Archive for: HSUPA
Since the Atrix was released, consumers (more tech minded ones mind you) have been relentless on AT&T’s practice of artificially capping this 4G phone with less than 4G speeds, particularly upload speeds. The only “fix” thus far has been rooting the device and flashing a kernel ported over from the Telstra Atrix 4G.
For those of you who aren’t too keen on the whole rooting scene, however, won’t have to wait much longer. Atrix firmware version 4.1.83 officially unlocks the crippled HSUPA upload speeds and has apparently already passed carrier testing — this according to Motorola themselves. Current rumors put a public release at “any day now”. And judging by Motorola’s official acknowledgement, we don’t see why that can’t happen. Keep hittin’ the refresh button for the latest updates.
Atrix owners: Are you ready to finally upload content at less than 300k?
As if AT&T needed another knock against their reputation, reports that the currently in route Windows Phone 7 NoDo update was disabling HSUPA capability on the Samsung Focus are “not true” according to AT&T. The company claims the Focus never had HSUPA enabled by default and that customers who manually hacked said feature onto their device were only seeing the NoDo update revert it back to stock.
For a company that is continually pounding the airwaves about their spectacular “4G” network, this is yet again more evidence they haven’t the slightest clue what an actual 4G network is. Not to mention learning that we have another device artificially neutered at the hands of AT&T is highly disappointing.
In the meantime, Samsung Focus users on AT&T who want to re-enable AT&T’s shenanigans can do so by running through the short little “how-to” here.
AT&T may be into the act of marketing one thing and providing another (read: Bait & Switch), but lucky for you we here at Gadgetsteria care about you, your sanity, and the enjoyment you get from your gadgets. With that said, AT&T’s latest knife in consumers’ backs is boasting of “real 4G” while simultaneously capping said devices to at times slower-than-3G speeds. Awesome tactic, huh?
Constant and obvious nitpicking aside, for those who want to unlock HSUPA functionality on their Samsung Focus devices need only do the following:
- Get to the number/dialer screen: Enter ##634# (Opens the Diagnostics screen)
- Enter test mode: press *#32489#
- Press back at the bottom of the screen (not the phone’s back button)
- Press 5 for RRC (HSPA) control
- Press 1 to view what yours is set at
- Press 3 to change to Release 6 HSDPA/HSUPA
It may seem involved at first to those not familiar with “hacking” such things. In all reality, however, it’s border line a walk in the park. Even if you’re a bit leery of doing such things, think about how much happier (and how much more time you’ll save) when uploading anything over the much faster HSUPA.
Anyone going to try it?
Update
AT&T claims they didn’t break anything and that the Samsung Focus never had HSUPA to begin with…
- September 13, 2010 6:53 am
The MyTouch HD has been one of the more interesting handsets to follow in recent memory, mainly due to it’s lofty goals and brag-worthy hardware specs. Speaking of which, those specs were only rumored to be beastly as we didn’t really have any real concrete evidence to chew on. But alas, a marketing flyer for the MyTouch HD has slipped, and in doing so raises a few eyebrows.
First and foremost, it mentions a “dual processor”. That likely means “dual-core” as the poor sap writing it probably didn’t have the slightest clue what they were typing. On the other end of the spectrum (read: sure to cause someone to get their britches in a bind), you have T-Mo tossing in “Runs on the nations largest 4G network” as a bullet point. Their HSPA+ network, while fast, is not 4G. A few other carriers have brought up T-Mo’s 4G claims in the past, with said claims not being as bold either. So it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Rounding out the flyer’s list of hardware is 5mp rear/VGA front cameras, video calling over 3G, HSPA, and WiFi, , 4GB built in memory w/ 8GB sd card, and a 3.8″ display (resolution?). We’ll keep following this one. Stay tuned…
Recall the whole AT&T upload capping drama from a few weeks back? It turned out that it wasn’t some menacing plan by the Death Star carrier afterall. Instead, one of their business partners, Alcatel-Lucent suffered from a software problem that rendered AT&T uploads on their hardware painfully slow. Good news folks — a fix is rolling out as I type!
According to AT&T, a mere 2% of their user base was affected. Nonetheless, the current update should restore those blindingly fast (unless you live in San Fran, New York, Chicago…..) upload speeds if it hasn’t already. I would point out that it’s been nearly a month since the whole thing went down, but at this point I’m just happy to report any good news concerning AT&T. Upload away folks…
LTE is the only thing mobile broadband nuts can focus on. But with promised speeds of 25Mbps+, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, here in the States we have to deal with a lot of landmass which inherently slows down major network upgrades to the point of being several years behind European markets. Though Verizon’s LTE network is rumored to be going live a tad earlier than expected near the end of this summer/early fall. Though that release would not be accompanies with any LTE smartphones initially — mobile broadband cards only for now.
But the fine folks over in Belgium have bigger and better fish to fry. The country’s second largest mobile provider, Mobistar, is testing a small network in the Evere-Diegem zone capable of speeds up to 60Mbps with latency all the way down to 18ms. Compare that to the more or less “standard” mobile network around the rest of the world which hits the pipes at 7.2Mbps down and 70ms latency. Clearly Belgium has some hot stuff in the making.
Currently, there hasn’t been any mention of when this LTE test network will be unleashed to the general public. Though there are a few tasty treats to hold over speed obsessed Belgian by way of a few incremental updates. Starting with 14.4Mbps by the end of this summer, expect speeds to climb to 28.8Mbps by years end. These updates will be rather painless with the majority of cell sites needing nothing more than a software update combined with a little TLC on backhaul lines. After that, they may or may not be another small update or two before the full force of 60Mbps LTE is let loose. Regardless, sitting here in the states with my super not speedy 7.2Mbps HSDPA leaves me yearning for relocation.
Any Belgian readers looking forward to late 2010/early 2011?
A few days back, we saw reports of people across the country experiencing very un-HSUPA-like speeds to the tune of ~100kbps. Clearly, something was amiss. At first, the blame was put on AT&T (and rightfully so). Afterall, it is their network. But alas, it looks like a third party is at fault this time.
According to a statement released by AT&T, a hardware supplier that goes by the name, “Alcatel-Lucent” is having some issues with their hardware. Never fear however, AT&T is working on a fix as we speak so that the “less than 2% of their customers” can get back to their upload-happy ways.
Per AT&T:
“AT&T and Alcatel-Lucent jointly identified a software defect — triggered under certain conditions – that impacted uplink performance for Laptop Connect and smartphone customers using 3G HSUPA-capable wireless devices in markets with Alcatel-Lucent equipment. This impacts less than two percent of our wireless customer base. While Alcatel-Lucent develops the appropriate software fix, we are providing normal 3G uplink speeds and consistent performance for affected customers with HSUPA-capable devices.”
[Thanks, Seth]
First it was Verizon. Now it’s T-Mobile. AT&T just can’t stay happy, can they? Instead of Christmas cheer, raindeer, and dudes with glowing noses mocking Big Blue, it is T-Mobile ruffling a few of AT&T’s stiff feathers. The reason for distress: AT&T is unhappy with T-Mobile labeling their HSPA+ rollout as offering “4G-like speeds”.
Boo hoo…
It almost seems like a new Android device is caught, spied, or released on a weekly, if not daily basis. Being an Android junkie myself, I certainly have no problem with this. Especially considering a new, Android slider is in the making…
