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I am not sure how you fail to grasp that HSDPA/HSUPA are components of both HSPA and its evolution HSUPA. Even if all you read was the wikipedia pages you linked you would understand that.

I don't fail to understand that at all. That's not the same thing as saying that if something supports HSUPA and HSDPA, by definition it also is HSPA+, which is what was being said.
 
Where in the hell are you seeing that speed?! Are you positive there's no WiFi connection there?

Unfortunately, it's not my phone :( It's some dude in Washington State (Link). I get 2Mbps on my AT&T phone (which seems to be what most people get on AT&T these days).


Wikipedia says that WiMax, LTE, and HSPA+ are 4G according to the ITU. HSPA+ was classified as 3G, but they decided to change it to 4G.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4g

Too bad iPhone 4S does not have HSPA+
 
It's HSDPA :) We also know that iPhone 4S speed limit is 14Mbps which is probably irrelevant because AT&T infrastructure does not give us this speed (by a long shot).

Sure it does, well, you never see the max speed of a spec, maybe 2/3rds top in my experience. I've seen up to 4-5Mbps down in Baltimore on my iPhone 4, more commonly maybe 1-2 or 1-3 down. 1-2 up.

I expect the iPhone 4S to double those types of numbers, in most of the mid-Atlantic/Northeast, in the region AT&T calls their "4G" region, which as we've discussed really means HSPA+. If an area has HSPA+, it's probably going to deliver pretty decent HSDPA speeds, given real-world limitations.
 
I think his problem was with the implication that "HSDPA + HSUPA = HSPA+" which is not necessarily true.

The "D" and "U" just stand for the Download and Upload components of the standard. HSPA was one standard, which has both D and U components. HSPA+ is a new standard, and it also has D and U components.

Thing is, I don't recall anyone in this message board ever saying that "HSDPA + HSUPA = HSPA+" so I don't know where that started.
 
Yes, and if I understand that correctly, justifies what AT&T is doing as perfectly fine.

Sort of, look at the link another poster just gave, which is the "updated" (read: manipulated by $$$ and cellphone company influence) definition of 4G -- I believe they say yes to HSPA+ and WiMax now, but not faster implementations of HSDPA. So, if it's true the 4S is HSDPA and not HSPA+, which I think is 95% likely, then AT&T is STILL out of alignment with the ITU, which is the body that does define these things.

To be honest, I feel we should consider "genrations" of cellular technology an order of magnitude difference in speeds, which yes, actually would mean that HSPA+ and first-gen LTE would be 4G (but HSDPA usually would not, nor would first-gen WiMax in most cases). So if first-gen 3G was along the lines of 1Mbps in real-world conditions (HSPA, EV-DO) we would call 10Mbps 4G, 100Mbps 5G, etc. I actually do think that's fair.

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Thing is, I don't recall anyone in this message board ever saying that "HSDPA + HSUPA = HSPA+" so I don't know where that started.

Somebody did say that, I think it was on page 2 of the thread.
 
HSPDA and HSPUA = LTE Speeds; NOT

HSPA+ can hit current LTE speeds. For all intents and purposes, the 4G marketing is correct because they are comparing speeds.

This will change, however, as LTE starts topping over 50Mb/s in a few years. By then, carriers LTE networks should at least be built out.

HSPA+ can his LTE but the iPhone and ATT don't have HSPA+. The iPhone has HSPDA which supports up to 14.4Mbps down and HSPUA which supports 5.5Mbps up. This is not LTE. HSPA+; Evolved High Speed Packet Access supports up to 84Mbs down and up to 22Mbps up.

Current LTE from Verizon can support up to 100MBps down and up to 50Mbps up. (Theoretically). The current LTE from Verizon is 3GPP and LTE advanced which is really 4G will be built on top of existing LTE infrastructure. HSPA+ is also 3GPP and not really a 4G technology and up to now, tMobile with support of up to 42Mbps down has been the only carrier to brand it's HSPA+ at 4G. Even so they don't claim to do anything more than ~20Mbps on a burst.

Currently my Droid Bionic can do ~22Mbps down and 15Mbps up on a routine day. I have seen speeds as high as 37Mbps down and 21Mbps up on a good day.

ATT can call the iPhone 4s 4G if they want, but it ain't so.
 
Interesting if 6600 does support HSPA+ not sure why they don't advertise as HSPA+, maybe dont' want to piss off VZ and S, or maybe they disabled it for whatever reason, battery, speed consistency, etc.

But still doesn't make sense since the international carriers should be able to use including the tons of users in Asia, so have to believe for some reason it doesn't support HSPA+ whether it's a custom 6600 or the firmware somehow disables it. All speculation on my part

who knows? i guess when ifixit does its teardown?? or in real world tests?

Yeah... We'll have to wait for the teardown for sure. But I do remember the CDMA iPhone 4 teardown and it used this chip. iFixit and Qualcomm's data sheet both stated it's an HSPA+ chip. So that's why I think it's likely here.
 
Somebody did say that, I think it was on page 2 of the thread.

The question was about the message board in general not this particular thread. Nobody indeed made such suggestions (HSDPA + HSUPA = HSPA+) until we learned what a POS iPhone 4S was. At this very moment this myth was born by some overzealous iPhone fans.
 
No, you are wrong, it is not the same. HSDPA does not equal HSPA+. These terms actually DO mean something very specific, they have to do with the release versions of progressive generations of GSM cellular technologies.

See here for more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSPA+

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsdpa

HSDPA Release 5 seems to be what iPhone 4S supports, HSPA+ (AKA HSPA Evolved) is Release 7.

Done, finished.

Heh, it supports at least release 6 since it has HSUPA. But then again, with its multiple antenna system (MIMO) it has to have release 7, doesn't it?
 
