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3G drops to GSM when receiving calls and during calls

I searched all the threads and found nothing on this as far as I can see. I have been having this since day one with my G1. Every time I receive a call on my G1 or during the call it drops from 3G to GSM. I had stock T-Mo roms on my G1 (Pre/Post Cupcake) then JF 1.51 and now cyanogen 4.0.2 and this problem persists. I called T-Mo a few times on this and they exchanged my G1 3 times and gave me a new battery and charger free of charge. Does anyone else have this issue or know of a work around? This happens when I am at home and work. I travel for work to different locations and it still happens. When my phone rings it automatically drops 3G and goes to GSM (no icon next to the radio icon in the status bar). While making calls it stays on 3G for about a few seconds before it craps out and drops to GSM. It totally skips EDGE and GPRS. T-Mo said they sent out radio antenna tech's to the antennas near my home and they said all is fine and dandy. I live In Queens NY and work in the Bronx. When I travel to Brooklyn its the same as well as driving though Manhattan. I hope someone can help me with this.

PeterC18st said:
I searched all the threads and found nothing on this as far as I can see. I have been having this since day one with my G1. Every time I receive a call on my G1 or during the call it drops from 3G to GSM. I had stock T-Mo roms on my G1 (Pre/Post Cupcake) then JF 1.51 and now cyanogen 4.0.2 and this problem persists. I called T-Mo a few times on this and they exchanged my G1 3 times and gave me a new battery and charger free of charge. Does anyone else have this issue or know of a work around? This happens when I am at home and work. I travel for work to different locations and it still happens. When my phone rings it automatically drops 3G and goes to GSM (no icon next to the radio icon in the status bar). While making calls it stays on 3G for about a few seconds before it craps out and drops to GSM. It totally skips EDGE and GPRS. T-Mo said they sent out radio antenna tech's to the antennas near my home and they said all is fine and dandy. I live In Queens NY and work in the Bronx. When I travel to Brooklyn its the same as well as driving though Manhattan. I hope someone can help me with this.
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ive always had this as well .. just never considered it a bug lol ... but i could see why someone would wanna keep their 3g while on a call .. reminds me of how sidekicks would lose data connectivity due to a call

xidominicanoix said:
but i could see why someone would wanna keep their 3g while on a call .. reminds me of how sidekicks would lose data connectivity due to a call
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Could you elaborate?
If you've had 3 G1's and a tech says there's nothing wrong with the network then it's clearly an issues with cupcake, be it a feature or a bug...
I don't really see why you would want to keep data conectivity while in a call, (unless you're downloading something in the background..?) so it sounds like a way to save battery..

AdrianK said:
Could you elaborate?
If you've had 3 G1's and a tech says there's nothing wrong with the network then it's clearly an issues with cupcake, be it a feature or a bug...
I don't really see why you would want to keep data conectivity while in a call, (unless you're downloading something in the background..?) so it sounds like a way to save battery..
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Here's a perfect example where 3G would rule when working properly.
I'm talking to my wife on my BT headset while driving home from work. I have my G1 on my dash with google maps running with traffic patterns showing. While talking I am able to talk clearly on 3G and still see where traffic is building so I can avoid it. Being stuck in rush hour in NYC sux homeless man [email protected] Whenever I do this and my 3G connection drops my call quality drops and we both hear it while we're talking and then it cuts in and out and the call drops then I dont get updates. It's a feature I would really like to have. Even when Im working and talking and downloading a new update of an app. This happens when I am at a static location as well. I know driving from cell tower to cell tower can have bad effects but it does the same when I'm just at home or any of my work locations. When 3G works properly which is rare its amazing. Its helped me get un lost and find my way many of times.
Point being when T-Mo released the 3G statement they said all users with 3G phones will expierence higher call quality from the extra bandwidth. Why would they cap or or disable it when they are promoting it? I see the the point of saving battery life but it still shouldnt be happening. 3G is made for that feature to work voice + data being accessed together.

