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Why are 3G speed tests so slow?

I've been having this problem for a couple months now. All of a sudden, my evo started getting really low speeds, never more than 500kbps down, and never more than 800kpbs up, although it was usually below 100kbps for both. This is extremely annoying as I cant stream pandora, cant watch youtube, cant watch sprint tv, and web browsing takes forever.

2 months ago the Sprint store said that it was a known problem with the evo (even though it had worked fine for months), so they gave me a brand new one. Worked a little better for a few days, then went back to slow. I called CS to see if it was a network issue, they said no but they would send an engineer out to check the towers in my area. After doing this 4 times (once a week), they finally told me to stop calling because I called too many times, and their engineers checked it many times and found nothing wrong.

So back to the sprint store, where they ordered me another new one. Got that one a week or so ago, and still have problems. Both at my house and at work, there is a tower literally right outside my window. At home, the tower is about 15 feet from my back window. I get full bars both places, yet still cant get good speeds.
 
Mine got slow again, and has been for most of the morning...maybe 250 down, often dropping below 100.

Had a coworker with a Fascinate on Verizon check his, he was at 1000+.

If sprint is going to charge me the extra $10 for the extra premium data experience, they'd better be giving me at least 600+ consistently. I'm going back to the repair store today.
 
stchman said:
I ran the Speedtest.net app and got 1.66 down and 0.67 up from the Chicago server on my LG Optimus S.
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That would be awesome. I wonder if sprint is doing something with the towers...expanding Wimax coverage???

More likely they're just trying to screw me over.
 
EarlyMon said:
sitlet, have you tried bypassing the proxy servers, as shown in the Pandora thread? Sorry, can't recall.
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No, haven't tried that. That only works for Pandora right? Or is that for everything 3g on the phone?

EDIT: Well I just tried it after reading your post, and guess what? It's working a lot better now! I'm getting around 800kbps down and 600kbps up. Still not as good as I used to get, but I'll take it, compared to being under 100kpbs. I can't believe that could be what's causing the problem. No wonder sprint can't fix this issue, cause they want to you use the proxy.
 
I contacted sprint the other day after experiencing some extremely slow and random connection speeds in my area. The tech support agent asked around and told me that a lot of their towers are being upgraded to support 4g and thus data would be slow for a while.

Here's to hoping it wasn't a bunch of gibberish.
 
felixor said:
I contacted sprint the other day after experiencing some extremely slow and random connection speeds in my area. The tech support agent asked around and told me that a lot of their towers are being upgraded to support 4g and thus data would be slow for a while.

Here's to hoping it wasn't a bunch of gibberish.
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That would be awesome if it's true. I would just like sprint to tell me, instead of making excuses or telling me that 75kbps is normal for 3g.
 
LaFlavor said:
That would be awesome if it's true. I would just like sprint to tell me, instead of making excuses or telling me that 75kbps is normal for 3g.
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Regular customer service reps have no clue to this.. Only Some technicians do.

3g fell off for us for 3 weeks, then came back with a vengeance with expanded 4g coverage as well..

We also have Verizon and experienced almost identical speed losses, right before LTE went live.

I hope this happens for everyone in an area experiencing slow speeds..
 
OK, just spent 2-1/2 hours on the phone with 3 different levels of sprint tech support. It sounds like there's actually some sort of tower issue in my area that they were unaware of (probably because I'm one of the only sprint customers in my area). Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like there's any sort of 4g upgrade, but they finally admit that there is definitely a problem. So, if you're getting really low speeds, you just have to call and be persistent. They tried to blow me off a couple of times, and tell me that 75 kbps was normal, and that they couldn't guarantee data speeds, and that I could do everything I would want to do on the speeds I was getting. This last call went well though. They admitted those speeds were really low, they went through the basic stuff, and steadily escalated. Woohoo.
 
I dont really care what any speed test tells me. All I know is that, most of the time, I am extremely pleased with how fast Sprint's 3g is. Faster than my wifi at times. even if the test says otherwise. The real test is how fast a big page loads, and 3g rarely disappoints me there.
 
drumshark said:
I dont really care what any speed test tells me. All I know is that, most of the time, I am extremely pleased with how fast Sprint's 3g is. Faster than my wifi at times. even if the test says otherwise. The real test is how fast a big page loads, and 3g rarely disappoints me there.
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Yeah, I did a web page test. A verizon customer beat me to load android forums by 18 seconds. An AT&T customer beat me to load espn.com by 15 seconds.
 
LaFlavor said:
Yeah, I did a web page test. A verizon customer beat me to load android forums by 18 seconds. An AT&T customer beat me to load espn.com by 15 seconds.
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Ya... that's a problem... I usually kick the crap outta my friends iphone4.

Evo's really are awesome machines when working properly. cant wait to find time to root mine and really tune it to my preference. Over/underclocking sounds like something that really should just be part of a phone.
 
drumshark said:
I dont really care what any speed test tells me. All I know is that, most of the time, I am extremely pleased with how fast Sprint's 3g is. Faster than my wifi at times. even if the test says otherwise. The real test is how fast a big page loads, and 3g rarely disappoints me there.
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You either have legendary 3G speeds or very poor wifi!:eek:
 
When I looked at this thread on 01/15 I checked my speed and lately the speedtest had been showing low numbers. Today it is running like a champ.

