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Many users have complaint about poor (weak) signal reception...
But others (as me) are getting full bars and excelent coverage
Please vote and tell the world your Xperience
Mine seems to be okay. My completely subjective opinion is that it's not quite as good as my old Motorola Q9h Global, but it is about as good as my Nokia E71-2.
Considering that I live in zone 1 of one of the worlds major capitals the signal is crap ! ... in terms of reception DEFINITELY the worse phone I ever had (this is Vodafone / London)
Amanox said:
Considering that I live in zone 1 of one of the worlds major capitals the signal is crap ! ... in terms of reception DEFINITELY the worse phone I ever had (this is Vodafone / London)
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Tested another carrier ??
Testd another phone ??
Xperia is crap ??
or Vodafone is crap ??
This is exactly what we expect to find with this poll
I have no problem whatsoever with signal reception anywhere in the city, almost alway full bar.
in buildings (basement, any floor upwards) i got either 2 bars or 3 bars AND HSDPA.
i live in Jakarta, Indonesia btw...
Well.. I'm from Telcel Mexico, and I've been testing several radios (stock, xperia's 1.10.25. I dont remember) and the latest from the blackstone.. I've something to say... My Motorola MPx220 has better reception... even my girlfriends LG's Shine has reception in some places I dont
I'm hopping that Sony Ericcson can solve this.. (believe me.. it's really a shame that my girlfriend makes fun of my SUPER POWERFUL phone's crap reception..)
The signal on my X1i is fine, although i can see that the bars fluctuate a lot depending on the location i have never had any dropped calls. I assume that the measurement system on the X1i is far more accurate than i.e. a Nokia where it shows always a full signal until you dial a call and then it drops down a few bars to its actual reading.
I would say the signal is as strong as with the Nokia N95 and the SE w900i before. I cannot complain.
Don't mind your X1.. blame your operator for the signal!
2008 I had 4 phones all using Vodafone UK.... W960i, W880i, W890i and the X1, going round the same places the signal strength is on par with the w960i for me and better than the w880i and w890i... So that is comparing against 3 other Sony phones....
In the Central US with T-Mobile reception is just fine. = to my w850i
For me the X1 works much better than Tytn and Kaiser. I know than Tele2 (Swedish operator) have done som uppgrading. 2G / 3G switching works great now. Before the upgrade it was bad.
Had my x1 a week, currently it's getting the same if not slightly better signal than other HTC/SE phones in our house. Our town has poor reception in most areas but my x1 has been no different from other phones so far.
Well i know there were concerns about using T-mobile UK with the X1 but i've not really had any problems. I used to have the w580i and i'd say that was worse than the xperia. My house isn't particulary great for signal and i have two/three bars. So yeah...no issue here!
No problems at all here -London on Vodafone
I think we should separate X1i and X1a pole. Look at my reception on X1a with AT&T 3G. I paid $30 for internet
damskie said:
Don't mind your X1.. blame your operator for the signal!
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Location: My home address
Operator: O2
Phone: HTC Hermes = connects to HSDPA in every room - never loose signal
Phone: HTC Polaris = connects to HSDPA in every room - never loose signal
Phone: Xperia = Connects to GPRS in most rooms, very occassionaly HSDPA - looses signal regularly
I have tried 3 Xperias all with the same result.
You want me to blame my operator?
When the Xperia is close to a base-station/transmitter there are no signal problems. As soon as the environment gets slightly tricky, it can't cope, unlike my older HTC phones as demonstrated above.
At work, I don't have a problem with any of my phones including the Xperia; I have a base-station on the roof of my office building
randy_c said:
I think we should separate X1i and X1a pole. Look at my reception on X1a with AT&T 3G. I paid $30 for internet
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I have both X1a & X1i
My reception on X1a with TIGO 3.5G 850MHz is always HSDPA FULL BARS (urban)
I pay half that for 3,600 kbps internet
Still wanna blame the Xperia ??
That's not fair (for the phone)
I ve been with vodafone for the past years at the same address and all other phones get better signal ... however, the main problem is that the Xperia keeps dropping the signal for no reason. to give an exampe ..
