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3G / 4G question

resops
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

Hi All

New member yesterday and I must say it appears the transition from Bell was good. Half the cost for twice the data! So I have 2 questions

1) Does Canada wide calling mean just that- no long distance in Canada?

2) I have 5Gigs @3G on my plan but my phone is receiving  4G from my tower. Is this an issue or will I incur costs?

 

Thanks in advance ~Res

17 REPLIES 17

pmmobile
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

@XionBunny  If you're really curious, you can have fun trying it on the last day of your plan

 


@XionBunny wrote:

@jor123 wrote:

@ShawnC13 wrote:

@YVR wrote:

@Aljackson75 wrote:

My plan says it's up to 3G speeds. But I am always getting LTE. There has been no extra charges. 

 


@Aljackson75 
Public mobile uses LTE bands with throttled to 3G speeds so that is why it says LTE

Try a speedtest to see what your download speed is.

There are no extra / overage charges at Public!  Welcome


@Aljackson75, if you just signed up it can take upto 72 hours for the speed to be throttled.  I would not recommend doing a speed test if you are on a small data plan as the test itself will eat a lot of data!!


Yup, for me it tooks upwards of week before I was throttled down after signing up. Learned the lesson the hard way through speed tests as well. Smiley Very Happy


I was tempted to see how my speed is, but since I actually am on a small data plan for the moment, ill avoid it.


 

XionBunny
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@jor123 wrote:

@ShawnC13 wrote:

@YVR wrote:

@Aljackson75 wrote:

My plan says it's up to 3G speeds. But I am always getting LTE. There has been no extra charges. 

 


@Aljackson75 
Public mobile uses LTE bands with throttled to 3G speeds so that is why it says LTE

Try a speedtest to see what your download speed is.

There are no extra / overage charges at Public!  Welcome


@Aljackson75, if you just signed up it can take upto 72 hours for the speed to be throttled.  I would not recommend doing a speed test if you are on a small data plan as the test itself will eat a lot of data!!


Yup, for me it tooks upwards of week before I was throttled down after signing up. Learned the lesson the hard way through speed tests as well. Smiley Very Happy


I was tempted to see how my speed is, but since I actually am on a small data plan for the moment, ill avoid it.

jor123
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

@ShawnC13 wrote:

@YVR wrote:

@Aljackson75 wrote:

My plan says it's up to 3G speeds. But I am always getting LTE. There has been no extra charges. 

 


@Aljackson75 
Public mobile uses LTE bands with throttled to 3G speeds so that is why it says LTE

Try a speedtest to see what your download speed is.

There are no extra / overage charges at Public!  Welcome


@Aljackson75, if you just signed up it can take upto 72 hours for the speed to be throttled.  I would not recommend doing a speed test if you are on a small data plan as the test itself will eat a lot of data!!


Yup, for me it tooks upwards of week before I was throttled down after signing up. Learned the lesson the hard way through speed tests as well. Smiley Very Happy


@YVR wrote:

@Aljackson75 wrote:

My plan says it's up to 3G speeds. But I am always getting LTE. There has been no extra charges. 

 


@Aljackson75 
Public mobile uses LTE bands with throttled to 3G speeds so that is why it says LTE

Try a speedtest to see what your download speed is.  

There are no extra / overage charges at Public!  Welcome

 

EDIT :: Do NOT do A speedtest - thanks @ShawnC13 

eats up between 100-200mb depending on provider


I've been north of 500MB in a single test before. This is especially true when have an LTE+ connection and you're very close to a non-congested cell site.  If someone's on $25 plan with 1GB of data, it's quite possible to use up an entre billing cycle's data amount within seconds.

 

 

pmmobile
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

@Aljackson75 @YVR  I unknowingly did several speed test before being fully throttled.. ate up nearly 250mb in 10 seconds


@YVR wrote:

@Aljackson75 wrote:

My plan says it's up to 3G speeds. But I am always getting LTE. There has been no extra charges. 

 


@Aljackson75 
Public mobile uses LTE bands with throttled to 3G speeds so that is why it says LTE

Try a speedtest to see what your download speed is.

There are no extra / overage charges at Public!  Welcome


@Aljackson75, if you just signed up it can take upto 72 hours for the speed to be throttled.  I would not recommend doing a speed test if you are on a small data plan as the test itself will eat a lot of data!!

 


I am happy to help, but I am not a Customer Support Agent please do not include any personal info in a message to me. Click HERE to create a trouble ticket through SIMon the Chatbot *

YVR
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

@Aljackson75 wrote:

My plan says it's up to 3G speeds. But I am always getting LTE. There has been no extra charges. 

 


@Aljackson75 
Public mobile uses LTE bands with throttled to 3G speeds so that is why it says LTE

Try a speedtest to see what your download speed is.  

