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So I just recently took a trip from northern California to Tennessee and had some interesting results with the Froyo radio. For reference I own the ATT-version Nexus One and have data roaming enabled.
When I used the phone before Froyo radio I had many problems with the 3G switching to Edge and back when needed which caused random data dropouts. Even turning the phone off and back wouldn't force the phone to switch connections to Edge when needed which would make me very frustrated in times of need.
On my trip I found something very interesting, not only did 3G and Edge switch almost perfectly, but Edge performed MUCH faster than before. While it isn't as important now in a world of 3G coverage, when I was on the "edge" of civilization I still got surfing speeds that were not far behind that of 3G speeds. My browsing, and most importantly Google Maps usage rarely suffered a performance hit despite where I was or what type of connection was available to my phone.
There was a difference between performance; 3G would act like Comcast and Edge would be a little behind, but in terms of actually surfing the Internet the extra 2-5 seconds it took to load up a desktop webpage didn't make a difference.
Technically the bandwidth speeds were much different. 3G performed from 1 to a max of 2 megabits down and .3-1 megabits up, while Edge showed speeds of 300-500 kbps down and 100-200 up.
One thing I did notice throughout the trip is the Nexus One's signal meter did not report correctly, there were times where it showed no signal and I had super fast connection, and also times when it would show full or near-full bars and there was no connection.
Hope someone finds this info useful!!! I'm very happy with the coverage my Nexus One gets with the Froyo radio now!
I have always found that my nexus holds calls and has fast data showing zero bars. One reason I've always loved the nexus
Just a point of clarification, EDGE has a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 473.6 kbits/s for 8 timeslots.
In real world conditions EDGE should have throughput of 236.8kbit/s with 4 timeslots(which is what most carriers employ).
Dan
Wonder if there's and app/mod to replace the signal bar with the actual signal #s?
Hey Sellitus, what else did you find working/not working on that trip?
I am considering a longer drive (SF to NY) and want to know about battery life, apps that were really handy, and which weren't.
SiNJiN76 said:
Wonder if there's and app/mod to replace the signal bar with the actual signal #s?
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hey that would be nice. just like how cyanogen puts the battery percentage, it would be nice to have the dBm level of signal overtop of the signal meter.
RogerPodacter said:
hey that would be nice. just like how cyanogen puts the battery percentage, it would be nice to have the dBm level of signal overtop of the signal meter.
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The dBm and signal bar IMO opinion are rather pointless in regards to data. Having a very poor 3G signal will always be faster than a full GPRS signal.
Also, a signal meter in terms of DB would jump around quite a bit...
sprinkles said:
Hey Sellitus, what else did you find working/not working on that trip?
I am considering a longer drive (SF to NY) and want to know about battery life, apps that were really handy, and which weren't.
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Click to collapse
Well for ATT I hit data roaming quite a few times, and although it worked on edge pretty quickly during those times it would randomly drop when the R was showing randomly. I think what happened a lot on the trip is when I was out in the middle of nowhere bouncing between towers would cause random dropouts, but they were usually no more than a few seconds.
I don't remember which apps specifically though a few also did not like the trip, but most would hang and resume in a few seconds after data was reconnected even if the signal strength showed it was connected the entire time with signal. Sometimes Google Maps hung, though it was rare and I noticed it more because I used it near constantly on the trip.
If I were to give advice to anyone looking at a cross country trip, buy a map or get offline GPS maps to help. We bought a map and it proved valuable at times, though we rarely needed it.
I wonder if the "enable data while roaming" setting had anything to do with that. Maybe an internal bug.
torchedlh said:
Also, a signal meter in terms of DB would jump around quite a bit...
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I don't know how a number jumping around would be any different than a graphical signal meter jumping around. The iPhone has had this hack for a long time where you can replace the signal meter with the dBm reading. Though I've never owned the iPhone, but seen it on friend's iPhone before.
I know I'm often going into the android settings to look at my dBm reading, didn't jump around too much for me to see.
I've been having some reception issue lately with AT&T around my hometown (usually its quite good),so I did some googling, and found plenty of info on radio signal, and how to interpret -dBm, but I'm still baffled by the ASU. I really couldn't find much, just some random post on a random forum that left me with some questions:
In a 3G network your cell phone tries to open three channels to three radios so they can locate you and hand you off properly.