It might just be there 3g network, imo tmobile reception is horrible. Like at my house it is so f'ed up, I can sit in my chair and have 3 bars then walk 2 feet and lose service. It does this all through my house and at my work. They said it must be something in the buildings I am in, bull**** I say because ATT never does that nor did vzw when I used them.

same thing happens with me and 3g and calls..also about the house thing, hows this one for u ill be sitting in the same spot and have good 3g reception and all of a sudden it drops to edge. I know a way around this is to set phone to 3G only but then in areas where theres non im screwed

I don't get it. My wife who had the original iPhone and then 3g and now 3gs never had this issue. She would stay on Edge and 3g depending if she waned to save batery life. My old BB 8700g would always stay on Edge never drop to GSM in my apartment. My 3G doesnt even fall to Edge it goes right to GSM. This is really annoying.

every t-mobile phone I have does this
I'm pretty sure its normal

No one knows if this is a hardware, software, or network problem. Except maybe HTC/T-Mobile/Google.
If your phone stays connected to 3G, it's all good. If it drops down to EDGE, even if for half a second, it will NOT reconnect to 3G until you hang up.

c2tmdsn said:
every t-mobile phone I have does this
I'm pretty sure its normal
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My coworkers Samsung t819 doesn't. That's regular cell phone not a smart phone.
Gary13579 said:
No one knows if this is a hardware, software, or network problem. Except maybe HTC/T-Mobile/Google.
If your phone stays connected to 3G, it's all good. If it drops down to EDGE, even if for half a second, it will NOT reconnect to 3G until you hang up.
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If any of those 3 know they should fix it or at the very least advertise that the calls you make are dropped to the lower bandwidth of the GSM network.
T-Mo finally got 3G for the last year don't dumb it down guys. Fix this.
Yes it is true once your phone drops beneath 3G it will not go to 3G until you hang up the call.

try running 3g only or wdma only by creating phone info shortcut on anycut .. im going to try that out and see if it ever drops .. should be a temporary fix for you atleast with the whole maps thing and such but if you ever in an edge only are your screwed

turboyo said:
try running 3g only or wdma only by creating phone info shortcut on anycut .. im going to try that out and see if it ever drops .. should be a temporary fix for you atleast with the whole maps thing and such but if you ever in an edge only are your screwed
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I changed it to wcdma only in phone info. Hopefully this works. Everywhere I travel to throughout NYC has 3G. Hopefully this works. Also I have noticed that when downloading anything from 3G be it the market or browser it would drop from 3G to Edge as well.

PeterC18st said:
I changed it to wcdma only in phone info. Hopefully this works. Everywhere I travel to throughout NYC has 3G. Hopefully this works. Also I have noticed that when downloading anything from 3G be it the market or browser it would drop from 3G to Edge as well.
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*UPDATE*
While at home downloading apps from Android Market on 3G with wcdma only selected the radio dropped with no netowkr connection. Bust.

PeterC18st said:
I don't get it. My wife who had the original iPhone and then 3g and now 3gs never had this issue. She would stay on Edge and 3g depending if she waned to save batery life. My old BB 8700g would always stay on Edge never drop to GSM in my apartment. My 3G doesnt even fall to Edge it goes right to GSM. This is really annoying.
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Did she use att or tmobile with the iphone? Because att has a much stronger 3g network then tmobile which could be why. I am pretty sure it is something to do with tmobiles network and not your phone, perhaps your area has to many users for it to stay on 3G. I have read about how the cell towers work and they have only so many bands for each user to access at any given time so if tmobile doesn't have enough towers or those things mounted on the towers it may be set up so you only get 3G for data usage and not calls since they don't technically require it to work.

