ATT 8525. Is there a tweak in which I can force roaming?
Perhaps a registry edit?
There are no software choices as these have been elimibated by ATT/Cingular.
Thanks
Ray
just wondering... why would you want to force roaming?
-Nstefanelli-
Why force roaming?
I'm in an area where I pop in and out of roaming areas. What happens is that I will get what ATT calls "dead spots" where the call is not dropped but sometimes will resume after about a minute or two of silence. Sometimes it will drop. I think that this is ATT's way of tallying minutes. They refuse to call themn dropped calls. When I had Verizon not only did I have perfect reception on the same route (noe I lose the call 3-4 times) but if a call dropped it dropped immediately, not after 2 minutes. In any case, force roaming may get me to drop (or get dead zones) on fewer calls. Also, they don't like roamers, if I eventually want to drop the service they are more likely going to make an exception when I have been freely roaming (which costs them money).
NOW I wonder who can tell me how to do this?
My suggestion would be to not chat constantly while driving.
Also note that roaming will cost you money, not just AT&T. Truth be told, it likely won't cost AT&T anything at all (providers have agreements on this sort of thing) but will certainly end up costing you a lot in roaming charges.
In any case, it seems unlikely to me that you are saying anything important enough to where you need to be use the phone while driving 100% of the time.
If you're looking for other suggestions, try a booster antenna for your car. There's a nice little antenna port on the back of the 8525 just for this purpose.
I don't understand the response?
My question was "How do you force roaming?" What I got was a commentary on when I should use my phone and what it will cost.
Can anyone who is capable please answer the question? I really don't need to be coached on the appropriate time to use the phone.
An answer confined to the parameters of the question would be appreciated.
Thank you
Ray
try changing radio versions
I've had great success with different radio ROMs as far as getting coverage in an area that I previously had none.
I tried the 1.48 radio rom and it made things worse (no coverage inside buildings) but went back to 1.47 and all is golden...
No sure about forcing a roam but this might be better
Doesn't help you much, but the guy talking about roaming charges is off by 100%. I have spent days roaming on other carriers networks where ATT had no service and it didn't cost me a cent. Don't all ATT plans come with no roaming charges these days?
radio ROM?
Batster,
Please forgive my ignorance. Tell me about radio ROM and how to change/obtain it. (I guess I should have searched before replying...perhaps it's on here)
Thanks
Ray
Updating your radio isn't withinin the confines of your question, though.
Perhaps not...but it IS constructive
nitecapt said:
An answer confined to the parameters of the question would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
..........
I may be wrong, but I think you can just change the order of preferred providers.
-Nstefanelli-
Nitecap;
Different radio ROMs have different effects on the phone; usually a trade off between reception and battery life; in other words, 1 ROM may get you a stronger signal but shorter battery life, while another may do the opposite. It's all a matter of trial and error--try a few and see which works best for you in that area that you're driving in.
Radio ROMs HERE
Hope this helps.
Nitecap;
Sorry, also wanted to list this thread on Cingular Radio ROM's
check out the Upgrading forums for Radio information... various radio versions seem to do better with different providers and also the area you're in. They also affect battery life to a degree. Since you're AT&T I'd start with 1.48, or 1.40
Also check out MrVanx's guides on how to do upgrades SAFELY!
You are the best!
You guys are great. Thank you for contributing your valuable time to my problem. It is much appreciated.
Cingular network (enforced by the SIM) does not allow manual network selection. When you are actually roaming, as in a foreign country, the manual network search will appear in the phone settings. I feel your pain with this. Also I like flaming people just as much as the next guy but you are right the commentaries on don’t drive and talk or just don’t roam it costs money was uncalled for!
I did find an option in some versions of the "advance settings" (kaiser tweaks) that is titled:
CPHS override (specifies whether the CPHS operator name (the operator name stored in the SIM) overrides all other stored operator names.)
by deafult with my current ROM it was disabled. I enabled it and then disabled it and I tried forcing my phone to connect to AT&T's freqencies instead of T-Mobile's. No luck.
maybe the solution is/can be related to this feature or a combination of this feature and something else?
