because the 3g is fast enough. I can definetly tell the difference. granted there is wifi almost everywhere these days, but with my touch pro I have to turn it off and on when I'm using it so my battery half makes through a day. It will be nice if the N1's is more of a automatic thing, if that makes sense. I guess if I knew that t Mobile would actually be implementing 3g in my area at all soon, it would be an easier decision, but I haven't found anything to make me think they'll be adding towers in York, PA any time soon.
Im in Dallas TX and just activated my phone. I was worried because people in some forums where saying phone kept switching to 2g. I just activated my phone and its been on 3 out of 4 bars on 3g last 30-40 minutes...I know this is kind of off topic, but thought it was important do to the nature of all the talk about speed on tmobile.
Ok im scared now, i just looked at the USA map on tmobile https://my.t-mobile.com/Plan/CoverageMap.aspx and looks to hardly be any 3g coverage! What! Tell me it aint so!
that's what I'm saying, I want 3g on this phone, but it's just not in my area on tmobile. we've established it's pretty much going to be impossible to get att's to work on this phone. It doesn't look like tmobile has 3g anywhere, atleast not hardly. what to do, what to do.
dallastx said:
Im in Dallas TX and just activated my phone. I was worried because people in some forums where saying phone kept switching to 2g. I just activated my phone and its been on 3 out of 4 bars on 3g last 30-40 minutes...I know this is kind of off topic, but thought it was important do to the nature of all the talk about speed on tmobile.
Ok im scared now, i just looked at the USA map on tmobile https://my.t-mobile.com/Plan/CoverageMap.aspx and looks to hardly be any 3g coverage! What! Tell me it aint so!
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thats called #4 carrier coverage
as for that map, its ancient... the thing has never worked properly and the maps take forever to load yet i wish i could get a decent detailed coverage map for tmobile somewhere...
hurrycaine3000 said:
I know on my touch pro using att 3g over edge. they have 3g where I work, but not at my house. so I always just use wifi at my house, but don't bother at work because the 3g is fast enough. I can definetly tell the difference. granted there is wifi almost everywhere these days, but with my touch pro I have to turn it off and on when I'm using it so my battery half makes through a day. It will be nice if the N1's is more of a automatic thing, if that makes sense. I guess if I knew that t Mobile would actually be implementing 3g in my area at all soon, it would be an easier decision, but I haven't found anything to make me think they'll be adding towers in York, PA any time soon.
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OMG i live in york to lol. ive asked tmobile many times if we'll ever have 3g and they told me december 09 but that never happened. who knows if we'll ever get it. but edge for me on tmobile works good unless u use media functions like youtube and streaming video but its good for web browsing and email
Make sure T-Mobile has EDGE all around your area because I've found that there are many places that don't even have EDGE on T-Mobile and are GRPS only. That being said, I do find that usually T-Mobile EDGE is faster.... The difference is so small that I wouldn't change networks over it though..
I get around 25KB/s or so, which works fine for streaming music and such. This is quite a bit faster than the AT&T users seem to get here.
Yeah you should be happy with what you've got. EDGE isn't amazing but at least with the 900mhz range you've got coverage. I'm not sure about T-mobile US thought but it has to be better than UK. I live in the UK just outside of town with 3 basestations surrounding my house just out of range with 2100 3g and 1800 2g. I can get signal occasionally with my Iphone 3gs, until I touch it...
The coverage is okish but I get Black-spots everywhere; literally, I can walk round the corner away from a basestation and lose signal. I can only use my phone if I'm underneath a basestation and even then the crappy 4.2Mbit/s (It may even be less than that) limited basestations are overloaded. Each user is then further capped at roughly 1.8Mbit/s
That's 3G and above, which I rarely get as I mentioned. When you get 2G you get EDGE. When I get 2G I don't get EDGE, I don't even get 2.5G, I get slower-than-dial-up GPRS which is unusable. None of T-mo UK's basestations are EDGE enabled; with common black-spots and poor 3G reception, this makes for an appalling network. I can't wait to switch to Three UK. Blanket UK 3g coverage with amazing deals: £15/mo rolling contract with 300 mins, unlimited texts, Unlimited (7.2Mbit/s) data. The only problem is they have shockingly bad phones (no problem for me, or so I thought...)
melterx12 said:
are you crazy? 3G is AT LEAST 10+ times as fast as EDGE.
