[Galaxy S II General] mansonitefirefox:
Problem fixed.

Sorry for my first ever post being EPIC'ly long but XDA wont let me post external link to whirlpool.net.au until 8 post count so... here is what you have all been looking for and i thought everyone should benefit for my 4 hours on the phone with Samsung :P

After contacting Samsung for an insane period of time (ended up on an international call to England i think... or now that i think about it could have just been some English guy in Aus lol) I have got an official explanation and confirmation that this issue is being looked into for KE8 (but it appears that KE8 has been launched in India already so it might be KE9).

*disclaimer*

I am no expert on mobile technology this in-depth however the (probably very) dumbed down version the Samsung guy told me was this;

*end disclaimer*

The problem stems from the fact that this phone has 3 forms of data connection, 3G, HSDPA, and HSPA+.

3G is what we have all had since 3/Telstra launch 10 years ago.

HSDPA is the 7.2mbps connections that we got after that.

HSPA+ is the full fledged 42mbps Next G stuff that only Telstra has.

The problem is, when you are just using the phone as "a phone" it idles on a 3G connection to save battery and when you initiate a data connection it flicks on to the higher connection protocols for better speed.

What is supposed to happen when you initiate the data connection is the phone checks for H+ connection, then for H and then finally 3G. For some reason if you arent with Telstra or are in an area without HSPA+ the phone gets hung up for too long attempting to initiate the H+ connection and refuses to drop back to H!

Also, even if it does give up on H+ it then has an issue with falling back to 3G. Resulting in the problem that if it cant get H+ or the tower is too flooded for a H connection you get absolutely nothing until you restart the data mode within the phone, renegotiates with the tower and BAM, you are back in business.

So... there are 5 fixes;

1. Wait for KE9 (or what ever firmware fixes the modem timings etc)

2. Get a Telstra sim and never leave an area that has H+

3. Turn off/on data mode whenever it happens

to which i told him they were stupid answers and completely unacceptable, but then he came out with this complete gem!

4. using service code *#301279# you can turn off HSPA+ completely forcing it to start the data connections on HSDPA

5. using *#301279# again you can just turn off HSPA+ and HSDPA meaning it instantly starts downloading the data on 3G without delay

Now yes, i thought... great... ive bought this $779 phone that has all the latest and greatest technology and I cant even use it! But, I did some testing!

First of all my normal sim is Vodafone so turning off HSPA+ is an obvious one for me, im never going to get it so why bother. So now that the phone only attempts to get a connection with HSDPA the need to turn off and on data connection was getting more and more rare but still having the problem (i have a feeling that is due to congestion?). So i bumped it down to 3G only and it works perfectly 100% of the time!

The point of these faster connection protocols is speed so i did testing.

Vodafone sim, 4 bars of signal in the middle of a shopping centre.

HPSA+ turned on = 4mbps down, 1mbps up

HSDPA turned on = 4mbps down, 1mbps up

3G only = 3.5mbps down, 1mbps up

did this over and over and over again and to be perfectly honest, im willing to lose 500kbps to make sure that data always works and if you are just doing general web browsing the time it takes to initiate the HSDPA connection wastes more time than the slightly slower speeds with 3G does.

Now obviously this only works fine in my situation, if you are with Telstra and going from HSPA+ down to 3G means going from 20mbps to 3... i would be pissed. But for the rest of the country you are talking about a loss of less than 1mbps so in real world situations with just small amounts of burst data its fine :D

TLDR; Try and go online and the 3G up arrow lights up but never actually downloads anything

Dial: *#301279# – Change HSPA revision – Release 5 HSPDA only

test, if still a problem

Dial: *#301279# – Change HSPA revision – Release R99 HSPA off

Your welcome, Peace out!

To find the full conversation on this at another forum google "whirlpool Samsung Galaxy S II Data Issue"

Note: I havent had anyone tell me this doesnt work, but so far its only tried and tested in Australia with a Non-Telstra sim