How to improve the data/signal where I work (T-Mobile)?

Speeds03 · December 13th, 2012, 09:59 AM

My speeds inside the building (on the 40th floor) are ridiculously low. 112kbps Down 367kbps Up on a good day... But when I head outside, or near a window, the speed shoots up to 13MB Down 1MB Up and so on. Is there a better APN setting than the on my phone came with for T-Mobile? A Co-worker of mine that sits right next to me, has an S3 on T-Mobile and gets waaaaaaaay better speeds. Why is this?

sean76 · December 13th, 2012, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speeds03

My speeds inside the building (on the 40th floor) are ridiculously low. 112kbps Down 367kbps Up on a good day... But when I head outside, or near a window, the speed shoots up to 13MB Down 1MB Up and so on. Is there a better APN setting than the on my phone came with for T-Mobile? A Co-worker of mine that sits right next to me, has an S3 on T-Mobile and gets waaaaaaaay better speeds. Why is this?

Hmmmm, that's a weird one? Could be that maybe your co worker is using a different type of sim that's set up for the 42 HSPA+ speeds maybe?

Try switching sim cards with your co worker and see what happens...

Speeds03 · December 13th, 2012, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sean76

Hmmmm, that's a weird one? Could be that maybe your co worker is using a different type of sim that's set up for the 42 HSPA+ speeds maybe?

Try switching sim cards with your co worker and see what happens...

I may try this

Banished Angel · December 13th, 2012, 01:40 PM

Let us know. In my city I get full bars of HSPA+ and on the T-Mobile coverage map I'm in the area with the best coverage, but i can only ever pull 6Mbps down.

sean76 · December 13th, 2012, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Banished Angel

Let us know. In my city I get full bars of HSPA+ and on the T-Mobile coverage map I'm in the area with the best coverage, but i can only ever pull 6Mbps down.

Really? I'm feeling like the speeds on this thing running on T-Mobile are getting faster like everyday here in NY. I'm starting to see speeds that are close to my iphone 5 running on at&t's LTE network. Especially in boroughs like Queens...

Banished Angel · December 13th, 2012, 01:52 PM

This is what I get in Fort Wayne, Indiana. T-Mobile's coverage map says "Excellent". It only says 3G at the top because I waited a minute to take the screen cap. It was H during the test.

EDIT: I'm on the $30 monthly 4G prepaid plan.

Trooper · December 13th, 2012, 01:53 PM

Hey Sean,

What T-Mobile plan do you have, and how did you sign up? Online, in the store, or what?

Thanks.

sean76 · December 13th, 2012, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trooper

Hey Sean,

What T-Mobile plan do you have, and how did you sign up? Online, in the store, or what?

Thanks.

I bought the phone on eBay last week to originally use on at&t but speeds were terrible for the most part, so decided to give Tmo a try

Got the prepaid $70 plan
Unlimited talk and text with 5 GB of data per month.

Did it right in the store.

Have no real complaints so far.

Speeds03 · December 13th, 2012, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sean76

I bought the phone on eBay last week to originally use on at&t but speeds were terrible for the most part, so decided to give Tmo a try

Got the prepaid $70 plan
Unlimited talk and text with 5 GB of data per month.

Did it right in the store.

Have no real complaints so far.

What are your exact APN settings? Also, was the SIM cut down to size for you?

Trooper · December 13th, 2012, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sean76

I bought the phone on eBay last week to originally use on at&t but speeds were terrible for the most part, so decided to give Tmo a try

Got the prepaid $70 plan
Unlimited talk and text with 5 GB of data per month.

Did it right in the store.

Have no real complaints so far.

Good to know man. I see you can buy the sim card/plan online on their website. I may go that route, not sure just yet.

Thanks man.

What kind of speeds are you seeing? Also, what is your coverage area like if you go to their website. Good, Excellent whatever.

I am showing Good for home and Excellent at my work. Just curious. Thanks bud.

sean76 · December 13th, 2012, 05:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speeds03

What are your exact APN settings? Also, was the SIM cut down to size for you?

No card was not cut, directly from Tmobile

Settings are as follows

Name
T-Mobile US

APN
epc.tmobile.com

Proxy
Not set

Username
Not set

Password
Not set

Server
Not set

MMSC
http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc

MMS proxy
Not set

MMS port
Not set

MCC
310

MNC
260

Authentication type
Not set

APN type
default,supl,mms

APN protocol
IPv4

APN roaming protocol
IPv4

APN enable/disable
APN enabled (This should be dark and not lit up)

Bearer
Unspecified

sean76 · December 13th, 2012, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trooper

Good to know man. I see you can buy the sim card/plan online on their website. I may go that route, not sure just yet.