1.38down
0.53up.
 
I'm still within my initial 30 day period so I went in to Sprint to have this figured out. First off, the display EVO and all other display phones there had amazing 3g speeds, I made sure it wasn't 4g or wifi. Testing them side by side, mine was barely crawling. The sales rep and then manager swore up and down that it's because of all of the apps I have installed and if factory restore I'll have great speeds like their displays. So I did and it didn't help at all. Now I flashed back to stock kernel and am almost done unrooting so I can take it to their repair center. They promised to just replace my device if they couldn't fix it, until I get something that works well.

Just wanted to throw this in here in case it helps anyone, will let you know what happens at the repair center.
 
zurik said:
I'm still within my initial 30 day period so I went in to Sprint to have this figured out. First off, the display EVO and all other display phones there had amazing 3g speeds, I made sure it wasn't 4g or wifi. Testing them side by side, mine was barely crawling. The sales rep and then manager swore up and down that it's because of all of the apps I have installed and if factory restore I'll have great speeds like their displays. So I did and it didn't help at all. Now I flashed back to stock kernel and am almost done unrooting so I can take it to their repair center. They promised to just replace my device if they couldn't fix it, until I get something that works well.

Just wanted to throw this in here in case it helps anyone, will let you know what happens at the repair center.
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Yep, everytime I take mine to a sprint store, they always give me the "you have too many apps, and that's slowing your whole phone down" speech. I'm not that dumb, having a few apps installed doesnt make the whole phone slow down. If it did, the speeds would be just as bad on wifi, which they are not. I even did a factory reset in the store, and with no other apps on the phone, it was still slow. That is a stupid excuse.
 
Hahaha...they tried to give me the same excuse the last time I was in one. Seriously call tech support at sprint, and don't give up until they admit that that's slow.
 
LaFlavor said:
Hahaha...they tried to give me the same excuse the last time I was in one. Seriously call tech support at sprint, and don't give up until they admit that that's slow.
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Oh yea, I have done that. Its weird though, my first evo, bought in June, worked fine, until about November, when the hdmi port went out on it. They gave me a brand new Evo, and since that day, it has been slow. It was NEVER slow on my old one. I got them to send me a refurb, that had the same problem, then they sent me another new one, same problem. They just sent me another new one a week ago, and it still is slow.

So to me, it sounds like a network problem, since three phones all have the same exact problem. But no, my friend's evo, and every one of my other friend's sprint phones work fine. And the evo's at the store all work fine.

I have called tech support many times, and they keep saying they put in a Trouble Ticket to have an engineer come out and check the towers. Every time, they call me back, and tell me the engineers say the towers are fine.

So, while the store was NEVER any help to me, at least customer service over the phone has been good to me, replacing my phones, and doing everything they can. I just really wish this issue would get resolved.
 
sitlet said:
Oh yea, I have done that. Its weird though, my first evo, bought in June, worked fine, until about November, when the hdmi port went out on it. They gave me a brand new Evo, and since that day, it has been slow. It was NEVER slow on my old one. I got them to send me a refurb, that had the same problem, then they sent me another new one, same problem. They just sent me another new one a week ago, and it still is slow.

So to me, it sounds like a network problem, since three phones all have the same exact problem. But no, my friend's evo, and every one of my other friend's sprint phones work fine. And the evo's at the store all work fine.

I have called tech support many times, and they keep saying they put in a Trouble Ticket to have an engineer come out and check the towers. Every time, they call me back, and tell me the engineers say the towers are fine.

So, while the store was NEVER any help to me, at least customer service over the phone has been good to me, replacing my phones, and doing everything they can. I just really wish this issue would get resolved.
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It's really weird that you would get the exact same problem with so many phones in a row. Is it possible that there is some rom or something that you're putting on it that is the problem? Also, do you know what server you're connecting to? This morning when I loaded the speed test app, it had me connecting to a server in Ireland, and wouldn't let me switch back. As you can imagine, that slowed things down somewhat.
 
LaFlavor said:
It's really weird that you would get the exact same problem with so many phones in a row. Is it possible that there is some rom or something that you're putting on it that is the problem? Also, do you know what server you're connecting to? This morning when I loaded the speed test app, it had me connecting to a server in Ireland, and wouldn't let me switch back. As you can imagine, that slowed things down somewhat.
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I am currently rooted, but on a stock rom with unrevoked. The only reason I root is to use setcpu, and occaisionaly wireless tether, which obviously doesnt work real well right now. But even before I rooted, the problems still existed.

Using the Speed Test app, I usually connect to a server right in my city. But even when it doesnt, and connects somewhere else, its still slow.
 
I am shocked at the speeds I am seeing on this thread. My droid and girlfriend Iphone 4 dominate this. Good thing you have 4g or it would render the phone useless.
 
droid lover1 said:
I am shocked at the speeds I am seeing on this thread. My droid and girlfriend Iphone 4 dominate this. Good thing you have 4g or it would render the phone useless.
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Well, let's see a screen shot of your Speed Test speeds. I doubt they dominate the speeds that I posted.
 
In Irving Texas today I got 1.7 meg down and 450k up... tested it 2 times.. on 4G i got 1.2meg down??? Ive been getting pretty good speed lately with my phone I do think its has to do with the load on the current towers you are using.
 
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