Questions about HSPA+ 42mbps, 4G, and the Nexus 4

[cookedgoose]

Just had a few questions about HSPA+ 42mbps and 4G.


Friend is planning to switch over to T-Mobile and was hoping to get a good idea of his options. I've recommended the Nexus 4, but wanted to know a little more about the phone's speeds in the coming years. He probably plans to keep the N4 for at least 2 years. In light of TMO's LTE network coming online, is there any risk his HSPA+ speeds will drop as a result of all that spectrum refarming that's occurring? I'm already seeing my HSPA+ 21mbps decreasing as the months go by. Would it be feasible for him to enable the 4G internet that's baked into this phone when Band 4 LTE is available? I read somewhere that it won't be able to achieve speeds equal to or better than any upcoming LTE phones that'll support LTE without needing the tweaks shown on youtube. Is that true?

 

[Crashdamage]

My area has been refarmed for 1900 and has LTE but that has not and should not affect HSPA+ speed.

You cannot activate LTE on a Nexus 4 unless you stay with Android 4.1.2. Current version is 4.2.2. No matter - you won't' miss LTE. HSPA+ is fast.

 

[new optimus]

Just had a few questions about HSPA+ 42mbps and 4G.


Friend is planning to switch over to T-Mobile and was hoping to get a good idea of his options. I've recommended the Nexus 4, but wanted to know a little more about the phone's speeds in the coming years. He probably plans to keep the N4 for at least 2 years. In light of TMO's LTE network coming online, is there any risk his HSPA+ speeds will drop as a result of all that spectrum refarming that's occurring? I'm already seeing my HSPA+ 21mbps decreasing as the months go by. Would it be feasible for him to enable the 4G internet that's baked into this phone when Band 4 LTE is available? I read somewhere that it won't be able to achieve speeds equal to or better than any upcoming LTE phones that'll support LTE without needing the tweaks shown on youtube. Is that true?

My area has been refarmed for 1900 and has LTE but that has not and should not affect HSPA+ speed.

You cannot activate LTE on a Nexus 4 unless you stay with Android 4.1.2. Current version is 4.2.2. No matter - you won't' miss LTE. HSPA+ is fast.

You can, just check out the nexus 4 lte thread on xda forum.

At this time tmo has decided to keep hspa + 42 going by using slightly less spectrum for lte in the future they could and probably will repurpose the spectrum for lte but by the time they do no one will still have hspa + only phones.