AT&T Turns Off 4G on New Motorola and HTC Phones

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,399
When is a 4G plan just a 3G plan? You will have to ask AT&T since the communications giant has flipped the switch on the new smartphones. AT&T has been pelted with customer complaints, so instead of fixing the problem, the company simply turned off the 4G capabilities. Neat solution, no?

For AT&T's consumer and small-business customers, however, two years is a device lifetime, Pierce noted. "AT&T's HSUPA lapse is certainly providing 4G-hungry customers with ample reason to seek out other providers," she added.
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I'm sure the FCC will look kindly upon this when considering the merger. :rolleyes:
 
LOL I had at@t since 2007, it was my second time with them, I had a OLD FLIP PHONE. I got the Inspire for 99 bux and even 3g sucked no matter where I went. Customer support sucked, I went to the store and returned it, holding my new thunderbolt from verizon in my hand, nothing but assholes in the store. They lie ALOT about everything. I do not know if they are trained to do this or the people at my local store are just full of shit in real life stuff too but it was SAD ! Very sad, the inspire from AT@t and the thunderbolt from verizon are essentially identical aside from slightly better battery an extra camera and a bigger storage card. They were trying to tell me I got an inferior product and that my grandfathered unlimited plan was not unlimited blah blah blah... was pretty hilarious.
 
dick move? hope you werent referring to me, I been on at@t since 07 and was on them for like 10 years before. most of my family uses at@t, they treated me like an asshole from the get go and lied to me about EVERYTHING. No loyalty whatsoever they didn't care about any of that. Instead they just lie !

I'm gonna bring everyone over to verizon LOL
 
Rattle said:
dick move? hope you werent referring to me, I been on at@t since 07 and was on them for like 10 years before. most of my family uses at@t, they treated me like an asshole from the get go and lied to me about EVERYTHING. No loyalty whatsoever they didn't care about any of that. Instead they just lie !

I'm gonna bring everyone over to verizon LOL
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No, I mean this is a dick move by AT&T...
 
Rattle said:
LOL I had at@t since 2007, it was my second time with them, I had a OLD FLIP PHONE. I got the Inspire for 99 bux and even 3g sucked no matter where I went. Customer support sucked, I went to the store and returned it, holding my new thunderbolt from verizon in my hand, nothing but assholes in the store. They lie ALOT about everything. I do not know if they are trained to do this or the people at my local store are just full of shit in real life stuff too but it was SAD ! Very sad, the inspire from AT@t and the thunderbolt from verizon are essentially identical aside from slightly better battery an extra camera and a bigger storage card. They were trying to tell me I got an inferior product and that my grandfathered unlimited plan was not unlimited blah blah blah... was pretty hilarious.
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Joe Average said:
No, I mean this is a dick move by AT&T...
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NP

yeah they said it wasnt the same in the store lol we have 4g don't worry you need a new sim and $50 worth of accessories ROFL.

My tbolt gets 20 down driving down the highway same spot my inspire with HSUPA or whatever they call it 3g+ got maybe 2??
 
Rattle said:
dick move? hope you werent referring to me, I been on at@t since 07 and was on them for like 10 years before. most of my family uses at@t, they treated me like an asshole from the get go and lied to me about EVERYTHING. No loyalty whatsoever they didn't care about any of that. Instead they just lie !

I'm gonna bring everyone over to verizon LOL
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Man you get rattled easy. Sounds to me like you went to one of ATT's corp stores. I've heard they have known to mislead people in the past. Personally I've never dealt with the ATT stores, I've always used BB so to get the rewardzone points and then call ATT when something gets screwed up. I'm sure you willnot ever have any problems once you switch over to the Verizon.:rolleyes:

On topic........ See what bitching gets you? Cutoff LOL So someone tell me, are they charging extra for 4G speed? If not then you really can't bitch. As with anything new there my be some speed bumps along the way.
 
Edit your build.prop

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As long as the consumer allows them to alter the conditions of the contract whenever they want, I dont see why this is a problem.
Rules are always subject to change for them so deal with it.
 
Meh...

As dumb as this may sound, it really doesn't matter :p

As I've mentioned in another thread, going after 4G/LTE makes no technical sense anyway... With their current infrastructure 4G/LTE is a complete waste. The underlying infrastructure can't even support their 3G/HSPA implementation which supports up to 14mbit and 5.8Mbit up...

I've certainly never recorded more than 3.5mbit down and 1.2Mbit up...

Its obvious to me that 3G is not the current bottleneck. Its the bandwidth of the wired infrastructure that connects to the 3G access antennas that is the problem. Upgrading the handsets and the antennas to 4G/LTE won't make squat of difference. It will still perform at the same speed.

