My fascinate seems to have abnormally high time without signal. Right now it is reporting 60% time without signal (Cell Standy is at 15% of battery use overall). Sometimes I have weak signal at my house or in certain spots at work, but very rarely do I go without a signal.
Is there some setting that I should look at? Or is my signal really that bad and I just never noticed it before since this is my first smartphone that actually reports this information?
Thanks!
It's probably the prl list which tells your phone what towers it can talk to. Try running the *228, option 2 to update the list and see if it helps. Also, do you live in a former alltel area? That can complicate things as well. There may be an extra setting in the mobile network menu that you can change to improve reception.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
garywojdan81 said:
It's probably the prl list which tells your phone what towers it can talk to. Try running the *228, option 2 to update the list and see if it helps. Also, do you live in a former alltel area? That can complicate things as well. There may be an extra setting in the mobile network menu that you can change to improve reception.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
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I assume that *228 options 2 is just to update the roaming lists? If so, I have run *22899 (which just runs it automatically), but I can try that again since I haven't done it since rooting and installing new ROMs and kernals.
As far as being in a former Alltel area, I am not sure, I am in the Binghamton, NY area. In my mobile network menu there is only two options; Home and Automatic. It is currently set to Automatic.
How do i know if I live in a former alltell area, and if i do how can I improve my signal?
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
No other suggestions and/or ideas?
Our radio sucks. Its a known issue with the phone. Put the Fascinate side by side a Droid X or Droid 2 or Droid Eris or Droid Incredible or Droid 1 or ..., you get my point, and you'll see that the Fascinate always has about half the signal strength that all the other phones have. I had >1% TWS while I was on Sprint with my Epic, but I switch to Verizon (which is supposed to have better service) and I get 33% TWS all day.
I have the same problem I get anywhere between 60-70% without a signal at home.
When I go to bed at night I lose about 25%. I called up verizon they sent out a site team and got back to me, supposedly I am on the fringe edge of where tower is, and nothing they can do and that is why it is marginal, even though my other phones work fine like my old blackberry.
It turns out the 3G needs a lot more signal, and my phone is constantly searching which is draining.
Only way I can remedy this is at home only use Wifi, and never have 3G. I do that now and only lose about 4% battery at night.
It appears the antennae really stinks compared to other phones. Maybe an update will fix it but I doubt it.
I regularly commute from the metro nyc area to long island, and I can verify that the phone has an obvious quirkiness in the cell phone reception. While I have anywhere between -109 to-96 dbm if signal strength in rural long island, I have full bars in the city. while that sounds normal, the reception drops tremendously as data is being accessed. The radio sucks and there is nothing we can do about it baring some engineering work or radio tweaking that is hard to test in the dev community. Flashing radios run a higher risk of bricking than your run of the mill custom rom.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
ludevious said:
I regularly commute from the metro nyc area to long island, and I can verify that the phone has an obvious quirkiness in the cell phone reception. While I have anywhere between -109 to-96 dbm if signal strength in rural long island, I have full bars in the city. while that sounds normal, the reception drops tremendously as data is being accessed. The radio sucks and there is nothing we can do about it baring some engineering work or radio tweaking that is hard to test in the dev community. Flashing radios run a higher risk of bricking than your run of the mill custom rom.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
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Same exact thing I work in NYC and get full 4 bars..while I live about 40 miles north of the City. I usually get anywhere from -96 to -101 at home and -86 in NYC
Unfortunately, that doesn't sound off for your area. According to Verizon's coverage map, Binghamton is right on the northern edge of a rather sizeable no-coverage zone extending out of Pennsylvania. Also, the cellreception.com ratings from other people in that area are quite low.
That, combined with -- as other people have mentioned -- the Fascinate's seemingly sub-par radio means I don't doubt the 60% number is accurate. The Fascinate definitely doesn't receive a signal as strongly as other phones, I can attest to that -- my Droid 1 received a steady (if not strong) signal in some places my Fascinate goes in and out (or just out) of service. It's frustrating, and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. I just hope it's a firmware issue that Samsung can fix -- and actually fixes -- rather than subpar hardware.
