First off, I work in a basement. So take this with a grain of salt.
After upgrading via update.zip to EB13, I was getting about 2/3 bars on average at my desk. I was reading about people getting much better results when upgrading using the exe method on Sammy's website. So I bit the bullet and backed up my apps via Titanium, and ran the exe upgrade. I now have a 100% stock system with a clean slate.
Now I am getting 4/5 bars consistently in the EXACT same location.
Again, my signal could be flaky because I am in the basement, but I thought it was very interesting that I got a pretty strong boost that quickly.
Has anyone else experienced this? I am curious to see what my signal looks when as I am driving home tonight.
Damn dude! Your still living in your moms basement trollin? Whao wee!
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
So if you look at some of my previous threads you'll see that I have complained about signal strength A LOT. After upgrading to 2.2 roms it seemed like I was constantly having bad strength at the placed I most frequent, ie my house.
Today I decided to give that "htc official way to increase battery life trick" a shot just to see what effects I would have.
I'm currently running Evio 1.1 and kings latest BRAIN **** KERNEL
but anyways, I only got half-way (step 2 or 3), I did the first 1 hour charge then decided not to do the second 1 hour charge because I needed my phone. But anyways, after I turned my phone on after the 1 hour charge while having it off the first thing I noticed was I had 5 bars! I though this was just the normal fluctuation so I stared at it for a while and it hardly budged! Now its down to 3 bars however its not fluctuation up and down like it used to.
Before I would average 1 or 2 bars and it would fluctuate anywhere from 0-3 bars. Now I'm getting a stead 3-5 bars.
I'm really not sure what could have possible happened but the only thing out of the ordinary that I did with my phone was the htc battery tip....
dunno...just thought I'd share that.
P.S you can look at some of my other threads and see how much of a baby I was when it came to signal strength.
starplaya93 said:
So if you look at some of my previous threads you'll see that I have complained about signal strength A LOT. After upgrading to 2.2 roms it seemed like I was constantly having bad strength at the placed I most frequent, ie my house.
Today I decided to give that "htc official way to increase battery life trick" a shot just to see what effects I would have.
I'm currently running Evio 1.1 and kings latest BRAIN **** KERNEL
but anyways, I only got half-way (step 2 or 3), I did the first 1 hour charge then decided not to do the second 1 hour charge because I needed my phone. But anyways, after I turned my phone on after the 1 hour charge while having it off the first thing I noticed was I had 5 bars! I though this was just the normal fluctuation so I stared at it for a while and it hardly budged! Now its down to 3 bars however its not fluctuation up and down like it used to.
Before I would average 1 or 2 bars and it would fluctuate anywhere from 0-3 bars. Now I'm getting a stead 3-5 bars.
I'm really not sure what could have possible happened but the only thing out of the ordinary that I did with my phone was the htc battery tip....
dunno...just thought I'd share that.
P.S you can look at some of my other threads and see how much of a baby I was when it came to signal strength.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its possible that you have new towers or upgrades to the network in your region. Even so, it really doesn't matter what is displayed, it really only matters how well you stay connected. It can say 0 bars, but still have a decent connection.
Anyways, glad yours works, mine still has the issue. I may try the battery thing eventually, though more for the battery enhancements.
superlinkx said:
Its possible that you have new towers or upgrades to the network in your region. Even so, it really doesn't matter what is displayed, it really only matters how well you stay connected. It can say 0 bars, but still have a decent connection.
Anyways, glad yours works, mine still has the issue. I may try the battery thing eventually, though more for the battery enhancements.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well it must have been a fluke, because after an hour or so things went back to normal... Im back to fluctuation between low signal strength... oh well. it was nice while it lasted.
I just picked my new Fascinate yesterday and have been noticing something strange. I routinely have a very low signal with 3G and WiFi in places I've always had a great signal (or so I thought). Just to get it out of the way, I am not using any kind of case and I have already done a *228 update.
For example, tonight I put my Fascinate, a friend's Continuum, and a friend's original Droid in front of me on a table to compare their 3G signals. The Droid reported 4 bars, the Continuum 2 bars, and my flickered between 0 and 1.
At home, my "old" Omnia 2 routinely got 3-4 bars (still does even though it's deactivated) and my gf's LG Ally gets the same. However my Fascinate gets 1-2, sometimes dipping to 0.
Oddly, I have the same issue with my WiFi signal. At home my PC and laptop have a full strength signal while the phone is lucky to have a that first dot and maybe a bar. At work, I can walk within 4 feet of my Wireless-N router and still not have a full signal
Now everything *seems* to work so I'm hoping it's just an algorithmic display issue, but I have gotten a "Network Error" message a few times. For good measure, I'll probably pop into Verizon to compare my signal to the various displays there.
My question is: Is this a general Fascinate issue? Do I have a lemon? Should I just hope 2.2 is magic?
Thanks
same problem here.
I'm really hoping this gets fixed with 2.2.
