Database Users

Sprint's 4g connection not stable...

Im in the northern chicago area and I'm able to connect to 4g but the connection is slow and unstable...(even with 4 bars). Ive extended the idle time using ##data# but still I have the same issues??? Anybody with a solid connection care to share their ##data# settings? Im thinking the issue might in the settings......
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

I'm in Seattle and see similar 4G behavior. Usually 2 bars or so and not great performance (marginally better than 3G). I'd be interested to see if this can be improved by tweaking the settings also.

the 4G antenna in the EVO is half the size of the USB one, I don't even get signal at my house on my EVO, yet I get 1.5MBs on my USB stick. Size matters.

Idk about 4G but i just moved into a new house and i have TERRRIBLE reception no matter where i am. If im not outside, it sucks. Its funny though, as soon as i step out the door, 5-6 bars. Im keeping the phone in hopes that as soon as they get 4G around here (Elmont, NY... Long Island), things will change. =\

sprints 4g is in a horrible part of the spectrum. it's frequency is too high to pass through anything

This thread does not belong here. Take this drivel to the appropriate subforum.

unless you are a running a stock rom with the latest updates, i don't think you can make any of these complaints that you all are unless 4g isn't fully up and running in your city. My girlfriend just got the white evo and we installed the latest updates and she gets a very good 4g signal, i have the black evo running fresh 0.5.3 and i get a pretty good signal myself. Not to mention we live in mpls and 4g isn't even officially here yet. A lot of these problems people are having are user errors, flashing things with no knowledge of what they are doing. I would say go back to stock do to ota update with the new radio and wimax enhancements then tell me what type of 4g coverage you are getting. otherwise you are just trusting the chef that everything is set up right which i would take with a grain of salt because non of them seem to understand exactly how the wimax radio works as of yet. Proof of this is all the problems people are having after trying numerous roms

BB15 said:
I'm in Seattle and see similar 4G behavior. Usually 2 bars or so and not great performance (marginally better than 3G). I'd be interested to see if this can be improved by tweaking the settings also.
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That's not very encouraging, I am very disappointed by Sprint's 3g speeds. I have yet to see over 1mbs, and over the 4th of July weekended saw .2-.7 mbs. Yes, .2 as in 192kbs. This was in Miami.

vespoli said:
This thread does not belong here. Take this drivel to the appropriate subforum.
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I started this thread with the intentions of looking into the settings of the wimax ##data# menu....not too rant about the service. I believe with the good signal I'm getting and the fact that I do connect shows that there's an issue with either the roms were flashing or the setting mentioned above. Anybody care to post their settings?
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Changing the wimax idle sleep time from 10 secs to 300 secs could help. My 4G stays on pretty much constantly now instead of switching back and forth between 4G and 3G. You would need your MSL to edit the settings though.

I have similar issues in the chicago land area as well. Very frustrating. I am using a stock rooted rom, but I am using an older OTA update. When I'm outside I always have a strong 4G signal. However, as soon as I go in doors I either loose the signal or have a very weak one. Before you say anything about updating, my GF's EVO is completely stock with the newest OTA update and her 4G behaves very similarly. I actually pick up a better signal at times. It just sucks because if the signal was just a LITTLE bit stronger I would be really happy.

Thats just due to the spectrum used for wimax is at such a high frequency that it does not penetrate walls very well. I'm not sure how sprint will try to remedy this problem, I'm not sure but I get strong signals at my work office and thats inside a building. At home I can get 4G if I am outside once inside I cant seem to get it at all.

What's "##data#" ? I would search it but haven't quite figured it out yet on the app. Google didn't help either (surprisingly).
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

jrpointer said:
Im in the northern chicago area and I'm able to connect to 4g but the connection is slow and unstable...(even with 4 bars). Ive extended the idle time using ##data# but still I have the same issues??? Anybody with a solid connection care to share their ##data# settings? Im thinking the issue might in the settings......
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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jr - I am in Gold Coast and recently noticed the 4G signal was junk. It used ot be great inside my 13th floor apartment. I went to the sprint store and they said one of the towers was being serviced (they called a tech. and he said this while I was there). They said end of this week it would be fixed. I was going to give them another week or so and see what the deal is then.

