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Using a Verizon / HTC Thunderbolt, final retail model.
Not even tethering, just holding the phone in my hand, I'm getting 4 bars of signal and a signal strength of -77 dBm.
Seems to work fine most of the time, with good downstream, well within acceptable limits of the "5 to 12 Mbps" advertised, though it's extremely variable (it tends to regularly oscillate between these speeds, occasionally dropping down to EvDO speeds).
But the speeds aren't important, just an indication of the good signal strength.
Maybe it's just my cell tower, but I am very frequently seeing no network activity at all; can't even get to google or check for software updates. It's about as unreliable as Verizon's crap DSL. This is the polar opposite of the rock-solid stability I used to get with EvDO in the exact same place (in my house). Is it the 4G network being unreliable, or the Thunderbolt? Anyone else have this problem?
Edit: In terms of the patterns of the total downtime, it seems to go down for periods of 5 to 10 minutes per hour. Sometimes the downtime only lasts 15 or 30 seconds, other times I am completely out for 10 minutes, even though it says "4G LTE" in the dock and I am still getting good signal strength. My data usage for the month is under 5GB but above 2GB. I tend not to make very bursty traffic; except for app downloads, most of my traffic is of the low throughput, consistent variety (loading webpages, listening to MP3 streams at 128Kbps, etc). I use it very often but the bandwidth usage at any given time is probably lower than the speed of an EvDO connection (unless you count webpages that are downloaded at faster-than-EvDO speeds for a split-second to load them). I'll be using it and then it's just *down*. I can still make phone calls during the outage.
I noticed the same thing. I was all over the place cycling through no data, 1x, 3G, and 4G in like a minute in the same spot. I rebooted and got a much more stable 4G connection.
I'm thinking your expectations are a little too much. There are many areas I don't get a good 3g, let alone a 4g signal. I live in a suburb of Chicago and am in 4g 95% of the time, I don't always pay attention, because, after all, it's a phone first, but 4g seems to be there whenever I need it.
Also, in regards to unacceptable, what are you comparing it to? Is there more acceptable 4g signals in your area?
fillyo said:
I'm thinking your expectations are a little too much. There are many areas I don't get a good 3g, let alone a 4g signal. I live in a suburb of Chicago and am in 4g 95% of the time, I don't always pay attention, because, after all, it's a phone first, but 4g seems to be there whenever I need it.
Also, in regards to unacceptable, what are you comparing it to? Is there more acceptable 4g signals in your area?
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Click to collapse
I'm comparing it to Verizon EvDO / 3G. While speeds on EvDO were only about 20-25% of the max speed of LTE / 4G, it was completely reliable -- at least in my area.
Keeping the phone almost completely stationary sitting at my desk, connected to the same cell tower, and with my roaming data programmed to the latest version, my EvDO phone (a Droid 2) would have the connection available whenever I asked for it.
With the same exact usage pattern but with LTE, my Thunderbolt often has no connection, and it spontaneously comes back by simply waiting around for it to become available.
I expect the 4G channel to be "open" 24/7/365, not ever completely down -- especially while stationary in a standard building with a very high signal strength (always 4 bars). I have no unusual EMF like microwaves or bluetooth going on, just a laptop and a desktop and 2 LCDs. Wooden house, and I'm on the top floor.
If they can make EvDO stable 24/7, and EvDO is based on the same CDMA technology as LTE, why can't they make LTE stable 24/7 also? And I also don't understand why my phone does not fall back to EvDO if and when the LTE drops out. I recall a few times over the years of using it that my EvDO would fall back to 1x/RTT in the event of an EvDO downtime. But the MTBF of EvDO downtimes in my area was around 1 year. Now, the MTBF of LTE is about 50 to 120 minutes.
brandnewsimmy said:
I noticed the same thing. I was all over the place cycling through no data, 1x, 3G, and 4G in like a minute in the same spot. I rebooted and got a much more stable 4G connection.
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Click to collapse
I rebooted my phone and am getting a more stable 4G connection now, too I wonder if the phone itself has a stability problem with its 4G transceiver after a certain period of uptime? I will test this theory over the next couple days by rebooting my phone whenever I have a problem, and see if it helps.
