Ever since my T-Mobile Amaze 4G phone was updated from Gingerbread to ICS version of the Android OS, I've been having very unreliable data reception (3G/4G) with both mobile network or WiFi operation. The data connection would work for a couple minutes, then stop for a couple minutes, and start all over again the same cycle. During the stop the data indicator icon on the top of the screen would also stop flashing.
First I thought that maybe the radio chips generate too much heat and when they reach a critical temp, they shut off till they cool down again. (I've had similar behavior with my HP notebook whose Nvidia graphics chip tended to over heat under heavy use. Reflowing the soldering on that GPU chip and improving its heat minimized the problem.)
But then recently I noticed that when my phone's WiFi was connected to a restaurant's slow network, the WiFi connection, though slow, seemed steady. Then it occured to me that the problem is perhaps software related where the communication buffer of this Android version cannot process the data network packets fast enough on a faster network, but can keep up with them on a slower one. Note, the older Gingerbread OS didn't have this problem.
I only dabble in software (app level only,) and not in electronics, so I though I ask your opinion about what might be going on here.
Thanks.