So I'm on a road trip, and I brought my N4 (on T-Mobile USA) along for the ride. I decided to stay the night in Savannah, GA. After checking into my hotel, I took my phone out of my pocket and saw something I've never seen before. It was showing a data connection as "3G" rather than the usual "H" for HSPA or "E" for EDGE. I had to do a double take. Curious, I went to Settings-About Phone-Status and checked the network type. It was "UMTS:3". Obviously that means T-Mobile's network refarming has happened here and 1900 MHz UMTS is live.
Here's the thing, though. The radio keeps switching between "3G" and "H" every few seconds, seemingly unable to figure out which one it wants to hold onto. The phone is still usable but I still find it annoying. Of course, the vast majority of T-Mobile phones would never experience this since they hardly ever have support for 1900 MHz, but I'm curious if other N4 owners living in areas where T-Mobile has lit up 1900 MHz UMTS are having this issue as well? In the end, the phone may be usable, but the constant switching is playing hell on my OCD!!
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At least the refarming is done where you're at, I'm still impatiently waiting.
I Am Marino said:
At least the refarming is done where you're at, I'm still impatiently waiting.
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Yeah but at this rate I'm hoping they either fix this in a Nexus 4 radio update (maybe make it prefer HSPA over UMTS, but I don't know if that would cause problems outside the US), or never light it up in my home market. haha
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I just came from Verizon of 12 years and a gs3. I'm on umts at my home in rural Atlanta ga. It does the same switching as you say. I just thought that was normal gsm behavior .... phone is idle then 3g is active. Phone queries the net (open browser etc...) and H kicks in.
On another note the H speeds here are almost equal to vzw lte, I'm impressed
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oldblue910 said:
Yeah but at this rate I'm hoping they either fix this in a Nexus 4 radio update (maybe make it prefer HSPA over UMTS, but I don't know if that would cause problems outside the US), or never light it up in my home market. haha
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I just noticed you're in Durham, I'm in Winston.
Has the refarm taken effect by you?
My phone does this then pulls the h on demand I am in Detroit metro area. I still pull high download speeds and don't have a problem with the change over. Honestly until I read this post I thought this was normal. Do do a speed test see if it is slower or faster then your use to.
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I Am Marino said:
I just noticed you're in Durham, I'm in Winston.
Has the refarm taken effect by you?
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No it hasn't, and hopefully it won't before there's a radio update to fix it (if they'd even bother fixing it)!
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I have had my N4 for only a couple months, but it has been doing that ever since I got it. I am in the Farmington, MO area too though. I thought it was just normal, as this is the first time I have had a decent phone and be on a plan rather than prepay.
Mine has always behaved like that. My nexus one and gnex too.
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Weird. mine had never done this except here in Savannah. Is anyone else here running stock?
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I'm on all stock and I've never seen the 3G label. I'm out here in Portland, OR, and SLC, UT. I just figured our phones were only capable of G, E, and H labels.
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I find it wierd that you've never seen the 3G label. Normally you camp on 3G (UMTS) and it'll flip to "H" for HSPA+ when data's transferring either up, down, or both. This has been normal over the years, until there were modifications on T-Mobile's side to display 4G all the time for devices that were HSPA+ capable.
I'm stock unrooted
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Mi|enko said:
I find it wierd that you've never seen the 3G label. Normally you camp on 3G (UMTS) and it'll flip to "H" for HSPA+ when data's transferring either up, down, or both. This has been normal over the years, until there were modifications on T-Mobile's side to display 4G all the time for devices that were HSPA+ capable.
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This never happened on my G2 nor my Nexus S. The only way that happened on the Nexus S was when running a custom ROM.
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oldblue910 said:
This never happened on my G2 nor my Nexus S. The only way that happened on the Nexus S was when running a custom ROM.
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GS2, Samsung edited to reflect 4G. Most customers would be perplexed by the constant camping on 3G, then flipping to H (HSPA+ which is branded as T-Mobile 4G), so the just modified their network bits in their OS to reflect 4G all the time. As far as the Nexus S, that's just a 3G device not capable of the HSPA+ bandwidth (it topped out at 7mbps).
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I always have a H when idle and H+ when using the Internet. Never seen 3G label on my N4 till date
Mi|enko said:
GS2, Samsung edited to reflect 4G. Most customers would be perplexed by the constant camping on 3G, then flipping to H (HSPA+ which is branded as T-Mobile 4G), so the just modified their network bits in their OS to reflect 4G all the time. As far as the Nexus S, that's just a 3G device not capable of the HSPA+ bandwidth (it topped out at 7mbps).
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Yeah on the G2, the Froyo ROM showed H all the time, never 3G. For the Gingerbread ROM, though, it was changed to show 2G and 4G.
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I have a note 2 and you probably don't care, but my phone goes from H to 3G then to 4G for some reason in the DMV area. Tmobile too
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sandy-achar said:
I always have a H when idle and H+ when using the Internet. Never seen 3G label on my N4 till date
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Could redact differently based on the carrier and/or cell tower. Here's a conversation from the Galaxy Nexus forums.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2138601
All in all though, this is pretty well known and documented.
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---------- Post added at 08:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:15 PM ----------
Note_2 said:
I have a note 2 and you probably don't care, but my phone goes from H to 3G then to 4G for some reason in the DMV area. Tmobile too
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Sounds like you're running an AOSP rom on your N2. 3G for UMTS, H for HSPA+, and 4G for the LTE. If you were on a stock TMo ROM, it'd be 4G for UMTS and HSPA+, then 4G LTE for LTE.
Important to note is that the status bar icons ate just that. . .icons. You could actually modify these to display whatever you wanted. If I wanted it to say 8G when on LTE, I'd just have to make a custom icon and bake it in. Doesn't mean I actually have an 8G network.
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thats normal behavior, it changes to H when there is data flow. it just depends on the area and the signal/coverage in the area. on a custom rom, i see it change from a H to a H+ all the time(when data is flowing). rarely, i see a 3G.
This is an ongoing gripe of mine. I'm wondering if it's just me or if other people have this problem. When I'm on 4g it intermittently turns off data for a few seconds. The 4g icon goes away and comes back a few seconds later interrupting my connection. Only happens on 4g. If I set the mobile network to just 2g or 3g I don't have this problem. I've tried lots of different modems. So I'm wondering if it's an Optus thing or an issue with my phone? ?
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nateboi81 said:
This is an ongoing gripe of mine. I'm wondering if it's just me or if other people have this problem. When I'm on 4g it intermittently turns off data for a few seconds. The 4g icon goes away and comes back a few seconds later interrupting my connection. Only happens on 4g. If I set the mobile network to just 2g or 3g I don't have this problem. I've tried lots of different modems. So I'm wondering if it's an Optus thing or an issue with my phone? ?
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probably poor coverage of 4G network
Why 4G when 3G is enough for watching video etc etc?
And it drain more battery also
hello5629 said:
probably poor coverage of 4G network
Why 4G when 3G is enough for watching video etc etc?
And it drain more battery also
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I'm literally right next to a big city. Its not a coverage thing. If I have a 4g phone why not use it. I get about 24 hours of battery life from it so that's not an issue
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So I'm in LA inside where I'm at i get three bars of LTE and full bars of 3G since the 3G is stronger it keeps me in 3G for the most part unless i do a profile update then it puts me at 4G for 5 minutes before kicking me back down. So the question is, is there a way to force LTE?
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adrianr514 said:
So I'm in LA inside where I'm at i get three bars of LTE and full bars of 3G since the 3G is stronger it keeps me in 3G for the most part unless i do a profile update then it puts me at 4G for 5 minutes before kicking me back down. So the question is, is there a way to force LTE?
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The bars do not represent EVDO (3G) or LTE (4G), they represent 1X Voice on the HTC One. If you want to know the actual signal strength of your 3G and 4G go to settings/About Phone/Network.
My guess is that the LTE is borderline in the building and therefore it goes back and forth. Where I work I have strong LTE and EVDO but when I'm in the building it will switch to 3G once I start using data like Youtube or something. Once I stop and set the phone down it will reconnect to LTE. If I go towards the outer part of the building I will get a better LTE connection, or if I go outside it is really good. This is due to the poor penetration of the 1900mhz LTE.
The phone will connect to the higher priority signal, first 4G and then 3G.
As said above, it seems like your LTE connection is very weak, or else the phone would stick to that.
Ok so i did *#*#4636#*#* and changed it from CDMA + LTE to LTE, CDMA and it hasn't dropped from 4G
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adrianr514 said:
Ok so i did *#*#4636#*#* and changed it from CDMA + LTE to LTE, CDMA and it hasn't dropped from 4G
Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 4 Beta
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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that disable your ability to receive phone calls/texts?
