[BellevilleMXZ]

Was thinking of buying one of these, and noted on Bells site it says 4G, yet at bestbuy/futureshop, doesn't say 4G. Specs seem the same but thought i better ask.Sorry for the newb question :-)

[Phill_UK]

The 9900 is HSPA+ compatible... nothing more

[HankHowdy]

Oh boy let the games begin.

BlackBerry Bold® 9930 using Tapatalk of course.

[BBThemes]

The 9900 is HSPA+ compatible... nothing more

yup its 14.4Mbps HSPA+, that goes for every 9900/30.

far more important is the signal where ya live, i only have EDGE and the majority of 3G towers round me only do 3.6 let alone 7.2 or higher, so its far more important to have the signal

[BellevilleMXZ]

Thanks folks, wanted to make sure they were all the same.And yes have good signal here. Hank, not sure what you mean?

[Jonny1500]

Ignorant question but is hspa+ different from '4G'? If so which is faster? I live in NYC, use att and am very happy with the speeds I get.

[jeffrey1027]

Ignorant question but is hspa+ different from '4G'? If so which is faster? I live in NYC, use att and am very happy with the speeds I get.

ATT is marketing the 9900 HSPA+ (3G+) as 4G. HSPA+ is no way speedwise compareable to 4G.

[EvilmasterMMA]

The Difference Between 4G LTE, 4G HSPA, and 4G WiMax

You read the headlines, 4G to be great, Verizon using 4G LTE today, and you wonder, what is the real 4G and who has it. The answer is simple. There are 3 kinds of 4G (fourth generation network). LTE, HSPA and WiMax.

As usual, the first companies to adopt, may have bragging rights, but there network is worse.

Sprint was the first to have 4G, and they use WiMax. This is the worst kind of 4G out there. WiMax can only get about 4 to 5 Mega Bits per second.

T-Mobile was the second to adopt 4G, and they use HSPA, which stands for High Speed Packet Access. This allows a user to get around 6 to 7 Mega Bits per second. Or enhanced HSPA (HSPA+) which is capable of speeds of up to 21 mega bits per second.

Verizon and AT&T* were the last to update their network, but they use LTE. LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and can reach around 14 Mega Bits download per second. In some big cites users will be able to reach as much as 21 Mega Bytes download per second. This is as fast as most peoples home wifi network.

Even though Sprint says they were first in the game, and T-Mobile says they reach more people with there 4G, you want to go with either Verizon or AT&T*. The next generation of wireless (5G) will not come out for a while, maybe 5 years, so it is worth investing you’re money in faster speed, not more access points.

*AT&T may not have a tower out there, but a press release on 8-16-11 shows they are choosing 4G LTE.

[dbxd]

The Difference Between 4G LTE, 4G HSPA, and 4G WiMax

You read the headlines, 4G to be great, Verizon using 4G LTE today, and you wonder, what is the real 4G and who has it. The answer is simple. There are 3 kinds of 4G (fourth generation network). LTE, HSPA and WiMax.

As usual, the first companies to adopt, may have bragging rights, but there network is worse.

Sprint was the first to have 4G, and they use WiMax. This is the worst kind of 4G out there. WiMax can only get about 4 to 5 Mega Bits per second.

T-Mobile was the second to adopt 4G, and they use HSPA, which stands for High Speed Packet Access. This allows a user to get around 6 to 7 Mega Bits per second. Or enhanced HSPA (HSPA+) which is capable of speeds of up to 21 mega bits per second.

Verizon and AT&T* were the last to update their network, but they use LTE. LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and can reach around 14 Mega Bits download per second. In some big cites users will be able to reach as much as 21 Mega Bytes download per second. This is as fast as most peoples home wifi network.

Even though Sprint says they were first in the game, and T-Mobile says they reach more people with there 4G, you want to go with either Verizon or AT&T*. The next generation of wireless (5G) will not come out for a while, maybe 5 years, so it is worth investing you�re money in faster speed, not more access points.

*AT&T may not have a tower out there, but a press release on 8-16-11 shows they are choosing 4G LTE.

Great information thank you!

[Phill_UK]

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter how carriers market their network speeds... the 9900 is still only 14.4mbps HSPA+ capable

[robsteve]

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter how carriers market their network speeds... the 9900 is still only 14.4mbps HSPA+ capable

That may have been the original question, does it support LTE, as Bell is a Canadian carrier and LTE networks are available in some areas of Canada.

[infinus]

I thought RIM cancled BB10 as they are struggling for low powered LTE chipsets.
I wonder if some one really need 21 megabits/sec. Speed.

[llllBULLSEYE]

There is no real 4G, but LTE will one day evolve into a true 4G which is 100mbps. Those are crazy speeds but they do already exist just not for consumer cell phones and I dout we will ever see true 4g(100+) in the next decade.

[calicocat2010]

I thought RIM cancled BB10 as they are struggling for low powered LTE chipsets.
I wonder if some one really need 21 megabits/sec. Speed.