It's sort of like upgrading from a Geforce 9800GTX to a Geforce GTX580 when your processor is still a Pentium 3... It's not going to do a whole lot of good... Other than marketing purposes..

The end user would be better off if they spent their 4G/LTE money on improving their networks instead.

I - of course - know why they are doing it this way though. It's all about marketing.
Now they can chant "WE HAVE 4G" in all their ads, but it will still be just as slow as their 3G implementation if not slower as the user base continues to grow and taxes the existing network infrastructure even more...
 
I laugh pretty hard every time i hear "america's fastest network" commercial even though they been proven to have the slowest 4G if they even have it lol. Though really i mean wtf isn't that utter and total false advertising?
 
I love how everybody completely ignores my post which shows that you can get 4g speeds on AT&T ( I have an Inspire 4g). You just need to tinker it a little bit
 
quackduck said:
I love how everybody completely ignores my post which shows that you can get 4g speeds on AT&T ( I have an Inspire 4g). You just need to tinker it a little bit
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Thats because your screenshot is showing 3G speeds, not 4G speeds. I thought it was an example of how BAD AT&T's 4G is.

as I have mentioned before. AT&T's 3G (HSPA) is capable of up to 14Mbit down and 5.8Mbit up. I get 3.5Mbit down and 1.2Mbit up (at best) with my IPhone 4, a 3G phone.

THIS is a screenshot of my friends speedtest when tethered to his HTC Thunderbolt (4G LTE on Verizon)

199697_955650336992_9103289_48833188_2188972_n.jpg


Those are 4G speeds.

2.6Mbit down is only about 18.5% of what AT&T's 3G is supposed to be capable of.
 
quackduck said:
I love how everybody completely ignores my post which shows that you can get 4g speeds on AT&T ( I have an Inspire 4g). You just need to tinker it a little bit
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Here is a screenshot of me beating your supposed "4G Speeds" with my 3G iPhone...

4756513306_6ffc5e7bcf_o.png
 
quackduck said:
I love how everybody completely ignores my post which shows that you can get 4g speeds on AT&T ( I have an Inspire 4g). You just need to tinker it a little bit
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Uhhh, the benchmark you posted shows poor 3g speeds, definitely not 4g. You aren't even over 10mbps. Your phone might say it's connecting with 4g, but those speeds are horrible.
 
What everyone, including the author of that article (worthless article IMHO) seems to be getting stuck on, is that they are talking about HSUPA which is the uplink type only. That will not make any noticeable difference unless you're uploading photo or video.

What ATT has done to make their network "4G" as it were is begun updating the HSDPA standard to HSPA+, just the same as T-Mobile has. The difference here is it's only a protocol upgrade nothing more. If they don't have the backbone to handle it (which they don't) then it makes no difference in speed at all. They already don't have enough backbone to reliably give their 'old' HSDPA 7.2mbit/s standard.
 
If I bought a 4G phone from AT&T and now they say it's limited to 3G speed, I'd want a refund!

My work phone is AT&T and even in Phoenix, AZ (think flat) I get spotty coverage. My Droid on Verizon works everywhere AT&T does and doesn't.

AT&T sucks.
 
[Retaliation];1037064586 said:
yet one more reason they will never be my cell provider :eek:
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Mine either. If they were the last provider left I would use a dixie cup and some string for a phone. :eek:
 
I* will never do anything with AT&T for as long as I live. Their customer service is crap, constantly try to tack charges onto your accounts, the service is unreliable and their customer service is a joke. . I finally had enough when they kept allowing an unscrupulous company put 3rd parts charges on my account that I never authorized. After 4 months trying to resolve the issue I got fed up. So I discontinued my internet service, land line and cell phone. I paid the part of the bill that I owed and left them holding the bag on all the BS charges that weren't mine.

Got a charter 25/5 cable connection that's more reliable and only goes out once a year for a short period of time and switched my cell to sprint. I'm very happy now.
 
God. I can't believe I'm losing my great Tmo contract to these ATT assholes. Thanks a lot, I have to get Verizon by next year now. Ugh
 
Its really sad they offer such a great phone (Motorola Atrix) and then cripple it with their horrible network. That phone should be on Verizon. LTE is absolutely amazing on my Thunderbolt, at least here in Houston. No disconnections, solid from my house to work and between while commuting.
 
CrimandEvil said:
God. I can't believe I'm losing my great Tmo contract to these ATT assholes. Thanks a lot, I have to get Verizon by next year now. Ugh
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FCC has to approve it and if that happens it will be a while. You should have plenty of time to plan accordingly and be out before any big changes happen.