Falcyn said:
Unfortunately, that doesn't sound off for your area. According to Verizon's coverage map, Binghamton is right on the northern edge of a rather sizeable no-coverage zone extending out of Pennsylvania. Also, the cellreception.com ratings from other people in that area are quite low.
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That area, VZW has a roaming agreement with Sprint or some other carrier as I was up in that large "uncovered" chunk this past summer and had service the entire time.
Falcyn said:
Unfortunately, that doesn't sound off for your area. According to Verizon's coverage map, Binghamton is right on the northern edge of a rather sizeable no-coverage zone extending out of Pennsylvania. Also, the cellreception.com ratings from other people in that area are quite low.
That, combined with -- as other people have mentioned -- the Fascinate's seemingly sub-par radio means I don't doubt the 60% number is accurate. The Fascinate definitely doesn't receive a signal as strongly as other phones, I can attest to that -- my Droid 1 received a steady (if not strong) signal in some places my Fascinate goes in and out (or just out) of service. It's frustrating, and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. I just hope it's a firmware issue that Samsung can fix -- and actually fixes -- rather than subpar hardware.
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Hmm never knew about that site cellreception thanks for that!
I just checked and now I see why I have barely any coverage, I am about 30 miles form verizon nearest tower.
Interesting thing is there is a sprint tower about 1 miles west of me...hmm
I always thought about switching to Sprint for cheaper and better phones I am tempted to return this and do that
For what it's worth, I've gone to 0% time without signal since updating to DJ05, but I still see non-trivial "Cell Standby" battery usage anyway. Usually around 15% after a day of use. Not sure if that means something is whack in DJ05 and the 0% is bogus or if it means that "Cell Standby" power usage actually has very little to do with that value. Not knowledgeable enough. It might be worth your time to try DJ05 if you haven't already.
There is also the hidden menu that lets you configure CDMA and GSM stuff, but I tried those (while on DI01) and *anything* I did in there just made it worse. I read somewhere that the radio may be looking for GSM services which shows up under "Cell Standby". My intent was to change the radio to CDMA only, but again, changing it from the default "WCDMA Preferred" just made things worse for me.
That second part was kinda meaningless .. lol, sorry. My reason for posting was to point out that my "Time without signal" dropped to 0% by installing DJ05, but didn't seem to have an appreciable affect on "Cell Standby".
djp952 said:
For what it's worth, I've gone to 0% time without signal since updating to DJ05, but I still see non-trivial "Cell Standby" battery usage anyway. Usually around 15% after a day of use. Not sure if that means something is whack in DJ05 and the 0% is bogus or if it means that "Cell Standby" power usage actually has very little to do with that value. Not knowledgeable enough. It might be worth your time to try DJ05 if you haven't already.
There is also the hidden menu that lets you configure CDMA and GSM stuff, but I tried those (while on DI01) and *anything* I did in there just made it worse. I read somewhere that the radio may be looking for GSM services which shows up under "Cell Standby". My intent was to change the radio to CDMA only, but again, changing it from the default "WCDMA Preferred" just made things worse for me.
That second part was kinda meaningless .. lol, sorry. My reason for posting was to point out that my "Time without signal" dropped to 0% by installing DJ05, but didn't seem to have an appreciable affect on "Cell Standby".
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I think that Cell standby is battery used by the cell radio when it's not in use. Time without service is battery used by the radio when not in use and looking for service.
djp952 said:
For what it's worth, I've gone to 0% time without signal since updating to DJ05, but I still see non-trivial "Cell Standby" battery usage anyway. Usually around 15% after a day of use. Not sure if that means something is whack in DJ05 and the 0% is bogus or if it means that "Cell Standby" power usage actually has very little to do with that value. Not knowledgeable enough. It might be worth your time to try DJ05 if you haven't already.
There is also the hidden menu that lets you configure CDMA and GSM stuff, but I tried those (while on DI01) and *anything* I did in there just made it worse. I read somewhere that the radio may be looking for GSM services which shows up under "Cell Standby". My intent was to change the radio to CDMA only, but again, changing it from the default "WCDMA Preferred" just made things worse for me.
That second part was kinda meaningless .. lol, sorry. My reason for posting was to point out that my "Time without signal" dropped to 0% by installing DJ05, but didn't seem to have an appreciable affect on "Cell Standby".