IMO it kind of defeats the purpose of having 4G then. 90% of the time that I want to surf the internet or use 4G I'm indoors, and I would imagine that goes for pretty much everybody. I know this isn't a problem for everybody so it seems, but I think for a lot of people it is.

interesting you say 4 bars of 4g. when i look at my phone i can get up to 6 vertical bars for 3g's signal strength, but with 4g on, and outside i can get 3 "bars" more like "upper wifi arcs" above the 4g signal. and inside my 4g doesn't even register anything, it just shows 4g with no arcs...
however my technique is to put the phone right next to the window and run my micro usb cable from there to my computer. and i then get great data connection...
still experimenting, (had the phone for less than a week) but i think it might work better to go to menu/settings/wirless&networks/ and uncheck mobile network so the phone doesn't use the 3g for data connection when 4g isn't there...
thus if the 4g signal is low, it doesn't drop it to grab the higher signal 3g...
lastly. i'm heading to the store to try to pick up a 2 buck plastic soap dish with a suction cup for the "high tech holding station" on my window. that and a 10 foot micro usb cable i think that will help even more...
best of luck.

I have figured out where in my neighborhood I can get a 4G signal (and I too keep my phone near the window when I want to use it at home). However since the OTA, I noticed that if my 4G signal drops it won't come back unless I toggle the 4G radio. It will just sit in "scanning" and use 3G.
Anyone else noticing this problem?
I would assume that one of the settings/timers need to be tweaked, but I have no idea what my those values were before the OTA.

oreoOozZz said:
Idk about 4G but i just moved into a new house and i have TERRRIBLE reception no matter where i am. If im not outside, it sucks. Its funny though, as soon as i step out the door, 5-6 bars. Im keeping the phone in hopes that as soon as they get 4G around here (Elmont, NY... Long Island), things will change. =\
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4G has nothing to do with 3G. Clearwire maintains the 4G network and Ericsson maintains the 3G/1X network do if your 3G is bad now, it won't be any different when 4G launches unless Ericsson improves the situation.

If I'd got this device predominantly for 4G...Id've returned it in day one...(IN Chicago also). In fact wouldn't have bought it going in knowing what I knew about the spottiness of tapping into 4G frequency wirelessly.

that makes absolutely no sense.
per your words, 4G has nothing to do with 3G as in Clearwire has nothing to do with Ericsson so what would it matter if Ericsson decided to step its game up if Clearwire is the 4G company?
4G is on a whole different frequency not to mention a whole different tower technology and tower location possibly so there's definetly a good chance that I can maintain a great 4G signal once it arrives in my area compared to the terrible 3G coverage I get.
well see what happens... my luck they will never put 4G by me lol.

3g speeds not working well

My epic 3g is going really slow and keeps shuting off is there a fix for this or am I the only one with this issue

While I do like the way that the epic tries to manage your network connections (ie it turns off wifi when theres no network and turns off 4g/3g when you have wifi), I find it kind of buggy.
Sometimes my wifi is slow to reconnect and requires me to turn it off and on. I havent had any problems with the 3g connection yet. Although that may just be dumb luck.

ttieder said:
My epic 3g is going really slow and keeps shuting off is there a fix for this or am I the only one with this issue
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My 3G is working the same as it did on my EVO, really. Same speeds here at my apartment. 4G speeds are the same at work. But that's just my experience thus far.

Mine are not my upload speeds are not as good as my evo but I'm in miami maybe there doing test or something
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

My 3G upload speeds seemed capped around 100-150kbits/s.
3G download and wifi are are both good.

Download seems ok like 600kb I use to get 1.2 mbs on my evo but wifi seems faster on epic then evo speed test shows it but it keeps going on and off its weird my upload seems cap to a lot slower then on my evo is there a fix
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

One more issue on pines near 75 I get 4g on my evo I usually get 5mb download on the epic I get 1 mb anyone else test 4g speed yet
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

EVO 4G at work: 5 Mbit download, 1.2 Mbit upload
Epic 4G at work: 4.7 Mbit download, 1.1 Mbit upload
Epic also connects to a tower much faster.

I notice that when I have coverage my 3g is usually always very fast... but it randomly will drop to no bars then quickly find them again...
Its depends on the coverage I guess...

That's is true it does connect faster anyone in pembroke pines having the same issue
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

4g connection

I'm in a 4g area and I'm having trouble with the connection even while outside. Could it be my particular phone?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

What kind of issues are you having? Since the update my 4g connection is constantly dropping then connecting again in the same spots i had 4g before the update.
Sent from my EVO 4G using XDA app

The very issue u speak of, except it was also doing it before the update. I really want to keep this phon, but not if the radio can't keep a decent connection
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Are you having the problem just in one place or all over in your area?
I've seen the 4g disconnect and reconnect when I have a really weak 4g signal. When I am at home I have 1/3 bars on the 4g icon when I am inside and it will sometimes lose connection for a minute. I also see pretty slow speeds, usually even slower than 3g.
When I am outdoors or in a part of town closer to the source of the signal I get much better results. It maintains the connection fine and the speeds are great. With 1/3 bars I usually see 1-2 mbps download, with 2/3 bars I typically see around 3-4 mbps. One time I drove around until I found 3/3 bars and ran a few speed tests and it hit around 5.8 to 5.9 mbps consistently, the upload was up over 1 mbps too. I'd like to see less gaps in the 4g coverage, but hey it is a new network.
I'd say your disconnects are just related to a bad signal in your area, but if it happens no matter where you are it could be related to the phone. Maybe try hunting for a stronger signal and then see if you still have disconnects?