Related
I recently unlocked my G1 to work with the ICE Network here in Costa Rica.
I was actually stuck for like 3 hours thinking about flashing and trying differen methods for the activation because for some reason it wouldn't catch the 2G Data Services (After I Followed alot of APN Settings etc)
When I was about to give up , I saw what seemed like a new icon (which ended up being that it was receiving data)
But I also noticed the R in the signal strenght icon, which I managed to figure out was Roaming.
This has not gone off since I got the phone, I got Donut 1.6 , I got the phone yesterday, It works perfectly, It receives calls, Dials, Msgs fine, everything like my old S.E phone, the internet is even a tad faster, but I'm kinda worried about the Roaming sign being there.
I'm not really worried for any International SMS like it was reported, because the crappy service here doesn't even have that, so It won't happen, and I don't even think Roaming exists here.
Any help to that?
red.Wood said:
I recently unlocked my G1 to work with the ICE Network here in Costa Rica.
I was actually stuck for like 3 hours thinking about flashing and trying differen methods for the activation because for some reason it wouldn't catch the 2G Data Services (After I Followed alot of APN Settings etc)
When I was about to give up , I saw what seemed like a new icon (which ended up being that it was receiving data)
But I also noticed the R in the signal strenght icon, which I managed to figure out was Roaming.
This has not gone off since I got the phone, I got Donut 1.6 , I got the phone yesterday, It works perfectly, It receives calls, Dials, Msgs fine, everything like my old S.E phone, the internet is even a tad faster, but I'm kinda worried about the Roaming sign being there.
I'm not really worried for any International SMS like it was reported, because the crappy service here doesn't even have that, so It won't happen, and I don't even think Roaming exists here.
Any help to that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might want to post your APN settings so others can see if you need to change something.
name:ICE Celular
apn: icecelular
proxy:172.27.10.4
port:8080
username:blank
pass:blank
server:172.27.10.4
mcc:712
mnc:03
Out of noobing around, I tried to play with the APN settings, but I went back to the old ones, now my Internet doesn't work..
http://modmyi.com/wiki/index.php/Carrier_APN_Settings#ICE_.28Costa_Rica.29
Thats the only thing I saw. Saw a couple other places that had the same info. If that don't work then maybe someone else can help you thru.
This isn't an APN problem, it is a SIM problem.
Your provider has one set of numbers on your card, and another set of numbers that actually identify the network, and they don't match. Technically, from the phone's point of view, you *are* roaming, even if it is the same provider. From the provider's point of view, you *aren't* roaming.
Up until cupcake, we had that same problem here in Canada when using the "Fido" network (which is owned and operated by "Rogers"). The network identified itself as "Rogers", the SIM cards identify themselves as "Fido", the phone think's its roaming.
So; you don't need to worry about roaming charges when you are actually connected to the correct network.
BUT; You don't have an easy to read display to tell you when you are *really* roaming, nor can you make configurations that are based on whether you are or are not roaming.
Edit: You might be inclined to report it as a bug against AOSP. Even though it technically isn't a bug, the workaround for it needs to be input and that needs to originate as a bug report. http://source.android.com/report-bugs
lbcoder said:
This isn't an APN problem, it is a SIM problem.
Your provider has one set of numbers on your card, and another set of numbers that actually identify the network, and they don't match. Technically, from the phone's point of view, you *are* roaming, even if it is the same provider. From the provider's point of view, you *aren't* roaming.
Up until cupcake, we had that same problem here in Canada when using the "Fido" network (which is owned and operated by "Rogers"). The network identified itself as "Rogers", the SIM cards identify themselves as "Fido", the phone think's its roaming.
So; you don't need to worry about roaming charges when you are actually connected to the correct network.
BUT; You don't have an easy to read display to tell you when you are *really* roaming, nor can you make configurations that are based on whether you are or are not roaming.
Edit: You might be inclined to report it as a bug against AOSP. Even though it technically isn't a bug, the workaround for it needs to be input and that needs to originate as a bug report. http://source.android.com/report-bugs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank You very much.