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Click to collapse
Yep I am on DJ05 and did not make a difference. Out of curiosity before Dj05 what % were you getting without signal?
I am an Epic owner, same phone, sometimes same problem. One of the things I do is called the airplane toggle trick. It works for me, don't know what it might do for you.
My phone goes to 50% standby when I boot or turn off and on for any reason. To fix this, I turn off DRM in Running Services and do this trick.
Turn Airplane Mode on for maybe 30 seconds, then turn back off. This resets the radio.
This returns mine to 0%, so might try this.
Related
So I just recently took a trip from northern California to Tennessee and had some interesting results with the Froyo radio. For reference I own the ATT-version Nexus One and have data roaming enabled.
When I used the phone before Froyo radio I had many problems with the 3G switching to Edge and back when needed which caused random data dropouts. Even turning the phone off and back wouldn't force the phone to switch connections to Edge when needed which would make me very frustrated in times of need.
On my trip I found something very interesting, not only did 3G and Edge switch almost perfectly, but Edge performed MUCH faster than before. While it isn't as important now in a world of 3G coverage, when I was on the "edge" of civilization I still got surfing speeds that were not far behind that of 3G speeds. My browsing, and most importantly Google Maps usage rarely suffered a performance hit despite where I was or what type of connection was available to my phone.
There was a difference between performance; 3G would act like Comcast and Edge would be a little behind, but in terms of actually surfing the Internet the extra 2-5 seconds it took to load up a desktop webpage didn't make a difference.
Technically the bandwidth speeds were much different. 3G performed from 1 to a max of 2 megabits down and .3-1 megabits up, while Edge showed speeds of 300-500 kbps down and 100-200 up.
One thing I did notice throughout the trip is the Nexus One's signal meter did not report correctly, there were times where it showed no signal and I had super fast connection, and also times when it would show full or near-full bars and there was no connection.
Hope someone finds this info useful!!! I'm very happy with the coverage my Nexus One gets with the Froyo radio now!
I have always found that my nexus holds calls and has fast data showing zero bars. One reason I've always loved the nexus
Just a point of clarification, EDGE has a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 473.6 kbits/s for 8 timeslots.
In real world conditions EDGE should have throughput of 236.8kbit/s with 4 timeslots(which is what most carriers employ).
Dan
Wonder if there's and app/mod to replace the signal bar with the actual signal #s?
Hey Sellitus, what else did you find working/not working on that trip?
I am considering a longer drive (SF to NY) and want to know about battery life, apps that were really handy, and which weren't.
SiNJiN76 said:
Wonder if there's and app/mod to replace the signal bar with the actual signal #s?
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hey that would be nice. just like how cyanogen puts the battery percentage, it would be nice to have the dBm level of signal overtop of the signal meter.
RogerPodacter said:
hey that would be nice. just like how cyanogen puts the battery percentage, it would be nice to have the dBm level of signal overtop of the signal meter.
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The dBm and signal bar IMO opinion are rather pointless in regards to data. Having a very poor 3G signal will always be faster than a full GPRS signal.
Also, a signal meter in terms of DB would jump around quite a bit...
sprinkles said:
Hey Sellitus, what else did you find working/not working on that trip?
I am considering a longer drive (SF to NY) and want to know about battery life, apps that were really handy, and which weren't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well for ATT I hit data roaming quite a few times, and although it worked on edge pretty quickly during those times it would randomly drop when the R was showing randomly. I think what happened a lot on the trip is when I was out in the middle of nowhere bouncing between towers would cause random dropouts, but they were usually no more than a few seconds.
I don't remember which apps specifically though a few also did not like the trip, but most would hang and resume in a few seconds after data was reconnected even if the signal strength showed it was connected the entire time with signal. Sometimes Google Maps hung, though it was rare and I noticed it more because I used it near constantly on the trip.
If I were to give advice to anyone looking at a cross country trip, buy a map or get offline GPS maps to help. We bought a map and it proved valuable at times, though we rarely needed it.
I wonder if the "enable data while roaming" setting had anything to do with that. Maybe an internal bug.
torchedlh said:
Also, a signal meter in terms of DB would jump around quite a bit...
