[myTouch 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] :
Go to Wireless and networks>Mobile Networks>Network Mode and select GSM only.

For the latest on what's going on with the T-mobile battery drain issue go here:

http://support.t-mobile.com/thread/2710?start=300&tstart=0

And here is a helpful post I found in that forum:

Re: Sudden massive battery drain

I'll repost here so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle too far up thread...

This battery issue appears to be related to HSPA and is almost certainly related to changes made in the base-station software. [I've discussed this with someone at the engineering level at TMo that I've worked with in the past on network issues. (If you're interested, you can do some searches on "Palm Treo intermittent voice DTX" - the ones at TMo's forums have been purged, but they're still cached at Google if you want to read up...) ]

Anyway, via the contacts I've had in the past, this issue has been raised at those levels inside TMo. I've also been told they've gotten notice via other channels as well.

So, engineering, at least, is aware. And there's work being done to solve the problem. These are two things I'm quite sure are true.

Why they don't make customer service aware of the issues and have some soothing things they can say to customers to keep from *issing them off, I really don't know - it's one of those inexplicable stupid things...

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As for cause: Don't believe that a standard guarantees compatibility. The standard is a starting place. [If you have any doubt about this, just look at how Microsoft implements "standards" when they want to break things. It's easy to break compatibility because the standard simply can't encompass everything. [The Palm Treo DTX problem referenced above is another great example of how both parties followed the standard, but still broke things.]

Sure, fault probably lies with BOTH the Cell tower vendor [I'd guess Siemens/Nokia in this case] and HTC. But they almost certainly want to fix things, it just takes a while. [And updating the software in a base-station can take months and months of testing, QA, planning and management resources - so it's not like rolling out an update to Windows XP. Not that any of this excuses things, just want to set out how things typically are. That way others can make decisions based on what is likely, not what they'd like or wish for....]

My expectation is we'll see a "fix" of some kind in the next week or two. But it probably won't be today. [There were efforts I was aware of yesterday to solve things, but it didn't appear to help.]

However, the problem appears to hit enough handsets that I truly expect a pretty strenuous effort to resolve the problem quickly.

In the mean-time, locking your phone to 2G will resolve the problem. [You can switch to 3G for things that will make use of higher bandwidth, but lots of stuff doesn't absolutely have to have it to function reasonably well. So, use 3G when you need it, and return to 2G when you can. Use WiFi instead of cell-data. All these things will help - and in my case, it's probably doubling battery life - perhaps better. And G2's [I'm on a N1] seem to be getting even more return from 2G [Edge] than I am.

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I think if you don't mind high blood-pressure, and aggravation, calling Customer Service might help escalate the situation - or it might only make you more angry than you already are/were. So, do it if you feel like it, but I seriously doubt it's going to make things better.

Their drivel about 4/3G taking more battery is simply dumb, and we/you all know it. [What, did 3/4G all of a sudden take a 100% increase in power consumption since two weeks ago? Really!?]

New batteries or new handsets won't fix it either.

So, my suggestion is to wait it out. Using 2G for a week or two won't kill me - sure I'm unhappy, but I'll get by fine.

Hope that helps...

Summary:

3/4G service doesn't take this much battery, and excuses that it's "normal" are simply BS.

Face it: Customer Service is often clueless and stupid - don't bother them unless you like being angry.

New batteries and Handsets won't help.

I know engineering IS working on things, but there's no fix yet that I'm aware of.

Until a fix is found and tested, lock your phone to 2G. Battery life will improve dramatically.

-Greg