I actually wasn't really worrying a whole lot, because Roaming doesn't exist here in Costa Rica. ( We are expected to barely get 3G this year, and there is a wait list for that for about 200,000 people ).. If your signal goes out, thats it, you got no signal .
thanks for the quick reply, another thing I wanted to ask. I've had the phone since like Sunday, and When I got it it was Version 1.01, So I got 1.5 Cup Cake, and eventually 1.6 Donut without even trying the phone at any point, I'm getting alot of force close msgs, for something regarding android action or something like that, I don't recall the exact msg, but I keep getting it , when going to the home from a application (any) or doing something rly fast, it blacks out, resets the desktop and shows up again, I read somewhere you had to do a factory reset (which bugs me because for some reason mY internet wasn't working until like 5 hours after I unlocked the phone).. Thanks
red.Wood said:
Thank You very much.
I actually wasn't really worrying a whole lot, because Roaming doesn't exist here in Costa Rica. ( We are expected to barely get 3G this year, and there is a wait list for that for about 200,000 people ).. If your signal goes out, thats it, you got no signal .
thanks for the quick reply, another thing I wanted to ask. I've had the phone since like Sunday, and When I got it it was Version 1.01, So I got 1.5 Cup Cake, and eventually 1.6 Donut without even trying the phone at any point, I'm getting alot of force close msgs, for something regarding android action or something like that, I don't recall the exact msg, but I keep getting it , when going to the home from a application (any) or doing something rly fast, it blacks out, resets the desktop and shows up again, I read somewhere you had to do a factory reset (which bugs me because for some reason mY internet wasn't working until like 5 hours after I unlocked the phone).. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
edit: android.process.acore
Yeah, a factory reset might help. Especially when you've done that many updates over a short period of time.
Write down your APN settings on a piece of paper and do the factory reset. It will STILL have 1.6, it will just clear the user data, which after just one day, won't be much anyways. Better to get it cleaned up now rather than wait until you have a big pile of configurations you don't want to lose.
Thanks, Did that, now my G1 Is much faster and won't crash.. Awesome
Any way to accomplish this?
I need this BAD too! Reception at work is god awfull. Please help! SOS
What does your user name mean? Natural light or natty boh light?
Please someone make an app to turn on/off roaming; I'm willing to pay money for it (and I'm sure a lot of people are willing to do so too).......
LOL if it were this easy.......
Roaming is of no use to me but I always like to look in to issues that people are having. I grep'd what code we have available to us for our phones and the only two options I came across were:
ro.com.android.dataroaming = true
xml: name="sync_while_roaming">false
So all I can tell you is that I can control whether it roams or not (which can also be easily changed in our settings menu) but not to force it to roam. I googled if it was possible in android at all and couldn't find any results.
Do you know what towers are around you or what towers we can roam on? I wonder if it would be possible to hack in a verizon rom dump from eris and force it to roam on their towers. However that won't allow you to come back to Sprint. And Sprint has been known to cancel contracts of people who roam too much.
has anyone tried to update the PRL to a verizon PRL?? I tried it, but i'm not sure how successful it was, as both Sprint and Verizon signals are strong in my area.. Put the PRL on the SD card and use ##PRL# to update it..
flipzmode said:
Roaming is of no use to me but I always like to look in to issues that people are having. I grep'd what code we have available to us for our phones and the only two options I came across were:
ro.com.android.dataroaming = true
xml: name="sync_while_roaming">false
So all I can tell you is that I can control whether it roams or not (which can also be easily changed in our settings menu) but not to force it to roam. I googled if it was possible in android at all and couldn't find any results.
Do you know what towers are around you or what towers we can roam on? I wonder if it would be possible to hack in a verizon rom dump from eris and force it to roam on their towers. However that won't allow you to come back to Sprint. And Sprint has been known to cancel contracts of people who roam too much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The towers around me are Verizon towers. Yeah, I undestand that (Sprint has been known to cancel contracts of people who roam too much) and I don't want to Roam all the time, just here at work. The phone is mostly on roaming while at work but is is continually searching for a Sprint tower and that drains the battery so fast! The only workaround for me is to set the phone to airplane mode until about the last three hours of work but then even when the phone is turned on it constantly tries to switch to a very weak sprint signal and I keep losing connection just about every 2 or 3 minutes, so using the phone in work is practically useless for me right now
@mroneeyedboh: Natural Light. My ode to cheap beer.
