AT&T’s HTC Inspire 4G isn’t even fully compatible with fake 4G

By on Feb 21, 2011 at 2:45 PM
mobile February 21, 2011

Despite AT&T’s decision to slap “4G” right in the name, the new HTC Inspire 4G smartphone doesn’t even feature full compatibility with the “4G” HSPA+ AT&T network. Following T-Mobile’s lead, AT&T announced at CES that its 3G HSPA+ network is now a 4G HSPA+ network. With that announcement came the unveiling of several smartphones, one of which — the HTC Inspire 4G — launched last week. But users taking delivery of the device noticed immediately that while download speeds were on par with other HSDPA-enabled AT&T smartphones, upload speeds seemed quite slow. The explanation is simple enough: HTC’s Inspire 4G either doesn’t feature compatibility with AT&T’s HSUPA service, or the carrier has disabled it in the phone’s firmware. Wow. We’ve already expressed our feelings on 4G, but we never imagined carriers would push things further still and smack “4G” stickers on smartphones that don’t even support their fake 4G networks. Let this be a lesson, subscribers… Buyer beware. Not all 4G is created equal and not all fake 4G phones are even compatible with fake 4G networks. But who would want the Inspire 4G anyway, when you could have the Morris 4G?

Read [no HSUPA] Read [HSUPA disabled in firmware]

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  • JoninBklyn

    Wow! My new Inspire is really disappointing. NEVER breaks 0.5Mbs upload! To ATT;……wazzup withat?

    • http://twitter.com/Dodgerblue Dodgerblue

      upload is usually a lot slower

  • ROB

    I think it was ashame that Google wasn’t allowed to purchase the 700 mhz ANALOG TV band and then GIVE the internet away. We all would have wireless across this country with one standard and then could buy the phones we want out right and force these outrageous prices down.

  • John

    How can a carrier in today’s world lie to consumers like AT&T has about their 4g network and the fact that it’s not 4g. We as consumers need to take a stand and not buy their fake 4g products until they can deliver on their word.

    • http://twitter.com/Dodgerblue Dodgerblue

      if its 4G speeds WHY does it matter. They can call it 12G. Remember 4G is just a name. The final speed is what matters

  • http://www.facebook.com/matt.mingkee Matt Tsui

    Now we have all realized how AT&T cripple the phones.

    crippled market on branded phones
    no sideloading or manually .apk install
    now, the “4G” speed is crippled to crawl
    Well done AT&T!

    • http://twitter.com/Dodgerblue Dodgerblue

      the one who cripples phones is Verizon

  • Anonymous

    hmmm i remember i was gonna buy this phone cause it remind me of the EVO……well im glad i didn’t

  • Ron

    Wow! Magic words! Let me try that.

    My waist is now 32 inches.

    Nope. Perhaps saying your network is 4G doesn’t really make it so, either.

  • Bugs

    78 degrees at 10:00am in Seattle in June?? FAKE weather report as well.

  • Smartguy

    In voice of Nelson from the Simpons to ATT network “Ha Ha”

  • http://twitter.com/Dodgerblue Dodgerblue

    Zach Epstein is a FAKE columnist. AT&T’s HSPA + is faster than Verizon’s LTE at this point AT&T 14.4 MBPS and Verizon’s LTE 10 MBPS these are to start of course and both max out at 100 MBPS. The major difference will be when AT&T runs HSPA + and LTE side by side and Verizon can’t. Can you hear me now? NOPE I’m on the web!

  • Sir1honda

    CHICAGO — 4G World — Everyone knows that AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is planning to move to Long Term Evolution (LTE) next year, but is the operator also planning a further upgrade of its 3G network in 2011?

    In his keynote here on Tuesday, David Haight, VP of business development at AT&T’s Emerging Devices Organization, said that if users roam off LTE, they would go to faster 3G in 2011. “The good news is that you’re going to fall back to HSPA+, so you’re falling back to 21 megabits, not 7.2 or 3.6,” Haight told the crowd. (See 4G World: AT&T Learns Lessons From iPad.)

    So far, AT&T has only said that it will deploy the earlier 14.4Mbit/s upgrade by the end of this year – 2010, revealing nothing about a 21Mbit/s upgrade in 2011. So we asked AT&T what the official word on this was.

    “HSPA+ technology has a theoretical maximum speed of 21Mbps,” a spokeswoman said, in an email reply to questions. “WE HAVE NOT BEGUN DEPLOYING THE TECHNOLOGY AT THIS TIME”,she said that ONLY this October – then now magically they have 21 hspa+??? (See AT&T Plots Widescale HSPA+ Rollout .)

    Nonetheless, if AT&T is interested in keeping up with GSM rival T-Mobile then HSPA+ is a logical progression. T-Mobile is currently rolling out a 21Mbit/s upgrade for 100 cities by year’s end; it currently has the speed boost running in 75 cities in the US.

    The average download speeds offered on 21Mbit/s HSPA+ are in the 5 to 8 Mbit/s range. (See T-Mobile’s HSPA+ Rivals Clearwire, US LTE Speeds.)

    When we are in Austin,Texas for ANDROID FESTIVAL, TMobile executives said that 42Mbps hspa+ will be available by last week of January or 1st week of February-2011 then AT&T will start to deploy 21Mbps hspa+…

    I called a friend who is engineer in AT&T MOBILITY unit & he said to me that THEY STILL USE THE 7.2Mbps & SOME city with 14.4Mbps HSPA, NOT YET THE 21 HSPA+ (maybe next year around February-2011, he said)

    BEST LIAR OF ALL TIME & ALWAYS CRYING – AT&T…

  • Kenworth Kong

    Morris 4G- HAHAHA. I got pwned.

  • http://twitter.com/toledowasjust Andy T

    Ha – marketing departments and their in-house liars! Never hears such bollocks in my life. Anyone claiming this really really is “4G” is a points-scoring con-artist with an MBA. When the real 4G comes along in Europe, this will look like a clown’s Tonka-Toy joke. But I guess hicks for whom 2 Mbps is all the bandwidth in the world can keep calling it 4G if they want – hell they can call it 2000Z, it won’t make it *actually* 4G :)

  • Ianagarcia

    im getting 5 to 10 mbps over here I’m having no problems with my inspire 4G.

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