Those three channels make up you ACTIVE SET.
ASU is ACTIVE SET UPDATES or the rate at which your phone is able to update its location to the towers/radios.
This rate is affected by signal strength, load, and probably a lot of other factors that I haven't puzzled out yet.
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Can anyone shed some more light on this? Usually at home I have 2 bars of HSDPA, somehwere in the -90s dBm, and anywhere from 4-8 asu.
So if you look at some of my previous threads you'll see that I have complained about signal strength A LOT. After upgrading to 2.2 roms it seemed like I was constantly having bad strength at the placed I most frequent, ie my house.
Today I decided to give that "htc official way to increase battery life trick" a shot just to see what effects I would have.
I'm currently running Evio 1.1 and kings latest BRAIN **** KERNEL
but anyways, I only got half-way (step 2 or 3), I did the first 1 hour charge then decided not to do the second 1 hour charge because I needed my phone. But anyways, after I turned my phone on after the 1 hour charge while having it off the first thing I noticed was I had 5 bars! I though this was just the normal fluctuation so I stared at it for a while and it hardly budged! Now its down to 3 bars however its not fluctuation up and down like it used to.
Before I would average 1 or 2 bars and it would fluctuate anywhere from 0-3 bars. Now I'm getting a stead 3-5 bars.
I'm really not sure what could have possible happened but the only thing out of the ordinary that I did with my phone was the htc battery tip....
dunno...just thought I'd share that.
P.S you can look at some of my other threads and see how much of a baby I was when it came to signal strength.
starplaya93 said:
So if you look at some of my previous threads you'll see that I have complained about signal strength A LOT. After upgrading to 2.2 roms it seemed like I was constantly having bad strength at the placed I most frequent, ie my house.
Today I decided to give that "htc official way to increase battery life trick" a shot just to see what effects I would have.
I'm currently running Evio 1.1 and kings latest BRAIN **** KERNEL
but anyways, I only got half-way (step 2 or 3), I did the first 1 hour charge then decided not to do the second 1 hour charge because I needed my phone. But anyways, after I turned my phone on after the 1 hour charge while having it off the first thing I noticed was I had 5 bars! I though this was just the normal fluctuation so I stared at it for a while and it hardly budged! Now its down to 3 bars however its not fluctuation up and down like it used to.
Before I would average 1 or 2 bars and it would fluctuate anywhere from 0-3 bars. Now I'm getting a stead 3-5 bars.
I'm really not sure what could have possible happened but the only thing out of the ordinary that I did with my phone was the htc battery tip....
dunno...just thought I'd share that.
P.S you can look at some of my other threads and see how much of a baby I was when it came to signal strength.
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Its possible that you have new towers or upgrades to the network in your region. Even so, it really doesn't matter what is displayed, it really only matters how well you stay connected. It can say 0 bars, but still have a decent connection.
Anyways, glad yours works, mine still has the issue. I may try the battery thing eventually, though more for the battery enhancements.
superlinkx said:
Its possible that you have new towers or upgrades to the network in your region. Even so, it really doesn't matter what is displayed, it really only matters how well you stay connected. It can say 0 bars, but still have a decent connection.
Anyways, glad yours works, mine still has the issue. I may try the battery thing eventually, though more for the battery enhancements.
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well it must have been a fluke, because after an hour or so things went back to normal... Im back to fluctuation between low signal strength... oh well. it was nice while it lasted.
I believe there is a bug in the signal strength indication on the Fascinate, the one that shows the signal strength in -dBm.
You can see the signal strength of the cell signal on the Menu, Settings, About, Status screen. Or you can place a widget on your Home screen. There are several widgets available, I'm using Mobile Signal Widget.
I have a network extender, which basically creates a cell tower right in your home. With my Motorola Droid, I used to get signal strengths down to about -50 something and 60's in indicated signal strength. I can hold both of our Fascinates right next to the network extender's antenna and they will read no better than -86 dBm. So far I've seen signal strengths from -86 dBm to -106 dBm (terrible).