Vincent Law said:
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that disable your ability to receive phone calls/texts?
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If you set it to "LTE only" then yes but if you set it to "LTE,CDMA" it will only connect to LTE and 1XRTT and bypasses EVDO. So you phone should stay on 4G a lot more since EVDO is disabled but if LTE drops you will drop to 1X
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Syph3r said:
If you set it to "LTE only" then yes but if you set it to "LTE,CDMA" it will only connect to LTE and 1XRTT and bypasses EVDO. So you phone should stay on 4G a lot more since EVDO is disabled but if LTE drops you will drop to 1X
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Correct
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Do I still get 3G if I do (did) this?
Assuming no.
sauprankul said:
Do I still get 3G if I do (did) this?
Assuming no.
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Correct. Hence CDMA/LTE vs CDMA/EvDO/LTE. You can also do LTE only if you're feeling bold.
So I'm at work for 12 hours tonight sitting here thinking something must be able to be done about my poor signal at work. Once again I dive into the service menu and start going through the network types one by one checking signal strength, asu, and tower info. When I switched to lte/cdma I get full signal lte. I'm pretty sure this is coming off of a Verizon tower about 1/4 mile from me which is awesome however I'm wondering if any of you have done this on previous phones with AT&T? have you been hit with roaming charges? Any negative effects? Comments in general?
Notice in the picture the tower info is different, my imei has changed, my phone number is gone. However it says that I am not roaming and gsm is in service.
All phone features calls, internet, and text work without a hiccup.
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Anyone??
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Does anyone have a issue while being on WiFi and the LTE is still being didplayed? My device does this is there a way to eliminate the LTE while being on WiFi?
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nickhowell25 said:
Does anyone have a issue while being on WiFi and the LTE is still being didplayed? My device does this is there a way to eliminate the LTE while being on WiFi?
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This phone prefers LTE, I have a very week and unstable LTE at my house so it's constantly cutting in and out. When I'm at home or work I set the phone to CDMA only. Look under mobile data settings. My battery lasts WAY longer and don't have a problem with getting calls. There is zero benefit to being on LTE when you are using wifi. Since LTE at the moment is data only. Only annoying part is switching it back and forth. I wish there was a widget for it or could set tasker to do it automatically.
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Sim-X said:
This phone prefers LTE, I have a very week and unstable LTE at my house so it's constantly cutting in and out. When I'm at home or work I set the phone to CDMA only. Look under mobile data settings. My battery lasts WAY longer and don't have a problem with getting calls. There is zero benefit to being on LTE when you are using wifi. Since LTE at the moment is data only. Only annoying part is switching it back and forth. I wish there was a widget for it or could set tasker to do it automatically.
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Yea
LTE is built in to the SoC so when activated, it doesn't turn off. Unlike previous phones who had an external LTE radio, the battery usage is minimal. So overall you are saving battery. and true if you have weak or no LTE signal turning it off will help.
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drigout said:
LTE is built in to the SoC so when activated, it doesn't turn off. Unlike previous phones who had an external LTE radio, the battery usage is minimal. So overall you are saving battery. and true if you have weak or no LTE signal turning it off will help.
Sent from my 831C using xda app-developers app
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SoC Im struggling to figure out what that means?
nickhowell25 said:
SoC Im struggling to figure out what that means?
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SoC = System on a Chip so LTE, CPU, GPU, CDMA, 3G etc... Are all on 1 chip the Snapdragon 801. Older phones had separate components and used more power but the components could be turned off when not needed. When you are switching to CDMA only you are not just turning off LTE you are changing the core settings on the chip.
Sim-X said:
This phone prefers LTE, I have a very week and unstable LTE at my house so it's constantly cutting in and out. When I'm at home or work I set the phone to CDMA only. Look under mobile data settings. My battery lasts WAY longer and don't have a problem with getting calls. There is zero benefit to being on LTE when you are using wifi. Since LTE at the moment is data only. Only annoying part is switching it back and forth. I wish there was a widget for it or could set tasker to do it automatically.
Sent from my HTC One M8 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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I most definitely agree. I have an Airave at home and I have to manually switch to CDMA only while at home for the phone to connect to it. I have a very weak LTE signal so the phone automatically tries to connect to it. Very frustrating. Called airave supprt who said they are aware of the problem and are trying to work on a solution, but for now just manually switch to CDMA only when I get home.