[eLogikal]

Love my 9700 but I've gotten to the point where I literally cannot use the phone while 3G is on and always drop it to 2G to use the internet. Has anyone else noticed that their 3G is reeeeaaaaalllllyyyy slow or non-existant or do I have a defective phone or SIM?

[NJBlackBerry]

Mine is on 3G all of the time. Browsing and (especially) downloading are noticeable faster on 3G.

Does this occur everywhere you use the 9700 or only in one (or a few) locations.

Also, what version of the OS are you running?

[eLogikal]

I have a 3G indicator all the time no matter where I go. Running on 5.0.0.330

[jjr4884]

depends where you are i gues... t-mobile's 3g is so new compared to at&t's so don't expect it to be up to par right away

when my phone does get 3G (i'd say half the time) it works easily 2x as fast as my curve 8520...

[zGuy]

There's already a thread on this subject.

[eLogikal]

I read that thread first. Bunch of people arguing.

[eLogikal]

I'm in Tampa, FL. According to the map I should be completely saturated in 3G goodness.

[HaTaX]

You should be, but remember they may have not upgraded all the data pipes going to the towers so capacity could be an issue. I'd guess over the next year we can expect to see some jumps in speed as they upgrade the bandwidth available to the towers.

[eLogikal]

But the thing is is that my data most of the time when on 3G won't even connect. I have to go into Mobile Network Options and change the setting from 3G + 2G to 2G only to do anything productive. Other people with a 9700 on TMO in my area do not experience the same problem. I'm going to assume it's defective as I had my SIM replaced today and no change. Do you think an OS upgrade would help?

[ericthebikeman]

It is obscenely slow in Minneapolis / St. Paul and Bloomington near the MSP airport. All of it supposedly has 3G, but the speed is god aweful. I've heard tethering doesn't have that problem. I'd like to know what parallel dimension those people residing in because it is far far worse.

[HaTaX]

Eric, if you're "the" bike man around here, then I must give kudos to your guys at the Eagan store, they got my wife and I setup nicely and were great to work with! And even more kudos to you as I've watched you rise quite quickly in the area!!

And as far as the 3G speed in the southern burbs, it does suck. At home my speeds are normally 300K or so with 500K spikes. Tethered I've had the same experience, but haven't had a chance to try it out at other places just yet.

Speedtest also seems to be sketchy on the 9700.. I've noticed if I remove my APN settings it works most of the time, but with the epc.tmobile.com APN it seems to hang up and fail quite often. Odd...

[ericthebikeman]

Originally Posted by HaTaX

Eric, if you're "the" bike man around here, then I must give kudos to your guys at the Eagan store, they got my wife and I setup nicely and were great to work with! And even more kudos to you as I've watched you rise quite quickly in the area!!

And as far as the 3G speed in the southern burbs, it does suck. At home my speeds are normally 300K or so with 500K spikes. Tethered I've had the same experience, but haven't had a chance to try it out at other places just yet.

Speedtest also seems to be sketchy on the 9700.. I've noticed if I remove my APN settings it works most of the time, but with the epc.tmobile.com APN it seems to hang up and fail quite often. Odd...

Sorry, I don't "pedal good bikes" I did buy my Specialized there two years ago as well as my prior bike. I am from the same small suburb as that other Erik but I've never met him.

I'll try pulling the APN out to see if that helps. I also read that FIFO may be a source of some trouble, but that would only affect tethering.

It does drop out altogether around the state fair grounds just outside UMN St. Paul. It also doesn't seem to like vehicle movement when tethered. Maybe cell to cell handoffs aren't completely ironed out yet.
At least there are other nice features on the 9700 while they iron this out.

[Jack T. Chance]

Just my 2¢, for what it's worth...

CALL T-MOBILE TECHNICAL SUPPORT! Since you'd be trouble-shooting your BlackBerry, do NOT call from your T-Mobile BlackBerry. From a different phone line (your office phone, your home land line phone, if you have one, your significant other's cell phone) call either 1-800-937-8997 or 1-877-746-0909 and tell the automated menu system you want "BlackBerry Technical Support". Whenever I've had a really unusual problem with my BlackBerry, I've found them to be EXTREMELY knowledgeable and VERY helpful.

And this way, if there's a genuine problem not with your phone, but with the cell tower in your area, they'll know about it and can open a trouble ticket on the issue.

[Qban Rascal]

Originally Posted by eLogikal

I'm in Tampa, FL. According to the map I should be completely saturated in 3G goodness.

im in Tampa also and 3g is definately slower than 2g here

[Jack T. Chance]

Originally Posted by Qban Rascal

I'm in Tampa also and 3g is definitely slower than 2g here

Good grief! That makes NO sense!

It must be some insidious plot by the senior citizens in the area. I guess your neighbors are the Slowskys.

[callcom]

I have 5 bars of 3G goodness, but sometimes data requests fail to go through or just freezes in the BB Browser. Other times 3G disappears completely (despite strong coverage), and gives me an EDGE connection. I am running a leaked build, so I admit I didn't thoroughly test it with the original OS. Here's my phone build info, maybe we can find a common denominator:

Mexico 4, Line 23. Made 031109

[Tournstone]

I'm in Houston where 3G T-Moble has been a while. Had a G1 about a year ago and was getting really amazing speeds on T-Mobile 3G. Just got my BB9700 and I quite shocked at the low speeds I am getting. About 300kbps average either straight inside the BB browser or tethered. Using i.dslr.net/tinyspeedtest.html in all instances (since the BB browser cant handle much else). Says I have a full blown 3G signal, but the results say otherwise. I could have kept my 8900 for this.

[joginder]

I am in Phoenix area and always on 3G but I see no difference between my 9700 or past 9000. Even sometime its worst speed. Glad the battery life is better otherwise I would have set my BB to use 2G all times. Now I do switch to 2G when traveling so to save battery. but 3G does not gave me any speed improvement

[eLogikal]

I'm back. I switched to a G1 for about 3 weeks to test my area. 3G in Tampa was fast as hell on the G1. Went to the T-Mobile store and got a brand new 9700... SAME PROBLEM! Slow to NO connection when on 3G with full bars plus if I'm on 3G I drop 97% of my calls, the only way I hold a call is on EDGE or UMA. I don't get it!!!

[clifford938]

barely faster than dial up, with me and ATT 3G in San Francisco