What is hspa+

An enhanced version of the wireless 3G network that supposedly does the following better than the current 3G network that the main carriers are deploying:

1.) Faster speeds comparable to LTE

2.) Better battery life

3.) Quicker wake-from-idle time

But in order to achieve these features, you must be either close in proximity to the cell tower or be on a special network/terminal that is using the special architecure capable of delivering HSPA+ like T-Mobile.

In reality, it's just another step towards upgrading to 4G.

CameronGoldsworthy wrote:

Is the iPhone 4S capable of hspa+?

Yes.

How will I know I have it?

Some carriers display "4G".

The 4S specs say:

also see:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2401422,00.asp

Read my post, it answers your questions.

Hi there,

the answer to your question is a classical "basically yes, but..."

The iPhone 4S supports download speeds up to 14,4 mbps and upload speeds up to 5,8 mbps. Technically that does qualify as HSPA+, yet since there is no exact definition, some call that speed HSPA (without the plus). Let me try to shed some light on this confusion. For more (technical) details, please see the corresponding articles in Wikipedia.

The terms used to describe cellular network speeds are not always easy to understand, as definitions might vary from country to country or worse from carrier to carrier:

Commonly defined are the older cellular speed standards such as:

name kbps data transfer speed abbreviated name

GSM 9,6 to 14,4 1 KiloByte per second "1G"

GPRS 57,6 kbps 7 KiloBytes per second "2G"

EDGE 220 kbps 27 KiloBytes per second "2G"

UMTS 384 48 KiloBytes per second "3G"

Now it gets complicated, since HSPA is both divided to download speeds (HSDPA) and upload speeds (HSUPA), in addition it comes in at least two generations:

first generation

HSDPA 3,6 mbps 0,45 MegaBytes per second

HSUPA 1,8 mbps 0,23 MegaBytes per second

2nd generation

HSDPA 7,2 mbps 0,90 MegaBytes per second

14,4 mbps 1,80 MegaBytes per second

21,6 mbps 2,70 MegaBytes per second

HSUPA 5,8 mbps 0,73 MegaBytes per second

Now the fun starts:

Some carrier name speeds of HSDPA greater than 7,2 mbps HSPA+ while others stick to HSPA. To make this complicated HSUPA speeds are often not mentioned at all.

It get worse: with DC-HSPA the HSDPA speed of 21,6 mbps is doubled to 43,2 mbps and the HSUPA from 5,8 mbps to 11,6 mbps. Some carriers offer DC-HSDPA and normal (first or second generation) HSUPA.

As a guideline: the more you pay for your data plan, the higher your HSPA speeds are and the more volume you can use these speeds with.

Usually all these variations are called 3G+, but sometimes HSPA or HSPA+ is "wrongfully" referred to as 4G, since 4G is supposed to describe LTE speeds only.

If you thought, you were at maximum confusion, here comes LTE 😉

With LTE maximal theoretical speed depends on the frequency used. There are frequencies that offer up to 50 mbps download speed and 25 mbps upload speed, while other (higher) frequencies double those values. I have experienced LTE speeds of 60 mbps down and 20 mbps up, what qualifies as pretty fast but not fastest possible.

Hope this helps,

Chris