Database Users

reception sucks!

I hate to say it but I am having 3g issues. By that I mean no 3g and one to two bars. Usually I have perfect reception.
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i've noticed on the incredible that my displayed signal strength isn't as strong as it is on my droid. haven't noticed a difference in call reception or data speeds though...yet.

Eris users have noticed the same thing as you bzbz when compared to the Droid. Could be the cpu or something else HTC vs Motorola.

i've noticed on the incredible that my displayed signal strength isn't as strong as it is on my droid. haven't noticed a difference in call reception or data speeds though...yet.
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I noticed the same thing but my download/upload speeds are just as fast if not faster. I gave my Droid to my mom and took her upgrade so I have both side by side, off WiFi downloading a movie and the Incredible is actually 20-50kbs faster than my old Droid and yes the Droid is over clocked with petes 1ghz kernel.

I have had the Incredible for a couple of days, and I've noticed a lower displayed signal strength than I'd see on my Droid in the same locations.
But I've not experienced any reception issues, and my internet speed seems the same or faster.
This is what I expected. We all know that you can't count on those reception bars to compare different phones, and also that Moto tends to have better radios/reception than everyone else anyway. As long as you're phone's radio is close to Moto's in the ability to make/receive calls, then normally you're not doing bad.

well it's good to know that the signal strength concern may be more of a "cosmetic" issue than a legitimate performance issue.

daftlush said:
I hate to say it but I am having 3g issues. By that I mean no 3g and one to two bars. Usually I have perfect reception.
Sent from my ADR6300 using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
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how is the quality on said reception? Other people's replies seem to indicate good quality even with less bars.

BzBz said:
well it's good to know that the signal strength concern may be more of a "cosmetic" issue than a legitimate performance issue.
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This...
It is definitely cosmetic, the newest radio i have installed on my eris does the same. The reception on my eris is better then my friends with the older radio, but he has more 3G bars.

designerfx said:
how is the quality on said reception? Other people's replies seem to indicate good quality even with less bars.
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It may just be the way HTC displays the signal. I know on the Touch Pro 2 and Touch Pro, the signal indicator frequently shows incorrect (lower) signal strength but works fine.

I compared signal strength between my BB Curve 8330 and my new Incredible.
In spite of the indicated signal strength being lower on the Incredible, the dBm was the same. It's only one location and one user, but I suspect it's not an actual signal strength issue.

i used my incredible all day. i work in a downtown area with many tall building surrounded and i still got a good 3g signal and speed.
from Boston.

the 3G speeds on my incredible are slower that my 2G G1 running on AT&T. i get les than 200 kbps downstream. My friend with a droid standing in the same room will get aound 1100 Kbps. What gives??

if you are haveing a tough time with a signal.. I update my roaming towers... I had an issue today where I couldn't get much.. I did *228 option 2 and it updated my roaming towers and have had no problems since... sometimes you need to do that with a new phone so it knows exactly what towers to look for

tried the *228 to update. Update was successful but no improvment. still have very slow data speeds and terrible call quality. reception stays about around -100 dBm

I'm also noticing what appears to be poor reception. I was getting better reception with my Droid than I am with Incredible. I've tried the *228 last night and this morning but that hasn't helped. Hopefully there will eventually be some kind of software fix for this. I'm seeing other threads on other sites with the same kind of complaints so I don't think it's a select few who are experiencing this issue.

hoop762 said:
the 3G speeds on my incredible are slower that my 2G G1 running on AT&T. i get les than 200 kbps downstream. My friend with a droid standing in the same room will get aound 1100 Kbps. What gives??
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Your speed will depend on what tower your connected to. on my Eris, I've gone from 1mbps/0.70mbps in New York, NY to 2mbps/2mbps in West Haven, CT. It's not the phone. The newer radio on the Incredible will show less bars, but your signal strength will be fine .(dBm)

My phone keeps dropping 3G my droid never has done this in the location the incredible is. I will go into airplane mode then back out and I will have 3g again

