Have you ever needed to know if you're Edge/HSPA/HSPA+ and PSC?

[Stijn De Jong]

I was hiking today and my phone switched from reporting EDGE and then HSPA and then HSPA+ when I started wondering what practical significance to a user these terms might be.

Have you ever needed to know this information? Has it been useful to you?

HSPA

HSPA HSPA+

Other terms that pop up in those screenshots are:

2.5G (this is the only one that was 2.5G) RXLEV (none of the others had an RXLEV field) SDR (what does the "R" mean for example?)

3.5G (the two hspa ones showed also as 3.5G) PSC (the two hspa ones showed also a PSC)

The main question is whether you've ever had a need for this type of information?

[Anssi Saari]

On a phone? Not really other than if I ever see EDGE then it means my connection is so slow it's effectively the same as no connection. It's nice to know. I guess I have so many apps using the network now that they completely overwhelm EDGE. Although I remember a few years ago streaming a podcast over EDGE was fine.

Other than EDGE/better it doesn't much matter. I know vaguely what speeds I can expect from 3G, HSPA, HSPA+ and 4G but it doesn't make much difference to me in practise on the phone.

Then again, my home internet connection is via a 4G router. It's usually pretty easy to tell if I'm not on 4G but thankfully that hasn't happened very often.

[Stijn De Jong]

Thanks for saying that because most people must be like you and me where the type of connection is nearly meaningless as long as it's connected.

When I see EDGE, I don't know what it means other than it's slow too.

That's kind of how I felt, in that I didn't even *know* if it was HSPA or HSPA+ or UMTS or whatever else pops up.

Thanks for taking the time to update the thread as I assumed nobody understood the question (you clearly understood it).