Database Users

Is t-mobile 2g faster than at&t's?

So I ordered my N1 yesterday, and currently have at&t. wasn't too worried about the whole 3g thing, because I figured one of the smart guys here at xda would figure out a way to make it work. After looking in to it further, I realize the hardware just won't allow that. I would just switch to T-mobile, but they have no 3g coverage anywhere near me yet. this brings me to my question. is it worth switching to tmobiles coverage for faster 2g possibly, or in the hopes that they'll soon expand their network. I don't mind getting out of my contract with at&t, tmobiles rates seem to be a lot better. I'm just wondering if anybody has heard anything on T-mobiles future plans.

I think most anecdotal evidence by most users is that EDGE on TMO is much faster than ATT. Why? Even though the "transport" 2G technology is the same, ATT still suffers from not enough bandwidth at its towers for all the heavy 3G areas due to heavy usage. -- In other words, backhaul contention.
Also, the fact that in places where there is no TMO 3G... EDGE works quite well for the very same reason... Even with towers that only have several T1/DS1's in place instead of T3/DS3's or fiber
Cheers,
Kermee

In NYC, where I have 3G coverage as well, EDGE tops out at 10-15KB/s

hurrycaine3000 said:
So I ordered my N1 yesterday, and currently have at&t. wasn't too worried about the whole 3g thing, because I figured one of the smart guys here at xda would figure out a way to make it work. After looking in to it further, I realize the hardware just won't allow that. I would just switch to T-mobile, but they have no 3g coverage anywhere near me yet. this brings me to my question. is it worth switching to tmobiles coverage for faster 2g possibly, or in the hopes that they'll soon expand their network. I don't mind getting out of my contract with at&t, tmobiles rates seem to be a lot better. I'm just wondering if anybody has heard anything on T-mobiles future plans.
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I personally have ran on EDGE for awhile on tmobile and have never had a problem with wifi while I am at home/school... however the 3g is nice, though my house seems to have 3g signals
its simple business really, though 1 man cannot make a difference... as the company grows, the service grows... verizon has the best service because it has the most customers... i think the reason tmobile has struggled in the US (as opposed to being the number 1 world wide carrier) is because of the lack of appeal from phones... with more phones rolling out and tmobile always having its doors open to unlocked phones i see the company gaining some momentum and it starts with these new android phones making it big as well as now having the fastest network in the nation...
ive had bad experiences with both verizon (contract issues) and att (terrible customer service), tmobile has yet to steer me wrong (other than not giving me an upgrade for the N1 haha)
with that said, try em out, idk if companies still let you trial their service for a week or so but you could ask?

i honestly cant tel a diff between edge and 3 g lol they both are friggin fast as hell

VoLoDaR1 said:
i honestly cant tel a diff between edge and 3 g lol they both are friggin fast as hell
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It all depends on what you're doing Tweeting and reading tweets... probably not so much
Cheers,
Kermee

are you crazy? 3G is AT LEAST 10+ times as fast as EDGE.

I know on my touch pro using att 3g over edge. they have 3g where I work, but not at my house. so I always just use wifi at my house, but don't bother at work because the 3g is fast enough. I can definetly tell the difference. granted there is wifi almost everywhere these days, but with my touch pro I have to turn it off and on when I'm using it so my battery half makes through a day. It will be nice if the N1's is more of a automatic thing, if that makes sense. I guess if I knew that t Mobile would actually be implementing 3g in my area at all soon, it would be an easier decision, but I haven't found anything to make me think they'll be adding towers in York, PA any time soon.

