[G1 Android Development] Antagonistt:
HSDPA/UMTS Issues (Caution, Long post)

Okay, I know that this is not the correct thread to post this to, so before anyone flames me let me explain why I am putting this here. It's mostly for 3 reasons:

1. This is my main ROM and I believe this information may benefit those who use it.

2. This is one of the most active threads, and as such this post will most likely get a high number of people seeing it and possibly increase the chance of getting an answer.

3. This thread seems to have the highest number of knowledgable mature contributers...and the Dev is (in my opinion) one of the best. So in short, I believe I am most likely to get a quick answer and one that is most likely correct here :D.

Having said all that, here is the issue. There is another thread regarding the differences between HSDPA and UMTS data speeds. In the end, there was a lot of bickering over it all, but no conclusive answer. One of the posters mentioned that he had much higher download speeds using a specific ROM. That peaked my interest and I decided to test with something more conclusive than a seat of the pants impression. The question I am trying to answer is this...Why is a specific rom SO MUCH FASTER than ALL others? By fast, I don't mean interface speeds or switching from app to app...but in raw download/upload speeds and Tethering only. I am talking only DATA speeds here.

Nothing else

...I hope that is clear.

Over the course of 4 days, I have tested several ROMS but settled on 3 specific ones because they are representative of the fastest, slowest and average performance in data speeds. Those ROM's are as follows:

Cyanogen 4.2.X

Dwang's 1.X

King's Sense Hybrid 2.X

I will give the conclusion of those tests first, then the testing method for anyone who cares to read further and finally the results for those interested in the raw data.

Fastest Download/Upload speeds - Kings (by a wide margin)

Average Download/Upload speed - Cyanogen (I am hoping to get a solution to fix this...I believe his ROM to be excellent in all other regards. I hope an answer to this can make it the best bar none)

Slowest Download/Upload speeds - Dwang (sorry Dev...no hit on your rom...in all other aspects it was the fastest (interface). I was only testing data throughput. The answer to this may help you fix that issue)

To test this all, I downloaded each ROM to two seperate G1's. This involved much danger and personal risk as I had to take my daughters phone and use it for testing those 4 days...she was NOT happy about this :mad:

I loaded both phones up with the same ROMS for comparison. I wanted to eliminate as much as possible the chance of hardware being the wild card. I loaded each ROM and gave it a minimum of 1 hour to settle in and sync to avoid excess data beyond what I was testing for. I tested at 3 different times of the day on each phone. Morning, noon and roughly 10pm central time.

Each phone was loaded with 3 apps to test with. Xtremelabs Speedtest, Speedtest.net and 3G Test (all available on the market). For the Speedtest.net tests I ran 9 passes for each test and waited 1-2 minutes between each run. In case anyone is wondering, I am an IT Director and have over 20 years in the field, So I have a fair amount of knowlege regarding proper testing methods. This was not a shooting in the dark style of testing :eek:

For the Data, I will give first an average for the last 3 days of testing. I threw out the 1st day just to eliminate any possible errors while finalizing the testing method.

This is Speedtest.net Data. Shown in this format (Ping - Download/Upload)

The averages are for Days 2,3 and 4, for morning, noon and night. So there are 9 averages.

1. Dwang

220 - 430/290

245 - 350/300

200 - 360/280

180 - 420/300

217 - 455/319

208 - 460/301

160 - 425/315

222 - 435/306

255 - 412/302

2. Cyanogen

260 - 551/364

255 - 613/370

241 - 586/370

148 - 786/368

144 - 800/356

219 - 597/361

230 - 650/365

233 - 580/348

200 - 690/350

3. Kings

234 - 1804/374

173 - 1719/365

167 - 1460/357

230 - 1132/335

214 - 1623/370

160 - 1883/352

208 - 1871/357

217 - 1983/375

202 - 1765/342

As you can see, the Download speeds for Kings ROM were significantly faster than both of the others, Double or more in most cases. This led me to look through the parameters shown by 3G Test so see what the differences were, as it shows more than just download/upload speeds. Here are the results for parameters that I thought might be of interest. There were others as well.

1. Dwang

Reported Network Type: UMTS

TCP Uplink- 31 Moderate

TCP Downlink: 386 good

Signal Strength: 0-10 = 10 High

Avg. HTTP GET latency: 508 moderate

Avg.TCP Handshake Latency: 168 good

Local DNS Lookup latency: 261 moderate

2. Cyanogen

Reported Network Type: UMTS

TCP Uplink- 33 Moderate

TCP Downlink: 686 good

Signal Strength: 0-10 = 10 High

Avg. HTTP GET latency: 528 Moderate

Avg.TCP Handshake Latency: 156 good

Local DNS Lookup latency: 230 moderate

3. King

Reported Network Type: HSDPA (but sometimes UMTS???) :confused:

TCP Uplink- 36 Moderate

TCP Downlink: 1681 good (HUGE Difference???) :confused:

Signal Strength: 0-10 = 10 High

Avg. HTTP GET latency: 558 Moderate

Avg.TCP Handshake Latency: 159 Good

Local DNS Lookup latency: 225 Moderate

It should also be noted that the King ROM was the only one that would show HSDPA when viewing "Mobile network type" on the handset from Settings/About phone/Status/Mobile network type. All other ROMS showed UMTS only. :confused:

I had believed that UMTS/HSDPA were simply naming conventions for US/EU designations, but this data would seem to say differently. Each of these ROM's were loaded, and reloaded over the course of the 4 days to rule out mistakes in flashing. Both phones were completely wiped and reformated between each flash. All additional apps were stopped during the data tests and both phones were set to the same processor speed (max).

If anyone can shed any light on this I would greatly appreciate it. One difference between the ROM's is that the Dwang ROM uses one of the memory hacks. Could that be to blame for the lower speeds???

If there is some major difference someplace, I think it would be great to get the faster speeds here on the Cyanogen ROM. That would put it head and shoulders above all the others as well as get excellent speeds for all ROM's in the long run. As an additional test (but not covered here) I tethered both phones and downloaded files with a desktop PC and a laptop...the same behaviour was present in those test as well, with the King ROM downloading in rougly half the time as the other 2. For the record, I am NOT a big fan of the HERO Roms. So my testing was not biased towards those or towards king. I am simply reporting what I found and leaving it for your review.

Thanks for taking the time to view this! I hope to get this resolved :)