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I don't know how a number jumping around would be any different than a graphical signal meter jumping around. The iPhone has had this hack for a long time where you can replace the signal meter with the dBm reading. Though I've never owned the iPhone, but seen it on friend's iPhone before.
I know I'm often going into the android settings to look at my dBm reading, didn't jump around too much for me to see.
I've been having some reception issue lately with AT&T around my hometown (usually its quite good),so I did some googling, and found plenty of info on radio signal, and how to interpret -dBm, but I'm still baffled by the ASU. I really couldn't find much, just some random post on a random forum that left me with some questions:
In a 3G network your cell phone tries to open three channels to three radios so they can locate you and hand you off properly.
Those three channels make up you ACTIVE SET.
ASU is ACTIVE SET UPDATES or the rate at which your phone is able to update its location to the towers/radios.
This rate is affected by signal strength, load, and probably a lot of other factors that I haven't puzzled out yet.
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Can anyone shed some more light on this? Usually at home I have 2 bars of HSDPA, somehwere in the -90s dBm, and anywhere from 4-8 asu.
I believe there is a bug in the signal strength indication on the Fascinate, the one that shows the signal strength in -dBm.
You can see the signal strength of the cell signal on the Menu, Settings, About, Status screen. Or you can place a widget on your Home screen. There are several widgets available, I'm using Mobile Signal Widget.
I have a network extender, which basically creates a cell tower right in your home. With my Motorola Droid, I used to get signal strengths down to about -50 something and 60's in indicated signal strength. I can hold both of our Fascinates right next to the network extender's antenna and they will read no better than -86 dBm. So far I've seen signal strengths from -86 dBm to -106 dBm (terrible).
I believe there is a bug in the software (Baseband) on the Fascinate. Previously, I thought the hardware (antenna/radio) wasn't very good, but now it may be software related.
Has anyone seen a signal strength stronger than -86 dBm on the Fascinate?
That's a good point. Mine has never gone below -86dbm either. It fluctuates between -86 at it's best and -106 at it's worst.
Ill keep an eye on this with my phone
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk
I have no experience with cell phone radios so take this with the appropriate helping of salt.
Most radios have input protection that attenuates any signals greater than a set maximum level to prevent damage to the radio. I'm guessing the Fascinate reports it's receive signal level post input protection. It appears you just discovered this threshold for the Fascinate. Honestly, -86 dBm is plenty of signal, anything more is just for show
Again, I'm only speculating here.
Martian21
Interesting theory. I have emailed Verizon support as well. Hopefully, I will get a technical response and not a canned response from them.
With mine, it only fluctuates in -5dBm increments lol. I thought it was a litle wierd. I've seen -86, -91, -96, -101, and -106 lol.
As far as what the OP is talking about, my BB Tour (alltel) is the same way. It won't ever display anything lower than a -80.
Anyone else have a consistently high TWS(Time Without Signal) percentage? Mine almost never goes below 50%, and I've seen it up in the 80s. I think my battery life is really suffering from this. You can see yours in Settings > About Phone > Battery Use > Cell Standby. I've tried a few "fixes" that I've found through researching the issue on other android phones in general, but haven't seen any results.
shazbonk said:
Anyone else have a consistently high TWS(Time Without Signal) percentage? Mine almost never goes below 50%, and I've seen it up in the 80s. I think my battery life is really suffering from this. You can see yours in Settings > About Phone > Battery Use > Cell Standby. I've tried a few "fixes" that I've found through researching the issue on other android phones in general, but haven't seen any results.
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I was thinking about this the other day. Is it possible "time without signal" is simply a poor translation? The reason I ask this is when taking my phone off the charger overnight, I went directly to this setting to see what it reported. The phone reported having been unplugged for 2 minutes and already showed 5% TWS. I had been looking at the phone the whole time and didn't see it drop at all. What I did see is it going from 3G w/ arrows to 3Gd. So maybe this percentage isn't time without signal but rather time not active (i.e. 3G d).
I agree w/ the 3g d, I did not update to DI01 yet and it said I have 20% TWS throughout the day, but the phone didnt make a no service sound.
On my drive home everday I pass a Verizon owned tower.
I've stopped at a liquor store about 200 yards away from it and they maximum signal my Fascinate would pull down was -86dBm (4 bars as well).