Im in Dallas TX and just activated my phone. I was worried because people in some forums where saying phone kept switching to 2g. I just activated my phone and its been on 3 out of 4 bars on 3g last 30-40 minutes...I know this is kind of off topic, but thought it was important do to the nature of all the talk about speed on tmobile.
Ok im scared now, i just looked at the USA map on tmobile https://my.t-mobile.com/Plan/CoverageMap.aspx and looks to hardly be any 3g coverage! What! Tell me it aint so!

that's what I'm saying, I want 3g on this phone, but it's just not in my area on tmobile. we've established it's pretty much going to be impossible to get att's to work on this phone. It doesn't look like tmobile has 3g anywhere, atleast not hardly. what to do, what to do.

dallastx said:
Im in Dallas TX and just activated my phone. I was worried because people in some forums where saying phone kept switching to 2g. I just activated my phone and its been on 3 out of 4 bars on 3g last 30-40 minutes...I know this is kind of off topic, but thought it was important do to the nature of all the talk about speed on tmobile.
Ok im scared now, i just looked at the USA map on tmobile https://my.t-mobile.com/Plan/CoverageMap.aspx and looks to hardly be any 3g coverage! What! Tell me it aint so!
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thats called #4 carrier coverage
as for that map, its ancient... the thing has never worked properly and the maps take forever to load yet i wish i could get a decent detailed coverage map for tmobile somewhere...

hurrycaine3000 said:
I know on my touch pro using att 3g over edge. they have 3g where I work, but not at my house. so I always just use wifi at my house, but don't bother at work because the 3g is fast enough. I can definetly tell the difference. granted there is wifi almost everywhere these days, but with my touch pro I have to turn it off and on when I'm using it so my battery half makes through a day. It will be nice if the N1's is more of a automatic thing, if that makes sense. I guess if I knew that t Mobile would actually be implementing 3g in my area at all soon, it would be an easier decision, but I haven't found anything to make me think they'll be adding towers in York, PA any time soon.
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OMG i live in york to lol. ive asked tmobile many times if we'll ever have 3g and they told me december 09 but that never happened. who knows if we'll ever get it. but edge for me on tmobile works good unless u use media functions like youtube and streaming video but its good for web browsing and email

Make sure T-Mobile has EDGE all around your area because I've found that there are many places that don't even have EDGE on T-Mobile and are GRPS only. That being said, I do find that usually T-Mobile EDGE is faster.... The difference is so small that I wouldn't change networks over it though..

I get around 25KB/s or so, which works fine for streaming music and such. This is quite a bit faster than the AT&T users seem to get here.

Yeah you should be happy with what you've got. EDGE isn't amazing but at least with the 900mhz range you've got coverage. I'm not sure about T-mobile US thought but it has to be better than UK. I live in the UK just outside of town with 3 basestations surrounding my house just out of range with 2100 3g and 1800 2g. I can get signal occasionally with my Iphone 3gs, until I touch it...
The coverage is okish but I get Black-spots everywhere; literally, I can walk round the corner away from a basestation and lose signal. I can only use my phone if I'm underneath a basestation and even then the crappy 4.2Mbit/s (It may even be less than that) limited basestations are overloaded. Each user is then further capped at roughly 1.8Mbit/s
That's 3G and above, which I rarely get as I mentioned. When you get 2G you get EDGE. When I get 2G I don't get EDGE, I don't even get 2.5G, I get slower-than-dial-up GPRS which is unusable. None of T-mo UK's basestations are EDGE enabled; with common black-spots and poor 3G reception, this makes for an appalling network. I can't wait to switch to Three UK. Blanket UK 3g coverage with amazing deals: £15/mo rolling contract with 300 mins, unlimited texts, Unlimited (7.2Mbit/s) data. The only problem is they have shockingly bad phones (no problem for me, or so I thought...)

melterx12 said:
are you crazy? 3G is AT LEAST 10+ times as fast as EDGE.
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That pretty well sums up the problem with TMUS users.
They have no f***ing clue.

N1 reception on T-Mobile

Does anyone else have trouble with T-Mobile reception in office buildings? In particular concrete block buildings.
The reason I ask is because I have good reception most places in town. However, when I go in one of our office buildings, that is primarily concrete, I have no service. But always had AT&T service on my iPhone. In my office (different building) I get good signal, but I have a lot of windows.
T-Mobile has just added coverage in this area in the past 6 months and just launched 3g in December.

Same problem for me.

TMO + N1 = serious problems with 3G right now. checking out the google phone support forums says that they are aware of the problem, and are looking for a fix.
Even if other TMO phones have good signal using the same SIM in a separate phone, the N1 is experiencing issues.

