Turning off LTE?

[justlaxin13]

Hey, i have read a couple of times that this phone doesn't come with a built in way to turn off LTE. It there any add on way to do this? I'm wayy more concerned with battery life than data speeds most of the time and am honestly still decently ok with ATT's HSPA+ speeds for casual browsing and such.

 

[Zulu Warrior]

I don't really have a definitive answer for you, as I'm curious about this too. I'm in the same boat as you where I would gladly just leave LTE behind. I've never even had data on my phone before, so I'm used to using wifi, and would be completely satisfied with HSPA. There may be a 3rd party solution to this, and if so, I'd like to know about it aswell.

One thing I do know is the solution won't come from ATT. They decided to force us all to LTE because it makes it easier on their networks, gives customers the highest speeds, etc. I really wish they didn't pull this, because I'd like to just have HSPA and the 20% better battery as a result. Anyways, sorry I didn't really answer, but I'll be eager to see if anybody has a 3rd party way to do this. I have looked for a bit, and haven't found a way that works on modern ATT LTE phones.

 

[justlaxin13]

Hmm that's a shame...I wonder if root access, something I am in no way opposed to, would facilitate things better...

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[planoman]

I have not seen a way to do this on the ATT LTE phones. If you are not in an LTE area of course you will be in HSPA+ and the battery life will be longer. If in a LTE area, there is no way to force it to HSPA+ that I know of at least not stock.

 

[justlaxin13]

That's weird, I thought I read of ways to do so on Verizon's lte phones, maybe I'm crazy... also if stock would prevent this,I have no problem working around stock...

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[planoman]

Maybe on Verizon you can but not ATT. I have had the skyrocket and have a Galaxy Note and cannot do it. The word is that ATT is trying to off load some traffic from their HSPA+ networks to the LTE networks so they can manage the load and they do not want people in LTE areas going to HSPA+.

 

[AZSALUKI]

I use an app called "lte on/off." Free in the market. Now, I'm on Verizon so the option on this app is for cdma only, to force it off of lte. Since lte is fairly new to at&t, there may not be an app yet like this. However, this app was a direct result of the tbolt having no native way to turn off lte (it has since added the feature via an update). It was developed and in the market as soon as the tbolt came out so I would have to believe that either the developers of the app would simply add hspa as an option or develop a seperate app for lte/hspa phones.......or someone else will. I'm rooted, but it doesn't require root.

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[AZSALUKI]

Also, HTC one x users have been able to do it manually by going into the settings and access points and selecting a new APN. The guy I found that tested this just replaced the default APN with the APN from his old phone and his "4g lte" icon changed to "4g" (at&t still calls hspa+ 4g). He then speed tested both APN's and confirmed that it forced it from lte to hspa+. Long story short......it can be done without root or an app (from what I understand, at&t blocks toggle Widgets and apps from working properly so my previous post may not be true).

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[Zulu Warrior]

Also, HTC one x users have been able to do it manually by going into the settings and access points and selecting a new APN. The guy I found that tested this just replaced the default APN with the APN from his old phone and his "4g lte" icon changed to "4g" (at&t still calls hspa+ 4g).

I also heard of a lot of people trying to do that to shut off LTE, however I heard it didn't work most of the time. Most of the results seemed to reset back to LTE shortly after they did the switch. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I don't remember that method working. I sure hope it does though!

As for verizon, I have heard of lots of ways to shut off LTE on their network. Unfortunately ATT seems to be trying harder to force us to the LTE. Who knows, maybe one day we'll get a switch too.

 

[cgardnervt]

One nice thing about living in VT...No need to worry about LTE with ATT! We wont have it anytime soon. Plus to be honest we dont need it. HSPA+ is 5-7meg down here...So as far as I see...We are all set!

 

[Zulu Warrior]

One nice thing about living in VT...No need to worry about LTE with ATT! We wont have it anytime soon. Plus to be honest we dont need it. HSPA+ is 5-7meg down here...So as far as I see...We are all set!

Yeah, I actually am living in Colorado right now, and we're the same way. Most of the year though, I live near Oklahoma City (college down there) and they show that they do have 4g LTE. That's why I'm still wishing for a way to get rid of it. I assume LTE isn't too far off of Denver Colorado either, so I'll want it regardless.

 

[b0btech]

there's an app called data switch in market, just turn it off after using web or reading an article and its done loading...blue w red x by globe

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[b0btech]

actually, notification window has app to disable data too

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[justlaxin13]

Are you saying just put the phone in airplane mode when not browsing?

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[b0btech]

no i'm saying toggle the data switch app, or turn off data by a shortcut.still get calls and texts...

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[rlb]

But you won't get emails though.

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[DallasFlier]

One thing I do know is the solution won't come from ATT. They decided to force us all to LTE because it makes it easier on their networks, gives customers the highest speeds, etc.

The word is that ATT is trying to off load some traffic from their HSPA+ networks to the LTE networks so they can manage the load and they do not want people in LTE areas going to HSPA+.

While I understand the desire of individuals to conserve battery (and would find that useful myself too) I can also understand AT&T's desire to optimize their data networks to best handle the exploding amounts of data that we all use. So I'm a bit torn on this. Am waiting to see what the battery life on my S3 is after I get it and get it set up for my own "normal usage.

 

[justlaxin13]

Yeah I totally understand their reasons for foisting lte on us. But for me battery life is really the only part of my sgs2 that I'm dissatisfied with. there are plenty of things in the S3 of like more, but I'm honestly just curious if it's battery can significantly best the one I have now.

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[DallasFlier]

Yeah I totally understand their reasons for foisting lte on us. But for me battery life is really the only part of my sgs2 that I'm dissatisfied with. there are plenty of things in the S3 of like more, but I'm honestly just curious if it's battery can significantly best the one I have now.

Yes, battery life is one thing I'm going to be very interested in seeing on my S3 also. I've lamented the move to larger and larger screens, faster and faster processors, higher and higher data speeds - ALL at the expense of battery life. FIRST, this will be a "cellphone" for me - and the reason cellphones were invented was so that you could carry a phone around all day without being tethered to a cord. Now, it seems you have to be tethered to a (power) cord again! The SG3 is actually a bit larger than I'd consider ideal - and I sure hope they don't go much larger - I want a phone, not a tablet masquerading as a phone!

One (ok, two) of the main reasons I chose the SG3 over the HOX when I did my research was removable battery so I can carry a spare if that proves necessary, and microSD slot for additional memory should I want it.

 

[brkaras]

Well my friends I have found the answer...please note if you don't have ICS build on your phone I'm not sure if this will work but I am running ICS 4.0.4 UCLE2 build and this should work for all ICS builds.

1.Click on Menu button and go to Settings.

2. Go to "More....", once in, click on "Mobile Networks"

3. Go to "Access Point Names"

4. Once in you will see "AT&T PTA" with a radial button as your only option. This is the default gateway.

5. Click on Menu button below, and you will have two choices, "New APN" or "Reset to default" click on New APN.

You will see a series of lines under "Edit Access Point" and click on "APN" and enter as follows "wap.cingular"

If you like you can rename the "Name" to whatever you like...I used "AT&T HSPA+"

Click "Save"

This will give you access to HSPA+ network only. I found this info online for the Galaxy SIII with ICS coming stock. This is an ICS only option I believe, I don't recall cause I dumped the Gingerbread 2.3.6 cause it was burning up batteries like crazy.

Please be advised I have the Galaxy SII Skyrocket, they are building the LTE network in my area as we speak and I was getting all sorts of interference from their testing and upgrades so until its complete I'm running HSPA+ only and the problems went away.

Hope this helps!