Besides im no lawyer but IIRC if they alter your plan you can cancel without a fee.
 
nerdydesi said:
Its really sad they offer such a great phone (Motorola Atrix) and then cripple it with their horrible network. That phone should be on Verizon. LTE is absolutely amazing on my Thunderbolt, at least here in Houston. No disconnections, solid from my house to work and between while commuting.
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And then some. I mean ATT offers a lot of neat cool phones, but the service, plans, etc arent that great. Can't wait for the EV0 3d to come out, then I am going to jump ship.
 
hahah. i love ATT...... where less is more !

less bandwidth, less speed, less everything, except price.
 
Have you guys noticed how crappy smartphones work when you make a call. I'm talking about the voice bandwidth. I always wondered what's the point of investing so much on a phone if it doesn't done the basic thing it's supposed to do. I always thought it was the networks but this is ridiculous.
 
so instead of them investing 4-5 billions into network and towers and getting ready for LTE4G
they drop 40 billions to hope on fake 4g/ hspa+ on tmobile network
 
Oh how I'd love to leave AT&T :( I got a Verizon Droid X phone as a test phone from work and sure enough, crappy coverage at my home. I walk in the front door and my 3G coverage drops to a single bar at 1X (whatever that means). I have to literally stand outside to make a reliable phone call, and even then the phone never connects to the 3G network for more than a couple seconds.

On the other hand, my Iphone 3GS connects at 3G in the house reliably all day long.

I wish Verizon would put up a new tower or whatever they have to do to increase coverage. I would love to leave AT&T, but so far it looks like I'm stuck with them for the forseeable future..
 
4G doesn't exist as far as cell carriers go. its a marketing gimmick. There is no true 4g yet.
 
WTF is 4G anyway? For me it's a marketing term that means absolutely nothing, since practically every large carrier has a different 3G/4G network.
 
Zion Halcyon said:
4G doesn't exist as far as cell carriers go. its a marketing gimmick. There is no true 4g yet.
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Gimmick or not at least sprint and verizons gimmick offers a real speed increase worth mentioning.

Not that I care if won't get 4th here in my lifetime.
 
Disposed said:
Gimmick or not at least sprint and verizons gimmick offers a real speed increase worth mentioning.

Not that I care if won't get 4th here in my lifetime.
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I think you meant to take Sprint out of your sentence. The only reason you get a speed increase is because Sprint's "3G" sucks.
 
This story is a bit confusing. The Motorola Atrix 4G and the HTC Inspire 4G are capable of HSUPA+ speeds but never utilized that faster option since day one. AT&T hasn't hit some switch on it's network, it simply instructed Motorola and HTC to limit the handsets to HSDPA via firmware. Current AT&T iPhone 4 customers are able to break the 300kbps upload barrier on a regular basis so that shows that the network is not being throttled. What IS happening is that AT&T is taking advantage of the open nature of Android and crippling these new so called 4G smartphones until they have sufficient network back haul in place. I'm a big fan of open source but companies like AT&T are going to end up forcing Google to lock down Android to prevent abuses that damage the brand.
 
StryderxX said:
This story is a bit confusing. The Motorola Atrix 4G and the HTC Inspire 4G are capable of HSUPA+ speeds but never utilized that faster option since day one. AT&T hasn't hit some switch on it's network, it simply instructed Motorola and HTC to limit the handsets to HSDPA via firmware. Current AT&T iPhone 4 customers are able to break the 300kbps upload barrier on a regular basis so that shows that the network is not being throttled. What IS happening is that AT&T is taking advantage of the open nature of Android and crippling these new so called 4G smartphones until they have sufficient network back haul in place. I'm a big fan of open source but companies like AT&T are going to end up forcing Google to lock down Android to prevent abuses that damage the brand.
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Does anybody notices something wrong this statement or is it just me?
When did marketing became more important than the product you actually make. And I'm not talking about it at an enterprise level. I'm talking at a consumer level. Like why is StryderxX talking about it in such fashion. If it sucks it sucks. Who gives a fuck about the brand? That's like inviting them to rape you with your legs open.
 
Enduring_Warrior said:
Does anybody notices something wrong this statement or is it just me?
When did marketing became more important than the product you actually make. And I'm not talking about it at an enterprise level. I'm talking at a consumer level. Like why is StryderxX talking about it in such fashion. If it sucks it sucks. Who gives a fuck about the brand? That's like inviting them to rape you with your legs open.
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If we look at the current smartphone OS picture you'll see 3 main players: Apples iOS, Googles Android and Microsofts Windows Phone 7. Out of the three only Google lets the network carrier completely change the OS experience to the point where Androids fundamental abilities are compromised. Since Google needed all hardware manufacturers and carriers onboard at Androids inception they allowed them to pretty much do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. Androids issue with fragmentation is proving that Googles early decisions are coming back to haunt them which is why Google is changing the game plan with Honeycomb.
 
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