I'm in a 4g area per the sprint map. I'm pretty sure that map is none too accurate. Also, if it's 4g though Clear (basically subcontracted service), I think Clear's network is good or bad on a device by device basis. I've had a total of 4 devices at home through the Clear network and only the clear mobile has been any good. 2 home modems, the mobile (Spot), and the Epic. My epic has the same problem as yours and I'm in an official "indoor" area. My wager is that the network is still being rolled out and Clear has oversold some (or many) markets.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

javahead76 said:
I'm in a 4g area per the sprint map. I'm pretty sure that map is none too accurate. Also, if it's 4g though Clear (basically subcontracted service), I think Clear's network is good or bad on a device by device basis. I've had a total of 4 devices at home through the Clear network and only the clear mobile has been any good. 2 home modems, the mobile (Spot), and the Epic. My epic has the same problem as yours and I'm in an official "indoor" area. My wager is that the network is still being rolled out and Clear has oversold some (or many) markets.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
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That perfectly describes my situation..I was telling my friends that that map isn't really accurate apparently because I am also in an supposed indoor area..but even if I go outside an walk down toward the main street I will only get one bar..and maybe 2 if I take my hands off of it..so I know the ma is exagerated greatly. I'm in. Different place right now and while I get two bars outsde even with my hands on it..I can't connect at all right now..sucks period.
They should rename their network from the "now" network to the "outside" network..because even my 3g never goes above half strength indoors...
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

greengoldmello said:
That perfectly describes my situation..I was telling my friends that that map isn't really accurate apparently because I am also in an supposed indoor area..but even if I go outside an walk down toward the main street I will only get one bar..and maybe 2 if I take my hands off of it..so I know the ma is exagerated greatly. I'm in. Different place right now and while I get two bars outsde even with my hands on it..I can't connect at all right now..sucks period.
They should rename their network from the "now" network to the "outside" network..because even my 3g never goes above half strength indoors...
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
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same here, its funny though, 2 bars of 4g and ill get random disconnects on the epic. my evo is perfectly stable, so id almost say its something with the phone. i may swing by the sprint store during lunch and see what they say.

I get the same 4g connectivity now as I did pre IO7. At work here in Southern New Jersey with two bars inside. Sometimes drops to one. Never disconnects. Just ran a speed test inside.
3072kbps down / 1057kbps up
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

[Rant!] I can't take it anymore...[ 4g data disconnects ]

Literally every time I try to watch a video in HD on youtube, my connection goes to ****.
I can't download huge files wthout a download manager because they will fail. And where the download manager saves me is by continuing the transfer when I bring the network back up.
I can't play ps online or xbl because the traffic kills my connection.
The ONLY thing its good for is browsing webpages.. that's it!
I live close to a 4g tower cause when I'm peaking, I get 10-13mbps+ its just when tethering or not, the connection times out..
This phone [SAMUNG] has terrible implementation regarding its Wimax radio. I soo wish I could pull out the HTC hardware and stick it in, cause it never timed out like this. Nor did it cause data disconnect upon taking a call while on 4g and tethering..
PLEASE can someone look into why this is happening?
I know I can't be the only one..
Especially
/And that's my 0.2 florin... Another message exported from Epic4g via Tapatalk Pro

Try this fix.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=925898

I have a similar situation with/without the fix. It seems my signal strength (or bars) have improved, whether perceived or real, but reliability is crappy. I basically hold very very still when trying to download a podcast. The highest I've ever gotten is around 6mbits/sec, but usually, if it stays connected, I'll avg about 1-2.