One area I frequent has a weak Sprint signal, and a "decent" Verizon signal. It would take "excessive" roaming, for 3 consecutive months for Sprint to flag you for abuse. So you have some breathing room. I remember my G1 had an option to manually select the network available. However, I'm not entirely sure that having a network option isn't just a customary feature of a GSM device, and not Android specifically, since its obviously compatible world wide.
I have the same exact situation at work where I get no signal on sprint but it tries to find it draining the battery and preventing it from using the very good verizon signal. I had to force it to EVDO only just to be able to check my gmail and confirm my XDA forum registration since webmail is blocked at work. This the kind of thing I bought this phone for to always have access to my email. Switching to EVDO Only mode is really cumbersome and annoying, and still gives a bad although slightly better signal. If I forget to switch it back to allow 1x Data, I can't use SMS and when I call sprint it hangs up immediately unless I switch it back on. I would use very minimal time data and voice roaming compared to my outside of building data and voice use as I'm sure is the case for most people with bad sprint coverage inside buildings.
Greefus said:
I have the same exact situation at work where I get no signal on sprint but it tries to find it draining the battery and preventing it from using the very good verizon signal. I had to force it to EVDO only just to be able to check my gmail and confirm my XDA forum registration since webmail is blocked at work. This the kind of thing I bought this phone for to always have access to my email. Switching to EVDO Only mode is really cumbersome and annoying, and still gives a bad although slightly better signal. If I forget to switch it back to allow 1x Data, I can't use SMS and when I call sprint it hangs up immediately unless I switch it back on. I would use very minimal time data and voice roaming compared to my outside of building data and voice use as I'm sure is the case for most people with bad sprint coverage inside buildings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a widget in the market to switch 3g on and off. can't remember the name.
Anyone who's more knowledgeable than me, can please tell me if by changing anything in the ## menus, (like ##diag# or ##data#), can we force the phone to roam? (I'm asking because I just got the MSL number out of my device and now can change any of those settings).
TIA.
daveli said:
Anyone who's more knowledgeable than me, can please tell me if by changing anything in the ## menus, (like ##diag# or ##data#), can we force the phone to roam? (I'm asking because I just got the MSL number out of my device and now can change any of those settings).
TIA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, can't help you. I interested in this thread, so I'm bumping it.
This sounds like something the CDMA radio manages. I'm not familiar with the lower level processes and configurations on Android, but this might be part of a closed source process. I don't know if Android is supposed to have such a thing?
You could try setting the Home SID/NID to the SID/NID of the tower where you work, and then set the phone to Sprint Only. This in theory should force the phone to stay on the roaming tower, but I'm not sure if this will override the PRL. Probably not.
Subscribing... I would give anything for this. I got this shiny new hero and can't use it at my house. It was so awesome that I kept it. A friend can sit next to me on verizon and get almost a full signal.
I have tried the GV + Sipsorcery + sipdroid thing to make and receive calls over wifi but it is so unreliable. If I could just switch to use the roaming verizon tower by my house I could justify keeping this thing.
I am new to android development, but not new to development, linux, or java. So I will probably investigate this more.
flexgrip said:
Subscribing... I would give anything for this. I got this shiny new hero and can't use it at my house. It was so awesome that I kept it. A friend can sit next to me on verizon and get almost a full signal.
I have tried the GV + Sipsorcery + sipdroid thing to make and receive calls over wifi but it is so unreliable. If I could just switch to use the roaming verizon tower by my house I could justify keeping this thing.
I am new to android development, but not new to development, linux, or java. So I will probably investigate this more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anyone looking into what someone else found? That he was able to force roam the Hero?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=616405
I am hopefull
Apart from force roaming does anyone know of an app that would let you manually select your towers (or a built in way to do it).