No, BB10 is coming.

[BJens]

That may have been the original question, does it support LTE, as Bell is a Canadian carrier and LTE networks are available in some areas of Canada.

As Phill said the 9900 is only capable of the 14.4 mbps. Bell now quotes their HSPA+ network as 4G, they even have 4G on their SIM cards now, so going back to the orginal post if you are getting your BB through Bell even from Best Buy or Futureshop you will be getting on the "4G" network.

Bell also has SIM cards that are meant for the LTE network which are supposed to fall back to HSPA+ (or their 4G) speeds if you are in an area that does not have LTE coverage. Though at the moment the only Bell phone I've seen come with the LTE cards is the HTC Raider.

Hope this made some sense and was not just the babbling of a first time poster

[Bonnie Bonzai]

The Difference Between 4G LTE, 4G HSPA, and 4G WiMax

You read the headlines, 4G to be great, Verizon using 4G LTE today, and you wonder, what is the real 4G and who has it. The answer is simple. There are 3 kinds of 4G (fourth generation network). LTE, HSPA and WiMax.

As usual, the first companies to adopt, may have bragging rights, but there network is worse.

Sprint was the first to have 4G, and they use WiMax. This is the worst kind of 4G out there. WiMax can only get about 4 to 5 Mega Bits per second.

T-Mobile was the second to adopt 4G, and they use HSPA, which stands for High Speed Packet Access. This allows a user to get around 6 to 7 Mega Bits per second. Or enhanced HSPA (HSPA+) which is capable of speeds of up to 21 mega bits per second.

Verizon and AT&T* were the last to update their network, but they use LTE. LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and can reach around 14 Mega Bits download per second. In some big cites users will be able to reach as much as 21 Mega Bytes download per second. This is as fast as most peoples home wifi network.

Even though Sprint says they were first in the game, and T-Mobile says they reach more people with there 4G, you want to go with either Verizon or AT&T*. The next generation of wireless (5G) will not come out for a while, maybe 5 years, so it is worth investing you�re money in faster speed, not more access points.

*AT&T may not have a tower out there, but a press release on 8-16-11 shows they are choosing 4G LTE.

This info is so easy to understand! I always wondered if LTE stood for "light" or what. So thank you very much

[emirozmen]

9900 hspa+
9930 3g

[HankHowdy]

All of this 4G is kinda useless on a BB anyway since everything goes through their servers. Youre lucky to get 1Mbps. Speed test on blackberries are not reliable because of this.

I have read this many times in crackberry forums.

Any truth to this?

BlackBerry Bold® 9930 using Tapatalk of course.

[Rootbrian]

4G=3G/3.5G which is HSPA or HSUA. Carriers just rename their networks to compete. The reality for data speeds, measure them in megabytes and kilobytes and then you'll get the truth on the real data speeds. Also, keep in mind the ping, if it's higher than 100 ms, it'll be laggy.

[anon(4140245)]

I have a question... Is there any possibility that the BB 9930 with verizon will be 4G LTE compatible in the future? Maybe with a software update? Since T-Mobile and AT&T's 9900s are 4G compatible, is thought this might be an option.

[Rootbrian]

I have a question... Is there any possibility that the BB 9930 with verizon will be 4G LTE compatible in the future? Maybe with a software update? Since T-Mobile and AT&T's 9900s are 4G compatible, is thought this might be an option.

Not if it's a CDMA device with a SIM slot for roaming on verizon's network. Until there is a EVDO Rev. B or C, will it be 4G/LTE, that is, voice and data at the same time (not just with wifi) on the mobile network. But until then, it's stranght CDMA.

[kthhrrsn]

I thought RIM cancled BB10 as they are struggling for low powered LTE chipsets.
I wonder if some one really need 21 megabits/sec. Speed.

Why not have the fastest speeds possible? If I'm downloading an mp3 album from the Amazon mp3 store, a 21mbps connection would complete much faster. Why wait longer if the technology to speed it up already exists? And why not continue to push the envelope so that our download speeds one day reach 21GBps?

[Rootbrian]

Why not have the fastest speeds possible? If I'm downloading an mp3 album from the Amazon mp3 store, a 21mbps connection would complete much faster. Why wait longer if the technology to speed it up already exists? And why not continue to push the envelope so that our download speeds one day reach 21GBps?

21 Megabits/second is 2.62 megabytes/second.
21 Gigabits/second is 2688 megabytes/second.

I did the conversion because that is the speed our browsers measure data transfer in.

[MadMax8778]

Only the 9900 is 4g(hspa+) capable, the 9930 uses cdma/evdo technology only allowing it to achieve standard 3g speed. There won't be LTE blackberrys until late 2012

[BellevilleMXZ]

Thanks guys, I guess my question should have been are they all HSPA. After reading more, its CDMA that I didn't want to get stuck with, as coverage at home on it is spotty. HSPA is waaaaay better.