Question about 3G - Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Alright, so from what I gather, EV-DO Rev A. is 3G, according to Sprint's map, I have Rev. A in my area. I have seen screenshots of peoples phones, and they specifically say "3G" however, I have never seen mine switch out of EVDO.
My question is, is it normal for the CDMA Hero to only display EV, while the GSM Hero displays 3G? Or is my phone just stuck in Ev-
do mode?
Average download speed is ~120KB/s, peaking out at ~140KB/s. Maybe I'm just use to broadband, but that doesn't seem very fast.

Yes its normal,

When you see Ev or EvDO on your phone you're getting 3G.
The GSM Hero shows "3G" because most (if not all) GSM carriers refer to HSPA (their equivalent of EvDO) as 3G.
You might be seeing some CDMA Hero screencaps with the 3G icon in the taskbar because some ROMs have the other icon. Really it doesn't matter as long as you know that, whether it says 3G or Ev, it means your data connection.

It is in the android software to display EV if you are on EvDo. The GSM Hero is actually on 3G, so it displays 3G. Although EvDo is technically a 3G network, it isn't called 3G.

Well, that answers my question. I expected 3G to be faster though.

Same here. I have noticed that the speed can vary with the signal strength, though.

I'm getting the 120KB/s with 5 bars, in a central area of town. Only towards the middle of the night, and very early morning can I get up to 150KB/s. (throughput, number of active users, etc.)

abcdfv said:
I'm getting the 120KB/s with 5 bars, in a central area of town. Only towards the middle of the night, and very early morning can I get up to 150KB/s. (throughput, number of active users, etc.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get around that as well. The scary thing is that Sprint is faster than my cable internet O_O

isnt EvDo just what sprint refers to there 3G, thats what i thought. just wanted to add my 2 cents =]

abcdfv said:
I'm getting the 120KB/s with 5 bars, in a central area of town. Only towards the middle of the night, and very early morning can I get up to 150KB/s. (throughput, number of active users, etc.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would say this is unusual. When you say you're getting 120 kb/s, are you talking about your speed during the actualy downloading of a file, or your connection speed? Using my hero, wifi tether, running a speed test my d/l is about 1.1 mb/s. My actual speed when downloading a file is usually about 360 kb/s.

HeroMeng said:
It is in the android software to display EV if you are on EvDo. The GSM Hero is actually on 3G, so it displays 3G. Although EvDo is technically a 3G network, it isn't called 3G.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No its 3g, 3g means thrid generation thats it. So evdo rev a is sprints thrid network type

That's the peak speed of anything. Rapidshare, Megaupload, Torrents with a high seed to leech ratio. 120 is as high as it gets.

Keep in mind if you run a custom rom, a lot of them are ported from GSM, which displays a 3G icon. On the dachstar 2.1 ROM I run it shows 3G instead of EV just because my the icon wasn't replaced with an EV one.

question....
when I tether....
speed test say anywhere from 300kbs to 1.2mbs
but.. you guys are saying..
surfing the web on the phone is only less than 150kbs?
why is that??

careful in using kb/s and KB/s. they're all different.
kb/s refers to kiloBITS per second, while KB/s refers to kiloBYTES per second. if i'm correct, its 8 kilobits per kilobyte, so to get your KB/s speed, take your kb/s speed and divide by 8.
when you're wifi-tethering and downloading something in your browser, it usually displays as KB/s (kilobytes per second). you probably won't get above 120-140 KB/s using wifi tether, downloading something on your computer.

justinisyoung said:
careful in using kb/s and KB/s. they're all different.
kb/s refers to kiloBITS per second, while KB/s refers to kiloBYTES per second. if i'm correct, its 8 kilobits per kilobyte, so to get your KB/s speed, take your kb/s speed and divide by 8.
when you're wifi-tethering and downloading something in your browser, it usually displays as KB/s (kilobytes per second). you probably won't get above 120-140 KB/s using wifi tether, downloading something on your computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 haha I was just typing this same response. Also, just like wifi does, evdo slows the transmission rate as signal gets weaker in order to keep it working. So basically your speeds will be slower as signal is weaker.
3g is just a blanket term for all the different mobile broadband protocols which have been deemed third generation. Also, to complicate things, evdo rev 0 is slower than evdo rev A, so just because you're on an evdo tower doesn't mean it's a rev A tower. (and the tower might have high usage, which can slow speeds too)
Also, file sizes are typically displayed in kilobytes, while connection test speeds are usually in kilobits