The question was about the message board in general not this particular thread. Nobody indeed made such suggestions (HSDPA + HSUPA = HSPA+) until we learned what a POS iPhone 4S was. At this very moment this myth was born by some overzealous iPhone fans.

Aaaand... you're a boring troll. Go crawl back under your bridge, please. The grownups here are talking. Shouldn't you be doing your homework or something?

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Heh, it supports at least release 6 since it has HSUPA. But then again, with its multiple antenna system (MIMO) it has to have release 7, doesn't it?

I am pretty sure the diversity antenna system of the 4S is not the same as MIMO. MIMO can advance speed if memory serves, the system on the 4S is really for reliability only, from what I gather.
 
Heh, it supports at least release 6 since it has HSUPA. But then again, with its multiple antenna system (MIMO) it has to have release 7, doesn't it?

Nope, not MIMO

I am pretty sure the diversity antenna system of the 4S is not the same as MIMO. MIMO can advance speed if memory serves, the system on the 4S is really for reliability only, from what I gather.

Correct. It's not.

We still don't know if the 4S is release 5 and release 7. Until we do, this entire argument is stupid. Can we drop it?
 
Now I've tried to find the answer for this for a few days.

What I've read--which may or may not be true--is that the ITU considers HSPA+ (the technology itself) as 4G. HSPA+ speeds "start" at 14.4Mbps (meaning, the theoretical max for HSPA+ when first deployed is 14.4 Mbps, but HSPA+ can go up to 84Mbps or whatever).

AT&T defines 4G as 14.4Mbps (as opposed to being HSPA+ capable) down speed plus advanced backhaul. It must meet both requirements to be called 4G on AT&T's network. AT&T's HSPA+ network, however, runs at a theoretical max of 21Mbps.

So if the iPhone has advanced backhaul, AT&T will consider it 4G, and it is certainly true that it runs at 4G speeds, but not more recent 4G speeds as newer phones are running at 21Mbps HSPA+.
 
Seems fair enough, considering that Verizon was sneakily advertising widespread “3G” coverage maps that actually delivered about the same speed (and limitations) as AT&T’s “2G” EDGE!

Then again, this might make people think the iPhone 4S shares the problems of other 4G phones: limited coverage at those speeds, and terrible battery life.

There’s no way to be clear, accurate, and non-confusing, unfortunately. Maybe invent a new status badge, like “HS” for high speed, whenever you’re getting speeds in excess of what 3G used to be capable of with the iPhone 4.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Suck it Verizon and sprint!
 
I am pretty sure the diversity antenna system of the 4S is not the same as MIMO. MIMO can advance speed if memory serves, the system on the 4S is really for reliability only, from what I gather.

Good point. we will see for sure when the phone is in someone's hands and we have the teardown. At least for AT&T, if it's only 14.4 HSPA, there won't be any benefit on their network (IIRC, HSPA is still limited to 7.2 on AT&T's network), but if it is in fact the MDM6600 (likely) or some other dual mode chip that supports HSPA+, we should see some benefit due to the higher order modulation and other things that HSPA+ implements. AT&T's biggest problem is spectrum, not backhaul, so I think we will definitely see a benefit if this is the case. This whole thing could be a simple issue of how Apple never fully focuses on specs, but that's just my theory. There isn't much reason for them to limit it to HSPA only, seeing as how they'd lose a huge marketing advantage in one of their biggest markets (AT&T in the US).
 
Now I've tried to find the answer for this for a few days.

What I've read--which may or may not be true--is that the ITU considers HSPA+ (the technology itself) as 4G.

The argument stems from the fact that the ITU did not originally define it as 14.4 Mbps (the lower end of HSPA+). I believe it was supposed to be 100 Mbps + fully IP based. T-Mobile and the other carriers muddied the waters when they started calling their tech 4G which didn't match the ITU definition. The ITU eventually backed down (because otherwise we'd be sitting at 3G way too long...bad for marketing.)
 
It's likely Apple could update it later, but not a jailbreak.

Legally they can't do that. They can't change a product's specs without re-charging you for it in some way. I highly doubt that will happen. It was done before to enable 802.11n on certain Macs.
 
The map itself is clear, it's the color key that's confusing.

What they call 4G is HSPA+.
What they call 'Mobile Broadband' is normal 3G.
And they label EDGE honestly, for some reason.

AT&T LTE is only in Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Chicago, and Atlanta.

If you're looking at their map in any other city and see the '4G' color, you're seeing HSPA+.


Go here and click 'Coverage' to see those 5 cities:
http://www.att.com/network/

Go here and type a zip code to see the HSPA+ areas.
http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/#?type=data

Ahhh thank you man! I didn't realize you could type in a ZIP and get more detailed coverage. Perfect. And holy s*** I have "4G" in my area. Amazing.
 
Originally, the first true 4G network technology was considered LTE Advanced.

LTE Advanced is a candidate technology for 4G. It is not a true 4G anything yet. 4G has not been finalised. This is why Apple is steering well clear of it.
 
Aaaand... you're a boring troll. Go crawl back under your bridge, please. The grownups here are talking. Shouldn't you be doing your homework or something?


Truth hurts, I know. To summarize:

iPhone 4S - HSDPA (14Mbps)
Samsung Galaxy SII - HSPA+ (21Mbps)

BTW, on their web site AT&T already claims that iPhone 4S is 4G :D


Well, how else would they explain to regular folks why iPhone 4S costs more than iPhone 4.
 
Impressive for sure, but why on earth would you ever need that type of speed on a smartphone?

I don't think anyone even "needs" a smartphone, we seem to have done fine without them in the past.

It's all about want, and I can tell you I for sure want those speeds. ;)
 
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