While 4G LTE offers incredibly fast Internet upload and download speeds on AT&T’s US network, the problem with owning a 4G LTE device is that the battery life is slightly shortened as the 4G radio is slightly more power hungry than the last generation HSPA+. HSPA 3G modems. The Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone is no exception. Fortunately for AT&T customers, AT&T uses both 4G HSPA+ and 4G LTE technologies in its network, and the latest LTE smartphones support both protocols.
HSPA+ offers good, acceptable performance and saves a little more power, but AT&T is forcing customers in LTE coverage areas to use LTE. This is because LTE is more efficient at processing data and causes less network load. Customers concerned about battery life can switch to HSPA+ if they accept a small increase in speed.
To do this, users can download an LTE switch app/widget from the Google Play Store or manually configure the settings from the Android settings menu.
If you want to configure Android settings yourself, here’s how to do it:
- From your home screen, press the capacitive touch Android menu button to the left of the Galaxy S III home button.
- choose ‘Settings’
- Under “Wireless and network”, select “Other settings”
- Scroll to the bottom of the list and select ‘Mobile networks’
- Click on ‘Access Point Names’
- Press the menu button to the left of the home button and select ‘+ New APN’
- Tap ‘APN’ and type ‘wap.cingular’ and hit ‘Done’
- Type the name you want in the ‘Name’ box.
- Then press the menu button again and select ‘Save’
The mobile network will take some time to kick in, but if you’re covered by HSPA+, you’ll notice that the 4G icon in the top Android status bar doesn’t show LTE in it.
With 4G HSPA+ it averages between 3-5 Mbps on the download side and about 1 Mbps on the upload side, significantly slower than the 10-30 Mbps download and 3-10 Mbps upload speeds on AT&T’s 4G HSPA+ network. But these speeds are fast enough to stream music and videos, surf the web comfortably, and check email and social networking feeds. If you’re uploading an HD video file to YouTube, Flickr or other sites, you may want to switch back to LTE as upload speeds are much higher on LTE.
AT&T’s HSPA+ network does well, though not as fast as AT&T 4G LTE or T-Mobile HSPA+ speeds
Considering AT&T’s fast fiber home Uverse service starts at 3 Mbps on the download side, the network’s mobile HSPA+ data matches these baseline speeds; this is pretty impressive when you consider how far mobile networks have come to catch up with home and cable services.
AT&T’s 4G LTE speeds are impressive, but LTE consumes more battery power
However, it is notable that T-Mobile uses a faster HSPA+ network with lower latency compared to AT&T’s HSPA+ implementation. However, if you’re not interested in playing MMO games that require lower latency, AT&T’s HSPA+ speeds are fine.