crpercodani said:
Did she use att or tmobile with the iphone? Because att has a much stronger 3g network then tmobile which could be why. I am pretty sure it is something to do with tmobiles network and not your phone, perhaps your area has to many users for it to stay on 3G. I have read about how the cell towers work and they have only so many bands for each user to access at any given time so if tmobile doesn't have enough towers or those things mounted on the towers it may be set up so you only get 3G for data usage and not calls since they don't technically require it to work.
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My wife is on ATT. Isn't lower frequency better at penetrating through walls and such? (T-Mo 1700 MHz and 2100 MHz compared to ATT 1800 MHz) They haven't booted their 850 MHz antennas yet so I hear.
If that is true then why not boot me down to Edge or gprs why all the way down to gsm? I been living in the same area for 26 years. I have been with T-Mo before they even had antennas in my area and walking outside was the only way to get a signal with my phone. Now I get full reception in and out of my apartment and 3G connectivity in my apartment with a signal strength of -93dBm through out my apartment on 3G and -79 dBm on Edge.
T-Mo stated that this should not be happening. Hence the 3 phones new battery and charger and techs to the antennas. I'm starting to think its a HTC Android problem and not a T-Mo problem. Hopefully a new radio update can fix it.

I didn't even know GSM was still used in that way, I thought GPRS would be the bare minimum. How can you tell the difference? I use to only get a G icon and I looked it up and for the g1 it said that meant GPRS, what does it show for GSM? Not like any of this matters though.
I really have no idea why all this is happening to your G1 but I hope it gets resolved, good luck.
edit: on the tmobile coverage map it says edge/gprs and 3g, no gsm. does that make any difference? I checked for NYC overall not any specific boroughs.

crpercodani said:
I didn't even know GSM was still used in that way, I thought GPRS would be the bare minimum. How can you tell the difference? I use to only get a G icon and I looked it up and for the g1 it said that meant GPRS, what does it show for GSM? Not like any of this matters though.
I really have no idea why all this is happening to your G1 but I hope it gets resolved, good luck.
edit: on the tmobile coverage map it says edge/gprs and 3g, no gsm. does that make any difference? I checked for NYC overall not any specific boroughs.
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GSM is what Edge Gprs and 3G run off of. Think of it as a progression. GSM>GPRS>EDGE>3G.
The way I know it is on GSM is to the left of the Radio icon on the home screen there is another icon that shows the network your on. 3G=3G E=EDGE G=GPRS and no icon means GSM. GSM is still being used. Most SMS and MMS messages get sent to your from through GSM while you are on a call.

[Q] cant connect to internet but has 3g signal

I just picked up a Vibrant today from craigslist (sold my HD2 a couple of hours before ) and internet was working fine for a few hours. I went to the marketplace and downloaded about 30-40 apps then i went to try some of them out and i would get error messages saying i dont have internet but at the top bar there is a 3G symbol. I tried doing a battery pull 3 times to see if that would help but nothing. I even tried switching to only 2G but that didnt help either. Any tips? Im thinking of doing a hard reset just to reset everything incase something odd happened but id rather not because i already started setting up the phone how i like it.

I'm guessing it's because you need to switch your internet data plan to the Android plan, assuming you are on T-Mobile. If you had anything else it would likely work for a few and then stop.

Try go to a different location. I was having problems with 3G at work, would only show uplink but no downlink on my mytouch. Called t-mobile up and opened a trouble ticket and it was fixed today. 3G worked everywhere else but where my work is.

This is likely due to a problem with T-Mobile's data network tonight. For the last few hours data (EDGE and 3G) has not worked not only in my area, but around the entire United States (NY, Vegas, Illinois, Florida, etc).
People have been tweeting about it all night so far: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=tmobile
Some of the latest tweets as of this posts have a few people saying 3G is working for them but no EDGE. If true at all. This is not the case for me, still down here.

MMcCraryNJ said:
I'm guessing it's because you need to switch your internet data plan to the Android plan, assuming you are on T-Mobile. If you had anything else it would likely work for a few and then stop.
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+1
Log on to your tmobile account online and see your device, might need to be switched to vibrant from hd2 and you should then get android data instead of what you had with hd2

im retarded i had to call tmo CS and have them switch me to an android plan.