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That pretty well sums up the problem with TMUS users.
They have no f***ing clue.
Which would you choose in my situation? Keep the TP w/ATT or keep HD2+T-Mobile? I live in Hawaii if that helps.
Main problem...
ATT= Better coverage with 3G. Almost every place I go, it stays at 3G 95% of the time, but either it's the small Touch Pro 1, or the 3G is slow.
Touch Pro= Small screen(hate to say this but my eyes have gotten worse in the last year. Very hard to read), GPS takes minutes to get a lock, and my GPS programs always lags at least 3-5 seconds of where I really am. Bluetooth doesn't work well with Microsoft Voice Command.
AND
T-Mobile= 3G is weird. I have signal 60% of the time. But if I walk indoors, I could be at 50% signal, but it might switch to Edge (not sure if it's the HD2 fault). When I have a 3G signal, I swear it seems faster than the same bars for the ATT 3G.
HD2= LARGE SCREEN! I LOVE IT! GPS signal locks in 10-30 seconds at most. And the GPS has maybe at most a second lag of where I really am. Bluetooth and Microsoft Voice has issue. And my Igo8 doesn't play well with TTS on the HD2, when it works on my Touch Pro.
SO which choice should I go with? It seems I should stick with the HD2, but T-Mobile signal bothers me. Its weird to see 3G go away and E pops up. And once in a while no phone signal, but if I dial when that happens, it gets a signal and dials. So as a PHONE, it works. But using the Internet on Edge is not so good. BUT the phone is awsome compaired to the Touch Pro I have.
I'm running out of time, so I thought I would ask your view.
On a side note, I vacation once a year to CA to take kids Disneyland and Legoland etc, how good is the coverage for 3G in your experience for ATT and T-Mobile?
T-Mobile is upgrading HSPA+ so for a few months in major cities it will be the fastest and strongest network until verizon rolls out LTE. So you should see some increase in the coming months. I care more about the device than the network speed but thats my personal preference. I used EDGE on my iPhone 3G instead of 3G better battery life, edge was actually faster lol. Any who I hated the Touch Pro or FUZE w/e and swapped it out after 3 months of use. Had the iPhone until last sunday when I bought myself a HD2. This phone blows everything out the water right now. I would never switch back.
Also A 3rd option would be buy a HD2 full price and unlock it. Thats what I did.
I chose to go with the HD2 on AT&T's network.
Is Hawaii 1900 or 850 for AT&T?
3G on AT&T has been a lot better lately, they're finally getting enough capacity in to deal with all the iPhone tards here in the Bay Area.
sgtcurry said:
T-Mobile is upgrading HSPA+ so for a few months in major cities it will be the fastest and strongest network until verizon rolls out LTE. So you should see some increase in the coming months. I care more about the device than the network speed but thats my personal preference. I used EDGE on my iPhone 3G instead of 3G better battery life, edge was actually faster lol. Any who I hated the Touch Pro or FUZE w/e and swapped it out after 3 months of use. Had the iPhone until last sunday when I bought myself a HD2. This phone blows everything out the water right now. I would never switch back.
Also A 3rd option would be buy a HD2 full price and unlock it. Thats what I did.
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I don't know if HSPA+ is being released in Hawaii...
Miwa said:
I chose to go with the HD2 on AT&T's network.
Is Hawaii 1900 or 850 for AT&T?
3G on AT&T has been a lot better lately, they're finally getting enough capacity in to deal with all the iPhone tards here in the Bay Area.
