[Nexus One General] redstar3894:
Breakdown

Okay, found it here:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=723839&page=42&postcount=413

From that page forward is the discussion I was referring to earlier...sorry it's somewhat long, but I think they covered the desire radio question thoroughly there...

Okay, I apologize in advance for the following post, I know it's rather long-winded, so feel free to flame away if you disagree with anything I'm saying here or any of it is blatantly incorrect (I apologize if it is) :D

And these are just my thoughts and observations of what works for me, I'm not recommending you settle on anything here before figuring out what works for you...

OP, I'm sure you know this already based on your research here, but here's a breakdown of the "H" and "U" 'versions' of the radio for others who might be reading this thread and are interested in "tweaking the radio" ;)

H - as in 32.36.00.28H_4.06.00.12_7 or 32.41.00.32H_5.08.00.04

Means that ro.ril.hsxpa = 1 (in the build.prop) is set, putting the radio in HSDPA mode rather than just plain old UMTS

U- as in 32.36.00.28U_4.06.00.12_7 or 32.41.00.32U_5.08.00.04

Means that ro.ril.hsxpa =

2

(in the build.prop) is set, which enables HS

U

PA

Now, not having these values set in build.prop doesn't necessarily mean that you won't get the HSDPA goodness (AFAIK AOSP ROMs are usually preset to hsxpa = 1 and Sense ROMs are usually preset to hsxpa = 2) because I believe that Android (or at least the radio) is hard-coded to jump up to the higher speed connection if available, but having these settings in build.prop just means that the phone will try making an HSDPA connection sooner than it would otherwise...

The OP has compiled an EXCELLENT breakdown of both speed tests/ping times/signal strength....that's outstanding work.... :D

Sorry I'm making this post a little drawn out, and I'm not trying to hijack the thread here, but I'll share my 2 cents on what works for me if anyone is interested. Also, I apologize in advance for not having as much hard data as the OP, as these are merely my observations....

Ultimately, there is not one way of specifying these settings that will work for everyone....they are HIGHLY dependent on location, signal strength, radio version, ROM, service provider, number of applications running, clock speed, kernel type and version, maintenance on the cell towers.....etc....I could go on for a while here....

So what I'm trying to say here is that

THERE IS NOT ONE SOLUTION THAT WILL WORK THE SAME FOR EVERYONE

....

For reference, I'm living in Chicago, on T-Mobile, running eVIL's NXSense Desire Rom v1.20 with the network fix described in the second post (of that thread) applied (it replaces libhtc_ril.so and libhtc_acoustic.so because of connectivity issues when waking up the phone from standby, sorry, I don't know enough about how those executables work to give a better explanation) so I'm sure that makes a bit of a difference...

I'm also using the 4.06.00.12_7 radio (Official Froyo OTA), I tried the 5.08.00.04 radio for a while and I felt like it got slightly faster speeds and ping times (could be just placebo) but I ultimately switched back because it did seem to cause noticeably increased battery drain and my girlfriend repeatedly complained about my voice sounding "digitally mangled" during calls...:rolleyes:

Though I agree with the OP's statement that the 5.08 radio did provide much more consistent speeds....with the 4.06 radio I've hit 5.2mbps :eek: (same situation with HSPA+, not officially turned on in Chicago) and then I'll be lucky if I can get 1mbps a couple tests later.... I did notice that ping times were also much more consistent with the 5.08 radio (usually around 90ms-160ms) and that unlike the 4.06 radio, did not usually require a "warm-up" test (usually the first speed test was garbage because the speed only kicked in about half-way through when radio/software/network realized that it needed to switch into HSDPA mode, this happens CONSIDERABLY more often with the 4.06 radio)

Okay, sorry, I don't mean to turn this into a discussion on radio versions....back on topic... :cool:

There seem to be some settings that work globally across both areas and providers, but most of what works well is limited to your location and your service provider.

It seems that setting ro.ril.gprsclass = 12 should work universally, from what I've read in other threads there hasn't been any negative reaction to this setting, as it just adjusts the number of GPRS timeslots requested by the phone. A quick glance at wikipedia reveals that UMTS (and by extension HSDPA) is still based on the GPRS core network, and while the nexus one's official specifications stated that it only supports GPRS class 10, I did notice a slight improvement with Class 12 set compared to without.

From what I've read during my time lurking on XDA, it seems that setting ro.ril.hsxpa is a bit of a mixed bag...some people are reporting that when it is set to = 1 they see dramatic differences in speed compared to = 2 or not being set at all....though some report that = 2 seems to work better and more quickly than = 1....like I said earlier, AOSP ROMs (Cyanogen, etc...) usually have it set to = 1, and that seems to work for most people using those particular ROMs....on the other hand, Sense ROMs (like any Desire Port) usually have it set to = 2, which also seems to work well for most users of those ROMs

What I've noticed when I have it set to ro.ril.hsxpa = 2, upload speeds seem to double from hsxpa = 1 regardless of location....

Also, these are not mentioned by the OP, but setting ro.ril.hsdpa.category = 8 and ro.ril.hsupa.category = 5 seem to increase the speed slightly from not having either set (look up "HSPA" on Wikipedia for more information on HSDPA/HSUPA categories and what they usually mean)

Since HSDPA category 8 is the highest speed the chipset in the nexus will support, there isn't really any reason to set it higher, though setting it lower could potentially increase speeds for those living in areas that haven't been upgraded to HSDPA 3.6 or 7.2... Same thing for HSUPA category 5, it's the highest the nexus will support, but not having it enabled would probably help in areas where your service provider has not enabled HSUPA...

Setting ro.telephony.default_network = 3 is the same thing as setting the preferred network type (in the *#*#4636#*#* testing menu) to GSM Auto (PRL), whereas setting it to = 0 would be the same as setting it to WCDMA Preferred....I'm not sure what setting 1 or 2 would do here, as this is just what I learned from my build.prop

Ever since I got my nexus I had it set to WCDMA Preferred, though when I switched to eVIL's NXSense about a month ago and found the default setting to be GSM Auto (PRL), I ran with it and it seems to be faster that way....or I'm at least getting less instances where it will randomly lose signal....but this could also be due to T-Mobile upgrading the network in the Chicago area (HSPA+ here we come! :D)

Okay, so that's about it....sorry again about that being so long winded, I just wanted to share what has been working for me and hopefully clear up any confusion for those reading this thread.... :cool:

I'm sure there's some things I've left out of this or stated incorrectly, it wasn't meant to be exhaustive or authoritative, just merely my observations on the matter.... ;)

And thanks again for the OP for starting this topic and putting up their findings in spreadsheet form (I'm a statistics geek :D) it is very well compiled and organized....I hope I didn't clutter up the thread too much here....:p