Switching between 3G and HSPA+

**mathiasjk** · 09-18-2012, 03:38 PM

My Galaxy Nexus keeps switching between 3G UMTS and HSPA+, probably to get the strongest signal.
Does any one know how to stop it doing this, and only connect to HSPA+?

**font1975** · 09-18-2012, 04:01 PM

Is it causing a problem? I see the indicator switching between the 3G & H quite often, too, but thus far, it's not been an issue for me. Seems to be just what these phones do. So far as i know, there's not a way to lock it to 3G or H.

You can lock it to 2G only, but other than adding hours to your battery life, probably not what you want

**Andrew Martonik** · 09-18-2012, 04:20 PM

Originally Posted by Benny_Bumlum

My Galaxy Nexus keeps switching between 3G UMTS and HSPA+, probably to get the strongest signal.
Does any one know how to stop it doing this, and only connect to HSPA+?

This is by design. Especially on T-Mobile, the network likes to peg to UMTS when the connection is idle, mainly to save power. Once you're actively transferring data, the phone will hop up to HSPA+ and transfer, then get back down to UMTS when its done. Sitting on HSPA+ 100% of the time isn't good for battery life.

Unless its causing you problems, don't be worried about it.

**still1** · 09-18-2012, 04:21 PM

when it switches to traditional 3G that could mean that either HSPA+ is not available or the signal is too low.

it would cause more frustrations to you when there is no HSPA+ imo if you force it

**Andrew Martonik** · 09-18-2012, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by still1

when it switches to traditional 3G that could mean that either HSPA+ is not available or the signal is too low.

it would cause more frustrations to you when there is no HSPA+ imo if you force it

As I noted above, this is not the case. Switching to 3G (UMTS) when data is not actively transferring is something that is done on purpose for battery considerations.

I have never seen my phone try to stay on a UMTS connection while transferring data. At this point, you either have HSPA, or if the signal is bad/spotty, you'll get kicked down to EDGE.

**oddtay** · 09-19-2012, 07:57 AM

It is completely normal. It's called Fast Dormancy. Read about it here:

**cummins990** · 12-17-2012, 05:44 PM

I have a question, My phone stays on H all the time and never switches, seems like this is killing the battery.I have it on WCDMA preferred. Shouldn't it switch?

**Sandeep Mukherjee** · 03-26-2013, 02:47 PM

The problem I'm facing with this switching is in the app Slacker Radio.

When I start the radio it works fine as it's pulling in the Data and the connection stays on HSPA and everything goes on well. Usually buffering happens much fast and the connection goes to idle while I'm still listening to the song. Once the app moves on to the next song.. many a times it succeeds to acquire HSPA and and about 50% of the time it doesn't switch fast enough and connection stays on 3G and eventually the song playing stops as it is not able to pull any data. Not sure if it is a bug or just my phone or just the slacker radio app.

Pandora use to work fine for most of the time.. maybe coz they have better retry connection logic but can't use pandora anymore because of their stupid royalty cost they started to charge lately.