Database Users

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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
*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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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

After posting in the wrong thread...sorry mods, wasn't thinking...thought I'd try this here.
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.
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.
Also, I do have the phone set to WCDMA only.
Can anyone think of a reason on my end that this could happen?
Rick

I think t-mobile is doing something on their end. I lost WCDMA usage after 6pm last night until about 11 pm.
(I'm in south florida)

I was having a similar issue in Orlando a few days ago. I agree with JCopernicus and believe its on Tmobile's end because I'm in Phoenix right now and its working fine.
I've been leaving my connection type on GSM auto (PRL) and I'm still connected to 3G/H 90% of the time but I have noticed a significant battery improvement. Check it out when tmo gets their 3g working right in your area.

Are there benefits to GSM prl over WCDMA preferred or always besides the obvious scenario when 3g is unavailable?

I am in the north Houston Tx are and I have been seeing some really odd stuff. At home I am full bars 3g and get 600-700 down, then drive over to a mall by me and get the H up top and no internet at all, it simply will not work, but it is HSPDA(two weeks ago) now in the same area it shows 3g with 1400 down. My house is always 600-700 but the mall area is acting really strange.

[Q] 4G Wireless Hotspot Success

How have people been fairing with this?
So far from work, my connection appears iffy at best. I can turn off and on the 4g to get one or two successful page requests through. I have a Clear Wimaxx Spot that I use at the same location (that I turn off before activating 4g on phone) with no connection issues. Also, my 4g only reports 1 bar. My distance from the tower is < .5 miles. I'll post an update when I try it from home.
Anybody know how to check 4G signal strength (other than generic bar readout) from the device? I've seen the signal strength in "about phone" area but am guessing it's dedicated to 3G - I could be wrong.
I'm hoping to drop my Clear Spot but so far, doesn't look like that's going to happen.

The hotspot app has worked great for me in 3G mode, but there's no 4G coverage here to try with that.

I'm also having the same issue. I'm in an area with excellent 4G coverage, but only getting 1 bar. Earlier I was getting spammed "4G has been disconnected" in the notification bar. I had to restart the phone to fix the issue.
Sent from my Samsung Epic 4G™

I've been getting the 4g disconnected message also.
I'm using a clear spot which should be running off of the same tower. I consistently get their best reception (throttled at 600kbps) from the same location. I've tried turning it off in case it's getting in the way already if anyone is wondering.
My 4G icon on the Epic typically reads from 0-1 bar. I'm under .5 miles and my entire area reads "indoor" 4g on sprints map.
I couldn't find any information on the strength of the 4g radio in this thing. If anyone has that info I'd appreciate it. I believe Samsung touts it as being 20% more connective than other devices...but that might just be 3g.

Hi, I am located in the downtown of a city with 4g enabled and I can turn it on and with a speed test confirm 4g is turned on (3Mb down). When I connect I get about 3 bars and can surf some web pages but it always eventually gives me "4g disconnected" I haven't been able to complete any download over 10ish megabytes on 4g because 4g disconnects and the download fails. i might call the sprint store later, but it seems like this would be software fixable.

EVO Not showing 1x / False 3G

Ok so I have been messing around with the evo and doing a new rom for the whole cricket thing.
One thing i have noticed while doing this is that the EVO DOES NOT drop down to 1x at all. So i decided to write a 1x PRL to the phone. The phone reports that it is ON 3G network. This is not possible and I think that is wrong. Sprint has the phone reporting that it is 3G even though its on a 1x network.
If his has been discussed please let me know thanks.

amoamare said:
Ok so I have been messing around with the evo and doing a new rom for the whole cricket thing.
One thing i have noticed while doing this is that the EVO DOES NOT drop down to 1x at all. So i decided to write a 1x PRL to the phone. The phone reports that it is ON 3G network. This is not possible and I think that is wrong. Sprint has the phone reporting that it is 3G even though its on a 1x network.
If his has been discussed please let me know thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to deviate from your original message but is there a way to force 1x? I'm assuming 1x uses less energy than EVDO/3G; so if true, it would be beneficial to switch to 1x when idling/display is off. Maybe tasker or juice defender already does this?
Edit: On CM6 I hit 1x from time to time. At least the status bar reports it as 1x. Could be a Sense/HTC bug.
Edit 2: It seems that Android doesn't have a API for 3G/2G toggling. Sucks.

No your fine, Yes CM does go to 1x. This isnt based off a sprint rom. Its not a HTC Sense issue because I had ported a incredible rom a while back to the phone and it would drop to 1x. I just tried a new port for 2.2 from the incredible and its doing the same thing.
It is possbile that it could be a HTC Sense Bug in the 2.2 Froyo. But i really think that Verizon and Sprint are not wanting it to drop to 1x. Wich i think is wrong.
The way i forced it was to load a 1x PRL on the phone.
I'm connected as 3G "False" as i checked the speed now and I only got 39.62kb wich is far from the 1565.1kbs i checked before switching PRL.

Maybe you already knew this, but I'm pretty sure that for a 1xRTT network the 3G icon in stock htc sense roms simply greys out. At least that's what I remember seeing in the manual. When the phone is connected to 3G the icon turns white.

I don't know - I'm almost positive that I've seen a 1x symbol in my status bar instead of 3g a few times. It's been a while though...

Well from what i see thats not true.
Im on 1xRTT right now. The icon is a solid white.

Even if that was the case and it should grey out. That is completely deceiving. It should accurtly show it is on the 1x network.

amoamare said:
Well from what i see thats not true.
Im on 1xRTT right now. The icon is a solid white.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sorry - who was this to? Also, I know there's a 1x symbol in the framework - it's got to be there for a reason, right?

OK I just checked the manual and it has a 1X icon. You're right.
Edit: The com.htc.resources.apk where sense signal icons are located contains the images for 1X so maybe it's something in the xml's that prevents the phone from either correctly notifying a 1X signal or bypassing the connection all together. HTC obviously intended for the phone to connect to 1X if they took the time to sensify the images. Strange.

Yes HTC intended for it but thats not the case. Has anyone on sprint successfully dropped to a 1x Connection ? Here is what I notice if im not forcing a 1x connection.
If it looses a 3G connection, it does not successfully drop to 1x. It just looses 3G all together then tries multiple times to go to 3G if it doesn't succeed you loose internet.
If you have a 1x prl it loads 1x but shows its a 3G connection wich is not true at all. This is disappointing.

amoamare said:
Yes HTC intended for it but thats not the case. Has anyone on sprint successfully dropped to a 1x Connection ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ummm...yeah - like I said in my prev post, I've seen the 1x icon appear on my phone in parts of nj where I wasn't picking up 3g.

What ROM are you using ?

OK Im going to grab my friends Evo tonight that is on a sprint a force a 1x connection and see if his shows accurately or not.

I assume your custom PRL is forcing a 1X connection on sprint towers and not verizon or something? The phone may only show a drop to 1X if on sprint's network. If you are on verizon or cricket or something it probably wont indicate 1X.

amoamare said:
What ROM are you using ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was either using stock, or an older version of baked snack.

Its not a custom PRL the one im using is a cricket prl. Made only for 1x network. It does not support EVDO.
Sprint has a few 1x PRL's only and I will load his phone with it and test it.
That doesn't make sense. The phone being on cricket or any other service would not make the phone report its on 3G all time. I flash a lot of phones to cricket. Like i said before this is a Sprint Rom issue. I loaded it with a incredible ROM and it successfully drops to 1x connection.

fachadick,
You might have been using baked snack rom.
Im checking tonight with the service on sprint.

So far its confirmed.
Two people with HTC EVO's on sprint.
One (Me) on with evo on cricket.
We forced all three EVOs to work on 1x connection only. All three of them are showing 3G icon but are only getting 1x speeds. This is very deceiving.

amoamare said:
Its not a custom PRL the one im using is a cricket prl. Made only for 1x network. It does not support EVDO.
Sprint has a few 1x PRL's only and I will load his phone with it and test it.
That doesn't make sense. The phone being on cricket or any other service would not make the phone report its on 3G all time. I flash a lot of phones to cricket. Like i said before this is a Sprint Rom issue. I loaded it with a incredible ROM and it successfully drops to 1x connection.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason I say it might not work on a PRL from another carrier is because when I am roaming I get a triangle above my reception, but the data icon remains 3G if I remember correctly. The actual data connection is only 1X because of roaming agreements, so what I am theorizing here is that the phone only changes to 1X when you are on an authentic sprint network and the connection drops to 1X. This is probably built into the rom, which is why it works for other phones, but not the EVO.
Because you are using a "roaming" PRL, I would think that the phone doesn't trigger the change to 1X icon just like actual roaming with a Sprint PRL. That's my hunch.

Yes i understand what you are saying, and yes that is plausible.
But doesn't explain why when we force the sprint ones they do not change to 1x ? I can force any other phone to 1x on the sprint network.

[Q] Is HSDPA and HSPA+ the same thing?

Im coming from a couple HD2's and Vibrants and from my understanding, HSDPA is only 3.5G. Well, I only see HSDPA connection on my phone, and not a HSPA+ signal.
So am I even getting 4G?

You wont really see anything different to distinguish between the 2 besides running a speed test, Im on cm7 so I either see an "H" which is hsdpa or hspa+ but only a speed test over 3.5 will let me know for sure if I'm on the Hspa+ then theres the 3g icon which is usually umts but can be hspa, like I said just use the speed test ap thats the only way I ever know

also the highest Ive ever seen my 4G in los angeles is like 7.5mb on the normal it hovers around 4mb which never leaves me quite positive im on hspa+ because my wifes 3g Nexus S usually pulls down around 3.8

are you using T-Mobile or simple. I am having an issue as well but the plus sign is a huge difference.

i dont even know if you will ever see the HSDPA+! the way to check is go to settings>about phone>network> now here is where it gets tricky. where is says Mobile network type: it will tell you when you are on GPRS and EDGE! when my phone is on 3G is says UMTS, when it is in 4G, is says HSDPA. this is based on me doing speed tests while phone was on said network types. also i use a widget called "mobile signal widget". as you know the status bar never tells you the difference if you are on 3G or 4G, but the widget does! when the widget says 3G on it, when i flip to settings it says UMTS. when the widget says H on it, when i flip to the settings and it says HSDPA.