Edit: I usually keep my phone "up" 24/7, and just leave it on the charger when I'm not on the go. I power it off only rarely, because I want to receive phone calls and text messages. When I just rebooted it, it had 2.5 days of uptime (hard to have too much uptime considering launch day was just a few days ago!)
fillyo said:
I live in a suburb of Chicago and am in 4g 95% of the time...
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Click to collapse
Out of curiosity, what suburb are you in that you're getting 4G 95% of the time? I live in Highland Park (about 20 miles up the north shore) and I don't have nearly as good of coverage (still decent though and I'm not complaining).
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
I'm guessing it has to be your area. I am getting amazing 4G coverage in LA. I going to assume its going to take VZW some time before their 4G coverage truly blankets areas. I remember when 3G came out.. it was totally spotty for a long time until they had enough towers.
Kind of like what I recorded on my phone this afternoon....?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRTOCFoGFmU
5 min clip showing me cycling through web and map but getting no data, despite cycling airplane mode on and off. This has happened almost daily since getting the phone last Thursday, in multiple locations that are supposedly full 4G areas. Pretty annoying.
Double annoying since I got the Verizon phone because they're network's so much better (allegedly)...and yet my Nexus S on T-Mobile had full bars and fast "4G" data in the same location. I'd also had a reboot, and the 1tx symbols flashing but wasn't recording at the time. I'd been screwing around with this for at least 10 minutes before activating ShootMe to record it.
Thrillhouse847 said:
Out of curiosity, what suburb are you in that you're getting 4G 95% of the time? I live in Highland Park (about 20 miles up the north shore) and I don't have nearly as good of coverage (still decent though and I'm not complaining).
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
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Click to collapse
Well im in Gurnee area with 4g 99% of the time. Only time without is in my GF's brothers house. no 3g there either though lol. otherwise i never loose 4g. Even driving to vernon hills and around i always have 4g. not sure y in HP u dont always have it.
i am complete opposite i have 2-1 bars inside a building getting 12mbps
I notice it has an issue where it just randomly drops all my signals to search for 4g even though its not in my area... I think the only way to get reliable signal would be to set the radio to whatever you are using mostly... *#*#4636#*#* will get you into diagnostics and select phone infotmation and then choose CDMA auto for 3g or lte mode..... I'm thinking in the near future there will be a update that allows for easier lte turn off like 4g on the evo... the automatic thing is nice but it wastes battery and seems to cause some problem
RafficaX said:
Well im in Gurnee area with 4g 99% of the time. Only time without is in my GF's brothers house. no 3g there either though lol. otherwise i never loose 4g. Even driving to vernon hills and around i always have 4g. not sure y in HP u dont always have it.
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Hm. Not sure either, Gurnee/Vernon Hills is pretty close, maybe I just need more testing time (I'm also indoors most of the time).
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
Thrillhouse847 said:
Hm. Not sure either, Gurnee/Vernon Hills is pretty close, maybe I just need more testing time (I'm also indoors most of the time).
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
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i mean i never saw 4 bars on 4g but 2-3 always and hit 30 on the down and 50 on the up while in the antioch walmart lol but never with out 4g expect in that one house lol.
I just set mine to LTE only let's see if its more stable than the auto mode
itzjonjon69 said:
I just set mine to LTE only let's see if its more stable than the auto mode
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Click to collapse
let me know, i should try that too. never thought of that when looking at it. wonder if ill save a bit of battery not trying to also find 3g, im sure i lose very lil hunting for 3g but still. saving some battery may give me another in on 4g lol
RafficaX said:
i mean i never saw 4 bars on 4g but 2-3 always and hit 30 on the down and 50 on the up while in the antioch walmart lol but never with out 4g expect in that one house lol.
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You realize that the phone is incapable of 50 up, don't you? Those kinds of speeds are a known bug in the Speedtest.net and other similar speed tests that don't deal with the Thunderbolt's large transmit buffer properly.