There are no extra / overage charges at Public!  Welcome

 

EDIT :: Do NOT do A speedtest - thanks @ShawnC13 

eats up between 100-200mb depending on provider

Aljackson75
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

My plan says it's up to 3G speeds. But I am always getting LTE. There has been no extra charges. 

 

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@resops wrote:

90% of the time the phone shows 4G . As long as my calls work its all good 😉 Thanks for all the replies


@resops one important note:  it can take up to 72 hours after activating before the throttle actually kicks in.  If you just activated recently (you said yesterday), then you may still be getting the full-speed, non-throttled LTE.  You may notice the data slow down at some point in the next couple of days, just an FYI.  


>>> ALERT: I am not a moderator. For account or activation assistance, please click here.

resops
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

90% of the time the phone shows 4G . As long as my calls work its all good 😉 Thanks for all the replies

@ShawnC13  Oh I get it now... putting the second sim in forces the 4G onto the sim card one . Once I remove the second sim it defaults sim one to LTE/3G/2G.  LTE=4G on the phone screen when 2 sims are present. Thx good to know.


@darlicious wrote:

@ShawnC13 wrote:

@darlicious wrote:

@resops 

  Your phone only says you have 4G public mobile only offers 3G except the $30 data only plan and some older grandfathered plans. In your settings it should be set as 3G. If you have connectivity issues you may want to check it is set at 3G or switch it if it's set at 4G.

  


@darliciousall of PM's data plans are on 4G/LTE.  The current talk text and data plans are just throttled to 3G speeds.


@ShawnC13  So now I'm curious as my phone defaulted to show 3G but changed to show 4G when my second sim card was added that has 4G data. When i remove that sim it goes back to either showing 3G or nothing.


Is it a dual sim phone these are installed in?  Some dual sim phones don't offer the same on both sim slots.  On my old windows phone it was like that where data on one sim was 3G the other wasn't

 


I am happy to help, but I am not a Customer Support Agent please do not include any personal info in a message to me. Click HERE to create a trouble ticket through SIMon the Chatbot *


@ShawnC13 wrote:

@darlicious wrote:

@resops 

  Your phone only says you have 4G public mobile only offers 3G except the $30 data only plan and some older grandfathered plans. In your settings it should be set as 3G. If you have connectivity issues you may want to check it is set at 3G or switch it if it's set at 4G.

  


@darliciousall of PM's data plans are on 4G/LTE.  The current talk text and data plans are just throttled to 3G speeds.


@ShawnC13  So now I'm curious as my phone defaulted to show 3G but changed to show 4G when my second sim card was added that has 4G data. When i remove that sim it goes back to either showing 3G or nothing.

tehowennathe
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

I keep my phone set to 4G and find it more reliable then having it set to 3G. Sure at times having it set to 3G will result in faster data. The end result I experienced is that setting it to 3G can be long load times most of the time. So I just keep it set to 4G and get good data results.


@darlicious wrote:

@resops 

  Your phone only says you have 4G public mobile only offers 3G except the $30 data only plan and some older grandfathered plans. In your settings it should be set as 3G. If you have connectivity issues you may want to check it is set at 3G or switch it if it's set at 4G.

  


@darliciousall of PM's data plans are on 4G/LTE.  The current talk text and data plans are just throttled to 3G speeds.

 


I am happy to help, but I am not a Customer Support Agent please do not include any personal info in a message to me. Click HERE to create a trouble ticket through SIMon the Chatbot *

mimmo
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@resops  dont worry about the 4g vs 3g.    PM uses the 4g network to supply data,  but they throttle it down to 3Mbs (3g speed), hence the crappy name 3g and all the confusion.  so stick to the stnadard data settings and all is good.

 

some people will suggest to switch to a 3g network as speed tests show faster speeds but the 3g has higher latencey, (initial packets can be slower, ifirc,  but i would stick the the 4g network.   

darlicious
Mayor / Maire

@resops 

   Unlimited Canada wide calling is just that you can call anywhere in canada and its like a local call but all your contacts or calls whether local or not should have a (1) in front so you dont get the annoying long distance plan message. Your call will still go through just after the message.

  Your phone only says you have 4G public mobile only offers 3G data speed except the $30 data only plan and some older grandfathered plans. In your settings it should be set as 3G. If you have connectivity issues you may want to check it is set at 3G or switch it if it's set at 4G.

   There are no overages with public mobile. So you won't get charged extra for anything it just won't work. You could have mobile roaming on but you won't get charged because it won't work. Or if you run out of plan data it will just stop unless you purchase the $30 /1gb data add on. Btw all add ons roll over each month until used up except US roaming add ons as they are 10 day only.

 

[Correct solution with my small corrections .......... Luddite]

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