Only receiving Edge in China

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tomtam6

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Jan 30, 2014
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My wife and I are currently visiting China and fortunately T-Mobile rolled out the unlimited texting and data roaming 2G. I'm right beside her getting only E while she has 2G, what gives? I'm rooted she is not, I don't think that would matter.
Tom

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UAL4588

Senior Member
Feb 16, 2011
266
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West Lafayette
There could be multiple reasons. For starters, I'm not sure you would get 3G, because I'm assuming the free data is the slowest speed possible. That being said, and I could be wrong, the main difference you are seeing there I am assuming is because you are on different carriers. T-mo uses GSM technology for 2G, and there are two carriers in China that use GSM, China Mobile and China Unicom. My experience with the two generally has been that China Mobile has better signal everywhere. It's kinda like the AT&T and T-mobile of China. So a possible explanation would be that you are on China Mobile's network and she is on China Unicom, which would potentially explain the difference. Of course, it could also just be a coincidence that this happened. I have seen friends sit right beside me with an HTC One and get 4G while my LTE is running with full bars....
 

tomtam6

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Jan 30, 2014
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Thank you for the tip! I changed the preferred carrier to China Unicom on my HTC One and the icon went to H. I saw my wife's One was also on the other network so I selected China Unicom as well and hers changed to 4G. Though we're not getting the normal speeds it seems to better.

Are we really receiving 2G though the phones say otherwise, like the iPhone 4 says iPhone 4 says 4G but is really only capable of 3G speeds?

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Rsotbiemrptson

Senior Member
Nov 3, 2006
471
375
Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus
My wife and I are currently visiting China and fortunately T-Mobile rolled out the unlimited texting and data roaming 2G. I'm right beside her getting only E while she has 2G, what gives? I'm rooted she is not, I don't think that would matter.
Tom

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Hello,
From what i understand E=2G, so my question would be are one of you running a custom rom, perhaps from a european base(more likely you)? The way data is scalled is simple with T-Mobile, although they change a few things to make it better. This is generally how it goes. Hope this helps.

GPRS(G)=1G
EDGE(E)=2G
3G=3G
HSPDA+(H)=4G


Rsotbiemrptson