No problem at all in Chicagoland. I was all over the place today and yesterday. Only lost a spot in one pace. Known issue with ALL carriers. In between 2 lakes in the middle of forest preserve. No cell towers around. No complaints. No more drop calls like AT&T.

Every phone I've had on T-Mobile has had low reception in certain stores like Target or Macy's.

timothydonohue said:
TMO + N1 = serious problems with 3G right now. checking out the google phone support forums says that they are aware of the problem, and are looking for a fix.
Even if other TMO phones have good signal using the same SIM in a separate phone, the N1 is experiencing issues.
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I am not actually having the 3g issue that seems to be going around. My problem is that I loose all reception in buildings.

LOL, well, that's just the way it's gonna go with radios. some companies have bouncers inside certain facilities that facilitate reception, other's wont. the hospital in which i work has sprint relays all the way through it. most other devices wont' work, because it's inside of a big metal and brick structure. just the way radios work

timothydonohue said:
LOL, well, that's just the way it's gonna go with radios. some companies have bouncers inside certain facilities that facilitate reception, other's wont. the hospital in which i work has sprint relays all the way through it. most other devices wont' work, because it's inside of a big metal and brick structure. just the way radios work
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Most older facilities just act as huge Faraday cages. Its fun when you work for a wireless engineer and your building was built in the early 40s and everything is just screwed up when you want to do large scale tests.

timothydonohue said:
LOL, well, that's just the way it's gonna go with radios. some companies have bouncers inside certain facilities that facilitate reception, other's wont. the hospital in which i work has sprint relays all the way through it. most other devices wont' work, because it's inside of a big metal and brick structure. just the way radios work
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Read all the way through to see if somebody was going to mention repeaters and how generally cell's shouldn't work in big building without 'em. Looks like you beat me to it. lol

iVisionX01 said:
Every phone I've had on T-Mobile has had low reception in certain stores like Target or Macy's.
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They want you to buy more and talk less lol.

david1171 said:
They want you to buy more and talk less lol.
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Well I found out how to talk more for free. Thanks to sipdroid, gizmo5, and google voice. Now when I am in this office I receive my calls on the sipdroid client, which integrates very nicely.

My G1 was great @ my job, but the nexus is kind of a hassle when it comes to having extended conversations there. Keeps cutting in and out. I have so much trouble making clear calls, although 3G works great...

Nope. No problem here in NYC. I work in an old renovated factroy building and those are pretty solid buildings with plenty of concrete and even going into the service elevator I still have 2-3 bars and 3G. Not sure where eople who are complaining about their reception but traveled to several major cities and never had a problem...San Fran, Boston, Chicago, Santa Fe...I can still hear ya.

I am in east Texas where T-Mobile's footprint is small. When the G1 came out I ordered one, but had to return it and cancel service with T-mobile because of their service. They only had gprs in town and absolutely nothing outside of town. Before ordering the N1 I double checked all of T-Mobiles coverage maps and it indicated that there had been vast improvements in coverage, and they launched 3g just before Christmas. So I bought the N1. I get good coverage in most areas of town, but there are a lot of dead spots. If I have 3 bars or less outdoors, walking indoors completely kills my signal. I have noticed that for some reason T-Mobile's signal does not penetrate buildings as well as AT&T's signal. I came from an iPhone 3g, and always had full signal in these buildings.
Also, there is absolutely no Edge on T-Mobile's network in East Texas. It is either 3G or gprs. And the 3g is quite slow (300k max) compared to AT&T 3g speeds (avg 1Mb). In the first 14 days I did not go any where but my main office, which is a stone's throw from a tower, and home, so I did not notice the coverage issue. I saw Edge once while roaming the other day, that is it.

In Houston Downtown I have trouble with reception in buildings. AT&T had issues too, but it doesnt seem like they were as bad.
What pisses me off is when I am in a phone call and the N1 switches from 3g to edge I lose the call.

Signal Problems: is it Sprint or the EVO?