I don't want to force roaming actually, I just want to switch to the verizon tower near my house so I can use my phone at home. I don't want to do it anywhere else. Just once instance.
I had a junk nokia a long time ago and it even had an app that let you manually select your tower and gave me all the serial/id info about it. What is the next closest think on android for this?
flexgrip said:
I don't want to force roaming actually, I just want to switch to the verizon tower near my house so I can use my phone at home. I don't want to do it anywhere else. Just once instance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is, by definition, force roaming.
Oh, you're right, but what I meant was that I don't want to be anywhere and kick myself off the sprint towers onto any other tower using an app or setting. I just meant in one location I would like to switch to a defined tower. There is a big difference between an app that lets you select your network towers and another that forces your phone off of sprint onto any roaming tower. But thanks for a helpful post.
As far as the CDMA hero goes, is there anything helpful in the radio updates that might lead to controlling the network selection? I am wrapping some projects up this week and I do not care to dig through the source to see if a quick app is possible.
I'm pretty sure you should NOT mess with the radio...
flexgrip said:
Subscribing... I would give anything for this. I got this shiny new hero and can't use it at my house. It was so awesome that I kept it. A friend can sit next to me on verizon and get almost a full signal.
I have tried the GV + Sipsorcery + sipdroid thing to make and receive calls over wifi but it is so unreliable. If I could just switch to use the roaming verizon tower by my house I could justify keeping this thing.
I am new to android development, but not new to development, linux, or java. So I will probably investigate this more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or, you could call customer care, and tell them that you get no service at home, and require an AIRAVE. They sent me one free, and waived the 4.99 month charge. Just explain to them, you need your phone, you have small kids or whatever, you need service in your home.
AIRAVE is the best thing ever. I went from no service in my house, to 5 bars at all times, who cares if its only 1X, I can still make and receive calls, and have WiFi for my data needs.
So after reading mostly every post I could find on the net regarding the Vibrant and its signal bar issues, it's pretty apparent that most everyone experiences the signal indicator dropping when the phone is held a certain way, however this only seems to affect some people's data throughput and voice service. I have read a couple of people that do not have these dropped bars, but those posts are few and far between, so I think it is safe to assume that there is a definite bug with at least the way the phone displays signal.
I have a new theory. Now, I'm no expert with cellular technology, so this may, and probably is, totally wrong. But as I was unboxing the phone, I noticed that this was the first time I got a new SIM card with any T-Mobile phone since my first, the original T-Mobile PocketPC Phone Edition, in what was that, 2002? 2003? Every other upgraded handset I've ever owned didn't come with one and it was assumed you just pop it out of your previous phone and you were good to go. Have SIM cards changed at all the way they handle these newer networks, especially HSDPA and HSPA+, or is it still all of the same? My new SIM doesn't work because I believe it isn't registered to my account on the network, so I am using the old one. It is a dumb theory I know, but its worth thinking about. Someone who is better educated will probably school my noobness, but I just found it interesting that this is the first phone on T-Mobile that can take advantage of these newer networks for both voice and data, and also the first one to include a brand-spanking new SIM card, in my experience anyway.
If this theory is totally stupid, does anyone else have any other theories?
Also received a new SIM card, unasked for. No idea if and how this could affect signal, though.
New sim cards should have basically no input on your reception. It just tells your phone which signal ranges to use. Thats it. Also contact storage.
Meanwhile you have to seriously hamfist your phone to cause anything, none of which would result in a dropped call nor a stopped data transfer.
Please stop the false hype. Vibrant won't drop calls like the iphone would.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
The old sim cards can only register on the network some 90k times or somesuch before they go bad. The swaps between 2g + 3g networks are causing lots to go bad faster. The new sim cards don't go bad at that point. That is the only difference. You will know if it's gone bad if you're getting "sos emergency calls" or "unable to register," but it shouldn't have any effect on loss of data/signal temporarily. It will simply no longer connect at all, period.
You sure about that magic 90k number? Got a link to back it up?
