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FSUSem1noles

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 23, 2006
1,622
16
Ft. Lauderdale
Anyone else's iPhone suddenly picking up 4G?? I'm down in South Florida.. Not sure if it's a glitch since updating to iOS 5.. but I just noticed it now..
 

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lol, great, so they basically changed the icon to from a 3 to a 4... no difference in network performance or anything... lol.. what a joke..

They wanted you to know when you are on their HSPA+ network. Most of us agree using 4G to show it is a little shady especially when they have a faster LTE network.
 
Honestly, I'm thinking of filing a bug report with Apple.

Incorrectly reporting a 3G network as "4G" is most certainly a bug, right?
 
lol, great, so they basically changed the icon to from a 3 to a 4... no difference in network performance or anything... lol.. what a joke..

Well, there IS a difference between HSPA and HSPA+

I think we all agree they shouldn't call it 4G, but there is a noticeable difference between the two.
 
Well, there IS a difference between HSPA and HSPA+

I think we all agree they shouldn't call it 4G, but there is a noticeable difference between the two.

But wasn't the whole network upgraded from HSPA to HSPA+? Has anyone seen a 3G symbol since the upgrade on an AT&T 4S? Seems weird to get rid of the 3G indicator all together.
 
But wasn't the whole network upgraded from HSPA to HSPA+? Has anyone seen a 3G symbol since the upgrade on an AT&T 4S? Seems weird to get rid of the 3G indicator all together.

I've been asking this question too (I don't have AT&T). Im not sure if the whole network has been upgraded. Another member commented that his read 4G in an area he clearly knows isn't HSPA+.

I haven't gotten answer if this isn't an indicator to let you know you are on HSPA+ or if they just replaced the 3G indicator with 4G.
 
But wasn't the whole network upgraded from HSPA to HSPA+? Has anyone seen a 3G symbol since the upgrade on an AT&T 4S? Seems weird to get rid of the 3G indicator all together.

It couldn't have or older iPhones wouldn't be getting 3G anymore.

It's possible that HSPA+ is now everywhere and so you'll never see a 4S phone change to 3G, but there still has to be normal HSPA all over for the older phones.

I'd rather they'd not call it 4G, but the idea of labeling HSPA+ differently is a solid plan at its core.
 
It couldn't have or older iPhones wouldn't be getting 3G anymore.

HSPA+ is backward compatible.

In any case, based on AT&T's coverage map, major cities have HSPA+, but there's still lots of 3G areas (that is, HSDPA and slower) in outskirts. Southern California has quite a bit of 3G, as does the western half of Kansas, North and South Dakota, and Minnesota outside of Minneapolis, and a lot of Michigan, just to name a few.

As is typical with AT&T, the map is a lot of swiss cheese. So if anyone with a 4S still sees 3G, it would be nice of them to chime in.
 
Does it really matter?

Who cares if it shows 3G or 4G? we all know what it is and if it's not LTE, yet it's faster than 3G and AT&T markets it as 4G does it really make a difference?

Late last year the ITU recognized that beyond-3G technologies that do not fulfill "IMT-Advanced" requirements could nevertheless be considered "4G", thus that's what AT&T is branding HSPA+ , their 4th generation product as. Move on.
 
I wonder how they'll show this once the iPhone has LTE or even the iPad 3g. For Android phones, they show 4G and then 4G with a small LTE when in an LTE area. I would have preferred 3G, 3G+, and 4G instead.
 
Who cares if it shows 3G or 4G? we all know what it is and if it's not LTE, yet it's faster than 3G and AT&T markets it as 4G does it really make a difference?

On the internet it does make a difference, because we all like to complain about nothing.
 
Who cares if it shows 3G or 4G? we all know what it is and if it's not LTE, yet it's faster than 3G and AT&T markets it as 4G does it really make a difference?

Yeah, it does actually. This perceived "improvement" doesn't come with any change in data speed. All that happened here was that everyone's standards got lowered by quite a bit, so that AT&T can justify its poor network deployment choices, and possibly also so that Apple won't be so embarrassed by survey results like this:

(Note: this survey was taken before the release of the 4S)

retrevo-4g-users.jpg
 
Yeah, it does actually. This perceived "improvement" doesn't come with any change in data speed. All that happened here was that everyone's standards got lowered by quite a bit, so that AT&T can justify its poor network deployment choices, and possibly also so that Apple won't be so embarrassed by survey results like this:

Except that it did come with a change in data speed- back when they 4S debuted... they're only (finally) acknowledging it now.
 
Except that it did come with a change in data speed- back when they 4S debuted... they're only (finally) acknowledging it now.

No, they did acknowledge the speed improvement back then:

iphone-4s-data-speeds.jpg



And there was nothing stopping them from calling it "4G" then, save a bit more honesty about that sort of thing at that point, I guess. *shrug*
 
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