I honestly think that this may have more to do with the wimax technology and towers. I have a Clear bundle ( usb and home) and I live in full 5 bar and 10 bar coverage, and my speeds fluctuate greatly. Now on my phone I always get a solid connection and hardly any fluction albet slower speeds than the other hardware at times. I think the tech and the hardware have more margin of productivity and constant throughput error than sprint or clear wants us to know until they updrage to true wimax 4g. Just my thoughts, maybe your radio is one that doesn't like the tower close to your house.
Call and ask about tower issues, or maybe try a replacement phone, hopefully this is helpful.
sent from "The Other Woman"

Thanks for thr input guys, my problem is not my thuroughput its actually quite amazing. And rarely on the lowside. Usually 8.5ish most times.
But rather my problem has to do with the Load put on the radio, when downloading a file. Just like when I had problems with cable modems, it would crap out.
I actually did those wimax settings even tho I have te best signal, so great that I'm full bars inside my home at all times [unless I'm covering the radio in slide out mode]
Sigh.. just sucks not to be able to take advantage of my great speeds. Cause I really need to view the 1080p videos on youtube, looking at samples of the Canon 550d/t2I I am getting
/And that's my 0.2 florin... Another message exported from Epic4g via Tapatalk Pro

When tethering, I keep my phone stationary in a stand (an izel). That has made my connection extremely reliable and I can stream entire movies without any problems.

hayabusa1300cc said:
Literally every time I try to watch a video in HD on youtube, my connection goes to ****.
I can't download huge files wthout a download manager because they will fail. And where the download manager saves me is by continuing the transfer when I bring the network back up.
I can't play ps online or xbl because the traffic kills my connection.
The ONLY thing its good for is browsing webpages.. that's it!
I live close to a 4g tower cause when I'm peaking, I get 10-13mbps+ its just when tethering or not, the connection times out..
This phone [SAMUNG] has terrible implementation regarding its Wimax radio. I soo wish I could pull out the HTC hardware and stick it in, cause it never timed out like this. Nor did it cause data disconnect upon taking a call while on 4g and tethering..
PLEASE can someone look into why this is happening?
I know I can't be the only one..
Especially
/And that's my 0.2 florin... Another message exported from Epic4g via Tapatalk Pro
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I get it with or without the fix. At home and I am less than 1/2 mile from a verified 4G tower and even though I can at times get Speedtest results over 8Mbit there isn't anything that is constant about the connection. 4G is unusable most of the time because the connection will drop about once a minute which then ticks off the phone and this is in an area with a high signal coverage. I also have an Overdrive and it doesn't seem to suffer from the same issues or if it does it doesn't do it as bad.

I'm wondering if it's related to individual tower's broadcasting equipment. I've been places where 4G will stay connected all day regardless of what I'm doing active or not. But the office where I'm working now it constantly connects and disconnects (load or no load). I've tried the fix in the other post, and it hasn't helped here.

Maybe Sprint's Network Vision program will fix this problem.

I just contacted Sprint about the same issue. I'm in Miami, and if this issue persists I'm going to cancel the line. It is annoying as hell. I wonder if it happens with other 4G phones?

Alright thanks guys we have good reports here.
My htc evo didn't do this, I stayed on 4g downloading all day for 14hrs straight at times. Only problem I had regarding 4g on the evo was trying to get the 4g to stay on, while I turned on the hotspot. Once I got it. It was golden.
The epic always have the problem with maintaining the connection. I can say my location doesn't make a difference for me, regarding this issue. But also how would I find out how close I live to a 4g tower? For the speeds I get, it has to be on top of my roof lol.
What is the Sprint Network Vision program? I'm about to google it
/And that's my 0.2 florin... Another message exported from Epic4g via Tapatalk Pro

It may be useful to see my original post here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=10773776
I also had reliability issues and discovered that my office computer was at fault - some kind of RF interference. It's rock-solid now.

well no wonder i have such good throughput and great signal. Used the WiMax tower locator.
The nearest tower to your location is 0.82 miles away, bearing 59 degrees>
i am reading your post, I am trying different locations away from my pc to see if this this helps. thanks for the input. I would like to mention my room mate has at least 15 RC cars. Gas and electric ones, running off 900mhz or 2.4ghz.
he is always on them noisy ass things lol. But this happens even when he isnt on them, and like I mentioned before, the HTC didnt do this--BUT thats not to say this isnt the case with the epic. Two different machines. and hardware for sure.. Samsung barely got the 3g modem right after the release of DI18 lol, **** what makes you think they can handle a wimax radio

At this time there is currently a 4g outtage nationwide on sprints network... I do tech for them and it started sometime around the 22nd or so had a few days off befre that so I can't give you an exact time... as of 11 mountain time on 2/1/11 there was no fix yet...
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

fury15 said:
At this time there is currently a 4g outtage nationwide on sprints network... I do tech for them and it started sometime around the 22nd or so had a few days off befre that so I can't give you an exact time... as of 11 mountain time on 2/1/11 there was no fix yet...
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
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Shhhh . . . don't tell my phone. It is connected to 4G right now and getting 5mbps down in the washington DC area.

slybarman said:
Shhhh . . . don't tell my phone. It is connected to 4G right now and getting 5mbps down in the washington DC area.
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LOL - about 6-7 down here.