My Cell Standby is usually around 11%.
Battery life of my Fascinate is very good.
xliderider: Any news/word from Verizon on this? What kind of Network Extender do you have? Got a brand/model #? Been thinking of picking something up like this.
So it isn't just my phone. My Fascinate goes from -86 to -106 as well. I had my Droid and Fascinate sitting next to each other, both reporting 4 bars. I went into status, and my Droid's signal strength was -77. The Fascinate was at -86. It's gotta be capped.
You're holding it wrong.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
You are probably right. With 4 full bars I can't get better than -86
I've been having the same problem...I was told by Verizon that it just has a "weaker" antenna. I go throughout the day with about 20% TWS. Never had that with my other Verizon phones.
do you get dropped calls or otherwise poor service?
I am returning my incredible due to dropped calls (while at home) using Verizons network Extender. I have had the incredible since April 29th (I believe that was the first day it was released). I have had the signal boosted twice by Verizon but still can't get close to 40' without dropping. One thing I noticed on the incredible while in the same room with the Extender is it would read let's say a -86dbm before placing a call then when placed and on the Extender network the signal would automatically go to -56dbm (stronger signal than -86dbm) and then back up after my call. What I saw was the Extender wasn't active until you make a call... Having said that, I am hoping the Fascinate will be better than the inc was... I will let you know when the Fascinate gets to me Wed or Thursday.
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Got the Facinate a day early : )
So far it is defiantly working better than my Incredible on my verizon network extender!
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Mines 0%
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Sounds like it could have the same problem that affected the Vibrant. It NEVER showed higher than -81dBm, and would often reflect no signal (-0dBm is spectacular but it really means no signal within the Android system). Now with the update it reflects up to -51dBm like it should for GSM/WCDMA with Android and doesn't drop to -0dBm anymore. This of course effected the bars, often dropping to no bars or 1. Now after it's been fixed, plenty of bars and proper -dBm readings.
I live in Idaho. Sprint advertises that they have 'mammoth coverage' around here, but they're wrong. They don't. Well, they have coverage (except for my house and office) and the 3G/4G speeds are usually complete **** unless you're within sight of a tower.
Data from the towers out in Caldwell haven't worked for over 2 months and Sprint claims that they're working just fine and have recently been updated - apparently they updated to dial-up. I really wonder how they're even selling phones over there right now.
Idaho = Battery life is usually 5 to 10 hours with normal usage.
2 weekends ago I was in Omaha and used my evo a little bit less than normal, but I could get through the whole day and still have 50%+ battery life left. The 3G speeds were also 2x better, as well as service in general.
I think it depends on where you're located and if sprint has maintained/updated their towers. I also think that most of the towers in Nampa/Caldwell (20 mi. out of Boise) are older nextel towers, which are probably complete ****/half working.
Just my theory.
Sounds plausible, but I have no idea scientifically speaking. I could guess but I don't think it would be productive.
My honest suggestion? Post this over at the dslreports.com forums; there were some really knowledgeable people lurking there.
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I agree. In addition to rogue apps/processes, it seems that weak network is #2 on my list of things to check when my batt life is draining too much.
This isn't really a theory, it is fact. If you have bad coverage you can basically watch your battery drain. I could drain mine dead overnight by leaving my phone unplugged and in the basement.. I had 1 bar of roaming service. I now hqve an airave and battery life drains much less overnight.
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teamgreen02 said:
This isn't really a theory, it is fact. If you have bad coverage you can basically watch your battery drain. I could drain mine dead overnight by leaving my phone unplugged and in the basement.. I had 1 bar of roaming service. I now hqve an airave and battery life drains much less overnight.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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ive had my batter die in 3 hours because of no service. I watched my battery go from 70% to 30% in 1 hour because of no signal. Since I'm not running CM6 the roam control app has been well worth the couple of bucks. No more missed calls and far less battery drain when im in low signal areas.
Poor 3G low signal is the biggest battery problem for Android!
Android (not the Evo but the entire OS) has a very poor system for dealing with Low Signal for 3G and it does NOT automatically switch over to 2G when it's supposed to which CAN and DOES result in greatly increased battery life.
Other phone OS's do this or are supposed to do this but for some reason Google has just not implemented a good system for dealing with this COMMON issue.