I would have a year tops if that were even true.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
No links, sorry. I'm in cust care for t-mobile, and it was in one of our updates explaining why exactly we were getting these mysterious new sim card codes in the system when there was no other noticable changes to the sims. No increase in storage for contacts, or anything else, we were all kinda "huh"
Edit:After searching around for a relevant link I stumbled upon the one below stating that it might cause similar problems, although I've yet to see that being related in any of the troubleshooting I've done. At least the specifically UICC problem.
forums.t-mobile.com/t5/myTouch-3G-Slide/cannot-make-calls-losing-signal-apps-force-closing-Problems/m-p/416847
Sim cards can cause some problems for people. I can safely say that even with the weakest of signals MY Vibrant will xfer data. I have the screen shots to prove it. I've yet to drop a call. The only thing I have a problem with is the GPS and the occasional pausing. I wish we could get some information from T-Mobile and Samsung about this matter and when they plan on fixing it. I see they're working on it by "leaking" betas to i9000 handsets. They need to fix the bars too because it's more annoying than anything. Otherwise I love the phone. GPS/zero bars will do for now but I want it to match the rest of the phone. The phone has no problem seeing up to 14 sats (only on stock settings) but will not connect to them.
My sim card is the one that came with the phone. Some networks have a special 3G authentication based on your sim but I don't believe T-Mobile is one of the carriers that use this.
I am using my old sim card and I still get attenuation when I cover the bottom of the phone. I have never lost a call due to it so I have always figured that it is just faulty reporting of the signal. In my house, where I get pretty bad service, I can make it show no bars but I can still receive a call (I got one while I was playing with it by odd coincidence)
Hi all,
Wonder if you can help me as I'm beginning to lose it with this phone..
I've not had a decent connection since I bought the phone back in september. Basically a 3G signal means no connection. Nothing happens, no data. When its on the 'H' sign it works really well but it stays on H for like 10 seconds before switching back to 3G.
I've googled this problem and it seems I'm not the only one with this issue. I've changed the network settings, and even tried various radios to no avail. I have good 3G coverage in my area so there shouldn't be a problem at all. Even in central london it doesn't work. It's too unstable and virtually unusable..
Can anyone suggest any other possible solutions to this please?
Thanks
Talk to lennyuk about this
He got on well against orange and can tell you the story of what's wrong
I had this problem before! Orange just sent me a new SIM and it was all sorted !
Thanks chaps,
I've just PM'd Lenny!
alex: I'll ring them up and ask them to send me a new one if it still doesn't work. I'm sooo not looking forward to explaining to them what the issue is...haha
Ah, I had this problem, and it left me 4 months without data thanks to oranges stupidity.
Anyway a short term fix will be to dial *#*#4636#*#* and go phone options, then change your network in the drop down box to 2g only (or similar can't remember the phrase it uses)
2g still works all the time.
As for the long fix, you will need to speak to orange and demand to speak to "high tech" support they can fix it (well they did for me eventually). The problem they said was that my phone was connecting to both an old tower and a new "super tower" they orange UK are installing across the country, this confused the phone and messed up its data connection when on 3g, as it was trying to pull data from 2 towers at one time.
Orange eventually forced me onto one tower (or so they told me) and for a large part the problem was solved from there on in.
You do have to remember as well though the Hero has some 3g compatibility issues with Orange's existing network (again stupid orange), this is something that can never really be fixed.
Orange support can be very helpful if you speak to the right people, don't be afraid to tell them to put you through higher up straight away.
Hope this helps.
Thank you very much for the informative reply Lenny
I'll keep you all updated.
Just a quick update..
I had 2 weeks of stable connection up until a few days back! It had been fine ever since Orange fixed the 3g/gprs problem after it went down for everyone. Probably due to the low traffic? (see below)
So I phoned Orange yesterday and explained my problem and asked to be put through to the 'high tech' department. However, after a while being on hold, the 1st line support advisor said she'll call me back asap as the techies were busy. She called back about 20min later, just as I popped downstairs for 30 seconds! Anyway, she left a message explaining the problem. Turns out that my area has 2 masts both of which are running at full capacity, and there's not enough bandwidth for everyone, hence why my connection has been unstable. She also said that they're going to be upgrading the capacity on the 18th which should fix it.
