Alphabet Soup?

[George Ponder]

Does anyone know what all the letters mean that appear from time to time in the top bar of the BJII? The bar that shows you the battery life, signal strength?

I've gotten an "E", "G", and "M" as well as the "3G". At first I thought the "E" was for "Email" and the "M" for messages but you get nifty little icons for those.

I then thought the "E" meant emergency calls only but I had two bars on my signal strength.

I looked in the ATT owner's manual and if this information is in there, I missed it completely.

 

[Dieter Bohn]

Does anyone know what all the letters mean that appear from time to time in the top bar of the BJII? The bar that shows you the battery life, signal strength?

I've gotten an "E", "G", and "M" as well as the "3G". At first I thought the "E" was for "Email" and the "M" for messages but you get nifty little icons for those.

I then thought the "E" meant emergency calls only but I had two bars on my signal strength.

I looked in the ATT owner's manual and if this information is in there, I missed it completely.

E is for EDGE, meaning your data is slow.
G is for GPRS, meaning it's REALLY slow
3G is for either HSDPA or UMTS, meaning your data is fast but your battery life is draining slightly faster
M is for.... Monster? Does it show up in the same place as the data indicators?

 

[George Ponder]

Thanks.... the M appeared this morning the same place the E, G, etc. show up. I wonder if it stand for molasses as in data transfer as slow as....

 

[woodtull]

E is for EDGE, meaning your data is slow.
G is for GPRS, meaning it's REALLY slow
3G is for either HSDPA or UMTS, meaning your data is fast but your battery life is draining slightly faster
M is for.... Monster? Does it show up in the same place as the data indicators?

There has been a lot of chatter on the other forums that the BJ2 indicator is faulty between E and G. In other words, it displays G when it really has an Edge connection. I have found this to be the case for myself. If you can learn to ignore it, it's not a problem.

EDIT> I personally don't need 3G and shut it off by dialing *#1546792*# Make sure you don't have a data connection when you try to enter this. Turning off 3G (i) improves battery life and (ii) avoids the dropped call issue when you're switching between 3G and Edge areas. You do miss the extra nice call quality that 3G supposedly offers but I don't noticed a difference.

 

[Certs]

You probably had mistaken the H for an M (its IS small), which is HSDPA- and active 3G connection. Sometimes you see the H, sometimes it stays on 3G. Not sure why, it always uses HSDPA

 

[Dieter Bohn]

You probably had mistaken the H for an M (its IS small), which is HSDPA- and active 3G connection. Sometimes you see the H, sometimes it stays on 3G. Not sure why, it always uses HSDPA

OOOOHHHH! that makes perfect sense.

I think it says 3G when it's UMTS (which IIRC has a higher battery drain. It's def. slower) and H when it's HSDPA

 

[KStewart]

OOOOHHHH! that makes perfect sense.

I think it says 3G when it's UMTS (which IIRC has a higher battery drain. It's def. slower) and H when it's HSDPA

I have yet to experience HSDPA if that is the case...and if that is the case, I should shut my trap as far as Sprints 3G network seeming faster than AT$T since I have joined in comparison. Let me give HSDPA a try becasue what I thought was HSDPA may appearantly be UMTS. You will have to excuse me, I am new to the GSM world.