I use a program called JuiceDefender (Paid version is best but the free version will prove to you how useful it is) and it is literally the best app I run on my Evo. Overnight I went from my phone dying by 4pm when working at a location with low signal to having it last multiple days in some cases depending on my usage.
Do yourselves a favor, Get this application and if you have your phone rooted you get many extra features out of the full version. Can't speak highly enough of this application.
Tim
teamgreen02 said:
This isn't really a theory, it is fact. If you have bad coverage you can basically watch your battery drain. I could drain mine dead overnight by leaving my phone unplugged and in the basement.. I had 1 bar of roaming service. I now hqve an airave and battery life drains much less overnight.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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I agree with that and know that when you have 0/1/2 bars it really drains your battery life, however, I get the same battery life if I'm at home all day using it (0/1/2 bars), or if I'm at college and have 5 bars all day and I'm not using it quite as much.
I have fresh 3.3 with the htc kernel 53 fps (and all the latest radios/pri/prl/ect.) and have seen much improved battery life, but it's still the exact same.
I also have an airave at the office (which is out in Caldwell where the data doesn't even work) for the other two people on my plan, and while they have seen slightly less battery drain since we got the airave (for free), it's not a mind-blowing difference, other than the data actually works. They're also running the 2.1 stock, but rooted with unrevoked.
I guess I'm wondering if staying connected to a tower with older tech/Nextel uses more power than if it's connected to a sprint tower.
Hrshycro said:
I think it depends on where you're located and if sprint has maintained/updated their towers. I also think that most of the towers in Nampa/Caldwell (20 mi. out of Boise) are older nextel towers, which are probably complete ****/half working.
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Click to collapse
There's no way your Evo is working off of any Nextel towers. Those are IDEN and your Evo is CDMA...not happening. It's been known for years now that if you have poor/no signal, your battery will drain rapidly as the device will constantly search for a better signal.
anthony67 said:
There's no way your Evo is working off of any Nextel towers. Those are IDEN and your Evo is CDMA...not happening. It's been known for years now that if you have poor/no signal, your battery will drain rapidly as the device will constantly search for a better signal.
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Good to know - How do people get Sprint Phones to work on Boost mobile then? Boost is using nextel towers, or that's what I've read several times.
I agree with that and know that when you have 0/1/2 bars it really drains your battery life, however, I get the same battery life if I'm at home all day using it (0/1/2 bars), or if I'm at college and have 5 bars all day and I'm not using it quite as much.
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Hrshycro said:
Boost is using nextel towers, or that's what I've read several times.
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You're half right. Boost does use nextel towers--For iDen phones. They do use the Sprint network for CDMA phones. Basically boost carries both CDMA and iDen phones.
As for how people get Sprint phones to work with Boost(CDMA)... Hm... Let's just say they do something shady and possibly illegal...They clone ESNs.
I live in lakewood, CA and the coverage map of T-mo says my place is Excellent. However, the signal strength is -82dbm on a desk near window. Today, I was driving to Fullerton. Every time I stopped at a red light, i checked the signal strength and it was at most -78dbm.
I found some posts of nexus one owners saying the signal strength is around -57 to -70 dbm when not holding.
does G2 have a weak receiver or is it just mine?
I wish I had signal strength as good as yours. I've never seen mine go above -90dBm!
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
I think its gotta be yours. I live in sammamish (washington state) and at one time I got to -50. I probably average -75.
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I've gotten to -59 before and quickly decided to do a speed test. Using the speed test app, I get crazy numbers, I did a web based speed test and I got speeds (don't remember) but on a scale it said I was much faster than Sprints 4G network. Loving it.
What the... I'm at -89dBm with a full five bars. This is my second g2 and the first one was the same.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
Same.. -85 dbm full five bars.. -113 dbm at 1-2 bars.
From my very unscientific experiments
I fired up my G1 tonight and installed the Mobile Signal Widget (handy widget, free on the market).
G1:
Sitting on my desk or being held in my hand, the signal reads -99 on UMTS. Very solid reading.
G2:
Signal reads -91 to -93 on HSDPA, then occasionally 'drops' to UMTS. Signal tends to show around -93 to -99.
