AT&T limiting network speed on their Titan?

[HeyCori]

All of AT&T's HSPA+ phones are programmed to say H+ or 4G in the status bar regardless of whether you're actually in an HSPA+ area with advanced backhaul or not.

I was wondering about that too. My phone says 4G but I don't have 4G coverage in my area. The closest place with 4G LTE is Chicago which is about 2 hours away. Regular 4G is again a couple hours away. According to ATTs coverage map I just have regular mobile broadband.

While I do wish I had legit 4G in my area that's not a huge concern to me. What is a problem is how weak the wireless antenna is on the Titan. I swear it reaches only half as far as my Focus. Not only that, the Titan seems to take longer to connect and appears to have a harder time staying connected.

It seems like I'm going to have to rely a lot more on ATTs fake 4G speeds for data even though I work in a building that has wifi on every floor. I don't use a lot of data so my 2GB plan should be good enough.

 

[Rob41664]

I decided to give the Titan another try after everyone kept raving about it thinking I must have missed something when I tried it for a few days instead of my Focus S. I can attest to the fact that my Focus S averages over twice the speed of the Titan on the very same tests done at the very same place. Both my WIFI speeds and 4G are both slower on the Titan.

 

[pdangcil]

I decided to give the Titan another try after everyone kept raving about it thinking I must have missed something when I tried it for a few days instead of my Focus S. I can attest to the fact that my Focus S averages over twice the speed of the Titan on the very same tests done at the very same place. Both my WIFI speeds and 4G are both slower on the Titan.

WOW!!! I find it hard to believe but I guess, it's true. So is this a Titan specific thing because obviously, it's not AT&T?

 

[Major]

Why would AT&T limit the speed on the Titan but not on the Focus S? I doubt HTC would willfully hamstring their device while their competition is unhindered. Considering how many people are complaining about signal strength, it would not be surprising if this was a hardware issue.

 

[kltye]

I had the same unreliable/slow network speeds when I when I had the Focus S for two weeks. For me, if it works, it works fine. But most of the time, I'm getting network timeouts, i.e. completely non-functional data connection. It's become such a problem for me that I'm usually surprised when the data works.

EDIT: This isn't a signal strength issue; at least not for me. I can have full bars of "4G" and still be unable to use the data network.

 

[gtg465x]

Why would AT&T limit the speed on the Titan but not on the Focus S? I doubt HTC would willfully hamstring their device while their competition is unhindered. Considering how many people are complaining about signal strength, it would not be surprising if this was a hardware issue.

Why did they limit the LG Thrill and not the Samsung Infuse or the Samsung Galaxy S II? It's a known fact in that case. Maybe Samsung pushed back when AT&T asked them to limit the speed and HTC just complied like LG did. I find it hard to believe the radio hardware on this phone sucks this bad. HTC has been making phones for a long time. I doubt they suddenly forgot how to make a half decent radio.

 

[Duvi]

I had the same unreliable/slow network speeds when I when I had the Focus S for two weeks. For me, if it works, it works fine. But most of the time, I'm getting network timeouts, i.e. completely non-functional data connection. It's become such a problem for me that I'm usually surprised when the data works.

EDIT: This isn't a signal strength issue; at least not for me. I can have full bars of "4G" and still be unable to use the data network.

Maybe it was specific to that device and not all Focus S devices?

 

[kltye]

Maybe it was specific to that device and not all Focus S devices?

Two devices exhibiting the same exact symptoms? That seems highly coincidental. The two devices were using completely different SIM cards too - one from an AT&T retail store, the other from a Microsoft store.

 

[HeyCori]

I had the same unreliable/slow network speeds when I when I had the Focus S for two weeks. For me, if it works, it works fine. But most of the time, I'm getting network timeouts, i.e. completely non-functional data connection. It's become such a problem for me that I'm usually surprised when the data works.

EDIT: This isn't a signal strength issue; at least not for me. I can have full bars of "4G" and still be unable to use the data network.

I've had that before on my Titan. 4 bars but no connectivity. I turned WiFi off then immediately turned it back on and that fixed the problem. But to be fair that could of been a problem on my end as my router goes from awesome to POS.

 

[kltye]

I've had that before on my Titan. 4 bars but no connectivity. I turned WiFi off then immediately turned it back on and that fixed the problem. But to be fair that could of been a problem on my end as my router goes from awesome to POS.

WiFi has always been great for my on the Titan. I tested it and got 8Mbps over WiFi on my UVerse connection. My laptop on WiFi got 11Mbps. The max speed is usually about 15.8Mbps for me.

I'm not as concerned about speeds as I am reliability - if I can load a page 2 seconds slower than an HSPA+ Android or iPhone, I'd be happy enough.

 

[gtg465x]

Well I think we all agree that the network performance on this phone (the AT&T version at least) isn't what it should be. Whether it's intentional on the part of AT&T, a bug in the firmware, or defective hardware we might never know unless we get some media coverage of the issue. AT&T and HTC need to know that there is an issue here and end users are noticing it.

 

[Reflexx]

Maybe when the Titan gets the 7740 update it will be fixed. In the US, we're still on 7720.

Does anyone know if the International version had this problem before their 7740 update?

 

[Blacklac]

Maybe if someone could put together a solid video showing how the Titan is not running as it should and have an admin post it on the blog, maybe send the video or the link to other tech blogs? Who knows.

 

[jawesome]

Ugh I have no doubt this is true. My Titan is getting less than my Focus S (before I returned it) and about the same as my Focus did. I'll post my results later tonight.

 

[ZombieBacchus]

I live about 15 miles outside of Boston and am averaging between 2.5 ang 3.8 Mbps. Not too happy with that at all.

 

[kevm14]

I'm in RI. 1 bar of 4g and I'm getting 1.5 down and 0.25 up. WiFi seems slower as well but more testing is required.

Sent from my HTC TITAN using Board Express

 

[HeyCori]

AT&T 4G LTE - Get 4G Speed with AT&T 4G LTE & 4G HSPA+

Remember to check the coverage map to see if you actually have 4G in your area.

 

[Blacklac]

I seem to pretty steadily get 1.75Mbps down, while my friend seems to get around 2-2.5Mbps on his iPhone 4, which isn't even HSPA+. I get full signal also. I was told by my local ATT store, our town has had HSPA+ for almost 11 months, also.

 

[Blacklac]

I wonder if APN settings have any effect on this? I dont have any on my phone right now. Could you on ATT post that also?

 

[HeyCori]

My results from the link in the OP. Ran each one 3 times each.

WiFi
1st - 1MB
2nd - 2MB
3rd - 3MB

4G (really 3G) and 1 bar:
1st - 303 kbps
2nd - 474 kbps
3rd - 621 kbps