Another thing she mentioned was that, next month when orange and tmobile merge there's going to be more masts for our phones to connect to - more coverage and bandwidth. You can sign-up to trial this on the orange website.
Hello, fellow Fi users!
It has finally gotten on my nerves enough to create a thread, hoping to find some answers or perhaps work together to come to a solution for Project Fi's dreadfully slow carrier switching logic. I'm not sure about others, but in my town and the surrounding areas, T-Mobile has excellent service. My town is the only town in the county that does not have Sprint LTE, but I do get some 3G in certain areas. The problem is that when I lose connection with T-Mobile for a certain amount of time, the phone will switch over to Sprint to use its 3G network. This is great because this is how the phone and SIM card are supposed to function. However, the 3G service in this area is slow, spotty, and unreliable so typically as soon as I connect (usually while driving or on the move) I lose service again.
The real problem occurs when the phone is extremely reluctant to switch back to T-Mobile. Almost every day I make a 25 minute commute to work that takes me along a route where T-Mobile service drops off for a minute or two. During this gap in coverage, the phone switches to Sprint. I experience one brief moment of Sprint coverage, and then lose that as well (mountainous area). At this point, the phone should search for Sprint service for a few more seconds and then attempt to switch back to T-Mobile. Instead, it stays on Sprint and will continue to do so for the rest of my commute. I have Sprint LTE coverage at my job, but it's the return trip back home that results in my phone sometimes having no service elongated periods of time. Many times I'll look down at my phone while out to dinner after work or something and notice I have no service and haven't for some time. It's simply stuck on Sprint mode instead of switching.
This has forced me to pay for and download FiSwitch on the Play Store. I'm not too upset about this, but I feel like it'd be a bit of fun to maybe try to modify the logic in Fi's networking switching. Now, I don't know if it's possible to actually modify the logic, or where the actual logic resides. But perhaps writing a script or something in Tasker or Trigger could suffice.
The Correct Way to Handle Network Switching?
There are many different areas of coverage and every situation is unique. But I feel like there is some piece of code in there that prevents the phone from constantly switching between Tmo and Sprint. I also understand that this is extremely new, unique and is a work in progress, as Fi hasn't even been out for a year. But if others also experience this issue, perhaps we can find a way to mitigate the problem of the phone getting stuck on one carrier and not switching to another.
Luckily, I have a lot of free time at my job, so I drew up a quick flowchart to show how I'd like to handle carrier switching.
For you savvy coders out there, this would just be a series of conditional statements, which are extremely easy to write, implement and test. Assuming I can't actually modify the logic written somewhere into the phone or the Project Fi app, I'm going to have to make a script or something perhaps in tasker. I can use dialer codes to force the phone to switch to a different carrier, just like FiSwitch does. I feel like it'd be pretty easy to implement, but I'm not sure if it's even possible.
Has anyone else experienced frustration with Fi's carrier switching? I want to know if this is just an isolated case because of topography of my area (Suburban valley, slightly mountainous) or if this is an issue experienced by users elsewhere as well.
I don't appear to have your switching problems. If I loose T-Mobile, it'll switch to Sprint. If I loose Sprint, it'll switch to T-Mobile. If I'm on Sprint's 3G, it'll switch to T-Mobile as soon as possible (available).
I'm using the beta Android N, but I don't remember there being a problem with switching when I was on MM. There could have been, I just don't remember.
Fi stays on whatever carrier has a higher quality signal, and more reliable! More bars doesn't necessarily mean a better quality signal! "QUALITY"is what i want if sprint with 2 bars is stronger and faster than tmo with 4 bars than i want sprint! Whatever's better! I'm sure the fi team spent countless hours and $$$ on developing this software, code, service whatever you wanna call it
hilla_killa said:
Fi stays on whatever carrier has a higher quality signal, and more reliable! More bars doesn't necessarily mean a better quality signal! "QUALITY"is what i want if sprint with 2 bars is stronger and faster than tmo with 4 bars than i want sprint! Whatever's better! I'm sure the fi team spent countless hours and $$$ on developing this software, code, service whatever you wanna call it
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That's their claim. But the Fi support forum has many posts from people where this does not happen. Here's a typical example where the phone switches from one to another, then stays on the weak carrier.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/project-fi/ucFRJiKp4Co;context-place=forum/project-fi
I've seen others where the guy and his wife both had 6Ps and his would change to the good network at home, but hers would stay on the weak one.