I've had two fascinates now, and they've both had really poor signal strength compared to any other phone I've used or seen. Was at lunch the other day with a friend with a Droid 1, and I was getting 1 bar, he was getting 4. At home, it's consistently 1 to 2 bars at best, and I live less than a mile and a half from the nearest tower.
While I don't drop calls, I think it's pretty clear that the phone has a particularly week antennae design.
Since you say you just got the phone, I assume you haven't rooted and played with other roms yet. But in case you have, I noticed a significant drop in signal strength, both cellular and wifi, using JT's DJ05 rom. And it was more than just a display issue, since the wifi connection would repeatedly drop - even in the same room as my router. Switched to the stock DJ05 and I was back to normal (if you consider 1 to 2 bars normal).
Just wanted to follow-up on this. After a week of comparing signals to every smartphone I ran into, I came to the conclusion I either had a lemon or the Fascinate had serious engineering issues.
I went back to my local Verizon store and compared my phone's signal strength to all the Android phones in there, including the other Fascinates. Every phone was between -73 and -86. My phone never got any better than -101. So they swapped phones for me (new one out of the box) and this one performed like all their other phones in the store. I am now enjoying my old, normal, strong signal strength and my battery is still at healthy 80% after several hours of use, even a little wifi usage.
Moral of the Story: Check your signal strength (on any phone) against the phones in the store before you leave and don't be afraid to demand a new phone if you have that sort of concrete data to back it up!
Sent from my SCH-i500 Fascinated using the XDA App
DI01 has a signal reporting bug that is fixed in DJ05/DL09. With DI01, the best I got was -86dBm, and the jumps did not really seem to make sense. After going to DJ05, the reported signal goes up to -50dBm or so and moves in a logical direction (go inside, signal goes down) where before it would just move randomly. It is possible that there was also bad hardware, but I'd guess that it had more to do with the crappy software Samsung provided.
Interesting. I've not had any ambition to root/flash my Fascinate (I swear I did it weekly with my old Omnia 2) so for whatever it's worth, my experience was always with the stock DI01.
Hopefully you won't have similar problems after we get the maintenance update, whenever that may be.
So i'm in the Quad Cities (one of the areas that was recently supposed to get 4G), but so far with my Thunderbolt, I have gotten pretty much nothing. There are a few places I've noticed while driving that it will connect, but it's never for long. When it has connected for any length of time, the speed was pretty low, around 5 meg down which doesn't sound right to me.
I'm in Davenport, which is covered according to their coverage map/list, but i'm not having much luck. Anyone else in the area having similar problems? Does it just take a little time for it to kick in or something?
Any help is appreciated...
Oh ya, I am rooted, running a custom ROM and have tried multiple radios.
Well I even went back to stock just to see if it was the fact that I was rooted and running a custom ROM was the issue. Still nothing so I guess it's just lack of coverage then? Does it normally get better over time?
I think it may be at least a week till it is up and running.
Alright. Thanx a lot for the reply.
I noticed today that my phone seemed to be connecting in more areas than it was at first. The 4G icon will display in the notification bar but the arrows don't light up or anything like they do for 3G. I assume that means no data is being received or sent. Any reason that would be? I'm on baseband 1.48.00.726w_2,0.01.78.0802w_3 if that helps at all...
What's the best reliable.modem.for use with aTt? I'm having service issues at a location.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium
I'd also like to know. I'm currently on LA6 and it works, however there is still something left to be desired because my coverage is really patchy.
I'll try some other modems out and see. BTW I'm in the northeast.
I'm in Chicago. would also like to know of the best modem..but i'm running the new miui beta 4 rom. this thing is beautiful. tied for best with PA
In Chicago Also....For me, by far it's LR1.
Also I get the best results using the 'phone' apn Internet setting
Hey so I'm stuck at pepboys getting an oil change (terrible service btw...but wrong forum.) Anyways, I've had intermittent cell phone and data reception here in Boston MA using LA6 for the past few weeks. Choppy voice calls and extremely flakey reception (for instance no phone reception while watching the fireworks last night on the Charles River.)
While waiting for my car I decide to surf the interwebs-of course. My signal bar continuously jumping from H to 3G to E and "page not available" from my browser. If I did get service it was very slow. I decided to try out a new modem. I managed to download LB2 and install it. I'm very happy to say my internet is startlingly faster and my reception indicator has stayed at H the whole time!
YMMV but I'm happy to report this might be the holy grail for me! I'll update my post when I get more time with it at home where I have had very consistent crappy reception.
Weird thing is my status still shows the same signal strength though...But the speed difference is definitely not just in my head. However, I can't say if the reboot didn't also play a role in my reception.
UPDATE: Besides the fact that I sat at Pepboys for 1 hour and 45 minutes for a simple oil change that I had an appointment for, I am completely stoked. I'm home now, a place where with LA6 I got nearly zero data reception, and I just pulled up the full desktop Amazon site in a few seconds on LB2! This is fantastic!