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You got me there. But AT&T while, it didn't seem fast, I seem to always have a 3G signal. More often than I care, I notice the "E" showing up on the HD2. Even when it tells me it had 3 bars on 3G before changing to E with 3-5 bars.
I have T-Mobile HTC HD2 service and I work in orange county near Disneyland (within 3 miles). The signal strength is very good and I rarely see an EDGE signal popping out.
San Diego also has good signal strength similar to Orange County. My girlfriend lives in San Diego so I go down once in a while.
I would get T-Mobile HD2 and you can always use Wi-Fi from home if you do not have very good 3G coverage there.
I use Wi-Fi at home even I have 3G anyway! My home is at LA county and it is still got pretty good 3G speed.
I have yet tried my 3G coverage in northern California but will get to try it in a few weeks since I am attending my friend's wedding up in the north close to San Jose.
Hope this helps and you really cannot go wrong with the HD2~!
Just came out of ATT to buy this awesome device... no question HD2 & T-Mo. Ofcourse, 3G coverage is less, but in the SF city I have full coverage (better) & most importantly, no more freaking dropped calls!
I have both, HD2 all the way. So far in OC, signal quality is about the same (2G/3G) except T-Mobile doesn't drop my calls, and call sound quality is slightly better.
starstreak said:
Which would you choose in my situation? Keep the TP w/ATT or keep HD2+T-Mobile? I live in Hawaii if that helps.
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I can't comment on ATT's 3G coverage in HI but just to throw another option in here, if you wanted to go with the ATT network (I used to have Tmobile and wasn't crazy about it), then look for an HD2 T9193 on Ebay or elsewhere and you're good to go. It has the 850mhz hardware to support the ATT 3G network. I'm thrilled with mine so far. You'll be spending more on the hardware but you don't get forced into a higher priced data plan - you can opt for their 'MEdia Net' for $20/month (rather than $30+/month) and no no contract, which IMO is an 'upgrade' in and of itself.
Just go to t-mobile give it a shot, you have 30 days to cancel your contract so you can always go back to att.
Well i took the plunge and switched from ATT to tmobile for the MT4G...what i noticed is that the reception is really spotty here in LAs Vegas. It is mostly on E, and doesnt hold H that well...is this how Tmobile is? With my ATT N1 i had way better reception...did i make a mistake when i switched???
I'm in NYC and coming from a G2 where the phone would ALWAYS switch between H and E (very annoying), the MT4G is quite nice sitting on H. Now, there is an option where you can force HSPA, so you may want to try it by doing:
Settings > Wireless & Networks > Mobile Networks > Network Mode > WCDMA Only
That will not allow the phone to go to Edge at all. This obviously can be bad if TMo doesn't have good coverage in your area, so check their coverage viewer.
TMo pushed out an update to fix the G2 dropping data connection today. Heh!
RiNo808 said:
Well i took the plunge and switched from ATT to tmobile for the MT4G...what i noticed is that the reception is really spotty here in LAs Vegas. It is mostly on E, and doesnt hold H that well...is this how Tmobile is? With my ATT N1 i had way better reception...did i make a mistake when i switched???
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Just wondering if you've had any more thoughts on this given a few more days with the phone... I also switched from ATT and experienced spotty coverage in the Kansas City area on the first day with the new phone (e.g., fluctuating between 2 bars on E to a total lack of a connection while sitting in one place where ATT would have never given me a problem).
my internet is really slow out here in cali. i get at the most 500kbps i cant even come close to 1mb per second and my "h" shows all the time even though i am not near 4g at all lol. but idk if it needs an update or not but my htc hd2 always said 3g and my internet was never slow like it is on the mytouch 4g. so im not sure if it needs an update or not but i still love my phone and im not gonna complain to much since this phone blows my hd2 out the water. it was nice selling my hd2 so it could pay for my mytouch 4g lol
I am having no issues staying on HSPA+ I am also in Las Vegas (Herderson Acutally, but close enough). I do notice in my house though I switch to Edge. No worries though cause inside there is WiFi
well, i have been using the phone for a few days now and it is an awesome phone, but T-mobiles reception is just killing me. Compaired next to my N1 on ATT, thats another story. ATT has better reception on my N1 then on MT4 on tmobile. i can only wait for tmobile to update their reception.