Over at Androidforums there is a thread going regarding reception issues. On page 2 is some help in running a debug on the phone that will give you dbm levels and some other info. I'm not sure how to use the info the debug gives but perhaps it may be of some use to someone here.
The link is http://androidforums.com/htc-incredible/70223-weak-signal-strength.html

rckeystone said:
Over at Androidforums there is a thread going regarding reception issues. On page 2 is some help in running a debug on the phone that will give you dbm levels and some other info. I'm not sure how to use the info the debug gives but perhaps it may be of some use to someone here.
The link is http://androidforums.com/htc-incredible/70223-weak-signal-strength.html
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You don't need to go into field test mode like this guy said, all you need to do is from the home screen > menu > setting > about phone > network.
Here you will see signal strength (typical between -100 to -80dBm) the closer to 0 you are the better your signal is (ie: 80dBm > 90dBm)
Hope that clears up some confusion. I've tested both the motodroid and the incredible side by side in a location with low signal and can say that my incredible gets better signal than the droid, even though the "bars" don't indicate as such.

my signal always stays at -81, is that a good thing?
im a new android and 3g user

Possible bug in Fascinate's signal strength, affect Epic 4G?

Posted this in the Fascinate forum, but I'd like to know if it is affecting your devices as well:
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/Epic?

I remember seeing it at -68 dBm on my Epic yesterday.

Hmm, thanks for that. Was that on 3G?

I also feel that this is impacting battery life. My signal is always reading worse than the Evo and TP2 (in the same location) but calls are not dropped.
This leads me to believe that the signal is actually better than the phone thinks. but since the phone thinks the signal is weaker than it is, it boosts the radio power (thus eating more battery.)
If this is not the case, the flip side is much worse and the Epic's antenna is a poor design, requiring higher power.

Every phone that Samsung comes out with that runs Android and the QSC6085 modem processor always has the same general problems.
The Fascinate, Epic 4G, Moment, Intercept, and Acclaim all generally have poor battery life, signal, GPS, and network performance issues, and other related bugs.
I know of other phones like the Droid/X/2 that have the same Qualcomm modem and have no issues whatsoever with network and GPS connectivity.
Is there any way to get source for the Droid phones and fix what's wrong on the Epic?

Thanks for all the replies. Verizon CS wasn't any help, at least the one Guy that responded to my email that I sent them.
LOL. He told me I have to contact the developer of the signal strength app I had on my phone for the problem I was reporting. WTF?
I responded by asking him to send it to higher level technical support personnel.
We'll see how that goes.
In the meantime, I'll probably exchange my Fascinate for a Droid X to get a phone with better reception, GPS function, and network performance.

xliderider said:
Posted this in the Fascinate forum, but I'd like to know if it is affecting your devices as well:
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/Epic?
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I have the newest Airrave just installed today its in the other room behind my flatscreen and I get 65-db GPS locks in milli seconds and calls are crystal clear data is extremely fast

Signal issue on evodeck 1.3b??

I'm getting a status of -96 dBm and 0 asu. Is that bad? I just always have low signal. Any suggestions?

Can't do nothing about it.
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While it's possible that the rom doesn't agree with your evo's hardware. If you've had good signal on other roms then my first guess would be that it's a prl issue, maybe try updating and see if that corrects it. If none of that works then maybe it's locational, maybe someone put up a dish or construction or something like that, that has caused your phone to begin having poor signal. If none of this is the case then maybe you just have bad luck and the cell phone gods have decided to have some fun at your expense.