Phone lies on my desk with 2 bars reception... when I reach for the phone to write a message or make a phone call, chances are that just by picking it up, e.g. moving it for a couple of inches, the phone will drop the signal .. then I ll have to wait for a minute till it picks it up again - as soon as it does it is back up to 2 bars and I can start making the phone call.
this is however only in areas where the signal is generally weaker e.g. where u would normally not get more than 2 bars anyway (like where I live - although I get full reception on my nokias with the same sim card).
If you are somewhere with good reception then there is no problem
hope that helps
Amanox said:
I ve been with vodafone for the past years at the same address and all other phones get better signal ... however, the main problem is that the Xperia keeps dropping the signal for no reason. to give an exampe ..
Phone lies on my desk with 2 bars reception... when I reach for the phone to write a message or make a phone call, chances are that just by picking it up, e.g. moving it for a couple of inches, the phone will drop the signal .. then I ll have to wait for a minute till it picks it up again - as soon as it does it is back up to 2 bars and I can start making the phone call.
this is however only in areas where the signal is generally weaker e.g. where u would normally not get more than 2 bars anyway (like where I live - although I get full reception on my nokias with the same sim card).
If you are somewhere with good reception then there is no problem
hope that helps
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Yep, I get that as well.
Does anyone else have trouble with T-Mobile reception in office buildings? In particular concrete block buildings.
The reason I ask is because I have good reception most places in town. However, when I go in one of our office buildings, that is primarily concrete, I have no service. But always had AT&T service on my iPhone. In my office (different building) I get good signal, but I have a lot of windows.
T-Mobile has just added coverage in this area in the past 6 months and just launched 3g in December.
Same problem for me.
TMO + N1 = serious problems with 3G right now. checking out the google phone support forums says that they are aware of the problem, and are looking for a fix.
Even if other TMO phones have good signal using the same SIM in a separate phone, the N1 is experiencing issues.
No problem at all in Chicagoland. I was all over the place today and yesterday. Only lost a spot in one pace. Known issue with ALL carriers. In between 2 lakes in the middle of forest preserve. No cell towers around. No complaints. No more drop calls like AT&T.
Every phone I've had on T-Mobile has had low reception in certain stores like Target or Macy's.
timothydonohue said:
TMO + N1 = serious problems with 3G right now. checking out the google phone support forums says that they are aware of the problem, and are looking for a fix.
Even if other TMO phones have good signal using the same SIM in a separate phone, the N1 is experiencing issues.
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I am not actually having the 3g issue that seems to be going around. My problem is that I loose all reception in buildings.
LOL, well, that's just the way it's gonna go with radios. some companies have bouncers inside certain facilities that facilitate reception, other's wont. the hospital in which i work has sprint relays all the way through it. most other devices wont' work, because it's inside of a big metal and brick structure. just the way radios work
timothydonohue said:
LOL, well, that's just the way it's gonna go with radios. some companies have bouncers inside certain facilities that facilitate reception, other's wont. the hospital in which i work has sprint relays all the way through it. most other devices wont' work, because it's inside of a big metal and brick structure. just the way radios work
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Most older facilities just act as huge Faraday cages. Its fun when you work for a wireless engineer and your building was built in the early 40s and everything is just screwed up when you want to do large scale tests.
timothydonohue said:
LOL, well, that's just the way it's gonna go with radios. some companies have bouncers inside certain facilities that facilitate reception, other's wont. the hospital in which i work has sprint relays all the way through it. most other devices wont' work, because it's inside of a big metal and brick structure. just the way radios work
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Read all the way through to see if somebody was going to mention repeaters and how generally cell's shouldn't work in big building without 'em. Looks like you beat me to it. lol
iVisionX01 said:
Every phone I've had on T-Mobile has had low reception in certain stores like Target or Macy's.
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They want you to buy more and talk less lol.
david1171 said:
They want you to buy more and talk less lol.
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Well I found out how to talk more for free. Thanks to sipdroid, gizmo5, and google voice. Now when I am in this office I receive my calls on the sipdroid client, which integrates very nicely.
My G1 was great @ my job, but the nexus is kind of a hassle when it comes to having extended conversations there. Keeps cutting in and out. I have so much trouble making clear calls, although 3G works great...
Nope. No problem here in NYC. I work in an old renovated factroy building and those are pretty solid buildings with plenty of concrete and even going into the service elevator I still have 2-3 bars and 3G. Not sure where eople who are complaining about their reception but traveled to several major cities and never had a problem...San Fran, Boston, Chicago, Santa Fe...I can still hear ya.
I am in east Texas where T-Mobile's footprint is small. When the G1 came out I ordered one, but had to return it and cancel service with T-mobile because of their service. They only had gprs in town and absolutely nothing outside of town. Before ordering the N1 I double checked all of T-Mobiles coverage maps and it indicated that there had been vast improvements in coverage, and they launched 3g just before Christmas. So I bought the N1. I get good coverage in most areas of town, but there are a lot of dead spots. If I have 3 bars or less outdoors, walking indoors completely kills my signal. I have noticed that for some reason T-Mobile's signal does not penetrate buildings as well as AT&T's signal. I came from an iPhone 3g, and always had full signal in these buildings.
Also, there is absolutely no Edge on T-Mobile's network in East Texas. It is either 3G or gprs. And the 3g is quite slow (300k max) compared to AT&T 3g speeds (avg 1Mb). In the first 14 days I did not go any where but my main office, which is a stone's throw from a tower, and home, so I did not notice the coverage issue. I saw Edge once while roaming the other day, that is it.
In Houston Downtown I have trouble with reception in buildings. AT&T had issues too, but it doesnt seem like they were as bad.
What pisses me off is when I am in a phone call and the N1 switches from 3g to edge I lose the call.
Anyone on T-Mobile with an Xperia X10i?
How is 3G reception? The N1 has some issues with this, wondering if the X10i is better.
I am on tmobile
I have the x10i and it works great no issue I get about 700 kb download and 700 kb upload approx in southern CA.
I love the phone much better than nexus 1 the only issue I have is its a little sluggish at times nothing to do with tmobile.
well im from uk and im on t-mobile and to be honest i think my receptions been pretty good.. considering i was pretty sceptic like u before i bought mine lol but i just went with the flow and im happy
woops.. my 3G is prety good although not better than the user above lolz just ran a speedtest now and it shows download @ 219kb/s! apparently it didnt/couldnt calculate the upload lol
doesn't the reception depend on your area as well?
arcticreaver said:
doesn't the reception depend on your area as well?
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Yes, but the Nexus One (what I currently use) has known issues with 3G reception...I'm wondering how well the X1 fairs.
I am on t-mobile in the Chicago area. Within the city, reception is pretty good. There are holes in the coverage though. I don't get 3g at home and some indoor places. It's due to the signal being weak and not penetrating interiors. Most likely t-mobile's fault. My buddy has a g1 and sharers the same experience.
Speeds vary greatly depending on time and place. Fastest I got was ~1600/1000 kb/s (down/up). Those speeds didn't occur together. Usually, when one is fast the other is slow.
My other friend who is on att with the n1 gets **** like ~3300/1500. Coverage is good overall.
T-mobile is decent, but still has lots of work ahead of it. Speeds are so so on average. 400-900 kb/s is the norm. Stuff like pandora run just fine. Although, I have experienced some major throttling during peak times like rush hour. For my area, it's around 4:30-7:00 PM. Areas like our downtown, speed suffers because of the population density.
Hope this anecdotal evidence helps.
edit: pardon the piss poor grammar. I'm on my phone.
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Sent from my X10i
Just thought id also add in the fact that apparently t-mob n orange gonna be joinin forces sometime this yr so hopefully each cover each othrs blindspot or improve coverage
Mobzter said:
Just thought id also add in the fact that apparently t-mob n orange gonna be joinin forces sometime this yr so hopefully each cover each othrs blindspot or improve coverage
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Interesting to know but I'm in the US so we don't have Orange here.
Unfortunately, we only have two real GSM providers here - AT&T and T-Mobile. The former tries to screw their customers in quite a few ways, and is effectively married to the iPhone (not releasing any other real competitors on its network). The latter is a much better company (much more service oriented), but doesn't have as good coverage. At the same time, AT&T's network drops calls quite often (at least in my area), while T-Mobile effectively never does, and has much more consistent performance - hence I use them instead. It's just unfortunate that I currently hop between EDGE/3G very often on my N1, due in part to the poor antenna design. I am hoping that the X10i will be better, and it seems like it will be. Now I just need to get over not having multi-touch (at least until an update comes around)...
works fine in NY, with normal speed of 1mb/s.
X10i worked great on my cross country trek with Tmobile, save for all those areas where I had a GPRS connection, that sucked.
So I got the Nexus S yesterday and LOVE everything about it.
I'm unable to get any acceptable reception inside my apartment (on the lowest level of a three story complex thats surrounded by other apartments).
I live in Hermosa Beach, CA and TMO says I have good coverage here... and they're right... because once i walk outside I'm blazing... like literally once I'm outside my door... what gives??? How can I go from 3G 4 bars lit up in green to that stupid EDGE with one bar... lucky to be green... or no reception at all.
Will I be stuck with not being able to use my phone inside my apartment? I called TMO and they are sending someone out here to check the reception I guess... but I'm stuck using WiFi inside my apartment without being able to use the phone.
Anyone else experience similar issues like that? My sprint phone never did this.
look into getting a signal repeater or something
T-Mobile definitely has issues penetrating buildings, in my opinion. Both my home and one of the two work-sites I frequent are almost dead-zones on T-Mo.
I purchased one of those zBoost cell repeaters for my home, which greatly improves reception, but you need to be able to run a cable to an outside antenna for best results.
Here's an Amazon link for a starting point to different models: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=mobile&field-keywords=zboost+tmobile&x=0&y=0
That said, it's ridiculous to have to pay $250 to get your cell signal. I only did it because the one I got does both AT&T and T-Mo frequencies (not T-Mo 3G, though) and my AT&T phones can get signal inside the house, but just barely.
I too have issues in buildings not necessarily my house but businesses
This is a T-Mobile issue. Not a nexus issue. Also is not a new issue.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
cpcrazyfly said:
This is a T-Mobile issue. Not a nexus issue. Also is not a new issue.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
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Technically correct, but if the Nexus S is your first T-Mobile phone, you might not know this. It would be easy to think the NS has a poor antenna. It's a valid question to ask, in my opinion.
redhatyellow said:
So I got the Nexus S yesterday and LOVE everything about it.
I'm unable to get any acceptable reception inside my apartment (on the lowest level of a three story complex thats surrounded by other apartments).
I live in Hermosa Beach, CA and TMO says I have good coverage here... and they're right... because once i walk outside I'm blazing... like literally once I'm outside my door... what gives??? How can I go from 3G 4 bars lit up in green to that stupid EDGE with one bar... lucky to be green... or no reception at all.
Will I be stuck with not being able to use my phone inside my apartment? I called TMO and they are sending someone out here to check the reception I guess... but I'm stuck using WiFi inside my apartment without being able to use the phone.
Anyone else experience similar issues like that? My sprint phone never did this.
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This is just a fundamental issue with the frequencies t-mobile uses for their 3g network, 1700 and 2100mHz. Those have poor building penetration vs for example lower bands like the 850mHz on ATT which penetrates buildings much stronger. It requires them to build towers closer together but that isn't always possible, its hard enough to get towers up as it is.
This is one reason I've tried to stay on ATT 3g as their 3g band performs much better in these situations, when its available.
distortedloop said:
T-Mobile definitely has issues penetrating buildings, in my opinion. Both my home and one of the two work-sites I frequent are almost dead-zones on T-Mo.
I purchased one of those zBoost cell repeaters for my home, which greatly improves reception, but you need to be able to run a cable to an outside antenna for best results.
Here's an Amazon link for a starting point to different models:
That said, it's ridiculous to have to pay $250 to get your cell signal. I only did it because the one I got does both AT&T and T-Mo frequencies (not T-Mo 3G, though) and my AT&T phones can get signal inside the house, but just barely.
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Do you think TMO will provide this for me? Have people got TMO to do this before?
And yeah, I know this isn't a NS issue... I LOVE THE NS -- MY FAV PHONE OF ALL TIME!!, but i am new to TMO and love them as well EXCEPT for inside my house !!
Has anyone ever got TMO to provide better reception inside their home?? You would think they would provide people with like wireless routers for their homes!
I had the G1, Nexus One, G2, and MT4G before the Nexus S and have to say that the Nexus S gets hands down the best reception in my apartment.
The G1 was worthless, the N1, G2, and MT4G were pretty much on par but only got reception in certain parts of the apartment which means I couldn't move very much when on the phone (unless when on wifi calling of course).
The Nexus S has reception everywhere in my apartment with superior call quality throughout. Very impressed with it so far. T-mobile still sucks inside buildings but you're better off with the Nexus S than other T-mobile devices.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
find another place lol
why you are living deep down under. afraid of nuke or something ?
Also, I live in Los Angeles and we've been having lots of rain here... will that affect reception at all?
And what about femtocell technology? Does TMO use it??
redhatyellow said:
Also, I live in Los Angeles and we've been having lots of rain here... will that affect reception at all?
And what about femtocell technology? Does TMO use it??
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Im about an hour away from you and the rain is horrible but i havent had any issues...
and I dont think they do
LOL! I cannot stop laughing reading this comment
ll_l_x_l_ll said:
find another place lol
why you are living deep down under. afraid of nuke or something ?
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Rain seems to be affecting my T mobile service, I'm in the valley and areas I normally get 3g on have been edge or no service since the rain storms began.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
Hopefully someone will port the tmobile wifi app to the nexus s. I may return mine and wait for it because I don't want to keep switching phones at home because one has the ability for wifi calling and the other doesnt.
Also I have tried sip calling to no avail on both nexuses.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Rain is known to sometimes cause interference with reception; I notice this as well in NYC. I have noticed that the Nexus S is pretty good at keeping the signal alive, certainly better than my N1 or Vibrant.
To improve your reception, set the phone to airplane mode and then turn it off a few seconds later to get the closest towers. Also call 611 and ask them to reset your phone on the network from their end. Surprisingly, this sometimes does help. As someone said previously, the higher the band (2100 mhz for Tmo 3G), the worse penetration is unfortunately. I think Tmo stopped selling their repeaters earlier this year or last year (hotspot @ home).
I tweeted on Sunday my dissatisfaction with T-Mobile service. I was 75' outside one of their own stores in an area marked as 3G on their maps, couldn't get data at all inside another store, couldn't get better than EDGE outside in the parking lot.
Their reply was to try a new SIM. The SIM I have is from my N1 original, it's not even a year old. Anyone think it's worth the effort swapping? Do SIMS actually "wear out" that fast?
I suspect that's one of those "we don't really have an answer or fix, but give the customer something to try so we look proactive" kind of answers. LOL
have you tried setting up SIP + GVoice over Wifi?
This doesn't resolve the tmobile issue, but at least you can make and receive calls on wifi without eating up your minutes...
It's not ideal, but it works.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=877879
My friend had this problem with his ATT phones. He contacted them, *****ed, and they set up one of those repeaters in his apartment. He's the only one that could log into it and set up a filter to use only phones he registers. Maybe you can talk to Tmobile about this, though I'm not sure if they're eager to give everyone these things (or if Tmobile even gives them).
I work and go to school full time so 90% of the time I'm inside of a building. I'm finding that even seated in front of a huge window I have no data signal it just says "emergency calls only" and the wifi is so terribly weak I can't even connect to the campus wifi. Anything I can do to improve this before I consider other options?
Sent from my Nexus S
Bronk93 said:
I work and go to school full time so 90% of the time I'm inside of a building. I'm finding that even seated in front of a huge window I have no data signal it just says "emergency calls only" and the wifi is so terribly weak I can't even connect to the campus wifi. Anything I can do to improve this before I consider other options?
Sent from my Nexus S
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T-Mobile will NEVER be good at building penetration with their current network; it's the high frequencies they use and the lack of close-together towers.
WiFi seems to be hit or miss for people. I have zero issues with WiFi on my phone, but lots of people complain the NS is weak. You might consider a swap if you're still in the remorse period. Other than that, unless you get closer to the WiFi, there's nothing you can (currently) do to the phone that will boost the reception, but software updates might address that (new modem software, etc).
that is the nature of AWS 1700+2100 (t-mobile) signal
some areas are really good, some areas are horrible
i myself i'm victim of that, no much you can do about it, other than to report weak signal areas, so that they can put up more towers to cover the black spots (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI)
as for WiFi signal... i don't seem to have that trouble
i can connect to WiFi G and N just fine, fast and strong 3 bars, or 4 bars, but never max
Bronk93 said:
I'm finding that even seated in front of a huge window I have no data signal... and the wifi is so terribly weak I can't even connect to the campus wifi. Anything I can do to improve this before I consider other options?
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I find that I am having the same problem.
The understand network signal issue that "AllGamer" and "distortedloop" mention. But I am came to the Nexus S from a G2. I wanted a purely Google phone and paid for the Nexus S. In the same buildings (Work & School), My G2 would report a stronger WIFI signal.
Any reason for this noted discrepancy? I'm not complaining, just trying to understand and find out if there is a solution.
I think I'm still in my 14 day period, so I may swap it out. But it feels like I've been setting up phone preferences and reinstalling programs for months. I've been through several G2s because of that darn hinge and now another Nexus-S.
Please somebody--- say there's a fix.
I get 2 bars of wifi only 10 feet from my home router even. Im out of my grace period but I have the 10$ a month best buy insurance, could that be used? Sadly I'm looking at the g2 and hd7, some form of reliable data is a must for me.
Sent from my Nexus S
I live in a terrible service area. With my Sprint phone I had to actually go outside to be able to make and receive calls and I live in the Northwest. Its f***ing wet here. On Tmobile I get great service...on my couch only. Its better than having to go outside, and I don't mind it that much to be honest. I just leave my phone on my couch while I'm at home and all is well. As for WiFi, I've never had any issues though I've read about all the people complaining. My wife and I both have great WiFi reception or at the very worst, reception on par with every other phone I've owned. She goes to class inside a concrete building from the 70s and gets fine WiFi and no one on any carrier gets any real cell reception in those buildings.
I don't have experience with any other carrier, so I have no basis for comparison, but I've never found T-Mobile to be particularly bad inside buildings in general. Some are just really bad. I suspect it has a lot to do with the design and materials of the building. I've never had an experience of having such bad coverage by a window, though. Maybe you're only in range of one tower, and the window you're standing at is just on the opposite side of the building from that tower? I dunno.
Thanks for all the feedback fellas. I'm going to see if the best buy insurance will cover a phone swap.
Sent from my Nexus S
It most likely won't. Your best bet would be an exchange if you're within the 30 days or selling the nexus and buying a different phone off contract.
Sent from my SubCyan CM7 Google Nexus S!
zorak950 said:
I don't have experience with any other carrier, so I have no basis for comparison, but I've never found T-Mobile to be particularly bad inside buildings in general. Some are just really bad. I suspect it has a lot to do with the design and materials of the building. I've never had an experience of having such bad coverage by a window, though. Maybe you're only in range of one tower, and the window you're standing at is just on the opposite side of the building from that tower? I dunno.
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T-Mobile's overall service is definitely location-dependent.
I live in the suburbs of Los Angeles. My house is single story, wood frame & 1/2" stucco construction built in the 50s. It's in the "hills", but in direct line of sight of two different towers. One's maybe 3/4 miles, the other just over a mile.
Until a couple of months ago, I could not get any signal in my house, on either voice or data. They did something in the fall and I started getting voice and EDGE, and occasionally I'll get a single bar of 3G in some rooms of the house.
AT&T and Verizon, 5 bars inside my house, but in fairness to T-Mobile, in the early days of the iPhone, I remember having lots of dead spots inside the house with the iPhone.
distortedloop said:
T-Mobile's overall service is definitely location-dependent.
I live in the suburbs of Los Angeles. My house is single story, wood frame & 1/2" stucco construction built in the 50s. It's in the "hills", but in direct line of sight of two different towers. One's maybe 3/4 miles, the other just over a mile.
Until a couple of months ago, I could not get any signal in my house, on either voice or data. They did something in the fall and I started getting voice and EDGE, and occasionally I'll get a single bar of 3G in some rooms of the house.
AT&T and Verizon, 5 bars inside my house, but in fairness to T-Mobile, in the early days of the iPhone, I remember having lots of dead spots inside the house with the iPhone.
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Crazy. I never had a smartphone when I lived in Rochester (MN), so I know nothing about 3G there, but I never had problems with voice calls unless I was in the subway or I buried myself in the core of one of Mayo Clinic's monstrous stone buildings. In Saint Cloud the only place I can recall getting no signal was in the middle of the cinder block labyrinth known as our student union building. In Portland, I get reception pretty much everywhere, though 3G coverage just doesn't exist still in sizable patches outside the city's core.
But yeah, I imagine it's like that with pretty much any carrier; some places, coverage just blows.
I've decided that I am willing to give up my nexus to get service through another carrier with better service in my area. Does anyone have experience with at&t? Does their band allow for better reception in buildings?
Sent from my Nexus S
Yes if you live in an 850mHz area for ATT then building penetration is spectacular. But It's not totally common.
Also I read an ATT version of the nexus s is confirmed now. So that's an option.
I concur with RogerPodacter on AT&T. Their 1900 mhz signal isn't much better at building penetration than T-Mobiles 1700/2100 AWS, but 850 should be. I don't think a lot of areas are actually 850 yet.
If coverage and building penetration are your main concerns, I really feel Verizon is the way to go. Everywhere I hang out that I don't get a signal on either my T-Mo or my AT&T phone, the folks with Verizon are getting good strong coverage. I live and work in the suburbs and surrounding areas of Los Angeles; since cell service is very much dependent on the area you live in with all the companies, your experience may be much different.
Along those lines, I was at Lake Mohave (Bullhead, AZ area) recently, and neither my AT&T i9000, iPhone 4, or T-Mobile Nexus One could get a signal at all for voice or data, but the guys with old original model iPhones were pulling in a signal. Go figure.
My Own Fustration
Hmm...my problem is that 50% of the time when I am on the subway and the signal drops off, when I arrive at the next station, it remains off. There seems to be some kind of glitch (either in the actual OS or else something caused by something I have running in the background) whereby the phone antenna just turns "off", so to speak, and the only way to fix it is to restart the phone.
TokyoGuy said:
Hmm...my problem is that 50% of the time when I am on the subway and the signal drops off, when I arrive at the next station, it remains off. There seems to be some kind of glitch (either in the actual OS or else something caused by something I have running in the background) whereby the phone antenna just turns "off", so to speak, and the only way to fix it is to restart the phone.
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Or you can try turning airplane mode off and on, see if that helps
How would I know which AT&T signal is available in my area?
Sent from my Nexus S
Bronk93 said:
How would I know which AT&T signal is available in my area?
Sent from my Nexus S
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I'm not sure how accurate this is, since it's 2 years old, but it's a good start: http://www.cellularmaps.com/att_850_1900.shtml
distortedloop said:
I'm not sure how accurate this is, since it's 2 years old, but it's a good start: http://www.cellularmaps.com/att_850_1900.shtml
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wow! i'm actually surprised there are less 850 coverage than 1900 areas (according to that map)
on a related note.
wish more Cell phone carriers had this feature
http://www2.windmobile.ca/en/pages/storesandcoverage.aspx
using google map, to check live coverage, and you can report weak spots, so they can build a new tower to cover the weak spots