I switched over from Verizon and I have had my EVO since the 4th of June. I like the phone, however I get very poor reception. At my house inside, I get 1 bar, sometimes it will be no bars or 2 bars. I used to get excellent reception in my house with Verizon (usually full bars). My wife is on T-Mobile and even she gets 3-4 bars (out of 5 bars) and never has dropped calls. I always get dropped calls.
I used to be able to ride in the elevator in my office and talk on the phone. Quality would drop and i would lose bars (down to 1 or 2) but I would almost never actually drop a call (this is on Verizon). Today, in two elevator rides on the phone, they both dropped.
Now my question is.... is this Sprint or is it the phone?
If it's the phone are there certain ROMs I should try that improve the reception?
Thanks!

You should try to do the little hack to get on verizon towers without being classified as roaming. Check it out, if its sprint then you will see once you try it.

wildcard said:
I switched over from Verizon and I have had my EVO since the 4th of June. I like the phone, however I get very poor reception. At my house inside, I get 1 bar, sometimes it will be no bars or 2 bars. I used to get excellent reception in my house with Verizon (usually full bars). My wife is on T-Mobile and even she gets 3-4 bars (out of 5 bars) and never has dropped calls. I always get dropped calls.
I used to be able to ride in the elevator in my office and talk on the phone. Quality would drop and i would lose bars (down to 1 or 2) but I would almost never actually drop a call (this is on Verizon). Today, in two elevator rides on the phone, they both dropped.
Now my question is.... is this Sprint or is it the phone?
If it's the phone are there certain ROMs I should try that improve the reception?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Different radios might work. For the last 4 years I've been an AT&T customer. I understand that CDMA apparently isn't as good at signal building penetration compared to GSM, so that might be a limitation.
However, both Verizon and Sprint utilize CDMA, so I find it odd that someone with Verizon could have a better signal than Sprint, since I'm also told that (assuming your phone has the "roaming towers" option or whatever it's called enabled, and it is by default, at least on my phone) they use the same towers, so why on earth would there be a disparity?
I'm guessing it's the EVO, or something to do with its casing, because some places I get excellent reception indoors, and others, like Sam's Club, is a complete dead zone except for the front third of the store closest to the exit.
That being said, my wifi reception (or at least indicator) totally blows. I hope a firmware update address that and the 30 fps cap, as well as reception (if it's the phone).

Try the *techknowfile's* - Hack the HTC EVO - 3G w/o Sprint EVDO coverage!
It worked for me. From having no bars went to full at home because of Sprint coverage. And the EVO does not have the option of roaming, just the automatic roaming and never worked for me.
About Verizon and Sprint they are both CDMA but they have their own towers. Is not the phone. And at Walmart almost every phone loose signal. I have friends w all carriers and they all get poor signal.

gatorran said:
Try the *techknowfile's* - Hack the HTC EVO - 3G w/o Sprint EVDO coverage!
It worked for me. From having no bars went to full at home because of Sprint coverage.
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can you please explain what exactly you did? I'm having similar no signal problem and my MotoQ worked perfectly fine.

kvictar said:
can you please explain what exactly you did? I'm having similar no signal problem and my MotoQ worked perfectly fine.
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Obtain your MSL (aka Master Subsidy Lock / Password. SIX DIGIT NUMBER)
Dial ##775#, a password prompt should appear. Enter your MSL into this box->hit OK->tap on the "Update PRL" button. Make sure "All Folders" and "Type: prl files" are selected. You should see the downloaded PRL (00001.prl) on the list; Select the PRL->Press Menu->Commit.
Search the forum for Hack the HTC EVO - 3G w/o Sprint EVDO coverage! under "EVO 4G Android Development"
the tutorial is on the first post by Techknowfile.

try a different radio, or maybe its just the area u are in? on ATT, my friend has an iphone, and i had the fuze, and he always got signals where i didnt, so it could be the phone...

You can't go by bars on CDMA... You can have ZERO bars and still be able to make crystal clear calls and send and receive data on CDMA whereas on GSM you hit 3 bars and your calls start cutting out.
Anyway, I've noticed that the EVO is really crappy with data speeds - but voice quality it is bar none the highest quality cell phone I have ever used.