These readings fly out the door when I pick it up and hold it like I did the G1. Within seconds, the signal drops to -101, shows no signal, then drops to either EDGE, or at an extreme, down to GPRS then goes back to EDGE, usually leveling out from -95 to -101.
Putting it down almost instantly sees the signal strength go back up to -97 and reestablish the UMTS or HSDPA connection.
I don't have the internal pictures or design plans for the phone, but it almost seems like HTC did the Apple iPhone 4 antenna treatment to the Vision/G2 and is using the casing as part of the antenna.
EDIT: ...Or put it in a bad place. I noticed that the signal drops mainly when the lower left hand of the phone is held/covered. Holding it by just the sides and making sure the bottom of the phone (area that has the trackpad) is not covered or being touched causes a much smaller drop in signal. Holding it by the top corners results in next to no signal drop.
Allegedly, TMo is having nation wide issues with the HSDPA side of the network according to the report of someone in the TMo forums (claims to have been told this by a CS rep, so take it with a grain of salt).
So while I don't think the G2 has a worse receiver, it does appear to suffer from bad antenna placement, which can look like a bad receiver. This may or may not be an issue for someone as YMMV depending on usage patterns, bluetooth headset usage, and so on.
As for the main status bar indicator, don't be fooled. TMo tweaked the signal display to show only H, E and G. Install that widget and watch it, I bet your phone switches between HSDPA and UMTS a lot, and the main display never changes from H.
I call this a bit of weasel marketing. They make this big deal about the new network and speeds and their flagship phone supporting it, but configure it so that it only reports the HSDPA side of the network when it's connected at anything faster than EDGE. Makes me wish for a way to track over time just how much time it spends using the UMTS protocol vs HSDPA.
I hate to say it, but returning this phone is looking like a better idea more and more...
You're retarded. HSPDA is 3G.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
joebobjoe said:
You're retarded. HSPDA is 3G.
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Fine, if you want to split hairs, I've corrected my post to reflect the correct terminology (UMTS vs 3G).
It doesn't change the fact that the Froyo install has been modified
It doesn't change the fact that it's verifiable with the free utilities on the market
I can't think of a single reason that the '3G' indicator in the OS would be removed except to 'hide' the fact that the phone isn't always using the HDSPA protocol, which is being bandied about by TMo marketing as one of the reasons to buy a G2. I don't expect a phone to have a rock solid connection 100% of the time, it's next to impossible. But I also don't expect a device to have been modified in a way that is misleading and doesn't show the actual protocol the phone is using.
My post was to add my findings about the subject of the phone having a poorer receiver than earlier phones, such as the G1 and the N1, and along the way I found something I thought was interesting enough to add to the post. Pardon me for not being specific enough at 3 in the bleeding morning.
Next time, try responding without the personal attack or apparently not even trying to reproduce what I have found to see if I'm making things up, OK?
jdc said:
Fine, if you want to split hairs, I've corrected my post to reflect the correct terminology (UMTS vs 3G).
It doesn't change the fact that the Froyo install has been modified
It doesn't change the fact that it's verifiable with the free utilities on the market
I can't think of a single reason that the '3G' indicator in the OS would be removed except to 'hide' the fact that the phone isn't always using the HDSPA protocol, which is being bandied about by TMo marketing as one of the reasons to buy a G2. I don't expect a phone to have a rock solid connection 100% of the time, it's next to impossible. But I also don't expect a device to have been modified in a way that is misleading and doesn't show the actual protocol the phone is using.
My post was to add my findings about the subject of the phone having a poorer receiver than earlier phones, such as the G1 and the N1, and along the way I found something I thought was interesting enough to add to the post. Pardon me for not being specific enough at 3 in the bleeding morning.
Next time, try responding without the personal attack or apparently not even trying to reproduce what I have found to see if I'm making things up, OK?
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I'm sorry.
joebobjoe said:
I'm sorry.
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Accepted, mentally listing this as water under the bridge and moving on.