Anyone else seeing any errors in the logcat that look similar to this?
D/DATA ( 1779):[QCTMM] DataNetStatistics sent == 0 && received == 0 newActivity=NONE
D/DATA ( 1779): sentSinceLastRecv=0,watchdogTrigger=10,maxindex=0
E/TrafficStats( 1555): [QCTMM]tryAll index =1
E/TrafficStats( 1555): [QCTMM]tryAll index =2
There is an entry like this every few seconds when I'm on mobile data.
RafficaX said:
Well im in Gurnee area with 4g 99% of the time. Only time without is in my GF's brothers house. no 3g there either though lol. otherwise i never loose 4g. Even driving to vernon hills and around i always have 4g. not sure y in HP u dont always have it.
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Click to collapse
verizon towers fallowing u now? from 95% now 99% lol ...that 1% its your gfs house damn it.... probably a bridge on the way and tower to tall to go under ...****...otherwise u would it have 100% wooohoooo
I'm at my desk at work in times square, nyc. Yesterday I had 1-2 bars of 4g at my desk. Today, my phone has yet to switch out of 1x mode my entire 2 hour commute here and so far today. I tried rebooting and can't get 3g or 4g to come on. I'm pretty annoyed
Love the speed on my 4glte (30mbps! WOW!), plus I do have unlimited data (grandfathered), so the only reason I use wifi is so that I don't over abuse the unlimited data every month, or if I want to save on battery life.
That said, wifi is extremely slow. I have 20mbps cable at home and I only get 2 through my phone, even when standing right next to the router. My laptop connects to the same network and gets 10!? Why is the wifi on these phones so slow (same issue with tbolt)?
Also if u have unlimited data how much do u use month? Are you afraid they might take it from u?
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA App
I've noticed the same thing. I have 35/35 internet at home, but when the phone is connected to WiFi I don't get anywhere near those speeds. I actually almost get better speeds leaving the phone on 4G even though I'm lucky if I have two bars at times.
Never have been able to find out why, but since I do have unlimited data as well (grandfathered) I typically just leave the 4G on and forget about WiFi.
My typical data usage per month is two maybe three gigabytes with moderate usage, but now that I'm on 4G it might increase some since I'll probably use Google Music more often.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium
I get 25mbps to my home and pull 17-22 on the phone. You may have a bad antenna. Also, speed test isn't very accurate. Your "speed" is restricted to what the server you are pulling from can provide. Also, you may have a bad/slow router. If it is dated, I suggest upgrading.
So long as you are not using exponential amounts of data, like 8-10GB, they shouldn't throttle you, and they CAN'T just take it from you.
I don't have unlim because I just switched last week. But I have the double data 4GB plan. Really glad I have that and not 2 gig because I am using an average of 2-3x the data that I did each day on my Desire before I switched. LTE just causes you to use more lol.
I wish I had unlimited because I would watch a fair amount of netflix over 4G
BTW, I have a Linksys E1500 Router.
I agree. You may have a bad antenna, because my Wifi speeds are just fine. I get 30 down and 7 or so up, so there's no problem there. Here's something I've noticed though: My wifi won't stay connected while the phone is asleep. It always goes back onto 4g for some reason. This happening to anyone else?
The only time i get wifi is at Starbucks or the library... and both places are show as hell. No internet(or even tv) at home because i am rarely home. So that being the case, i absolutely never ever use wifi period.
As for data usage, let's just say it's enough that a few people here have labeled it "abuse".
Evo4gLI said:
I agree. You may have a bad antenna, because my Wifi speeds are just fine. I get 30 down and 7 or so up, so there's no problem there. Here's something I've noticed though: My wifi won't stay connected while the phone is asleep. It always goes back onto 4g for some reason. This happening to anyone else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is a setting. The phone is set to go back to 3G/4G after 15 minutes of sleep by default. You can change that in Wifi Settings. You may have to hit the menu button and go to the "advanced" menu to change the setting.
con247 said:
It is a setting. The phone is set to go back to 3G/4G after 15 minutes of sleep by default. You can change that in Wifi Settings. You may have to hit the menu button and go to the "advanced" menu to change the setting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are my hero.
AtLemacks said:
I get 25mbps to my home and pull 17-22 on the phone. You may have a bad antenna. Also, speed test isn't very accurate. Your "speed" is restricted to what the server you are pulling from can provide. Also, you may have a bad/slow router. If it is dated, I suggest upgrading.
So long as you are not using exponential amounts of data, like 8-10GB, they shouldn't throttle you, and they CAN'T just take it from you.
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Click to collapse
I use 10-20 GB a month and they don't throttle. They only throttle top 5% of 3G users and only on crowded towers and peak times.
low WiFi speed usually means your router is using overused channel (channel that many of your neighbors are using). WiFi Analyzer is nice free app that will tell you which channel to use.
danutzz said:
That said, wifi is extremely slow. I have 20mbps cable at home and I only get 2 through my phone, even when standing right next to the router. My laptop connects to the same network and gets 10!? Why is the wifi on these phones so slow (same issue with tbolt)?
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try changing the channel on your router.
AtLemacks said:
I get 25mbps to my home and pull 17-22 on the phone. You may have a bad antenna. Also, speed test isn't very accurate. Your "speed" is restricted to what the server you are pulling from can provide. Also, you may have a bad/slow router. If it is dated, I suggest upgrading.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's about what I get too. I don't think it is the antenna, I think its the channel and or the bandwidth / modulation settings on the router.
I noticed when I turned my data connection of my WiFi seemed faster. My home network is maybe 15-20mbps and I usually get 12mbps in speed test. If I have data on WiFi is slower.
4g even with one or two bars is about 6-
12 mbps but I loose signal in parts of my house.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium
no problems for me, get wifi at 10-20mbps down and 5 up, and my home plan is 30/5 so that is good.
My wi-fi works as good as the data connections, no problems with wi-fi being slow. Use wi-fi 80% of the day and it is always fast.
Sent from my Galaxy Tab 10.1
Almost always on LTE now. I don't see anywhere near the speeds others get. Usually around 5megs.
This month already I have used 4 gigs of data. the most I ahve ever used in 3g was 3.6. BTW, my billing cycle is only 5 days old
Gotta love netflix and Sons of Guns!!!
Chris
drtnsnw said:
Almost always on LTE now. I don't see anywhere near the speeds others get. Usually around 5megs.
This month already I have used 4 gigs of data. the most I ahve ever used in 3g was 3.6. BTW, my billing cycle is only 5 days old
Gotta love netflix and Sons of Guns!!!
Chris
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Click to collapse
You might be in an extended coverage area, and like I stated above, SpeedTest is not accurate at all and completely dependent on the server you pull from. Try changing servers and I bet you see faster speeds.
a friend of mine said that verizon will throttle you above a certain data usage. So we decided to test the theory.
I setup an FTP from my home PC, and proceeded to DL , over 4g, my entire movie collection.
It was a little hard to do because the SD card (16gb one) kept getting full. I ended up with about 33GB of usage for that month. (This was using the droid charge a few months ago)
no overage fees, no throttling.
However I bet if i did that every month, i might see throttling.
If you lived in a high use location (like NYC) you might have gotten a warning.
con247 said:
It is a setting. The phone is set to go back to 3G/4G after 15 minutes of sleep by default. You can change that in Wifi Settings. You may have to hit the menu button and go to the "advanced" menu to change the setting.
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Click to collapse
I checked this "advanced" setting just for the heck of it and saw a setting for "best connection" or something similar. It seems by default this is checked off cause it says it uses more battery. Once I turned this on I doubled my wifi speed so it seems like everything is now working correctly.
