[Q] How does the Streak know '3G' from '4G' ?

[SaykredCow]

So with T-Mobile's current 4G devices, G2 and myTouch 4G, they have signal indicators of 'G', 'E', and 'H'. Which indicate GPRS, EDGE, and HSPA. The 'H' has always indicated a 3G OR a 4G connection since it can't distinguish between HSPA and HSPA+

Since 4G is the same connection as the 3G one just bumped up with faster speeds, how could it possibly create a distinction between the two? The Streak clearly fluctuates between a 3G and 4G signal indicator at times but I don't see how this could work without it constantly doing a speed test.

Does anyone know the technical reasoning behind this? Is there a way to distinguish between HSPA and HSPA+ now?

 

[twitch351]

The 4g signal is at a different frequency than 3g. The device realizes that, just like with 2g (E) and 3g, it sees the distinction in frequency and displays what is sees. Of course this just a hypothesis, but it seems about right

-Insert signature here-

 

[SaykredCow]

But the 4G signal ISN'T different than the 3G one. T-Mobile just made it's 3G incredibly faster. That's why the G2 and myTouch 4G display an 'H'. Why didn't they put any differentiation in those devices? Those devices don't toggle between '3G' and 'H' they toggle between 'G', 'E', and 'H'. With 'H' meaning 3G speeds at the minimum and anything above that.

At first, I thought maybe the DS7 just displays '4G' all the time in place of 'H' but I was perplexed when it displayed a 3G indicator occasionally as well.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's awesome if T-Mobile found some way to differentiate the two but as of right now it makes no technical sense and no one seems to notice.

 

[djdanska]

But the 4G signal ISN'T different than the 3G one. T-Mobile just made it's 3G incredibly faster. That's why the G2 and myTouch 4G display an 'H'. Why didn't they put any differentiation in those devices? Those devices don't toggle between '3G' and 'H' they toggle between 'G', 'E', and 'H'. With 'H' meaning 3G speeds at the minimum and anything above that.

At first, I thought maybe the DS7 just displays '4G' all the time in place of 'H' but I was perplexed when it displayed a 3G indicator occasionally as well.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's awesome if T-Mobile found some way to differentiate the two but as of right now it makes no technical sense and no one seems to notice.

I was wondering that myself. I am just north of downtown chicago. It shows it as 4g most of the time. When i go to the about phone screen, under status, it shows "Mobile Network Type: HSPA". Not HSPA+. Average speeds are around 2-3Mbps. Far cry from HSPA+

 

[SaykredCow]

I was wondering that myself. I am just north of downtown chicago. It shows it as 4g most of the time. When i go to the about phone screen, under status, it shows "Mobile Network Type: HSPA". Not HSPA+. Average speeds are around 2-3Mbps. Far cry from HSPA+

I think its fair to call it HSPA+ ...but very likely bogged down HSPA+ because it may have been during peak hours where tons of people are using it at once. Remember, we're sharing bandwidth with people using 3G phones too.


Which brings me back to the original topic of this thread that I WISH someone would have the answer to.

 

[scooterman]

When the Streak 7 shows 3G it means its connected on UMTS (384k max) when it shows 4G it could be on either HSPDA or HSPDA+ it cant tell the difference.

Like my nokia N900 said 3G for UMTS and 3.5G for HSPDA

 

[pablo1215]

"4g" speeds on dell streak 7

I posted this on twitter to Tmobile and some others but of course nobody responded. On my dell streak 7 with the icon showing 4g in a well covered HSPA+ area Ive maxed the speed out at 4mbps. Not terrible but it averages 1-2 mbps on 4g. Still not the worst and nothing crazy here. The thing is I have a mytouch 4g that I have speed tested the same place and time and same server and it nailed 7-10 mbps and averages 4-5mbps. I was frustrated but then when I tested out my nexus s speed tests at the same time as the dell streak and it beat the dell streak handily every single time that did it for me. I see the same thing with the motorola Atrix, I was able to speedtest one and it said H+ on the icon but still no more than 2mbps and I know thats att not the same as my tmobile connection but still to me 2mbps is NOT 4g! I understand the stress of the network can cause bad tests here and there but all that goes out the window when my "3g" only nexus whips the speed of a so called 4g device on the dell streak. I wanted to give it a chance but the crappy screen combined with slow speeds that are not the networks fault made me return it.

 

[scooterman]

i posted the answer to the op's question. And that answer was taken from the streak 7 manual