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Carrier Why doesn't AT&T tout their 4G HSPA+ network anymore?

B

BlockEight88

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 20, 2013
217
32
Seriously? It's faster in many areas than LTE. The signal is also much stronger than LTE. I do not understand why they don't advertise it anymore. Besides, their HSPA+ network is in many areas where LTE is non existent. I remember HSPA+ being very big when the iPhone 4S launched.

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BlockEight88 said:
Seriously? It's faster in many areas than LTE. The signal is also much stronger than LTE. I do not understand why they don't advertise it anymore. Besides, their HSPA+ network is in many areas where LTE is non existent. I remember HSPA+ being very big when the iPhone 4S launched.

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Yea I agree HSPA+ is plenty fast in most of the areas I frequent.
 
No point in advertising older, slower technology. While HSPA+ might be faster in some areas due the congestion of the LTE network, LTE is faster by far for the most part. Plus there's no point in advertising HSPA+ when the other 3 carriers are marketing LTE. No one is switching to networks in 2015 because they claim to have fast HSPA+ speeds.
 
3.5G is not a selling point to anyone in America. It's better than Verizon's 3G or T-Mobile's teeny-tiny HSPA Network but 7-8 Mbps doesn't excite anyone these days (except for maybe Cricket fans ;))
 
LTE is a faster tech. By advertising their HPSA+ network as being faster like you described it will just show how slow/congested their LTE network is in those areas.

Where I live (Baltimore area) AT&T's HPSA+ and LTE is faster the my Verizon's LTE using speedtest.net. In real world use you can't tell though.

Thankfully Verizon's LTE network coverage is really good because their 3G is dreadfully slow and very noticeable when you are on it.
 
TechGod said:
HSPA+ is NOT 4G. Your carriers are stupid beyond belief.
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I know it's not really "4G". It was always 3.5G, right? Its just that the quality of service is so much better on HSPA+. Like the signal is always better versus the LTE signal.
 
Another issue is that Verizon started this too, with their claims of a bigger 4G network. Technically, they're right: they had a larger overall LTE footprint before AT&T came close to catching up. So they'd show you their expansive LTE map, and other carriers' comparatively-puny LTE maps, and let people infer that no color on the LTE map meant no coverage at all.

What they conveniently left out was that HSPA+, which isn't shown on the maps, was plenty fast (and as of right now, faster in a lot of cases for AT&T customers) while CDMA 3G coverage is pretty bad. But Verizon was pretty successful in winning that marketing gimmick: much of the public now assumes that if it's not LTE, it's automatically useless. And they continue that mantra to this day: "Only Verizon’s 4G LTE is 100% LTE."

(Which is kinda meaningless when you think about it: is there really any "4G LTE" that isn't LTE? It's in the name...)
 
BlockEight88 said:
Seriously? It's faster in many areas than LTE. The signal is also much stronger than LTE. I do not understand why they don't advertise it anymore. Besides, their HSPA+ network is in many areas where LTE is non existent. I remember HSPA+ being very big when the iPhone 4S launched.
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HSPA is my area is basically always running at ~10mbps. Basically unloaded at this point.

It's got a stronger signal because AT&T's HSPA network is almost always on B5 (850), whereas LTE is on a mix of B17 (700) and B2 (1900).
 
TechGod said:
HSPA+ is NOT 4G. Your carriers are stupid beyond belief.
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Weren't 4G definitions somewhat fluid for quite some time even not that long ago, down to just meeting some speed and that's mostly it? Seems like based on some of those definitions at the time 4G could have fit HSPA+ in one way or another.
 
C DM said:
Weren't 4G definitions somewhat fluid for quite some time even not that long ago, down to just meeting some speed and that's mostly it? Seems like based on some of those definitions at the time 4G could have fit HSPA+ in one way or another.
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Yep. 4G was redefined by the ITU to fit HSPA+ into it. So regardless of argument HSPA+ is 4G since the people that define what is and isn't 4G say it is now albeit not always being the case.

I give carriers a pass now because they use the term LTE as something better the 4G.
 
dyt1983 said:
I agree our carriers are stupid beyond belief. But LTE is not 4G either (using the definition "HSPA+ != 4G), and Spark certainly advertise their LTE service as 4G. But it's been 5 years since the ITU caved and stated that LTE, HSPA+ and WiMax should be included in "4G", so can't we give it a rest?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G#Technical_understanding

You're right. But LTE is a lot closer to the 4G spec(100Mbps) especially here with Spark rolling CAT 4 LTE(I think?) which gives us 150Mbps for top speeds and peak speeds stay around the 60-70Mbps mark.

On the other hand, HSPA+ typically maxes out at 42.2Mbps, nowhere near LTE or the original 4g spec.

(Btw, Spark makes sure not to claim that HSPA+ is 4G)
 
So you expect them to advertise a 3G technology while every other competitor is advertising LTE? Yeah ok. They once were all over the HSPA+ network because it was all they had, or had very limited LTE.

Not everywhere has a strong H+ signal. AT&T does not have 850 licenses everywhere, thus being able to only put H+ on 1900 band 2.
 
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