I'm in Ft. Lauderdale, and my experience has been that in areas with solid 4g, the connection will drop the moment the signal from a tower *besides* the one that gave you your IP address hits 3 bars.
Example: southbound 95, initial connection between Sunrise & Broward Blvd, gridlock. Watch the signal strength peg at 3 bars near Broward blvd, slowly drift to 2, then 1 by Davie rd... then go back up to 2, and drop when you're close enough to spit on the tower next to 95 at the river. If you toggle 4g off & on right then, it'll reconnect almost instantly with 3 bars. It wreaks havoc on Pandora, to the point of being unusable.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Slacker radio is the app I use, and keeping the Epic on 3G works best for the same reasons the previous poster states. There I get good performance almost everywhere in my town. If I'm using a constant streaming app though, I will hit patches of trouble especially if it's a fast CD-quality stream.

Weak WiFi Hotspot and 3G

Is anybody else experiencing weak WiFi signal in hotspot mode? Any way to boost the signal or change the WiFi channel?
I just got my EVO Shift last week. I really like the speed and funtionality much better than my old Hero.
My 3G signal seems much weaker than I had with the Hero. I'm dropping calls and data connections in loacations where I never have before.
I guess I should take the phone in to a store and have the Techs check the radios. 4G radio works pretty good, though it too doesn't get the throughput that my Sprint Overdrive did.
Sent from my Dell Streak 7 using XDA App

jddalrymple said:
Is anybody else experiencing weak WiFi signal in hotspot mode? Any way to boost the signal or change the WiFi channel?
I just got my EVO Shift last week. I really like the speed and funtionality much better than my old Hero.
My 3G signal seems much weaker than I had with the Hero. I'm dropping calls and data connections in loacations where I never have before.
I guess I should take the phone in to a store and have the Techs check the radios. 4G radio works pretty good, though it too doesn't get the throughput that my Sprint Overdrive did.
Sent from my Dell Streak 7 using XDA App
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Is the PRL up to date...when I got my shift there was already a new PRL..check settings>system update>update prl
Sent from my HTC Knight using MikRom(again)

I did a PRL update when I recieved the phone, but it did do a new update just now. There may be a slight improvement... I think that I'll still get the radios checked today.
Sent from my Dell Streak 7 using XDA App

I finally got my phone in to the Sprint shop so they could run some diagnostics on the radios and they tell me its fine... I know its not, but I'll try to be patient and wait until at least the first major update to the phone before I make a rwal stink about it.
Is anybody else experiencing weeker signal levels for voice & data with the Shift? I'm dropping calls and data connections in places I never used to. Plus the signal output in hotspot mode is weak as well. I can be 10 feet from it with my tablet and only get 2 or 3 bars on my wifi signal level.
Sent from my Dell Streak 7 using XDA App

jddalrymple said:
I finally got my phone in to the Sprint shop so they could run some diagnostics on the radios and they tell me its fine... I know its not, but I'll try to be patient and wait until at least the first major update to the phone before I make a rwal stink about it.
Is anybody else experiencing weeker signal levels for voice & data with the Shift? I'm dropping calls and data connections in places I never used to. Plus the signal output in hotspot mode is weak as well. I can be 10 feet from it with my tablet and only get 2 or 3 bars on my wifi signal level.
Sent from my Dell Streak 7 using XDA App
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I compared mine to my wife hero, her is more than double my speed. not sure why, I will think a newer phone should be faster. anyone has any ideas?

dumper1234 said:
I compared mine to my wife hero, her is more than double my speed. not sure why, I will think a newer phone should be faster. anyone has any ideas?
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If all you want to do is bring up your 3G speeds. Do the mod on THIS post. It should fix the issue for you.

Anyway to improve 3G speeds on AOSP?
Evo SHIFT

Just flash back to a Sense rom. Make the changes, then flash back to AOSP.
MikShifted on XDA Premium APP
TEAM MiK
Mik ROMs Since 3/13/11

I do believe if you flash to sense, then go back, it has to be a new rom flash, not a nandroid, otherwise it restores those settings from the nandroid, not the changes you made in the sense rom.

You are correct . See now that I forgot to mention that .

Ahh, I'm guessing there's no way around that?
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

Enraged21 said:
Ahh, I'm guessing there's no way around that?
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App
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sprints wifi tether is dependent on the signal strength.
on 3g avg dl speed is 45k upload 13k
4g is 950+kb 720 upload
IF your PRL is up to date AND you aren't fair from a tower