AOSP appears to measure signal differently than Sense. One explanation I've read many times is that AOSP measures data and Sense measures 1X/Voice.
Check your signal in both ROMs via dBm and see? At work I can have solid bars on Sense and 1-2 on AOSP and have the same speed/responsiveness.
YMMV

cd10 said:
I'm getting a status of -96 dBm and 0 asu. Is that bad? I just always have low signal. Any suggestions?
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Yes, that is bad. On Sense that would be about one-to-two bars, and in an AOSP ROM that would likely have you on 1x.
While Sense and AOSP display signal strength differently in bars (Sense has six bars, AOSP has four), the dBm is usually the same. I have experimented on this many times, because where I work I get horrible signal (between -94 to -96 pretty much constantly) and while the bars report differently and Sense reports 3G more often, the dBm is almost always the same no matter which ROM I am running.
What this means, from my experience, is that the ROM has little to do with signal strength. Radios, PRLs, etc. are what affect signal strength. The ROMs just report it differently, so people think that the ROM is making a difference.
That's just based on my observations, anyway. I can't flash right now so I haven't been able to use Deck's latest and greatest, much to my chagrin.

Stock vs Custom Rom signal is low

Is ti common for the signal to be lower on a rom vs stock rom..
Im using cloudypro and my signal is very low and sometimes actually alot jumps from lte to H to 3g
When i was on stock i had a constant 5 bars and so does my wife s4

Its always the case for me. I think its just cosmetic though, I haven't noticed a drop in signal while talking

signal strength gives no indication of 4g speed?

Experimenting with modems to try and find a better one and came across something very irritating. It seems after my testing that the number of bars of signal and the signal strength reported in Network Signal Info seem to have no relation what so ever to the 4g data speed you may get.
Earlier I was testing with 4 out of 6 bars of signal, NSI showing 94dbm and something like 60% signal.....and I consistently got speed tests of around 1mbps or less and even that was slow and stuttery. On other occasions with only a 40% signal at 106dbm in NSI I was able to get 22mbps in speed tests. All these tests were done using the same speedtest server as well as subjective testing by running various apps and seeing how quick or slow they were (and the performance of all the apps matched the performance of the download tests). So what the hell is going on? It looks like signal strength has nothing to do with the 4g connection speeds.
Is the signal strength even indicating the strength of the 4g signal or is it merely indicating the strength of the phone signal because that's what it kinda looks like.
I am on EE UK with their 'double speed' 4g (which gives me 97.5mbps download when at home with a perfect signal).

ewokuk said:
Experimenting with modems to try and find a better one and came across something very irritating. It seems after my testing that the number of bars of signal and the signal strength reported in Network Signal Info seem to have no relation what so ever to the 4g data speed you may get.
Earlier I was testing with 4 out of 6 bars of signal, NSI showing 94dbm and something like 60% signal.....and I consistently got speed tests of around 1mbps or less and even that was slow and stuttery. On other occasions with only a 40% signal at 106dbm in NSI I was able to get 22mbps in speed tests. All these tests were done using the same speedtest server as well as subjective testing by running various apps and seeing how quick or slow they were (and the performance of all the apps matched the performance of the download tests). So what the hell is going on? It looks like signal strength has nothing to do with the 4g connection speeds.
Is the signal strength even indicating the strength of the 4g signal or is it merely indicating the strength of the phone signal because that's what it kinda looks like.
I am on EE UK with their 'double speed' 4g (which gives me 97.5mbps download when at home with a perfect signal).
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Yes, in fact the signal strength and data speed are different things and they do (most likely) not affect to each other.
By detailed, signal strength is depend on if you are far or near from the mobile tower.
While data speed depend on many other factors: max capability of the network, your subscription with the service provider, and the congestion on the network.
The signal strength will also impact on data speed, but only when you are very far from the tower, when the signal strength is very weak. That may impact the data speed.

Exactly what I was afraid of. This would mean it is not even possible to test how good your signal is (for data) without running endless speed tests (which are going to kill your data usage in no time). There is no other way to test data strength?

ewokuk said:
Exactly what I was afraid of. This would mean it is not even possible to test how good your signal is (for data) without running endless speed tests (which are going to kill your data usage in no time). There is no other way to test data strength?
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The term "data strength" has no meaning. If you want to test for signal strength, it is the received level. If you want to test for data speed, there is no way without actually testing it.
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