I believe there is a bug in the software (Baseband) on the Fascinate. Previously, I thought the hardware (antenna/radio) wasn't very good, but now it may be software related.
Has anyone seen a signal strength stronger than -86 dBm on the Fascinate?
That's a good point. Mine has never gone below -86dbm either. It fluctuates between -86 at it's best and -106 at it's worst.
Ill keep an eye on this with my phone
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk
I have no experience with cell phone radios so take this with the appropriate helping of salt.
Most radios have input protection that attenuates any signals greater than a set maximum level to prevent damage to the radio. I'm guessing the Fascinate reports it's receive signal level post input protection. It appears you just discovered this threshold for the Fascinate. Honestly, -86 dBm is plenty of signal, anything more is just for show
Again, I'm only speculating here.
Martian21
Interesting theory. I have emailed Verizon support as well. Hopefully, I will get a technical response and not a canned response from them.
With mine, it only fluctuates in -5dBm increments lol. I thought it was a litle wierd. I've seen -86, -91, -96, -101, and -106 lol.
As far as what the OP is talking about, my BB Tour (alltel) is the same way. It won't ever display anything lower than a -80.
Anyone else have a consistently high TWS(Time Without Signal) percentage? Mine almost never goes below 50%, and I've seen it up in the 80s. I think my battery life is really suffering from this. You can see yours in Settings > About Phone > Battery Use > Cell Standby. I've tried a few "fixes" that I've found through researching the issue on other android phones in general, but haven't seen any results.
shazbonk said:
Anyone else have a consistently high TWS(Time Without Signal) percentage? Mine almost never goes below 50%, and I've seen it up in the 80s. I think my battery life is really suffering from this. You can see yours in Settings > About Phone > Battery Use > Cell Standby. I've tried a few "fixes" that I've found through researching the issue on other android phones in general, but haven't seen any results.
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I was thinking about this the other day. Is it possible "time without signal" is simply a poor translation? The reason I ask this is when taking my phone off the charger overnight, I went directly to this setting to see what it reported. The phone reported having been unplugged for 2 minutes and already showed 5% TWS. I had been looking at the phone the whole time and didn't see it drop at all. What I did see is it going from 3G w/ arrows to 3Gd. So maybe this percentage isn't time without signal but rather time not active (i.e. 3G d).
I agree w/ the 3g d, I did not update to DI01 yet and it said I have 20% TWS throughout the day, but the phone didnt make a no service sound.
On my drive home everday I pass a Verizon owned tower.
I've stopped at a liquor store about 200 yards away from it and they maximum signal my Fascinate would pull down was -86dBm (4 bars as well).
My Cell Standby is usually around 11%.
Battery life of my Fascinate is very good.
xliderider: Any news/word from Verizon on this? What kind of Network Extender do you have? Got a brand/model #? Been thinking of picking something up like this.
So it isn't just my phone. My Fascinate goes from -86 to -106 as well. I had my Droid and Fascinate sitting next to each other, both reporting 4 bars. I went into status, and my Droid's signal strength was -77. The Fascinate was at -86. It's gotta be capped.
You're holding it wrong.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
You are probably right. With 4 full bars I can't get better than -86
I've been having the same problem...I was told by Verizon that it just has a "weaker" antenna. I go throughout the day with about 20% TWS. Never had that with my other Verizon phones.
do you get dropped calls or otherwise poor service?
I am returning my incredible due to dropped calls (while at home) using Verizons network Extender. I have had the incredible since April 29th (I believe that was the first day it was released). I have had the signal boosted twice by Verizon but still can't get close to 40' without dropping. One thing I noticed on the incredible while in the same room with the Extender is it would read let's say a -86dbm before placing a call then when placed and on the Extender network the signal would automatically go to -56dbm (stronger signal than -86dbm) and then back up after my call. What I saw was the Extender wasn't active until you make a call... Having said that, I am hoping the Fascinate will be better than the inc was... I will let you know when the Fascinate gets to me Wed or Thursday.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
Got the Facinate a day early : )
So far it is defiantly working better than my Incredible on my verizon network extender!
