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3G drops to GSM when receiving calls and during calls

I searched all the threads and found nothing on this as far as I can see. I have been having this since day one with my G1. Every time I receive a call on my G1 or during the call it drops from 3G to GSM. I had stock T-Mo roms on my G1 (Pre/Post Cupcake) then JF 1.51 and now cyanogen 4.0.2 and this problem persists. I called T-Mo a few times on this and they exchanged my G1 3 times and gave me a new battery and charger free of charge. Does anyone else have this issue or know of a work around? This happens when I am at home and work. I travel for work to different locations and it still happens. When my phone rings it automatically drops 3G and goes to GSM (no icon next to the radio icon in the status bar). While making calls it stays on 3G for about a few seconds before it craps out and drops to GSM. It totally skips EDGE and GPRS. T-Mo said they sent out radio antenna tech's to the antennas near my home and they said all is fine and dandy. I live In Queens NY and work in the Bronx. When I travel to Brooklyn its the same as well as driving though Manhattan. I hope someone can help me with this.

PeterC18st said:
I searched all the threads and found nothing on this as far as I can see. I have been having this since day one with my G1. Every time I receive a call on my G1 or during the call it drops from 3G to GSM. I had stock T-Mo roms on my G1 (Pre/Post Cupcake) then JF 1.51 and now cyanogen 4.0.2 and this problem persists. I called T-Mo a few times on this and they exchanged my G1 3 times and gave me a new battery and charger free of charge. Does anyone else have this issue or know of a work around? This happens when I am at home and work. I travel for work to different locations and it still happens. When my phone rings it automatically drops 3G and goes to GSM (no icon next to the radio icon in the status bar). While making calls it stays on 3G for about a few seconds before it craps out and drops to GSM. It totally skips EDGE and GPRS. T-Mo said they sent out radio antenna tech's to the antennas near my home and they said all is fine and dandy. I live In Queens NY and work in the Bronx. When I travel to Brooklyn its the same as well as driving though Manhattan. I hope someone can help me with this.
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ive always had this as well .. just never considered it a bug lol ... but i could see why someone would wanna keep their 3g while on a call .. reminds me of how sidekicks would lose data connectivity due to a call

xidominicanoix said:
but i could see why someone would wanna keep their 3g while on a call .. reminds me of how sidekicks would lose data connectivity due to a call
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Could you elaborate?
If you've had 3 G1's and a tech says there's nothing wrong with the network then it's clearly an issues with cupcake, be it a feature or a bug...
I don't really see why you would want to keep data conectivity while in a call, (unless you're downloading something in the background..?) so it sounds like a way to save battery..

AdrianK said:
Could you elaborate?
If you've had 3 G1's and a tech says there's nothing wrong with the network then it's clearly an issues with cupcake, be it a feature or a bug...
I don't really see why you would want to keep data conectivity while in a call, (unless you're downloading something in the background..?) so it sounds like a way to save battery..
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Here's a perfect example where 3G would rule when working properly.
I'm talking to my wife on my BT headset while driving home from work. I have my G1 on my dash with google maps running with traffic patterns showing. While talking I am able to talk clearly on 3G and still see where traffic is building so I can avoid it. Being stuck in rush hour in NYC sux homeless man [email protected] Whenever I do this and my 3G connection drops my call quality drops and we both hear it while we're talking and then it cuts in and out and the call drops then I dont get updates. It's a feature I would really like to have. Even when Im working and talking and downloading a new update of an app. This happens when I am at a static location as well. I know driving from cell tower to cell tower can have bad effects but it does the same when I'm just at home or any of my work locations. When 3G works properly which is rare its amazing. Its helped me get un lost and find my way many of times.
Point being when T-Mo released the 3G statement they said all users with 3G phones will expierence higher call quality from the extra bandwidth. Why would they cap or or disable it when they are promoting it? I see the the point of saving battery life but it still shouldnt be happening. 3G is made for that feature to work voice + data being accessed together.

It might just be there 3g network, imo tmobile reception is horrible. Like at my house it is so f'ed up, I can sit in my chair and have 3 bars then walk 2 feet and lose service. It does this all through my house and at my work. They said it must be something in the buildings I am in, bull**** I say because ATT never does that nor did vzw when I used them.

same thing happens with me and 3g and calls..also about the house thing, hows this one for u ill be sitting in the same spot and have good 3g reception and all of a sudden it drops to edge. I know a way around this is to set phone to 3G only but then in areas where theres non im screwed

I don't get it. My wife who had the original iPhone and then 3g and now 3gs never had this issue. She would stay on Edge and 3g depending if she waned to save batery life. My old BB 8700g would always stay on Edge never drop to GSM in my apartment. My 3G doesnt even fall to Edge it goes right to GSM. This is really annoying.

every t-mobile phone I have does this
I'm pretty sure its normal

No one knows if this is a hardware, software, or network problem. Except maybe HTC/T-Mobile/Google.
If your phone stays connected to 3G, it's all good. If it drops down to EDGE, even if for half a second, it will NOT reconnect to 3G until you hang up.

c2tmdsn said:
every t-mobile phone I have does this
I'm pretty sure its normal
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My coworkers Samsung t819 doesn't. That's regular cell phone not a smart phone.
Gary13579 said:
No one knows if this is a hardware, software, or network problem. Except maybe HTC/T-Mobile/Google.
If your phone stays connected to 3G, it's all good. If it drops down to EDGE, even if for half a second, it will NOT reconnect to 3G until you hang up.
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If any of those 3 know they should fix it or at the very least advertise that the calls you make are dropped to the lower bandwidth of the GSM network.
T-Mo finally got 3G for the last year don't dumb it down guys. Fix this.
Yes it is true once your phone drops beneath 3G it will not go to 3G until you hang up the call.

try running 3g only or wdma only by creating phone info shortcut on anycut .. im going to try that out and see if it ever drops .. should be a temporary fix for you atleast with the whole maps thing and such but if you ever in an edge only are your screwed

turboyo said:
try running 3g only or wdma only by creating phone info shortcut on anycut .. im going to try that out and see if it ever drops .. should be a temporary fix for you atleast with the whole maps thing and such but if you ever in an edge only are your screwed
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I changed it to wcdma only in phone info. Hopefully this works. Everywhere I travel to throughout NYC has 3G. Hopefully this works. Also I have noticed that when downloading anything from 3G be it the market or browser it would drop from 3G to Edge as well.

PeterC18st said:
I changed it to wcdma only in phone info. Hopefully this works. Everywhere I travel to throughout NYC has 3G. Hopefully this works. Also I have noticed that when downloading anything from 3G be it the market or browser it would drop from 3G to Edge as well.
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*UPDATE*
While at home downloading apps from Android Market on 3G with wcdma only selected the radio dropped with no netowkr connection. Bust.

PeterC18st said:
I don't get it. My wife who had the original iPhone and then 3g and now 3gs never had this issue. She would stay on Edge and 3g depending if she waned to save batery life. My old BB 8700g would always stay on Edge never drop to GSM in my apartment. My 3G doesnt even fall to Edge it goes right to GSM. This is really annoying.
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Did she use att or tmobile with the iphone? Because att has a much stronger 3g network then tmobile which could be why. I am pretty sure it is something to do with tmobiles network and not your phone, perhaps your area has to many users for it to stay on 3G. I have read about how the cell towers work and they have only so many bands for each user to access at any given time so if tmobile doesn't have enough towers or those things mounted on the towers it may be set up so you only get 3G for data usage and not calls since they don't technically require it to work.

crpercodani said:
Did she use att or tmobile with the iphone? Because att has a much stronger 3g network then tmobile which could be why. I am pretty sure it is something to do with tmobiles network and not your phone, perhaps your area has to many users for it to stay on 3G. I have read about how the cell towers work and they have only so many bands for each user to access at any given time so if tmobile doesn't have enough towers or those things mounted on the towers it may be set up so you only get 3G for data usage and not calls since they don't technically require it to work.
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My wife is on ATT. Isn't lower frequency better at penetrating through walls and such? (T-Mo 1700 MHz and 2100 MHz compared to ATT 1800 MHz) They haven't booted their 850 MHz antennas yet so I hear.
If that is true then why not boot me down to Edge or gprs why all the way down to gsm? I been living in the same area for 26 years. I have been with T-Mo before they even had antennas in my area and walking outside was the only way to get a signal with my phone. Now I get full reception in and out of my apartment and 3G connectivity in my apartment with a signal strength of -93dBm through out my apartment on 3G and -79 dBm on Edge.
T-Mo stated that this should not be happening. Hence the 3 phones new battery and charger and techs to the antennas. I'm starting to think its a HTC Android problem and not a T-Mo problem. Hopefully a new radio update can fix it.

I didn't even know GSM was still used in that way, I thought GPRS would be the bare minimum. How can you tell the difference? I use to only get a G icon and I looked it up and for the g1 it said that meant GPRS, what does it show for GSM? Not like any of this matters though.
I really have no idea why all this is happening to your G1 but I hope it gets resolved, good luck.
edit: on the tmobile coverage map it says edge/gprs and 3g, no gsm. does that make any difference? I checked for NYC overall not any specific boroughs.

crpercodani said:
I didn't even know GSM was still used in that way, I thought GPRS would be the bare minimum. How can you tell the difference? I use to only get a G icon and I looked it up and for the g1 it said that meant GPRS, what does it show for GSM? Not like any of this matters though.
I really have no idea why all this is happening to your G1 but I hope it gets resolved, good luck.
edit: on the tmobile coverage map it says edge/gprs and 3g, no gsm. does that make any difference? I checked for NYC overall not any specific boroughs.
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GSM is what Edge Gprs and 3G run off of. Think of it as a progression. GSM>GPRS>EDGE>3G.
The way I know it is on GSM is to the left of the Radio icon on the home screen there is another icon that shows the network your on. 3G=3G E=EDGE G=GPRS and no icon means GSM. GSM is still being used. Most SMS and MMS messages get sent to your from through GSM while you are on a call.

Recent 3g prob: UMTS only, no HSPA any more.

I recently purchased an un-sub N1 for T-Mobile in the Melbourne, FL area. It has been painful moving from AT&T because the speeds that I've been getting on HSPA SpeedTest.net have been 700kbps down and 300kbps up consistently. As to my issue now, I noticed that my phone never switches from UMTS(3g indicated in the notification area) to HSPA any more. It used to stay in UMTS until data was used and then switch to HSPA. All over the area over multiple towers this has happened.
Can anyone think of a reason on my end that this could happen? My wife has a stock N1 so I'll check her phone and see if it uses HSPA at all although with the stock radio she stays on EDGE most of the time while my phone, in the same car is on 3g but that's another problem.
Rick

Open your dialer and key in *#*#4636#*#*
Go to "Phone Information"
Scroll down to "Set preferred network type:"
and select "WCDMA only".
That should force ur phone to receive HSDPA only. Might need to switch back to "GSM only" every now and then if you're not getting signals and stuff.

[Q] G2 High Cell Standby - Radio Issue?

So far I'm really happy with my G2!
I'm in Milwaukee where we have H+ coverage. I'm getting around 12hrs from the battery with moderate use. I don't think this is terrible, but the "cell standby" uses 40-60% of the battery!
I did some research and found the "WCDMA Only" setting. That brought the "time without signal" down to around 30% from around 60% but I don't like the idea that if I leave WCDMA coverage I'll miss calls etc...
So, my questions is - Is it possible that this is an issue with the radio firmware? It seems to be unnecessarily switching from EDGE to 3G/H+ since if I force WCDMA only, it maintains connection.
Any ideas?

I suggest you change your setting to WCDMA Preferred.
That, obviously, will cause the phone to connect to the faster network if it's available, and if it's not, will connect to the slower EDGE networks.
Having -50dB HSPA at school, and marginal HSPA at home, this works great for me.

Sometimes there will be a handover to 2G even if a 3G signal is reachable. Possible causes are sudden increases in utilization of the 3G by other users or attenuation for other reasons. Setting WCDMA-only prevents the radio from performing battery-draining tower searches, but like you said there is the problem of occasionally not having any coverage at all.
This is a problem with T-Mo US's network. You can see symptoms of it on other devices (particularly so with the Nexus One).

How do I find this setting and set it?
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

SuperDave81 said:
How do I find this setting and set it?
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
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Open dialer and enter *#*#4636#*#*. It's in the first list item.
Edit: I see your location is Bay Area. I find that T-Mo 3.xG coverage is pretty lacking out on the edges of suburbia (think the hilly areas east of 680).

I have high Cell Standby as well. I checked it's details out and it claims that 50% of the time, my phone is without signal. Check this by going to:
Settings > About Phone > Battery Use > Cell Standby
It will tell me that 50% of the time, I do not have cell signal. I compared this to my brother's Vibrant and his is at 0% signal loss. Definitely something wrong here because my cell standby usage is twice as much as my brother's (we live in the same household so location shouldn't matter).

jashsu said:
Open dialer and enter *#*#4636#*#*. It's in the first list item.
Edit: I see your location is Bay Area. I find that T-Mo 3.xG coverage is pretty lacking out on the edges of suburbia (think the hilly areas east of 680).
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And how do you un-do this if it does not work out?
NM! I figured it out~!
Edit: figured out how to change this setting. But when I set it to WCDMA at my office I get 1 to no bars And the internet is slow. I do have a H and it is using HSPA.
If I set it to GSM only I get 3 to 4 bars, mostly 4 bars max. And then I am on Edge, and the internet is a bit faster.
I am just wondering why the coverage sucks so bad for 3g? When the maps I can find seem to show good coverage. When I am out and about I get good bars on HSPA, but inside it just sucks.
I am in Houston, area code 77009 :/

jashsu said:
Open dialer and enter *#*#4636#*#*. It's in the first list item.
Edit: I see your location is Bay Area. I find that T-Mo 3.xG coverage is pretty lacking out on the edges of suburbia (think the hilly areas east of 680).
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Thanks for this info

Weird, I just checked my G2 and I have 0% time w/o signal.
I live in Houston, TX and this is a combo of downtown and my house.
Botched setting in the phone?

i got 14+ hours the other day, but did notice that my cell standby has been very high.. when i checked... 44% of the time is without a signal (not sure how that's calculated) as I rarely ever see signal loss.. except for an hour out of the day I go into airplane mode at the gym because i have 0 cell coverage there. But I just changed to GSM Auto (PRL), i'll see if anything changes tommorow.

SuperFly03 said:
Weird, I just checked my G2 and I have 0% time w/o signal.
I live in Houston, TX and this is a combo of downtown and my house.
Botched setting in the phone?
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Why do you think this is a botched setting? This is exactly what it should be like. You don't want any signal loss.

jashsu said:
Open dialer and enter *#*#4636#*#*. It's in the first list item.
Edit: I see your location is Bay Area. I find that T-Mo 3.xG coverage is pretty lacking out on the edges of suburbia (think the hilly areas east of 680).
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Click to collapse
Very interesting trick. Changed my settings from GSM only to WCDMA only. My "time without signal" dropped from 50% to around 35% so it helped a bit, but not completely. On top of that, I noticed that my signal was a lot weaker and would drop more frequently so I had to switch back to GSM only.

Stryder5 said:
Why do you think this is a botched setting? This is exactly what it should be like. You don't want any signal loss.
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I meant on the OP's part.

I don't think it's a botched setting.
I just wonder if they have the phone is jumping between bands too frequently and unnecessarily. In my house the phone constantly jumps around from H-G-E suggesting that it's dropping signal and switching bands. However if I force it to WCDMA it never loses signal.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

Force phone to use H network instead of E

Just got the G2...awesome so far...only one annoyance. The tmo HSPA+ network has been available to me almost everywhere (in houston) but it seems to switch to the Edge (3G) network whenever it wants? Is there a way to force or to stay on the 4G network? Thanks!

GPRS (G) AND EDGE (E) are both 2G technologies (EDGE is on top of GPRS). 3G is UMTS, and HSDPA is again on top of UMTS. You can find a setting for 2G only in Android options, but there is nothing to force 3G speeds. The reason is that phone uses HSDPA all the time unless there is no HSDPA signal, then it drops to EDGE, or GPRS.
So you cannot force it, it's defined by what can the mobile network provide at that specific spot. If there is no 3G/HSDPA coverage, you have no 3G speeds. It is as simple as that. It's like if you would like to use WiFi even at places with no WiFi coverage - you cannot, because it's not there.

Ok, but lets say for instance sitting at my desk at work i'll be connected HSPA+ for 10 minutes and then it drops down to Edge? Whats the reason for that?

You were at the the borderline of what is and what is not a acceptable level of signal from the network tower. For 10 minutes it was above the limit, then it dropped and it was not more usable, so the phone dropped to lower speed.

thanks for the explanation man!

Wrong forum though. This this about having separate G2 and DZ forums is bound to lead to lots of this, I guess.

[Q] Stuck on UMTS?

I just got my NS a few days ago, and I'm using it on T-Mo. I've noticed it's on UMTS 95% of the time even though I'm in a HSDPA area which is blanketed in HSPA+. There is a difference in speed so I'd like to figure out why it's not connecting to HSDPA.
Anyone else noticing this? I called T-Mo but they blind transferred me to HTC :WTF:

Just checked mine and it is also on UMTS. My area is also HSPA+-erized, so I should be getting HSDPA. Might be because I am in my basement though. I'll test it outside soon too.

hmm HSDPA here

I think the t-mobile 3g network camps on umts all the time till a data stampedp occurs where it quickly switches to hsdpa, then back again. However on ATT for example shows hsdpa the whole time no matter what.

RogerPodacter said:
I think the t-mobile 3g network camps on umts all the time till a data stampedp occurs where it quickly switches to hsdpa, then back again. However on ATT for example shows hsdpa the whole time no matter what.
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I'm starting to think this is the case. I saw 5+ Mbps down tonight even though it showed UMTS the whole time. No way that could be UMTS