topic Re: LTE or 3G? in Get Support

LTE or 3G?

mizzlm — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 11:16:47 GMT

I'm confused as to why my phone says it's running on LTE data but my plan says 3G? Is it LTE or 3G? Sorry if this question has been asked already.

Re: LTE or 3G?

GinYVR — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 17:26:47 GMT

@mizzlm Because Public Mobile throttles your LTE connection to 3G like speeds while running on LTE.

Re: LTE or 3G?

mimmo — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 17:26:17 GMT

You are using the lte networks slowed down to 3g speeds.

Re: LTE or 3G?

sheytoon — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 17:37:34 GMT

Hi @mizzlm, all plans are allowed to use the LTE network. It's just that "3G" plans are throttled to 3 Mbps.

It's a very poorly named plan, and causes continuous confusion for new customers.

@Alan_K here's another example. Tagging you as @srlawren has been doing.

Re: LTE or 3G?

popping — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 18:46:26 GMT

PM 3G plan allows subscribers to set their phone to use LTE or 3G signals. You can get full 3G signal speed up to 7 Mbps. If you set your phone to use LTE data, PM will throttled your data speed down to 3Mbps. The advantage of using LTE data is low latency. i.e. faster response.

Make sure that you don't set your phone to LTE only because PM is using 3G singal for voice calls.

Re: LTE or 3G?

srlawren — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 05:05:27 GMT

@sheytoon wrote:

@Alan_K here's another example. Tagging you as @srlawren has been doing.

@sheytoon thanks for picking up the torch! Please feel free to continue to jump on these every time you see them, it's greatly appreaciated!

Re: LTE or 3G?

srlawren — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 05:08:31 GMT

@popping wrote:
You can get full 3G signal speed up to 7 Mbps.

@popping are you referring to when forcing your phone down to UMTS/HSPA+? If so, then I'm pretty sure you can get beyond 7Mbps at times--under the right real-world conditions, you could definitely see double that or even a bit more with HSPA+. You points stand however: Public Mobile only throttles LTE connections with a "3G" speed data plan; you can enjoy the full available speed of HSPA+ by forcing your phone to use that rather than LTE.

Re: LTE or 3G?

sheytoon — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 22:08:58 GMT

Very true. HSPA+ speeds are 17 Mbps for single carrier (marketed as up to 21 Mbps). Dual carrier would be double that. DC-HSPA is only available in some areas for B2 only.

Re: LTE or 3G?

srlawren — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 20:55:06 GMT

@sheytoon wrote:
Very true. HSPA+ speeds are 17 Mbps for single carrier (marketed as up to 21 Mbps). Dual carrier would be double that. DC-HSPA is only available in some areas for B2 only.

@sheytoon thanks! I couldn't remember the specific numbers but knew it was higher than 7 for sure. 🙂

Re: LTE or 3G?

Sbrown917 — Thu, 08 Aug 2019 10:26:43 GMT

I set mine to 3g and speed is never an issue.