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Data on Galaxy Nexus vs. Nexus 4

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diemerm

Member
I love my GNex and have seen little that would warrant an upgrade to the Nexus 4.

However, lately I've been having a lot of data issues with my T-Mobile service. Calls, texts, everything else works fine. But many times the phone cannot load any data. It just sits there and never loads anything. I can fix it by turning airplane mode on and then back off, but sometimes that is only a couple minute fix and then I have to turn signal off and back on again.

I know the Nexus 4 is capable of using T-Mobile 42 mbps network, while the GNex is only able to catch the 21 mbps signal.

I'm wondering if having a Nexus 4 and the ability to connect to the HSPA+42 network would help my problem. Or is it more likely just a general T-Mobile issue?

I'm also looking into other service providers... but it seems like all GSM networks in the US run on either at&t or t-mobile's towers. So the choice is basically between those two carriers, no matter which name the service is technically under... correct?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
diemerm said:
I love my GNex and have seen little that would warrant an upgrade to the Nexus 4.

However, lately I've been having a lot of data issues with my T-Mobile service. Calls, texts, everything else works fine. But many times the phone cannot load any data. It just sits there and never loads anything. I can fix it by turning airplane mode on and then back off, but sometimes that is only a couple minute fix and then I have to turn signal off and back on again.

I know the Nexus 4 is capable of using T-Mobile 42 mbps network, while the GNex is only able to catch the 21 mbps signal.

I'm wondering if having a Nexus 4 and the ability to connect to the HSPA+42 network would help my problem. Or is it more likely just a general T-Mobile issue?

I'm also looking into other service providers... but it seems like all GSM networks in the US run on either at&t or t-mobile's towers. So the choice is basically between those two carriers, no matter which name the service is technically under... correct?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...


How strong is your T-Mobile signal in your area? I have the HTC Amaze and it is HSPA+ 42 and it is faster than my wife's GNex in data. I usually get about 14 MB down where hers gets about 8-9 MB down on average from our house.
 
I'm wondering if your problem isn't something odd going on with the phone, rather than the network? My thought is to see if other phones are having the same issue. If you don't know of a friend that uses T-Mobile, take it into a T-Mobile store and see how it works compared to the phones there. If it is the phone, likely it is an app causing the problem.

And yes, there are only two GSM nationwide networks, T-Mobile and AT&T.
 
tube517 said:
How strong is your T-Mobile signal in your area? I have the HTC Amaze and it is HSPA+ 42 and it is faster than my wife's GNex in data. I usually get about 14 MB down where hers gets about 8-9 MB down on average from our house.
Click to expand...

I rarely have an issue with signal, I almost always have full bars and usually have the "H" symbol displayed next to the bars.

However, I have found that I get slower data speeds than most members on here report. The highest I've ever gotten was 8 down, but usually its more like 2 or 3 down. I assume this might be because I live in a dense area (downtown LA) and lots of other people are on the cell towers.
 
mogelijk said:
I'm wondering if your problem isn't something odd going on with the phone, rather than the network? My thought is to see if other phones are having the same issue. If you don't know of a friend that uses T-Mobile, take it into a T-Mobile store and see how it works compared to the phones there. If it is the phone, likely it is an app causing the problem.

And yes, there are only two GSM nationwide networks, T-Mobile and AT&T.
Click to expand...

I thought about this too, I agree it could be the network. However, I do have friends with T-Mobile and sometimes I'm sitting next to them when this issue occurs and their phone works fine.

But, this is why I'm wondering if the HSPA+42 might be better... is it a completely different signal than the HSPA+21? If it is, then there's a chance that signal could be more reliable. All my friends with T-Mobile have a HSPA+42 enabled phone.

Thanks for clearing up my question regarding network choices as well. I don't know why we don't have more than 2 GSM networks here in the US... there are tons of choices in Europe.
 
diemerm said:
I thought about this too, I agree it could be the network. However, I do have friends with T-Mobile and sometimes I'm sitting next to them when this issue occurs and their phone works fine.

But, this is why I'm wondering if the HSPA+42 might be better... is it a completely different signal than the HSPA+21? If it is, then there's a chance that signal could be more reliable. All my friends with T-Mobile have a HSPA+42 enabled phone.

Thanks for clearing up my question regarding network choices as well. I don't know why we don't have more than 2 GSM networks here in the US... there are tons of choices in Europe.
Click to expand...

As I understand things, there is no difference between the HSPA+ 21 and 42 signals. I may understand incorrectly, but my understanding is that HSPA+ 42 is twice as fast because it uses double the connections to the tower as HSPA+ 21.

The reason we don't have more networks in the US is mostly due to population density. For example, in Germany you have 81 million people that live in an area a bit smaller than the state of Montana -- meaning it is much easier to have enough subscribers to your cell network to cover the country. The other point is that almost all the cell networks in Europe are GSM, while in the US we have more CDMA networks than GSM (though that will change because of LTE).
 
Back when the big companies were going digital, the reason Verizon and others went with CDMA was because at the time, it offered more capacity, better call quality and more potential than the GSM tech did at the time. Also, have to remember that for a while, even having GSM here, was different frequencies than GSM overseas in a lot of places, so even though we have companies that went GSM, they didn't work in a lot of oversea places. But now that things have caught up a lot with LTE, it's getting so it's not as much of a big deal stateside. The two huge advantages that GSM had over CDMA (simultaneous talk&data, and the ability to change phones by switching SIM cards), have now become available with LTE anyway, so now things aren't as different.
 
mogelijk said:
One suggestion would be to try a factory reset. The problem sounds like it could be caused by software, since it isn't that the data never works but just randomly disconnects. You could try removing some apps, first, to see if there is an app causing the problem to see if you can prevent having to do a reset. I think there is a good chance that a reset would fix the problem and worth the effort to try it.
Click to expand...

I'll try the factory reset when I get home, and report back with the results. I don't think its an issue with any of my apps, as I just have very basic apps you get thru Google Play. (Facebook, Wells Fargo, etc).
 
So I did a factory reset. I don't know how, but it seems to have made the problem worse. The Facebook app is sitting on "loading" and I can't pull up a page on the internet either. It synced my gmail account, and after that the internet just stopped working. I've restarted the phone multiple times, and the signal bars turn blue meaning it connects to google's servers... but after that, anything involving the internet no longer works. The bars remain blue though. This is so frustrating :confused:
 
didn't see it while skimming through, but are you on the latest 4.2.2 OS?
i know it doesn't sound fun, but maybe reverting to an older OS (or at least older radios) might help out. not sure how that is done on a stock phone, but it is worth looking into.
 
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