Its a double edged sword.
with Tmobile you have a great phone with an okay reception, and a phone that is not locked down...
with ATT you have crappy phones with better reception, but phones are locked down. And to get a better phone you have to wait and pry that there is an unlocked vanilly phone that has the ATT frequencies...
Where are you located?
The myTouch 4G doesn't have good reception. It drops over to EDGE next to my Vibrant on 3G, same for the G2. But T-Mobile's 3G network isn't fully developed in Las Vegas yet and that's part of the reason. Certain towers don't have 3G yet, apparently it's on track to fixed soon. AT&T's network quality is truly garbage here. You can have all of the bars in the world but the worst call quality out of all the carriers. This isn't universal as there are hotspots where this problem is exacerbated (ie the Strip) Latency over 3G is pretty bad too.
I'm noticing that my MT4G has really horrible reception here at home. I have it side by side with my G1 and the G1 has full bars Edge and the MT4G has nothing! Sometimes it'll go to 1 Edge bar, but that's it.
Now I know location-wise the house is bad and can only pick up Edge, but I would expect the MT4G to at least display the same amount of bars as the G1.
I'm glad I have wifi-calling capability on this thing, otherwise I would have a nice phone that can't make calls!
Man, bummer for you guys. I've had my mt4g here in New Orleans and all over NYC since it came out and reception and speeds have absolutely blown away my old iPhone 3gs on ATT in both areas.
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
werk said:
Man, bummer for you guys. I've had my mt4g here in New Orleans and all over NYC since it came out and reception and speeds have absolutely blown away my old iPhone 3gs on ATT in both areas.
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
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That speaks more of the T-Mobile network than anything else. The MT4G next to my Vibrant was dropping 3G. Happened often in the same place with the G2..
RiNo808 said:
Well i took the plunge and switched from ATT to tmobile for the MT4G...what i noticed is that the reception is really spotty here in LAs Vegas. It is mostly on E, and doesnt hold H that well...is this how Tmobile is? With my ATT N1 i had way better reception...did i make a mistake when i switched???
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Click to collapse
I was also having problems. I went and got a 3G sim card and that fixed allot of problems I was having with reception. Not sure if it will work for you but worth a chance if you dont already have a 3G sim.
Chop.
you're holding it wrong
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
Please post questions in Q&A section.
All,
I understand you can't tell if you are on 3G or 4G with the "H" symbol...but when you go to about phone -> network -> Mobile Network Type -> I only see HSDPA, never HSDPA+.
Is it supposed to show HSDPA+? Or its just a guessing game with "H" and HSDPA?
Just want to know if I'm on 4G or not.
Thanks!
On this phone you will see "H" regardless of HSPA/+. I downloaded the Mobile Signal Widget which shows you whether your network is 3G or H.
This is another thing I down quite understand. I remember the old 3g network would max out at about 1mb per sec. Then when they lunched the hsdpa it went up to about 4mbps in my area....now I was under the speculation that this means it was ready for hspa+. Well at the time I still had my g1 and my wife had her vibrant, both speeds were about the same her's a little faster probably due the faster phone. Now that i have the mt4g I thought i would be at least over 5mbps, but Im now the same as the vibrant. I was so excited about the hspa+ network, but either I dont have it in my area yet, or it was just false advertising. t-moble has a history of that. That had the faster internet on their map in my area about 4 months before it even happened. I called t-moble out on it and customer service kept sending services calls out to my local cell site, of course with out any results.
