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Is AT&T Misleading About HSPA+ on the Inspire 4G?

So here’s the situation: 100% of the time, when testing the Inspire 4G, we see the “H+” icon in the notification bar. The user manual says that this means that we are “Connected to 4G.” And yet, we’re not getting HSPA+ speeds. In fact, as this video shows, we’re getting speeds slower than a Nexus One running on AT&T’s 3G network, despite having full bars. In practice, according to AT&T, their HSPA+ network should be providing speeds of “up to 6mbps”. We’re pretty sure the indicator is misleading. Not only are our data speeds confirming this, but if you go into Network Settings on the Inspire 4G, it clearly shows either UMTS or HSDPA as the network type. If we were on HSPA+ as the indicator implies, we’d see this reflected. And this isn’t an isolated issue with our review unit: other reviewers that we’ve spoken to are experiencing the same issue. We reached out to AT&T for a response. This is what they told us: Below is the language we’ve used (since CES) to talk about HSPA+ buildout, Brandon. It’s worth noting that we haven’t yet hit the public launch date of the Inspire 4G — as we get closer to that I should be able to share more information about the icon. But the below information is solid with respect to our HSPA+ buildout. And this was the link I mentioned earlier where Seth (another Seth) saw 6 MB down on his Inspire 4G demo unit. AT&T operates the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network today, and it’s getting faster in 2011 with 4G. AT&T is the only US company …