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Mines 0%
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
Sounds like it could have the same problem that affected the Vibrant. It NEVER showed higher than -81dBm, and would often reflect no signal (-0dBm is spectacular but it really means no signal within the Android system). Now with the update it reflects up to -51dBm like it should for GSM/WCDMA with Android and doesn't drop to -0dBm anymore. This of course effected the bars, often dropping to no bars or 1. Now after it's been fixed, plenty of bars and proper -dBm readings.
I just picked my new Fascinate yesterday and have been noticing something strange. I routinely have a very low signal with 3G and WiFi in places I've always had a great signal (or so I thought). Just to get it out of the way, I am not using any kind of case and I have already done a *228 update.
For example, tonight I put my Fascinate, a friend's Continuum, and a friend's original Droid in front of me on a table to compare their 3G signals. The Droid reported 4 bars, the Continuum 2 bars, and my flickered between 0 and 1.
At home, my "old" Omnia 2 routinely got 3-4 bars (still does even though it's deactivated) and my gf's LG Ally gets the same. However my Fascinate gets 1-2, sometimes dipping to 0.
Oddly, I have the same issue with my WiFi signal. At home my PC and laptop have a full strength signal while the phone is lucky to have a that first dot and maybe a bar. At work, I can walk within 4 feet of my Wireless-N router and still not have a full signal
Now everything *seems* to work so I'm hoping it's just an algorithmic display issue, but I have gotten a "Network Error" message a few times. For good measure, I'll probably pop into Verizon to compare my signal to the various displays there.
My question is: Is this a general Fascinate issue? Do I have a lemon? Should I just hope 2.2 is magic?
Thanks
same problem here.
I'm really hoping this gets fixed with 2.2.
I've had two fascinates now, and they've both had really poor signal strength compared to any other phone I've used or seen. Was at lunch the other day with a friend with a Droid 1, and I was getting 1 bar, he was getting 4. At home, it's consistently 1 to 2 bars at best, and I live less than a mile and a half from the nearest tower.
While I don't drop calls, I think it's pretty clear that the phone has a particularly week antennae design.
Since you say you just got the phone, I assume you haven't rooted and played with other roms yet. But in case you have, I noticed a significant drop in signal strength, both cellular and wifi, using JT's DJ05 rom. And it was more than just a display issue, since the wifi connection would repeatedly drop - even in the same room as my router. Switched to the stock DJ05 and I was back to normal (if you consider 1 to 2 bars normal).
Just wanted to follow-up on this. After a week of comparing signals to every smartphone I ran into, I came to the conclusion I either had a lemon or the Fascinate had serious engineering issues.
I went back to my local Verizon store and compared my phone's signal strength to all the Android phones in there, including the other Fascinates. Every phone was between -73 and -86. My phone never got any better than -101. So they swapped phones for me (new one out of the box) and this one performed like all their other phones in the store. I am now enjoying my old, normal, strong signal strength and my battery is still at healthy 80% after several hours of use, even a little wifi usage.
Moral of the Story: Check your signal strength (on any phone) against the phones in the store before you leave and don't be afraid to demand a new phone if you have that sort of concrete data to back it up!
Sent from my SCH-i500 Fascinated using the XDA App
DI01 has a signal reporting bug that is fixed in DJ05/DL09. With DI01, the best I got was -86dBm, and the jumps did not really seem to make sense. After going to DJ05, the reported signal goes up to -50dBm or so and moves in a logical direction (go inside, signal goes down) where before it would just move randomly. It is possible that there was also bad hardware, but I'd guess that it had more to do with the crappy software Samsung provided.
Interesting. I've not had any ambition to root/flash my Fascinate (I swear I did it weekly with my old Omnia 2) so for whatever it's worth, my experience was always with the stock DI01.
Hopefully you won't have similar problems after we get the maintenance update, whenever that may be.
I have downloaded both Real Signal and Signal Status from the market. I keep having issues with my data not working(it's been ongoing since I got the phone.), so I wanted to know what my actual dBms were. But for some reason, on both apps, the highest evdo reading I get is about -3 and the lowest is about -30. But I don't know what that means in terms of real signal as everything I can find on google and that I understand, it should be between -60ish and -115ish but I have never seen those numbers on the evdo side. Am I wrong? I understand that it is the same dBm as 1rxtt, and I know they are different tech, but I would think it would be similar any way. However, I don't know antenna tech at all. So that's why I posted the question here. I have done a google search with no real relevant results, but I didn't search XDA specifically, as I thought if there were any relevant results they would have popped up in my google search. And all the relevant postings that I came up with said the same as my assumption. That signal should be between -60ish and -120ish.
Thanks again for all the help, you guys are awesome.
1 bar ~ -102 to -120 dBM
2 Bars ~ -93 to -101 dBM
3 Bars ~ -87 to -92 dBM
4 Bars ~ -78 to -86 dBM
5 Bars ~ -40 to -77 dBM
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I was able to hunt down that chart (Granted it was for a BB, however I would imagine the info would still roughly apply to any device), but I was not able to locate any real description of bars vs dBM. However, from what I've read before, just because you have a lower dBM (IE: -40) doesn't really mean you're going to have full bars/better service. I could be wrong, but from most of what I've read over time showed it was only a very vague correlation.
Do you get intermittent loss of data where only the right arrow under the 3G icon is active? That happens to me frequently as well and I have to go in and out of airplane mode to reconnect. Some of us think Blur causes it.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App
Granted, I only kept the stock rom for about 3 days before I installed a custom, blur-less rom. However, I seem to recall having some data issues while using the stock rom. I donno if it was part of blur or something else causing it. However ever since I've flashed to a new rom I havent had a single issue.
I've been having issues with data like this, too. I have put an Airplane toggle widget on my home screen just for this. I am near Fort Collins, CO, but I guess it looks like people may have narrowed it down to ROM issues and not location or Verizon.
Maybe they'll fix it when they roll us out to Gingerbread.
silverfang77 said:
Do you get intermittent loss of data where only the right arrow under the 3G icon is active? That happens to me frequently as well and I have to go in and out of airplane mode to reconnect. Some of us think Blur causes it.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App
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Yes. It happens quite frequently, and an airplane toggle usually fixes it.
-Gilgamesh- said:
Granted, I only kept the stock rom for about 3 days before I installed a custom, blur-less rom. However, I seem to recall having some data issues while using the stock rom. I donno if it was part of blur or something else causing it. However ever since I've flashed to a new rom I havent had a single issue.
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I have wondered myself if it wasn't blur issues. It freezes all the time, and fiancees Ally doesn't have the freezing problem and general laggyness. And I know hers only has a slow 600 Mhz processor and is just a budget smartphone.
-Gilgamesh- said:
I was able to hunt down that chart (Granted it was for a BB, however I would imagine the info would still roughly apply to any device), but I was not able to locate any real description of bars vs dBM. However, from what I've read before, just because you have a lower dBM (IE: -40) doesn't really mean you're going to have full bars/better service. I could be wrong, but from most of what I've read over time showed it was only a very vague correlation.
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Then should it be possible for me to hit single digits? I don't recall ever having a lower signal than -30 and it stays typically in the -8 to -20 range. When I was at about -100 cell service, I was at about -8 to-10 evdo. So something still must not be right with my phone. right now I am at -76 cell and -2 to -4 Ev.
I am seeing the same thing on my phone. I have ~87dBM cell service, and ~7dBM for evdo. I have always understood Verizon's voice and data network to be separate, I suppose this just goes to confirm that.
Here's a way to confirm if it's a problem with Blur, as opposed to VZW's network. Is there anyone who had this problem on the D2 with the stock ROM and then had the problem completely disappear (or at least reduce in frequency) after switching to Liberty ROM, or one of the others?
All my issues dried up when I flashed a custom rom.
I work in the industry. A -80 is generally the number you want to shoot for as far as having a good usable signal. Anything higher would be even better. Although once you get past -50 or so the signal is kind of hot and may cause issues. Anything lower is a bad signal (-90/-100) and would also cause issues.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App
I had 3g issues with the droid 1 and cyanogen but Never with blur or liberty/droid 2 from the same house. I have noticed some "cell standby" signal loss on liberty but never really bad like some cyanogen builds..don't overclock and see if that helps.
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