Crazynorwegian said:
This is another thing I down quite understand. I remember the old 3g network would max out at about 1mb per sec. Then when they lunched the hsdpa it went up to about 4mbps in my area....now I was under the speculation that this means it was ready for hspa+. Well at the time I still had my g1 and my wife had her vibrant, both speeds were about the same her's a little faster probably due the faster phone. Now that i have the g1 I thought i would be at least over 5mbps, but Im now the same as the vibrant. I was so excited about the hspa+ network, but either I dont have it in my area yet, or it was just false advertising. t-moble has a history of that. That had the faster internet on their map in my area about 4 months before it even happened. I called t-moble out on it and customer service kept sending services calls out to my local cell site, of course with out any results.
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Click to collapse
To take advantage of the HSPA+ speeds, your hardware needs to be capable of it. Neither the G1 nor Vibrant meet those requirements. On T-Mobile, the G2 and MT4G were the first phones to utilize HSPA+. Depending on the area you're in, one may not even take advantage of full HSPA.
allen099 said:
To take advantage of the HSPA+ speeds, your hardware needs to be capable of it. Neither the G1 nor Vibrant meet those requirements. On T-Mobile, the G2 and MT4G were the first phones to utilize HSPA+. Depending on the area you're in, one may not even take advantage of full HSPA.
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Sorry the g1 in there was a typo, I was referring to my mt4g.
Please post questions in Q&A section.
T mobile has a posting of official hspa+ cities. Are you sure you're in one?
Keep in mind, when T Mobile says a city is hspa+, that means that at least 50% of the towers are upgraded to hspa+. So you still might not even get it.
And you'll see a difference for sure between the g2/mt4g running on hspa+, compared to a vibrant or g1 or whatever.
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
I don't think the network indicator is always accurate. I've speedtested ~3.3mbps when the phone reported being on EDGE, which just isn't possible.
I've seen some reviews that complain the phone keeps falling back to EDGE and I wonder how much of that is just the phone showing inaccurate information.
There's no HSPA+ in my area and the phone currently reports being on HSPDA, but I recall that saying UMTS the other day. Again, that information displayed seems to be buggy.
when I am at work or around outside at my work I cannot connect to the 4G network. No wireless is around, so 4G is on. I try to browse a site like this one, nothing happens. it just loads and never gets to the next page.
yet I pick up my phone right now and it instantly works using browser.
Most likely the room operator try another sim card and operator
Wixej said:
Most likely the room operator try another sim card and operator
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what does that mean?
I was able to get 4G at work fine today, watched youtube.
is my phone defect? why would internet get stuck loading?
4G is still a new system. It's buggy and the signal is awkward. You're fine in one spot but move two steps to the left and you won't have it anymore. Just gotta hope that where you're standing has reception.
I don't actually understand how you get internet at all if it's not wireless. I suppose I could wikipedia that.
anyway, can I go down to 3G or 2G if I am not getting internet on 4G?
Yea, just turn off the 4g option. You'll go to 3g.
I bet it's verzion the most, "Verizon Wireless has the nation’s fastest, most reliable 4G network". It's starting too make me a bit mad, but any way I hope turning the 4g off works for you.
I have been geting the same crap so yea.
not Verizon it's Rogers. I live in Canada currently.
Hi
Is it clear
Rogers will not work everywhere in canada. It has verrrry low coverage.
Sorry
Verizon customer with 4G issues
I am almost always in 4G areas with Verizon, Fayetteville and Charlotte, NC, and Charleston, SC. The speeds are generally pretty good (varies between 14 Mbps to 6, starting to trend lower more consistently with more customers hopping on). I will generally lose signal on the lower floor of any multi-story building. But there seem to be noticeable outages, both from my phone (Samsung Droid Charge) and from the network.
I can generally tell which one it is by restarting my phone, so that may be a good way to diagnose whether the outages you're experiencing are hardware or network based. I can vouch for the fact that 4G coverage in Fayetteville has almost daily down times that vary from about 5-10 minutes.
Wow I thought 4G freezing was just a SideKick 4G problem.
My fix is to just turn mobile data off then back on.
Sent from the phone everyone has forgotten about!