Help T-Mobile HSPA+ vs LTE

[mjoecarroll]

Hi,

I have a Nexus 4 on T-Mobile. I have considered flashing a workaround to enable LTE on my device, however, I have heard that it drains your battery a lot faster. With this being said, what is the difference in the speed and reliability between T-Mobile's LTE and HSPA+ network?

I know the "theoretical" differences, I just need to know what, on average, I should expect with the speeds of T-Mobile's LTE and if it is worth flashing the LTE zip.

Thanks,

Mjoe

 

[JunBringer]

I haven't used T-Mobile LTE on the Nexus but I can tell you that their hspa+42 is plenty fast enough for anything I can come up with.

 

[codesplice]

I've been using T-Mobile LTE on my Nexus 4 for six months or so. The speed has been very good for me (generally 20-30 Mbps, where HSPA+ would clock 8-10 Mbps), but that will of course vary widely based on location, coverage, signal strength, and network congestion. I have not noticed any adverse battery effects. I love the way that T-Mobile's network is structured with LTE on top of already-solid HSPA+, which means that even when you fall off of LTE you still get solid speeds.

I originally used the all-in-one flashable .zip posted here but gradually shifted to just individually flashing the .33/.84 hybrid radio and another .zip I built just for the build.prop modification.