Thanks everyone for the posts and ideas! Great community here when we're not flaming each other about who "might" be coming out with root...lol
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA App
I'm new to At&T (I've had my phones for a week) I've noticed I've been getting pretty bad data speeds on my GS2, I also have a captivate and a inspire 4g. I first noticed the Captivate was consistently getting faster speeds in every single test I performed. (speedtest app, fcc app, speedtest web site, speak easy web site). I'm currently on unnamed 2.1.1 but it's been happening on every rom. I have checked the APN settings and they are correct. So I started doing tests with the inspire and it too was getting faster speeds. When I went into about phone and status under network type on my GS2 it would show "UMTS" for the most part when idle and then "HSPA" when I was streaming music. But when I wasnt streaming it would go back to "UMTS". Now I noticed when I did the same thing on the inspire and the captivate it would show "HSDPA" when idle and when streaming data.
So does this mean my GS2 isnt getting the full HSPA+ signal but just the HSPA signal? I'm curious as to why my GS2 stays at UMTS when the other's stay at "HSDPA" and my GS2 never shows "HSDPA"
I tried swapping the sims in the phones as well and have the same results, the gs2 not performing as fast.
It goes to umts to save battery.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium
You'll notice it's always on 3G unless you are using data. As kletiz said, it shifts back to the lower network when not using data to save battery.
I just got around to downloading the speed test app to see how fast me x2 is and after the first test here is what I got:
Ping:19ms
Down:4989kbps
Up:703kbps
Now I dont know much but something tells me that up speed is a little low.
Im on cm7 with the Mash up script and wifi on.
Will the numbers be different if Im on 3G? Are these numbers even remotely good?
Many thanks to all!!
Apps aren't always accurate. I'm not sure what you meant will it be different if I'm on 3G? Wifi and 3G will always differ, wifi is much faster depending on your provider, where 3g can lag at times
On 3g I usually hit 3d and 1 up
Where wifi I'm like 25 down 8 up out there about.
SMILE It's Not Illegal Yet
Your ping time and up/down speeds can vary even when connected to the same tower or wifi network depending the congestion at any given time on the bandwidth provider's network, among other factors.
Your seemingly low upload speed could be attributed to other devices on the wifi network using the upload bandwidth allotted by the isp at the time you performed the speed test. It may also be the case the connection supplying the wifi network is 6Mbps down/1Mbps up. Your upload and download speeds while on wifi can only be as good as the connection from the isp regardless of the settings on your device or how many other devices are on the network.
For what it's worth, I have a Verizon 3G Network Extender plugged into my wireless router, meaning that both my WiFi and the Network Extender can only supply a connection that at best is only as fast as my cable modem's connection to Comcast. Eliminating all conflicting variables (e.g. no other devices on the network when running tests), my Droid X2's 3G upload and download speeds are consistently slower than when I'm on wifi.
19ms is a pretty good ping time, btw.
Lots of useful info. Thanks guys!
Sent from my MB870 using xda premium
I have also been curious and suspicious of my 3g data speeds. When I was stock and rooted with 2.3.4 I would get on average 20-30 kilobytes/sec in my house with a poorer signnal of -87dbm this is using speed test and checking the down up speeds with the mobile network app that puts the speeds up on the notification bar. I used that to monitor downloads and web browsing speeds which agreed well with speed test. In a good coverage area -67dbm I achieved pretty consistently 130-230 kilobytes/sec. I am now running eclipse 2.0.4 with CMDA build.prop edit to increase 3g speeds. I ve only noticed a doubling of speed when in -87dbma area nut otherwise I cannot achieve anyhigher than 300 kilobytes/sec. I wonder could my radio be weak or bad? I thought 3g speeds would but up to ~500 or greater in really good coverage areas.
MunkinDrunky said:
I have also been curious and suspicious of my 3g data speeds. When I was stock and rooted with 2.3.4 I would get on average 20-30 kilobytes/sec in my house with a poorer signnal of -87dbm this is using speed test and checking the down up speeds with the mobile network app that puts the speeds up on the notification bar. I used that to monitor downloads and web browsing speeds which agreed well with speed test. In a good coverage area -67dbm I achieved pretty consistently 130-230 kilobytes/sec. I am now running eclipse 2.0.4 with CMDA build.prop edit to increase 3g speeds. I ve only noticed a doubling of speed when in -87dbma area nut otherwise I cannot achieve anyhigher than 300 kilobytes/sec. I wonder could my radio be weak or bad? I thought 3g speeds would but up to ~500 or greater in really good coverage areas.
