T-Mobile HSPA+ getting slower and slower for anyone else?

[JHBThree]

Also, just to put my screenshot into perspective: those speeds are FASTER than what I got on Verizon's LTE in the same area.

 

[6tr6tr]

yes, tested on htc one s, galaxy s 3 and nexus . all saw speeds around 500k or less.

Im in Dallas and have noticed no slowness in my service at all.

I also switch devices and am back on my Nexus 4 after using the Note 2 for a month. Both devices are getting about the same speeds in and around the areas i work and live.
have you been able to find another TMO user in your area with a different device?
ive always wondered if the Nexus 4 sometimes parks its self on 1900 spectrum and not the good 1700 stuff where the majority of the bandwidth and speeds are.

 

[JHBThree]

yes, tested on htc one s, galaxy s 3 and nexus . all saw speeds around 500k or less.

What time of day did you run the speed tests? New York is notorious for speeds grinding to a halt, regardless of carrier, during peak hours.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[anon(5719825)]

I have three devices using T-Mobile:

Nexus 4. Speeds are all over the place depending on where I am but at home, they are great just as they always have been anywhere from 9-26Mbps.

Nexus 7, slower speeds than what I get on the Nexus 4 but thats because the specs are different that what the nexus 4 is capable of. The speeds are normal just as always usually 4-8Mbps.

iPhone 4S. Speeds are just as normal as always ranging from 4-8Mbps.

Speeds on all three depend on where I am of course so I usually just test them at home because they are always great there.

 

[CoMoNexus]

It could be two things:

1) TMO's prepaid and other plans, plus the iPhone, are attracting a lot of new customers, and the network is struggling to keep up.

2) There's insufficient backhaul at HSPA sites where LTE was added, so now there are two multi-megabit technologies using the same pipe.

I hope that TMO doesn't suffer the same fate as Sprint, which went downhill after getting the EVO. The iPhone was the coup de grace.

 

[6tr6tr]

T-Mobile just did an upgrade on pre-paid network last night (they took all pre-paid phones offline for 8 hours) and they were sneaky. the speed is faster today (still not as fast as it used to be) at a bit more than double. I get 900kbps now BUT the upload speed dropped by the same amount!! So they didn't fix the problem, they just took away our upload and used it for download.

 

[JHBThree]

It could be two things:

1) TMO's prepaid and other plans, plus the iPhone, are attracting a lot of new customers, and the network is struggling to keep up.

2) There's insufficient backhaul at HSPA sites where LTE was added, so now there are two multi-megabit technologies using the same pipe.

I hope that TMO doesn't suffer the same fate as Sprint, which went downhill after getting the EVO. The iPhone was the coup de grace.

Its likely number one, plus the constraints of t-mobile's spectrum since they're still in the beginning stages of integrating what they got from att and metropcs.

Number 2 isn't likely at all.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[CoMoNexus]

Number 2 isn't likely at all.

Why?

 

[bobsacomano]

It could be two things:

1) TMO's prepaid and other plans, plus the iPhone, are attracting a lot of new customers, and the network is struggling to keep up.

2) There's insufficient backhaul at HSPA sites where LTE was added, so now there are two multi-megabit technologies using the same pipe.

I hope that TMO doesn't suffer the same fate as Sprint, which went downhill after getting the EVO. The iPhone was the coup de grace.

#1 seems unlikely here, since the extreme slowdown began before the iPhone arrived and before the plan changes.

Today I observed a blistering "speed" of 0.03Mbps on HSPA+! In February I was getting 23Mbps.



Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[anon(5719825)]

Just go this test on my Nexus 7.

 

[JHBThree]

Why?

Because we're not dealing with amateur hour. If this was sprint or metropcs I might agree. But we're talking about a company controlled by a huge foreign telecom that wouldn't put up with that type of shortcut. T-Mobile has the resources to not take that route, and I doubt they did.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[JHBThree]

#1 seems unlikely here, since the extreme slowdown began before the iPhone arrived and before the plan changes.

Today I observed a blistering "speed" of 0.03Mbps on HSPA+! In February I was getting 23Mbps.



Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Could be network saturation in your area. Also, since you're in Ann arbor, I wonder if they had temporary assets deployed to support the extra traffic from UofM that are now gone.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[bobsacomano]

Could be network saturation in your area. Also, since you're in Ann arbor, I wonder if they had temporary assets deployed to support the extra traffic from UofM that are now gone.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Doubtful. I was getting great speeds last summer on my Galaxy Nexus. Everything was fantastic with T-Mobile until late March. And they barely acknowledge it, so they probably aren't going to fix it.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[snookasnoo]

Almost all towers communicate by back haul cable which is a cable or cables that take data received for antennas and send it by cable to other towers. It's this cable that would be saturated so they may be prioritizing LTE over HSPA + and other sorts of data. I'm would expect additional users would also have a significant effect but not as much as some of you are reporting. My guesses T-Mobile really what's to get LTE up as much as possible as quickly as they can afford to. They want to be able to advertise LTE in as many markets as possible and LTE is actually cheaper in the long run for the carrier. It has greater range so requires fewer towers for one.
Verizon LTE performance is much less since the iPhone 5 came out which was the first really large volume of LTE phones but its still pretty darn good and far ahead of 3G.
T-Mobile in the U.S. does not have the revenue to support anything like AT&T or Verizon and the parent company in Germany is not interested in subsidizing them

 

[CoMoNexus]

Because we're not dealing with amateur hour. If this was sprint or metropcs I might agree. But we're talking about a company controlled by a huge foreign telecom that wouldn't put up with that type of shortcut. T-Mobile has the resources to not take that route, and I doubt they did.

True, but even the most sophisticated carriers have had difficulty getting backhaul. That's been a problem since at least the mid-1990s. For example, Omnipoint's launch of the NYC market was delayed six months because Bell Atlantic was so slow in filling those orders.

 

[CoMoNexus]

LTE is actually cheaper in the long run for the carrier. It has greater range so requires fewer towers for one.

You're right that LTE is cheaper, but range isn't the reason. In fact, it's just the opposite because unlike its predecessors, LTE uses far more femtocells, microcells and picocells in order to provide the speeds and capacity users expect. That's also why backhaul is more challenging with LTE: A higher density of sites means getting backhaul to more places.

 

[JHBThree]

Almost all towers communicate by back haul cable which is a cable or cables that take data received for antennas and send it by cable to other towers. It's this cable that would be saturated so they may be prioritizing LTE over HSPA + and other sorts of data. I'm would expect additional users would also have a significant effect but not as much as some of you are reporting. My guesses T-Mobile really what's to get LTE up as much as possible as quickly as they can afford to. They want to be able to advertise LTE in as many markets as possible and LTE is actually cheaper in the long run for the carrier. It has greater range so requires fewer towers for one.
Verizon LTE performance is much less since the iPhone 5 came out which was the first really large volume of LTE phones but its still pretty darn good and far ahead of 3G.
T-Mobile in the U.S. does not have the revenue to support anything like AT&T or Verizon and the parent company in Germany is not interested in subsidizing them

If you're talking about network investment, then you're wrong. Tmobile has plenty of money to support a rollout on par with Verizon and att.

 

[snookasnoo]

If you're talking about network investment, then you're wrong. Tmobile has plenty of money to support a rollout on par with Verizon and att.

No. They don't. Not even close. T-Mobile US and Germany are essentially separate companies and parent T-Mobile was prepared to let US T-Mobile go under.

 

[snookasnoo]

It is for Verizon in comparison to CDMA. GSM is a little different.

LTE deployments signal new revenue for tower companies - FierceWireless

"Verizon, AT&T, U.S. Cellular and others are using 700 MHz for LTE, and one of the chief benefits of the low-banded spectrum is its strong propagation characteristics. The result is that carriers may need fewer tower sites to cover the same area."

You're right that LTE is cheaper, but range isn't the reason. In fact, it's just the opposite because unlike its predecessors, LTE uses far more femtocells, microcells and picocells in order to provide the speeds and capacity users expect. That's also why backhaul is more challenging with LTE: A higher density of sites means getting backhaul to more places.

 

[JHBThree]

No. They don't. Not even close. T-Mobile US and Germany are essentially separate companies and parent T-Mobile was prepared to let US T-Mobile go under.

Uhm. Yeah, no. They got several billion from the failed att merger, and several more billion from parent Deutsch Telekom as a part of the metro PCS merger. They also got billions of dollars worth of spectrum from att for free.

They are as well equipped as Verizon and att for an lte rollout.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2