Well, if the Evo simply has poor reception the Verizon hack shouldn't make a difference.
I like you have poor service in my home, always have. I got an Airave to solve that problem, it works well so long as I also am connected to Wifi otherwise it tends to hop between 1 bar of 3G and full bars of 1xRTT.
I tried the Verizon PRL hack. The signal was a little stronger, inline with what my roommates on Verizon got, but it wouldn't connect to the Airave at all. Did seem to have a hard time maintaining a 3G connection. I wasn't losing the signal, it just seemed to drop the data connection, but I still had a voice connection. Because of that and the airave issue I switched back.

The funny thing is, the EVO has better signal reception than my TP2... it just has crappy data speeds.

really? i get amazing data speeds on 3g, also i found out today that wifi speeds and signals are being fixed via software update from HTC, just got an e-mail from there. something like 700 down and 700 or so up.

eck0728 said:
really? i get amazing data speeds on 3g, also i found out today that wifi speeds and signals are being fixed via software update from HTC, just got an e-mail from there. something like 700 down and 700 or so up.
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This is what I get on speed.

wildcard said:
I switched over from Verizon and I have had my EVO since the 4th of June. I like the phone, however I get very poor reception. At my house inside, I get 1 bar, sometimes it will be no bars or 2 bars. I used to get excellent reception in my house with Verizon (usually full bars). My wife is on T-Mobile and even she gets 3-4 bars (out of 5 bars) and never has dropped calls. I always get dropped calls.
I used to be able to ride in the elevator in my office and talk on the phone. Quality would drop and i would lose bars (down to 1 or 2) but I would almost never actually drop a call (this is on Verizon). Today, in two elevator rides on the phone, they both dropped.
Now my question is.... is this Sprint or is it the phone?
If it's the phone are there certain ROMs I should try that improve the reception?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it helps, everybody in NYC knows that Verizon is the best in signal. You can get signal with them where ATT and Sprint can't. ATT has the worst signal in the city of the 3 of them. So it might be the carrier. I don't know if this is true somewhere else.

gatorran said:
This is what I get on speed.
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Absolutely horrible. I don't know how you live with that

Albaholic said:
Absolutely horrible. I don't know how you live with that
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It's Horrible!!!! hehe I've been having nightmares because of that. It was really slow on the sprint network, and the airave was getting my phone crazy changing between connections.

wildcard said:
I switched over from Verizon and I have had my EVO since the 4th of June. I like the phone, however I get very poor reception. At my house inside, I get 1 bar, sometimes it will be no bars or 2 bars. I used to get excellent reception in my house with Verizon (usually full bars). My wife is on T-Mobile and even she gets 3-4 bars (out of 5 bars) and never has dropped calls. I always get dropped calls.
I used to be able to ride in the elevator in my office and talk on the phone. Quality would drop and i would lose bars (down to 1 or 2) but I would almost never actually drop a call (this is on Verizon). Today, in two elevator rides on the phone, they both dropped.
Now my question is.... is this Sprint or is it the phone?
If it's the phone are there certain ROMs I should try that improve the reception?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a simular issue, so I called sprint today and the tech found that the tower nearest me (about 1 mile away) was "out" so that was my problem so he generated a ticket to fix the tower. The funny thing is that he indicated that in general thier system can not tell them when a tower is out, customers generally call and indicate a service issue then they can remotely check the towers in question for issues . Man that is not the best way to check towers . Oh well the tower I need should be fixed in about 24 hours based on the tech I talked to.......he also said good thing I called Man they have a nutty system

Verizon's method of checking towers isn't much better if all they have is one guy walking around asking "can you hear me now?"
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Sent via this here phone thingy on the interweb.

i've found it to be the opposite in my city. verizon is terrible and sprint is awesome. maybe in your area, sprint just isn't as good as verizon? don't think it's the evo.

This is easy to check.
Go to a different area and see if the signal gets better.
My own evo is better than my old TP2, much better reception (I don't roam at work, on the basement floor, whereas TP2 used to constantly) and 2-2.2 down / 0.6 up Mbps.

acrh2 said:
This is easy to check.
Go to a different area and see if the signal gets better.
My own evo is better than my old TP2, much better reception (I don't roam at work, on the basement floor, whereas TP2 used to constantly) and 2-2.2 down / 0.6 up Mbps.
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I just switched from a TP2 to the Evo and I found things to be quite the opposite. Constantly 1 - 2 bars less of service with the evo dropping to 'no service' where the TP2 at least had 1 or 2 bars. After many years with HTC products, Fuze, Tilt2 on ATT and the TP2 and EVO with Sprint I have found that its really hit or miss with their products. Some phones of even the same make and model are just better then others. The first Fuze I got had horrible horrible service. Went to the ATT store and they agreed, warranty replacement phone worked beautiful. Now with that said the EVO does seem to have consistently faster data speeds then the TP2 did. Between 600 - 900 with the TP2 and up wards of 1480 on a test I did yesterday with the evo. Still no where near the 2000 - 2500 the ATT network provided but they ticked me off with their two week tower outage in this area... what good is speed if the phone doesn't work?

[Q] The moment I get to my door... NO SIGNAL

So I got the Nexus S yesterday and LOVE everything about it.
I'm unable to get any acceptable reception inside my apartment (on the lowest level of a three story complex thats surrounded by other apartments).
I live in Hermosa Beach, CA and TMO says I have good coverage here... and they're right... because once i walk outside I'm blazing... like literally once I'm outside my door... what gives??? How can I go from 3G 4 bars lit up in green to that stupid EDGE with one bar... lucky to be green... or no reception at all.
Will I be stuck with not being able to use my phone inside my apartment? I called TMO and they are sending someone out here to check the reception I guess... but I'm stuck using WiFi inside my apartment without being able to use the phone.
Anyone else experience similar issues like that? My sprint phone never did this.

look into getting a signal repeater or something

T-Mobile definitely has issues penetrating buildings, in my opinion. Both my home and one of the two work-sites I frequent are almost dead-zones on T-Mo.
I purchased one of those zBoost cell repeaters for my home, which greatly improves reception, but you need to be able to run a cable to an outside antenna for best results.
Here's an Amazon link for a starting point to different models: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=mobile&field-keywords=zboost+tmobile&x=0&y=0
That said, it's ridiculous to have to pay $250 to get your cell signal. I only did it because the one I got does both AT&T and T-Mo frequencies (not T-Mo 3G, though) and my AT&T phones can get signal inside the house, but just barely.

I too have issues in buildings not necessarily my house but businesses

This is a T-Mobile issue. Not a nexus issue. Also is not a new issue.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

cpcrazyfly said:
This is a T-Mobile issue. Not a nexus issue. Also is not a new issue.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
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Technically correct, but if the Nexus S is your first T-Mobile phone, you might not know this. It would be easy to think the NS has a poor antenna. It's a valid question to ask, in my opinion.

redhatyellow said:
So I got the Nexus S yesterday and LOVE everything about it.
I'm unable to get any acceptable reception inside my apartment (on the lowest level of a three story complex thats surrounded by other apartments).
I live in Hermosa Beach, CA and TMO says I have good coverage here... and they're right... because once i walk outside I'm blazing... like literally once I'm outside my door... what gives??? How can I go from 3G 4 bars lit up in green to that stupid EDGE with one bar... lucky to be green... or no reception at all.
Will I be stuck with not being able to use my phone inside my apartment? I called TMO and they are sending someone out here to check the reception I guess... but I'm stuck using WiFi inside my apartment without being able to use the phone.
Anyone else experience similar issues like that? My sprint phone never did this.
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This is just a fundamental issue with the frequencies t-mobile uses for their 3g network, 1700 and 2100mHz. Those have poor building penetration vs for example lower bands like the 850mHz on ATT which penetrates buildings much stronger. It requires them to build towers closer together but that isn't always possible, its hard enough to get towers up as it is.
This is one reason I've tried to stay on ATT 3g as their 3g band performs much better in these situations, when its available.

distortedloop said:
T-Mobile definitely has issues penetrating buildings, in my opinion. Both my home and one of the two work-sites I frequent are almost dead-zones on T-Mo.
I purchased one of those zBoost cell repeaters for my home, which greatly improves reception, but you need to be able to run a cable to an outside antenna for best results.
Here's an Amazon link for a starting point to different models:
That said, it's ridiculous to have to pay $250 to get your cell signal. I only did it because the one I got does both AT&T and T-Mo frequencies (not T-Mo 3G, though) and my AT&T phones can get signal inside the house, but just barely.
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Do you think TMO will provide this for me? Have people got TMO to do this before?
And yeah, I know this isn't a NS issue... I LOVE THE NS -- MY FAV PHONE OF ALL TIME!!, but i am new to TMO and love them as well EXCEPT for inside my house !!
Has anyone ever got TMO to provide better reception inside their home?? You would think they would provide people with like wireless routers for their homes!

I had the G1, Nexus One, G2, and MT4G before the Nexus S and have to say that the Nexus S gets hands down the best reception in my apartment.
The G1 was worthless, the N1, G2, and MT4G were pretty much on par but only got reception in certain parts of the apartment which means I couldn't move very much when on the phone (unless when on wifi calling of course).
The Nexus S has reception everywhere in my apartment with superior call quality throughout. Very impressed with it so far. T-mobile still sucks inside buildings but you're better off with the Nexus S than other T-mobile devices.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

find another place lol
why you are living deep down under. afraid of nuke or something ?

Also, I live in Los Angeles and we've been having lots of rain here... will that affect reception at all?
And what about femtocell technology? Does TMO use it??

redhatyellow said:
Also, I live in Los Angeles and we've been having lots of rain here... will that affect reception at all?
And what about femtocell technology? Does TMO use it??
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Im about an hour away from you and the rain is horrible but i havent had any issues...
and I dont think they do

LOL! I cannot stop laughing reading this comment
ll_l_x_l_ll said:
find another place lol
why you are living deep down under. afraid of nuke or something ?
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Rain seems to be affecting my T mobile service, I'm in the valley and areas I normally get 3g on have been edge or no service since the rain storms began.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

Hopefully someone will port the tmobile wifi app to the nexus s. I may return mine and wait for it because I don't want to keep switching phones at home because one has the ability for wifi calling and the other doesnt.
Also I have tried sip calling to no avail on both nexuses.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

Rain is known to sometimes cause interference with reception; I notice this as well in NYC. I have noticed that the Nexus S is pretty good at keeping the signal alive, certainly better than my N1 or Vibrant.
To improve your reception, set the phone to airplane mode and then turn it off a few seconds later to get the closest towers. Also call 611 and ask them to reset your phone on the network from their end. Surprisingly, this sometimes does help. As someone said previously, the higher the band (2100 mhz for Tmo 3G), the worse penetration is unfortunately. I think Tmo stopped selling their repeaters earlier this year or last year (hotspot @ home).

I tweeted on Sunday my dissatisfaction with T-Mobile service. I was 75' outside one of their own stores in an area marked as 3G on their maps, couldn't get data at all inside another store, couldn't get better than EDGE outside in the parking lot.
Their reply was to try a new SIM. The SIM I have is from my N1 original, it's not even a year old. Anyone think it's worth the effort swapping? Do SIMS actually "wear out" that fast?
I suspect that's one of those "we don't really have an answer or fix, but give the customer something to try so we look proactive" kind of answers. LOL

have you tried setting up SIP + GVoice over Wifi?
This doesn't resolve the tmobile issue, but at least you can make and receive calls on wifi without eating up your minutes...
It's not ideal, but it works.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=877879

My friend had this problem with his ATT phones. He contacted them, *****ed, and they set up one of those repeaters in his apartment. He's the only one that could log into it and set up a filter to use only phones he registers. Maybe you can talk to Tmobile about this, though I'm not sure if they're eager to give everyone these things (or if Tmobile even gives them).

[Q] Recent Radio Problems

Is anyone having any major radio problems recently? I heard a few days ago something happened with Sprints network, but haven't verified it.
I'm currently running CM7-n94 and the past few days my 3g speeds using speed test are in the double digits! O_O I mean to say like 87b/s. It's worthless for me to even use the browser now if I'm not using wifi.
I'm flashing back to Froyo STOCK right now, (leaving it S-OFF) and calling sprint to complain.
Two Questions:
1.) Anyone else recently having really piss poor (more than usual) data speeds with 3G?
2.) Can I update to the OTA the from Froyo stock with S-OFF and still be rooted?

mintee said:
Is anyone having any major radio problems recently? I heard a few days ago something happened with Sprints network, but haven't verified it.
I'm currently running CM7-n94 and the past few days my 3g speeds using speed test are in the double digits! O_O I mean to say like 87b/s. It's worthless for me to even use the browser now if I'm not using wifi.
I'm flashing back to Froyo STOCK right now, (leaving it S-OFF) and calling sprint to complain.
Two Questions:
1.) Anyone else recently having really piss poor (more than usual) data speeds with 3G?
2.) Can I update to the OTA the from Froyo stock with S-OFF and still be rooted?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. There are some cities that are subject to some slow speeds. Where are you located?
2. As long as your radio is s-off you're good to go.

About 5 miles from Center City Philadelphia.

mintee said:
About 5 miles from Center City Philadelphia.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haven't ever read any complaints from anyone in Pennsylvania.
Try updating your prl and data profile.
Maybe call Sprint as well.
You could also completely unroot back to 3.70 and then reroot and see if it might help.
Also, updating your radios to the latest.
There's a thread in the development section.
I'm mobile or I'd give you a link.

Oh, ya, been there and done all that. This is even my 3rd EVO and I've never been able to break the 250-300k/bs limit on any of them, but this 87 is just getting ridiculous.

So sprint is sending me an Airave, but the guy said it's most likely not going to fix my problem. My next solution is to argue my way out of the contract and go with a more reliable carrier... Sadly there are no other phones out I want right now.

mintee said:
So sprint is sending me an Airave, but the guy said it's most likely not going to fix my problem. My next solution is to argue my way out of the contract and go with a more reliable carrier... Sadly there are no other phones out I want right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"reliable carrier" changes per the area you live.
If you make a note of the issue and it isn't fixed within a reasonable amount of time they will waive your ETF as they are technically violating the contract.

Akron, Ohio here and my data speeds have been crap all day. Phone keeps pulsing between 0 and 2 bars, but never seems to lock on to the tower reliably.

Akron, Ohio here and my data speeds have been crap all day. Phone keeps pulsing between 0 and 2 bars, but never seems to lock on to the tower reliably.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could just be a temporary area issue.

Personally, my data speeds absolutely SUCKED on the 05.02 radio. Ive since flashed back to 04.08 and all is well.

It's been a while, but one evening a 6 pack of beer and I sat down and flashed every single radio, and did 3 speed tests on each radio combo. Took about 2 hours all done and said, but there never was a huge difference.
The sprint rep said my location should have full coverage (I live in NJ, right outside of Philadelphia. Every carrier has full coverage here). I asked him what the average 3G speeds were, and he said I should be getting anywhere between 600kb/s and 1.2Mb/s.
I've never seen either of those numbers except when I use 4G. Keep in mind that I've used this phone everywhere from Utah, Colorado, NC, VA, DC, NYC, Philly, Trenton, etc and it's all the same. I, as the Spring rep, would like to blame the hardware, but this is the 3rd Evo I've had in a year.
My 4G speeds are usually about 2.5Mb/s. Friend of mine has the Atrix and he's getting 2.5Mb/s on 3G as AT&T hasn't rolled their 4G network out yet. I also have a friend with a Thunderbolt, and he's getting ~22Mb/s average. (Yes, that's Twenty Two)
So, again, as far as I'm concerned, the Evo is the best phone on the market still, however the service is a deal breaker for me.
I'm going to try this Airave thing out, but if it doesn't work I'm going to be shopping/waiting for the next LTE phone assuming Verizon gets a phone that's worth half a crap.

In addition...
This won't help at all but I need to add that I've switched from T-mobile to Sprint, and the 3G speed of T-mobile was incredibly fast in NYC. Sprint was bareable, but since the update it's been speeds of 0.19Mbs d/l and around 0.15Mbs up. It sucks because at my job I'm indoors with no 4G around so I'm confined to 3G. But at school when I have 4G full blast it's almost close to fiber optic speed.