Related

Connecting to UMTS/HSDPA using AT&T

I have noticed that when I am connected to the fast cellular internet the sign constantly switches between 3G to H. Like every 15 secondes.
It's not that the connection is dropping it's just it is always changes from 3G to H. I am on At&T and would like to know if it happenes to someone else.
As I read, At&T suppose to have an HSDPA and since I am in big cities like Chicago and Washington DC, if there is HSDPA it should exists in these cities.
So?? anyone using AT&T + KAISER knows what I am talking about?
should be worried?
i see this behavior all the time with my Kaiser, Trinity and Treo and never worry about it... most often the i'll see the "H" symbol when i'm tethering or downloading a file from a website or i'll see the "3G" or "E" if i'm in an area of town that doesn't have a strong signal... i don't worry about this behavior unless it affects what i'm doing, e.g., lose my internet sharing connection. just my 2 cents...
cortezzi said:
i see this behavior all the time with my Kaiser, Trinity and Treo and never worry about it... most often the i'll see the "H" symbol when i'm tethering or downloading a file from a website or i'll see the "3G" or "E" if i'm in an area of town that doesn't have a strong signal... i don't worry about this behavior unless it affects what i'm doing, e.g., lose my internet sharing connection. just my 2 cents...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank u for your fast reply. I know sometimes the signal changes to E or even G if there is no high speed connection around but it seems that the H and 3G just changes every 15-20 seconds in areas with high speed connection. does it also happen to you? or anybody else?
alonmalka1 said:
I have noticed that when I am connected to the fast cellular internet the sign constantly switches between 3G to H. Like every 15 secondes.
It's not that the connection is dropping it's just it is always changes from 3G to H. I am on At&T and would like to know if it happenes to someone else.
As I read, At&T suppose to have an HSDPA and since I am in big cities like Chicago and Washington DC, if there is HSDPA it should exists in these cities.
So?? anyone using AT&T + KAISER knows what I am talking about?
should be worried?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually consider you lucky. At work in Menlo Park, Ca. I rarely get a 3G or an H... But I spent a couple of weeks going to SF every day and there I saw behavior very much like you describe. For me it seemed to want to switch from 3G to H as I was doing some sort of access like e-mail read or a download. Though that is probably just anecdotal as I didn't really make a study of it; just something I noted.
Cheers.
i have the 3g/H switch happening constantly as well. could this connection issue have anything to do with the sms issues (issue being sms works randomly), or totally unrelated?
Yep...this happens to me too.
alonmalka1 said:
I have noticed that when I am connected to the fast cellular internet the sign constantly switches between 3G to H. Like every 15 secondes. It's not that the connection is dropping it's just it is always changes from 3G to H. I am on At&T and would like to know if it happenes to someone else...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm in the Chicago-North Suburb area and I see it change all the time too. I get a lot of HSDPA connections. From my understanding, this is a good thing!
Though I'm by no means an expert on HSDPA, 3G, UMTS or any of these, it's my understanding that HSDPA will give you data bursts of up to 5 times the connection speed of 3G/UMTS.
TEC
What it means on my 8525
Hi Guys,
Don't worry, you are not having signal quality or connection issues. On my 8525 (Hermes) the switch to H from 3G simply means the phone is using the data connection at the H (HSDPA) speeds. It shows 3G when data is not being transferred.
Yup. It's sort of like a combination power/hard drive light on a computer. When the "H" lights up, data is being read and written over the high speed network. The "3G" means the high speed network is available, your just not sending or recieving at the moment. At the slower EDGE speeds, the "E" is just a power light, showing the network is available, but no indication when you are sending a receiving data over it.
Someone correct me if I'm totally wrong, but here are my thoughts:
The H would be displayed when the device is accessing HSDPA or HSUPA. The D stands for download and the U stands for upload, right? But AT&T only has HSDPA right now, and not HSUPA. So when you're in an HSDPA area and browsing the web or sending and receiving emails, when the device is receiving information (downloading), it's on HSDPA and the "H" is displayed. But then when it needs to send information (uploading), since there is no HSUPA signal it switches to 3G and the "3G" is displayed. Hence the constant switching on the display as the device sends and receives data.
Someone please give me a gold star, or tell me I have no idea what I'm talking about!
Here's a GOLD STAR!!
KCMatt said:
The H would be displayed when the device is accessing HSDPA or HSUPA. The D stands for download and the U stands for upload, right? But AT&T only has HSDPA right now, and not HSUPA. So when you're in an HSDPA area and browsing the web or sending and receiving emails, when the device is receiving information (downloading), it's on HSDPA and the "H" is displayed. But then when it needs to send information (uploading), since there is no HSUPA signal it switches to 3G and the "3G" is displayed. Hence the constant switching on the display as the device sends and receives data. Someone please give me a gold star, or tell me I have no idea what I'm talking about!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not that I'm an expert either but THIS WOULD EXPLAIN IT!
Thanks
TEC
If you see the H then you are using HSDPA, if you see the 3G icon then you are using UMTS. The difference is speed and the fact that if you see the H icon it means you can use voice and data at the same time.
I can stream live TV from my Media Center using WebGuide (free) and as long as I have the H icon I can talk on the phone at the same time I'm watching TV but if it switches to 3G I loose my data connection until I hang up the phone.
Mine mostly stays on H but swithces to 3G when the HSDPA signal is lost. HSDPA isn't avalible every where that 3G UTMS is.
Also HSDPA is 3.5G and UMTS is 3G. Meaning with UMTS you can get downloads of 384 kbps to 768 kbps and with HSDPA you can get from 768 kbps to 1mbps.
This is how it is supposed to work kids...
The H only shows up when you are using HSDPA. HSDPA would kill your battery in no time if it stayed connected all the time. your phone is smart enough to only use HSDPA when it is actually sending/receiving data. Think of it as a power saving feature.
I'm in cleveland and i just see an "H" all the time... FWIW...
Jason Lee said:
your phone is smart enough to only use HSDPA when it is actually sending/receiving data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But it only uses HSDPA when it's RECEIVING data, not SENDING. That's what HSUPA would be for (if AT&T had it yet). Right?
High Speed DOWNLINK Packet Access
High Speed UPLINK Packet Acess
KCMatt said:
But it only uses HSDPA when it's RECEIVING data, not SENDING. That's what HSUPA would be for (if AT&T had it yet). Right?
High Speed DOWNLINK Packet Access
High Speed UPLINK Packet Acess
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is correct. HSUPA should be coming soon according to Engadget: HSUPA
KCMatt said:
Someone correct me if I'm totally wrong, but here are my thoughts:
The H would be displayed when the device is accessing HSDPA or HSUPA. The D stands for download and the U stands for upload, right? But AT&T only has HSDPA right now, and not HSUPA. So when you're in an HSDPA area and browsing the web or sending and receiving emails, when the device is receiving information (downloading), it's on HSDPA and the "H" is displayed. But then when it needs to send information (uploading), since there is no HSUPA signal it switches to 3G and the "3G" is displayed. Hence the constant switching on the display as the device sends and receives data.
Someone please give me a gold star, or tell me I have no idea what I'm talking about!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perfect.!! Downlink = Downloading (HSDPA).. Upload data by 3G as AT&T is not supporting Uplink = Uploading (HSUPA)... smart one..
I'm not sure it is that simple...
I live in Jacksonville an i neverget an "H" except when i used shap's rom on my 8525; however, i get speeds from 600 to 980, so is this extremely fast UMTS, or is Cingular just inconsistant with their labels?
exzist78 said:
I live in Jacksonville an i neverget an "H" except when i used shap's rom on my 8525; however, i get speeds from 600 to 980, so is this extremely fast UMTS, or is Cingular just inconsistant with their labels?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also live in Jacksonville and found with the Tilt that I was only seeing the
3G icon and never the H icon until I installed KaiserTweak and set the HSPA option to enabled. Now I get the H icon but only during the data connection being active (e.g., sending a URL request and receiving the page load). The icon then turns to 3G when the Tilt sits "inactive."
Also just because you don't see the H for HSDPA doesn't mean its not working unless the REGISTY has the correct setting you will not get the H icon. the place is HKLM>Drivers>RIL>EnableHSDPAIcon = 1 (sometimes default is 0 which means you won't see the H icon)
Since my last posts on this topic, I now have my Tilt!
I am confused- why would AT&T not enable the "H" icon? If you are using HSDPA (and soon HSUPA), wouldn't they want you to know it?
Maybe they are afraid it will confuse people. They just want to market "3G" and people to understand it and see that icon, whether they are on UMTS or HSDPA/HSUPA?

Problem with HSDPA

Ive noticed that the H symbol doesnt actually show hsdap availability. For example, when I have 3g signal but there is no data transfering I have a 3g symbol with arrow next to it, as soon as i start transfering data it changes to an H even if im connected to a 3g cell with no hsdpa functionality, (confirmed by a speed test).
Any ideas how to actually show whether i am in HDSPA coverage or not?
Alexfoti
Why do you say that your not in a HSDPA area or signal range? Just because your not getting really fast speeds? Most HSDPA speeds are from 300Kbs-1.5Mbs when that little 3G changes to H your are most deffen... getting HSDPA
well ive done speed tests when it says the H and it varies between 200 and 300 sometimes.
Is that normal?
Yes just because the Max Download speed is 3.6Mb that does not mean you will come any place close to that. there are so many factors that will throw the download speeds off hell the wind blowing from the west and not east the window being closed and not open you get the Idea
I've been confused by this as well and while speed is clearly better with the "H" on than with 3G, I never go above 450kbps which is a bit slow, 3G tops out at 340kbpw. I wonder how efficient the Qualcomm chip is for 3G+, I hear that Samsung i600 users are getting speeds of 600/700 in the same area.

HSUPA finally happened today in St. Louis, MO

ok... so i just wanted to post this ... this just happened today, it was not like this yesterday... but my phone has displayed a constant H today, where as before it would only show that when downloading... so i decided to upload some large files to my ftp server, and i used IP Dashboard to monitor the upload... check out my upload transfer rate...
I think the H stands for HSDPA, not HSUPA. The difference is primarily in the upload speed (that's what the U stands for), but most service providers only provide HSDPA at this time, not HSUPA.
radicool said:
I think the H stands for HSDPA, not HSUPA. The difference is primarily in the upload speed (that's what the U stands for), but most service providers only provide HSDPA at this time, not HSUPA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
U is for UMTS... H is for HSDPA/HSUPA
ATT has been slowly rolling out HSUPA in its major market areas... Did you look at the pic and notice the upload speed?
Previous behavior of the indicator was 3G, would only switch to H when downloading data on HSDPA... now its a constant H and i get fast UP/DOWN access..
shogunmark said:
U is for UMTS... H is for HSDPA/HSUPA
ATT has been slowly rolling out HSUPA in its major market areas... Did you look at the pic and notice the upload speed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, my understanding was that all 3G and faster connections use UMTS, and HSDPA/HSUPA are advancements of the UMTS protocol. The manual only makes reference to HSDPA, so I guessed it didn't support HSUPA.
The upload speed looked like it fell within the HSDPA range, but I'm not very good with the whole kbps vs. kB/s conversion thing!
Can you please do a speed test on www.dslreports.com/mspeed
PostDeals said:
Can you please do a speed test on www.dslreports.com/mspeed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I live in the St. Louis area and got 600 kbit/sec. It doesn't say whether that was up or down. That's on my AT&T Tilt.
650kbit/sec (1mb dl)
See attached file. My signal out at my place is a lot lower than I get elsewhere in the city. This is from Portland, OR...
sweet deal!
@ Shogunmark
is there a .cab for that IP Dashboard app that you can post? I would really like to start testing the upload speeds in the DFW area. At&t keeps saying any day now for HSUPA.
For those of you who want to test the upload speed of your Tilt, I would recommend using the Intenet Sharing app and tethering to a PC/Laptop. That way you can just use dslreports.com
I got 673kbit/sec
0.406s latency
5.158s d/l time
Phoenix/metro area - AZ
My Tilt shows the H icon 99% of time, have seen it drop to 3G and E in areas I have low signal strength.
PostDeals said:
Can you please do a speed test on www.dslreports.com/mspeed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the mobile speed test on dsl reports only does download, not upload... that is why i used IP Dashboard to monitor the connection and used total commander to FTP into my server and upload some large files..
njmarchetti said:
@ Shogunmark
is there a .cab for that IP Dashboard app that you can post? I would really like to start testing the upload speeds in the DFW area. At&t keeps saying any day now for HSUPA.
For those of you who want to test the upload speed of your Tilt, I would recommend using the Intenet Sharing app and tethering to a PC/Laptop. That way you can just use dslreports.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The IP dashboard was a trial i found while trolling on handango.com ... it actually looks like a useful app..
Interesting. I have the H displayed on my phone all the time as well here in Minneapolis. I thought the Kaiser did not support HUSPA out of the box?
Will need to test upload speeds.
373.9kbps still falls within range of 3G/UMTS which is 384kbps.
shogunmark said:
ok... so i just wanted to post this ... this just happened today, it was not like this yesterday... but my phone has displayed a constant H today, where as before it would only show that when downloading... so i decided to upload some large files to my ftp server, and i used IP Dashboard to monitor the upload... check out my upload transfer rate...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HSDPA has an uplink of 384kbps.
Here in Singapore, I am using HSDPA, and the uplink can hit 370+kbps as well.
Officially, Kaiser is not supporting HSUPA, although the chip supports it.
good news
this is definitely good new as I live in metro detroit and in a very large 3G area. today the 20th we haven't changed over yet still showing 3G. on a side note I was ith tmobile and just came to att with my kaiser. with tmobile my results were 80-150 kbps with att 3G they are 500 kbps-850 kbps
I know this is a really old post, but I got about 3 Meg yesterday with speed test,
Around the forest park area. Hsdpa + in Stl now?
jaygriggs said:
this is definitely good new as I live in metro detroit and in a very large 3G area. today the 20th we haven't changed over yet still showing 3G. on a side note I was ith tmobile and just came to att with my kaiser. with tmobile my results were 80-150 kbps with att 3G they are 500 kbps-850 kbps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

HSDPA icon stuck!

I turned on my Tilt this morning and where the 3G icon used to be it is now a H icon all the time even if I am not connected to the network or downloading data. I have tried disabling HSDPA and reenabling it, but that hasn't worked. Disabling and reenabling the icon itself also doesn't get rid of the problem. I haven't installed anything. Does anyone know how to fix this or is this some kind of newly discovered radio bug?
Running on AT&T network.
Thanks
dont complain.. ur not stuck in H u now have full blown H in the area.. my girls 85 has full H now and so does my tilt
does this mean I have HSUPA too?
What exactly do you mean by full H? My download speeds didn't change at all
I am currently faced with this same stuck H issue.
I am running the stock AT&T ROM ver ... 1.62.502.0, Radio version 1.37.14.09
Sometimes when I travel to a particular work office I use dutty's 10 button Comm Manager to turn 3G off. This particular office is built like a fortress and I barely get signal inside. If I leave 3G on my battery is dead in a matter of hours.
So I turned 3G off for the first time since upgrading to this ROM, and later when I turned it back on I find I have a constant H indicator rather than the 3G I normally see.
Yes I am in an HSDPA area, but normally I would only see the H when downloading.
Yes, I use direct push with a hosted exchange server.
I've tried disabling HSDPA in KaiserTweak, and I get back to the 3G indicator ... But as you would expect my download speeds are limited to 300 to 400 kbit/sec.
With HSDPA enabled I average twice that, with bursts over 1mbit/sec.
Can anyone speculate why I have the constant H indicator now instead of only when downloading?
Everything still works, I just wouldn't mind knowing why I am seeing this change in indicator.
I have since found out that the the contant H icon is a result of AT&T upgrading their network. Since then, my download speeds have roughly doubled. Turns out the contant H is a good thing.
I went away on a business trip for a week and now upon returning I too am seeing the constant H, whereas previously I'd see 3G which would change to H and back when using data.
But that's not the part that is worrying me.
The problem I see is that the data connection is active all the time; it never drops. So besides the large H indicating HSDPA availability, once any data connection is made the 4 bars plus plus small triangle changes to 4 bars plus small H and *never* changes back. In the past I'm pretty sure the data connection would come and go as needed.
Is this bad at all? Seems like it would suck battery power to have the data connection active all the time. It's as if the KaiserTweak "always on: AT&T MediaNet" is stuck on (but I never actually did that tweak and it is actually disabled in KaiserTweak).
What's going on?
Have you done an upload speed test?
Apparently a constant H icon can indicate HSUPA support.
Little more info ... however finding a map of what was upgraded isn't that easy.
http://www.wirelessweek.com/article.aspx?id=158686
AT&T Nears HSPA
By Brad Smith
WirelessWeek - April 02, 2008
LAS VEGAS—AT&T will have all of its 3G markets enabled with the high speed uplink capabilities by the middle of the year, according to Hank Kafka, vice president of network architecture for the operator.
AT&T had 255 major metropolitan markets with W-CDMA/HSDPA at the end of 2007 and continues to add markets. Kafka said at a GSM Association roundtable on HSPA that AT&T expects to cover 350 markets with 3G by the end of 2008, including all of the top 100 markets.
The operator started installing HSUPA last year and now is in the process of rolling it out, he said. By mid-year, he said all of its 3G markets will have HSUPA. He says typical data rates on the downlink now are between 600-to-1400 Kbps with a peak of 3.6 Mbps, while the downlink typically is 500-to-800 Kbps.
There are upgrades for HSPA which take it as high as 14.4 Mbps and Kafka says AT&T is studying those. But he declined to say when or if AT&T will raise its data rates to those levels.
Kafka also said AT&T has seen significant data usage increases for customers using 3G.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, I have the constant 'H' as well, but I think it's the same as having a constant 'E', meaning that you're connected to HSPA and everything's good.
switching bands
switched bands sometimes helps changing the icons from edge to 3g,to disable HSDPA you need to disable HSDPA through kaisertweak,schaps advancedconfig or hsdpa switch whether cooked into rom or manually installed to switch back to 3g

3G Same Speed as HSDPA?

Hi, i'm on t-mobile UK. I've run some internet speed tests and i'm getting about 300kbps on both 3G and HSDPA. Is that normal - i thought 'H' was meant to be quicker?
nokmond said:
Hi, i'm on t-mobile UK. I've run some internet speed tests and i'm getting about 300kbps on both 3G and HSDPA. Is that normal - i thought 'H' was meant to be quicker?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not nornal because HSDPA (If configured and rolled out properly by the operator) gives up to 7.2 mbps
Might also depend on your contract. The more expensive your data contract, the higher the speed you get.
out of interest which speed test did you use?
check with t-mobile on your contract. in general, W7W £7.50 users do not get HSDPA included. You'll see the H symbol, but you wont get the speeds.
Also, depends on network traffic in your area, network capacity etc. etc.
I'm on the £12.50 W7W add on and get around 600kbps. not the full 7.2mbps, but that is a theoretical maximum, and you will never get that. same as ADSL is 'up to 8meg' , HSDPA is 'up to' 7.2meg.

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