I noticed myself that even though Tmobile has good coverage at my house, when I forced my phone onto Sprint just to verify it could connect, that it stayed on Sprint even though the signal was barely there. I left it to see if it would switch, but it didn't until sometime overnight. I also once was in a parking lot while trying to see if it would switch automatically and it got down to no connection on Sprint. I rebooted and it connected to 4 bars on Tmobile.
My experience was when I was first on the service. Since then, as far as I know it works ok. My phone is always on Tmobile except in extremely rare instances where it'll switch. Which makes sense where I live in Southern California, because Sprint has always been awful, while Tmobile has added lots more towers recently. The only times it was switched on its own was on the subway (yes there is one here), and at the airport in a certain lounge. I knew from experience that there's no Tmobile signal there, except Tmobile wifi calling would work on the wifi. Last time there, it connected to Sprint on its own, though the signal was weak. But both of those times, it correctly switched back to the much better Tmobile connection on its own.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one with this issue. I'm currently working on a Tasker profile to mitigate this issue. Will take some time to test and perfect, however. I'm still new to Tasker, so there's a lot of trial and error going on here. I wish I could just write something in c++ or JavaScript and have it handle this task instead. I'd be done already lol.
Alcolawl said:
I wish I could just write something in c++ or JavaScript and have it handle this task instead. I'd be done already lol.
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Why can't you? The source code is available, isn't it? A daemon can't be written to load on boot, poll for the strongest signal (at an interval) and switch when a stronger signal is present?
Voicebox said:
I noticed myself that even though Tmobile has good coverage at my house, when I forced my phone onto Sprint just to verify it could connect, that it stayed on Sprint even though the signal was barely there.
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That's normal, if you use the dialer codes or apps to force it to a single carrier, it will stay on that carrier until you run the dialer code to re-enable auto switching.
geoff5093 said:
That's normal, if you use the dialer codes or apps to force it to a single carrier, it will stay on that carrier until you run the dialer code to re-enable auto switching.
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I forgot to add that to my post. I ran the dialer code to switch, then dialer code to set back to auto. Which is why it switched on its own sometime overnight. When I was in the parking lot, the reason I rebooted was because I wasn't even sure there was a Tmobile signal since I assumed absolutely no Sprint signal would have triggered it.
Voicebox said:
I forgot to add that to my post. I ran the dialer code to switch, then dialer code to set back to auto. Which is why it switched on its own sometime overnight. When I was in the parking lot, the reason I rebooted was because I wasn't even sure there was a Tmobile signal since I assumed absolutely no Sprint signal would have triggered it.
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Howdy -
FWIW - I believe the forced-carrier-switch-by-dialer-code "expires" over time... I am not really sure on that window, but it doesn't seem to stick after a reboot anyway, and I've heard folks say things revert to the "auto" scenario after a couple hours.
Also - FiSwitch happens to be my little tinkering/learning project... I'm not sure I can be of any help but I'd be willing to try I know there is a way to use FiSwitch via Tasker, though that may be a bit redundant if you can fire off the dialer codes without it... just thought I'd toss that out there anyway!
I'm having the same problem. Project Fi worked perfectly on my Nexus 6P but the service has been terrible since I got a Pixel XL. Fi will switch me to Sprint and leave me with no bars for hours unless I manually switch to T-Mobile and then I will get full bars. The network switching actually does work--but it seems to do so very poorly, at least on this particular phone. Fi support has been no help at all.
Btw the dialer code command does expire over time. Even when I manually switch to T-Mobile if I go out for a drive the network will switch to Sprint at some point, regardless of the strength of the Sprint signal.