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I never considered radio quality when I looked at my speeds. Exactly how one would go about checking ones radio quality is far beyond me. Its definitely something worth exploring (in my opinion)
Right I would also need to test other 3g speeds on a different phone on the same networko in the same area to rule out network end probs. Plus I got my DROID x2 used so that might be it there. Also if the radio heats up from persistent use that might reduce efficiency and lower speeds.
Those are fairly decent speeds. For a mobile device, that's about what I would expect. Your ping, 19ms, means that it takes .019 second to reach from your device to the Verizon servers, then to the servers of the sites you are accessing, and then finally back to your phone. Anything less than 80ms is considered good, so you have an excellent ping.
And to clarify, your upload speed will never be as high as your download speed. It's a throttling mechanism used by all (and I do mean all) internet providers of any kind to prevent things like hogging their bandwidth with torrents and the like. It's essentially an industry standard.
When I listen to internet radio for a long period of time my phone goes into a 1x connection. I have to reboot to get it back to 3g. is there a hack on the phone I can do to stop this from happening like a ip refresher or something. it stuck on 1x until I reset the phone. I believe this is sprint doing this on purpose. even though they advertise they dont do this. I use only around 2 gb of data a month.
any help would be nice. I don't want to have to restart my phone every 2 hours when I feal like streaming online music at work
highly doubtful they do that. cause i've been on 3g streaming for hours on end and dont get throttled. Are you in a bad signal area?
no full bars its possible It could be my phone or I am new to sprint and may not have the same limitaions most people have.
Here in hawaii,I usually get 300-1mbps on 3g. However, at home where my signal is 3-4 bars has horrible speeds,and I also notice the same problem. About 5-10mb and the 1x icon shows up.
Honestly I think its a tower issue.
Does it go into 1x on any tower while streaming?
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
The bars on your phone have nothing to do with data signal strength. The bars are for voice signal only.
cruise350 said:
The bars on your phone have nothing to do with data signal strength. The bars are for voice signal only.
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Click to collapse
This is correct.
Sent from my EVO using xda app-developers app
cruise350 said:
The bars on your phone have nothing to do with data signal strength. The bars are for voice signal only.
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Click to collapse
How do we find data signal strength? Or do you mean the bars stand for signal strength and not signal speed?
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
It's a big annoying, but you have to go into the dialer, dial ##DEBUG#, go into EVDO Engineering (for 3G, since 1X is your voice and LTE is your LTE) and read the Rx Power. It should be different from your 1X Rx Power and your LTE Rx Power (if you have LTE).
I looked for a data signal meter widget a while back and never found one that worked or pulled from the right info (usually people just pulled from the Settings->About->Network->Signal Strength info, which is 1X (Voice).
Here some more info: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/2...to-determine-your-actual-lte-signal-strength/
cgrimm9 said:
When I listen to internet radio for a long period of time my phone goes into a 1x connection. I have to reboot to get it back to 3g. is there a hack on the phone I can do to stop this from happening like a ip refresher or something. it stuck on 1x until I reset the phone. I believe this is sprint doing this on purpose. even though they advertise they dont do this. I use only around 2 gb of data a month.
any help would be nice. I don't want to have to restart my phone every 2 hours when I feal like streaming online music at work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can say with a known certainty that Sprint does not "throttle" or "cap" data usage on a mobile device. Only the top < 1% of abusers are contacted by sprint, which is usually a letter of intent to cancel service if data abuse continues, or a notice of cancellation. No "throttling" or "capping"
I just find it odd that my phone randomly goes from 3g speed to 1g only after multible hours of use and there was no movement from the phone where I never had a issue.I can go days or weeks without going to 1g when its on 1g I have to restart the phone it will not go back into 3g mode.
cgrimm9 said:
I just find it odd that my phone randomly goes from 3g speed to 1g only after multible hours of use and there was no movement from the phone where I never had a issue.I can go days or weeks without going to 1g when its on 1g I have to restart the phone it will not go back into 3g mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could just toggle airplane mode
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2