I have downloaded both Real Signal and Signal Status from the market. I keep having issues with my data not working(it's been ongoing since I got the phone.), so I wanted to know what my actual dBms were. But for some reason, on both apps, the highest evdo reading I get is about -3 and the lowest is about -30. But I don't know what that means in terms of real signal as everything I can find on google and that I understand, it should be between -60ish and -115ish but I have never seen those numbers on the evdo side. Am I wrong? I understand that it is the same dBm as 1rxtt, and I know they are different tech, but I would think it would be similar any way. However, I don't know antenna tech at all. So that's why I posted the question here. I have done a google search with no real relevant results, but I didn't search XDA specifically, as I thought if there were any relevant results they would have popped up in my google search. And all the relevant postings that I came up with said the same as my assumption. That signal should be between -60ish and -120ish.
Thanks again for all the help, you guys are awesome.
1 bar ~ -102 to -120 dBM
2 Bars ~ -93 to -101 dBM
3 Bars ~ -87 to -92 dBM
4 Bars ~ -78 to -86 dBM
5 Bars ~ -40 to -77 dBM
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I was able to hunt down that chart (Granted it was for a BB, however I would imagine the info would still roughly apply to any device), but I was not able to locate any real description of bars vs dBM. However, from what I've read before, just because you have a lower dBM (IE: -40) doesn't really mean you're going to have full bars/better service. I could be wrong, but from most of what I've read over time showed it was only a very vague correlation.
Do you get intermittent loss of data where only the right arrow under the 3G icon is active? That happens to me frequently as well and I have to go in and out of airplane mode to reconnect. Some of us think Blur causes it.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App
Granted, I only kept the stock rom for about 3 days before I installed a custom, blur-less rom. However, I seem to recall having some data issues while using the stock rom. I donno if it was part of blur or something else causing it. However ever since I've flashed to a new rom I havent had a single issue.
I've been having issues with data like this, too. I have put an Airplane toggle widget on my home screen just for this. I am near Fort Collins, CO, but I guess it looks like people may have narrowed it down to ROM issues and not location or Verizon.
Maybe they'll fix it when they roll us out to Gingerbread.
silverfang77 said:
Do you get intermittent loss of data where only the right arrow under the 3G icon is active? That happens to me frequently as well and I have to go in and out of airplane mode to reconnect. Some of us think Blur causes it.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App
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Yes. It happens quite frequently, and an airplane toggle usually fixes it.
-Gilgamesh- said:
Granted, I only kept the stock rom for about 3 days before I installed a custom, blur-less rom. However, I seem to recall having some data issues while using the stock rom. I donno if it was part of blur or something else causing it. However ever since I've flashed to a new rom I havent had a single issue.
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I have wondered myself if it wasn't blur issues. It freezes all the time, and fiancees Ally doesn't have the freezing problem and general laggyness. And I know hers only has a slow 600 Mhz processor and is just a budget smartphone.
-Gilgamesh- said:
I was able to hunt down that chart (Granted it was for a BB, however I would imagine the info would still roughly apply to any device), but I was not able to locate any real description of bars vs dBM. However, from what I've read before, just because you have a lower dBM (IE: -40) doesn't really mean you're going to have full bars/better service. I could be wrong, but from most of what I've read over time showed it was only a very vague correlation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then should it be possible for me to hit single digits? I don't recall ever having a lower signal than -30 and it stays typically in the -8 to -20 range. When I was at about -100 cell service, I was at about -8 to-10 evdo. So something still must not be right with my phone. right now I am at -76 cell and -2 to -4 Ev.
I am seeing the same thing on my phone. I have ~87dBM cell service, and ~7dBM for evdo. I have always understood Verizon's voice and data network to be separate, I suppose this just goes to confirm that.
Here's a way to confirm if it's a problem with Blur, as opposed to VZW's network. Is there anyone who had this problem on the D2 with the stock ROM and then had the problem completely disappear (or at least reduce in frequency) after switching to Liberty ROM, or one of the others?
All my issues dried up when I flashed a custom rom.
I work in the industry. A -80 is generally the number you want to shoot for as far as having a good usable signal. Anything higher would be even better. Although once you get past -50 or so the signal is kind of hot and may cause issues. Anything lower is a bad signal (-90/-100) and would also cause issues.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App
I had 3g issues with the droid 1 and cyanogen but Never with blur or liberty/droid 2 from the same house. I have noticed some "cell standby" signal loss on liberty but never really bad like some cyanogen builds..don't overclock and see if that helps.
Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk