Slow 3G speeds?

[JRSly]

I apologize if this is not quite the right place for this thread, please feel free to move it wherever it might be better suited.

This is my first smartphone and my first experience with any sort of high-speed mobile internet, so talk to me like an idiot. But my 3g speeds seem to be incredibly slow and I'm hoping there's something I can do about it.

I might've just chalked it up to poor coverage in this area, but I get consistent 4 bars and I've ran SpeedTest.net and XtremeLabs Speedtest and, oddly, I'm getting very high numbers for upload speeds which seems to suggest the network is fine in this vicinity and something else is going on. WiFi speeds are perfect, very quick.

Here are the results of my most recent tests.

SpeedTest.net
Download: 100 kbps
Upload: 855 kbps

XtremeLabs
Max Download: 100.2 kbps
Upload: 223.6 kbps (Don't know about the large discrepancy here)

So is there any course of action I can take to improve the situation? I've not tested speeds at any other locations yet(just got the phone Wednesday) but the high upload speed seems to tell me that it's not just a matter of my house being a 3g dead zone. And of course, this is my first experience so maybe I'm completely wrong with all my assumptions.

 

[vincentp]

I got similar results the first time I ran a speed test, but then I realized that I was doing it at work where my signal strength was fluctuating, even though I was in 3g coverage. When I tried it again at home (where my signal is a steady 4 bars) my speeds were significantly higher.

 

[Howie]

yeah I usually average 450kbps

 

[colnago]

I go from 200kb to 1.2Mb just by moving my phone 1ft on my desk. Just found some interesting results...check my thread:

http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/19985-homemade-antenna-breakthrough-3g-1x-switching.html

 

[JRSly]

I go from 200kb to 1.2Mb just by moving my phone 1ft on my desk. Just found some interesting results...check my thread:

http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/19985-homemade-antenna-breakthrough-3g-1x-switching.html

Ha, I was incredulous...again I thought the high upload speeds contradicted this idea, but like I also said I don't really have much knowledge when it comes to these things. But I just tried the tests again in the other side of the room and I got 1.5 Mbs...so yeah, it can vary wildly based on location. Wow.

 

[colnago]

Yeah, its typical for me to see ~250kb up/ 700kb down. Does anyone know if VZ uses different channels for send/receive? Maybe this partly explains the 3G/1x switching issue, along with the flip-flop web speeds, and 1-way echo on non-DROID end.

 

[MSU]

I'm streaming pandora right now and I'm in my office. I get 891kbps dwn adn 615 up

Now I stopped pandora and walked to window and get 1920 kbps dwn & 620 up