Thanks man.

What kind of speeds are you seeing? Also, what is your coverage area like if you go to their website. Good, Excellent whatever.

I am showing Good for home and Excellent at my work. Just curious. Thanks bud.

All the zip codes that I put in fall under the Excellent category

Which is 4 zip codes in and around NYC and 2 different boroughs.

I'm seeing excellent speeds, ranging from roughly 10Mbps- 16Mbps on the average.

Gotta say, not bad at all. And I haven't dropped one call yet .

Trooper · December 13th, 2012, 06:52 PM

That's cool man. Guess Im a bit concerned since my home falls into the Good category.

Maybe I will try the 30 dollar plan and see how it goes.

sean76 · December 13th, 2012, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trooper

That's cool man. Guess Im a bit concerned since my home falls into the Good category.

Maybe I will try the 30 dollar plan and see how it goes.

Hmmmm, yea I would go with the lowest plan and see how it performs!

If no good, keep rolling with what u got!

There's no lock in anyway, so nothing to loose.

Banished Angel · December 13th, 2012, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sean76

I'm seeing excellent speeds, ranging from roughly 10Mbps- 16Mbps on the average.

Since i'm not getting speeds anywhere near that I think I might switch over to Straight Talk. Only $15 more a month and I'd get unlimited minutes instead of 100 haha. T-Mobile has better data speeds, but i'm not benefiting from those obviously. When you set up Straight Talk does it run through AT&T or T-Mobile? Or both?

LoyalServant · December 14th, 2012, 08:34 AM

You have to pick the service.
You either get AT&T or T-Mobile.

My experiences in NYC (I am from NYC..) on AT&T have been quite bad.
T-Mobile has always outperformed AT&T from my experiences all the way up into Rockland and Westchester.

The only area that I know was abysmal was up in Orange county (Middletown, etc.) when I was there last summer.

Speeds03 · December 14th, 2012, 12:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sean76

No card was not cut, directly from Tmobile

Settings are as follows

Name
T-Mobile US

APN
epc.tmobile.com

Proxy
Not set

Username
Not set

Password
Not set

Server
Not set

MMSC
http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc

MMS proxy
Not set

MMS port
Not set

MCC
310

MNC
260

Authentication type
Not set

APN type
default,supl,mms

APN protocol
IPv4

APN roaming protocol
IPv4

APN enable/disable
APN enabled (This should be dark and not lit up)

Bearer
Unspecified

I have this same setting!

mundane24 · February 14th, 2013, 11:38 PM

that's the same settings that showed up when i first activated my straight talk t-mobile sim! which i found weird as it wasn't a t-mobile sim but a straight talk t-mobile one. maybe when it first connect it grabs that one???? i changed it right away though to follow the activation card that came with the sim.

SiempreTuna · February 15th, 2013, 05:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sean76

No card was not cut, directly from Tmobile

Settings are as follows

Name
T-Mobile US

APN
epc.tmobile.com

Proxy
Not set

Username
Not set

Password
Not set

Server
Not set

MMSC
http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc

MMS proxy
Not set

MMS port
Not set

MCC
310

MNC
260

Authentication type
Not set

APN type
default,supl,mms

APN protocol
IPv4

APN roaming protocol
IPv4

APN enable/disable
APN enabled (This should be dark and not lit up)

Bearer
Unspecified

Have you compared these settings with those of the guy who gets better speeds in the office ..?

silverwolf72 · February 21st, 2013, 07:48 PM

I'm in a good area and I get about 22Mb down on T-Mobil. Unfortunately I still have the same problem when in certain buildings.

skaboy · February 22nd, 2013, 12:34 AM

My nexus 4 does that too where it will go slow but my one s will fly. I think i figured it out (for me at least, correct me if im wrong). If either one of my phones hop on to pcs HSPA it goes considerably slower in many places. Reboot or do a network scan again and it will go back to aws and fly again. My nexus is more prone to this as my one s gets considerably better reception in weak areas on aws.

Perry.Saints · February 24th, 2013, 09:02 PM

This is in Dallas Texas, it fluctuates between here. It's very annoying, I too am on T-Mobile and am curious as to any build prop edits that could possibly fix this problem

Kwala · February 24th, 2013, 09:27 PM

I'm in NYC and it just threw these speeds:

No idea if those are good speeds for my plan. I'm on the $30 - 100/unlmtd/unlmtd.