Why are 2g and 3g towers being advertised as 4g towers

Do you have a proper 4g sim or do you have a phone that will receive 4g? Not all phones will receive 4g and you have to have the correct SIM to get 4g.

The phone is a BB Z30.   Called 611 and that is what two people told me.  Even though my phone shows 4G on the screen doesnt mean that I am getting 4g. I was told that in my town I was under 2g and 3g towers.  The nearest 4g tower is to the west about 15 miles away.  I was ALSO told the nearest LTE tower was about 13 miles south of me. I already knew that about LTE coverage south. I was told that the 1.3mb speed that I was seeing on average was 3g speed. 4g speed was 5-9mb per sec.  It was not easy to get them to cough up those specs either.

Investigation continues:

Went into the local att store yesterday. I was told another lie by " the manager". This is more specific hate and ignorance for BB products. He told me that the new BB10 data plans were actually compressing data. This is why I am seeing slow data speed. I told him that I am usually seeing 1 mb download speed , sometimes 1.4. He told me it should be 3-5mb per sec. That is completley false. http://n4bb.com/blackberry-10-longer-compresses-personal-data/   How is that att allows such incompetance to live in their stores?  There is no excuse. Its been common knowledge for TWO YEARS that there is no compression of data for BB10 products.  I was also told by someone else that the towers in my town are 4g or actually HSPA+ . I told him that ATT support told me that was not the case. He told me I was wrong.  This is happening 25 miles from a second largest city in my state and the midwest.  I asked him to perform a speed test there of the 4g connection they were claiming. He said he could not do that.

So I walked away with a complete understanding that att doesnt care its customers and continues misrepresent its network at all times whenever possible.

for one hspa or hspa+ is what att claims is 4g is really 3.5g.  The thing is they can do this becuase the ITU has no guts to stand up to the carriers.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/17/2g-3g-4g-and-everything-in-between-an-engadget-wireless-prim/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G

I hope you are not trying to make an excuse for this?

I visited another att corporate store today 30 miles away. This town has LTE.  I had the store test LTE speed, they saw 11mbps . He did not how test 4g. No problem- I CAN.   I tested 8 MBPS STRONG on " 4g " speedwith my Z30.  Back to my town and 2g -3g towers and 1 MBPS speeds.

This is a clear misrespensentation of the towers and speeds by att corporate stores and ALL advertising. I suspect that if you do not have LTE in your area, then you will not have true 4g speed towers. Unacceptable and deceptive business att.

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@Motorhead77 wrote:

I hope you are not trying to make an excuse for this?

 

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Its clear for Glimmerman's wording he is actually criticizing the ITUs definition.

But the definition still remains, HSPA+ is 4G.  It doesn't meet the original requirements of 4G, and its clear the ITU caved to powerful US telecom carriers to change the definition.  But like it or nor, the letter of the law says HSPA+ is 4G.

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@Motorhead77 wrote:

I hope you are not trying to make an excuse for this?

 

I visited another att corporate store today 30 miles away. This town has LTE.  I had the store test LTE speed, they saw 11mbps . He did not how test 4g. No problem- I CAN.   I tested 8 MBPS STRONG on " 4g " speedwith my Z30.  Back to my town and 2g -3g towers and 1 MBPS speeds.

 

This is a clear misrespensentation of the towers and speeds by att corporate stores and ALL advertising. I suspect that if you do not have LTE in your area, then you will not have true 4g speed towers. Unacceptable and deceptive business att.

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ATT gives you no speed guarantee they never have.  Once your town gets LTE yes your speeds should increase.  There is more bandwidth installed in the tower.  If your getting a hspa or hspa+ signal then you are receiving 4g there is no speed requirment for that designation.

Motorhead77,

Speed as measured at the UE can be influenced by several factors in the network, and not all of them are related to the specific RAN technology you might be accessing.  As you've indicated, you're in an area that is not currently covered by LTE.  If it is covered by UMTS/WCDMA, then it's covered by HSPA or HSPA+.

Factors influencing speed:

RF conditions: This can be influenced by carrier (specific frequency band), power levels, building materials, foliage, and/or the presence of interference.  If RF signal conditions are poor, the modulation type will change from 64QAM to 16QAM or possibly QPSK.  This means less information can be packed on the link.

Backhaul:  Unfortunately not all sites have as much backhaul as we'd like - that's the amount of information able to get from the tower back into the core and vice versa.  While we have converted a majority of the network to ETTCS, some areas remain that are difficult to get ethernet service to and these may remain on ATM over T1s.

Number of UEs:  The more UEs camped on each sector of a site, the less information that can be delivered to each specific UE in a set period of time.  If you are being served by a site that is fairly remote this can be an issue because your UE can't just move to a different cell site.

UE - User Equipment (phone)

Modulation types: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Speed_Downlink_Packet_Access#Adaptive_modulation_and_coding

I appreciate everyones technical explanation. Ultimatley though, sorrry does not feed bulldog! If a customer is expected to pay or is paying 30 dollars a month and resides and works most of the time in an area that clearly has for whatever reason SLOW speeds. How and why is " alright " that we have to accept that we are not being fleeced? We should have an automatic utilization credit. My data usage is around 1gb a month. I am not a burden on the network and have been a customer for over ten years. I pay my bill right on time and it is now an automatic deduction when att wants to take my money.  How can I get what I am paying for?  My data usage would be higher if the data speeds had some quality attached to them.

Glimmerman 76  Call att. I did we are supposed to see 5-9mbps on a 4g data plan. Corporate stor will say 3-7mbps.

@Motorhead77 

I know what the party line is about speeds but that is a fully equipped hspa+ tower.  Do I agree with the speeds your getting no.  I was in that boat till LTE went live where I live and ATT upgraded the panels on the tower.