Comments on: T-Mobile’s 42 Mbps HSPA+: Fast, but it’s still no LTE

By: Curt Mueller

Curt Mueller — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:23:28 +0000

My Galaxy S2 is rocking 22 in Savannah Georgia……….but by my house near Gulfstream Its peaked at 36….absolutely awesome

By: Sham

Sham — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:59:51 +0000

Tmobile speeds have increased over the past 2 months, I went to a verizon store (in the Dallas area) to help my friend pick a new phone and I had a Tmobile phone. Tmobile was in their “4G” network and verizon was on LTE, tested my Galaxy S2 vs the new Galaxy Nexus, the verizon phone hit around 8megs consistently, where as my GS2 hit 16-20megs with ping rates around 30ms. So they really are improving their network, and Im not sure whats going on with verizon, seems like the more customer they are pulling in is starting to bog down their network.

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:55:31 +0000

Hi Travis,

The reason the T-bolt is such a power hog is LTE. It uses a technology called MIMO which effectively is sending two RF streams back to the tower. It’s basically like running two phones off of one battery. If T-Mobile does add 84 Mbps they’ll have to use MIMO, and will have the same problem.

By: Travis James Graves

Travis James Graves — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:27:43 +0000

i agree about the latency but id take battery life over lattency and a few mbps per sec my amaze gets 15 -20mbps on the reg in nyc latency is ok by my batter is wayyyyyy better than my cousins thunderbolt and i even hear t mobile is upin to 84mbps

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 03:52:21 +0000

HSPA+ has an awfully big menu doesn’t it? I always figured either 64 QAM or MIMO was a starting point, but I guess if the network is painted the right color…

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 03:49:28 +0000

You’re getting ahead of me here, Chris. Don’t worry, when we start hashing ideas you’ll be one of the first we contact!

By: milan03

milan03 — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:54:25 +0000

I actually meant to say “sustained 8MB/s” in my post above.
Yeah well, AT&T is certainly not trying to upgrade as fast here in NYC, SF, or LA. For some reason smaller markets like Athens, Oklahoma City, etc seem to be needing the LTE more than us, but oh well..

Actually, as much as I hate to say, 16QAM 14.4mbps network is in fact HSPA+ since they only had to upgrade certain aspect of the network (reduced cellular signaling for faster call setup, state changes, etc) that are mandatory for HSPA+ so they can brand it HSPA+. Unfortunately, 64QAM even though its the crucial ingredient for 21mbps speeds isn’t mandatory requirement for HSPA+ .

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:13:21 +0000

I’ve been hearing that more and more, Milan. 16QAM isn’t really HSPA+ though, right? That would mean AT&T’s network is just plain old HSPA (the final iteration thereof).

By: JonnyZ

JonnyZ — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:06:43 +0000

T-Mobile’s 42 Mbps HSPA+: Fast, but it’s still no LTE | Broadband News and Analysis http://t.co/8ZOKD0S8

By: Phillip Ressler

Phillip Ressler — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:14:25 +0000

RT @kfitchard: Quite a good debate has sprung up on my HSPA+ 42 vs. LTE story from Monday http://t.co/Kt5VSVrV Very network geeky and I appear to be losing