[Q] Orange/t-mobile network sharing in the UK

Hi All,
Done a quick search on this and can't find anything relevent, but i apologise if a thread already exists.
Really a question for those in the UK on the t-mobile network. Have any of you attempted to sign up for the orange 2g roaming service yet? I signed up, recieved the confirmation text, replied to it, and received the final confirmation. However, I'm not sure it's working. The signal seems no stronger, and i still drop in my house.
Obviously i'm posting this in the android section because i'm running android myself and am wondering whether anyone in the same boat has managed to get roaming to work. Should the fact that we're on a non-official OS running off the sd card make a difference?
Oh and for completeness, i'm running shubcraft 1.5 rmnet.
Cheers fellas!

I'm quite happily flip flopping between Orange while at work and T-Mobile for everything else...
works like a charm for me though you do have to stick the phone into Airplane mode after selecting the different provider for the data to work ...

Jezwick said:
I'm quite happily flip flopping between Orange while at work and T-Mobile for everything else...
works like a charm for me though you do have to stick the phone into Airplane mode after selecting the different provider for the data to work ...
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Many thanks for the reply Jezwick. So, just for clarity, you're manually selecting each provider as and when required? Because i can do that, i think. When i select orange though, whilst it registers with the network fine, i get a little "R" above the signal bar (any ideas what that means?) And the speed appears to be limited to Edge. Orange have a very strong signal round here, so i figure i should be getting GPRS really.
It's the auto-switching i'm not totally sure is working really. Is there any explicit indicator that it's flipping on it's own? Or do you just observe a generally better 2g signal, rather than say, a very weak 3g one? Round the house, my phone is still trying to make do with 1 or zero bars of 3g. I would have hoped it would flip over to orange more or less all the time under those circumstances. Nothing to stop me manually selecting it i guess though...

_tangent said:
Many thanks for the reply Jezwick. So, just for clarity, you're manually selecting each provider as and when required? Because i can do that, i think. When i select orange though, whilst it registers with the network fine, i get a little "R" above the signal bar (any ideas what that means?) And the speed appears to be limited to Edge. Orange have a very strong signal round here, so i figure i should be getting GPRS really.
It's the auto-switching i'm not totally sure is working really. Is there any explicit indicator that it's flipping on it's own? Or do you just observe a generally better 2g signal, rather than say, a very weak 3g one? Round the house, my phone is still trying to make do with 1 or zero bars of 3g. I would have hoped it would flip over to orange more or less all the time under those circumstances. Nothing to stop me manually selecting it i guess though...
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The R is indeed for roaming that's the way it works if your not on your 'own' network.. The 'flipped' service will currently only work at GRPS speeds at the moment but should be 3G by the new year
I have noticed mine flipping automatically but only once or twice in the last few weeks but only when I get NO signal from the current service.

Jezwick said:
The R is indeed for roaming that's the way it works if your not on your 'own' network.. The 'flipped' service will currently only work at GRPS speeds at the moment but should be 3G by the new year
I have noticed mine flipping automatically but only once or twice in the last few weeks but only when I get NO signal from the current service.
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Understood - thanks for the info Just done some reading and apparently EDGE is faster than basic GPRS. For some reason, i'd always assumed the reverse. Looks like the best option is just to have it always on orange whilst at home and use wifi for data (which i do anyway to compensate for the poor signal). Cheers!

No Mobile Data on AT&T

I've had this problem for a while now but it's starting to get extremely annoying. If I'm not connected to WiFi I will have no mobile data at all. I can still send texts or make a phone call but I can't go on the internet or receive MMS. I've tried at least 5 different APN settings and I've made sure that "Data Enabled" is checked but nothing works. When I contacted AT&T they said there is nothing they can do because it is not an AT&T device.

BeastKiller450 said:
I've had this problem for a while now but it's starting to get extremely annoying. If I'm not connected to WiFi I will have no mobile data at all. I can still send texts or make a phone call but I can't go on the internet or receive MMS. I've tried at least 5 different APN settings and I've made sure that "Data Enabled" is checked but nothing works. When I contacted AT&T they said there is nothing they can do because it is not an AT&T device.
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Maybe you should try again, but this time tell them you'll drop them like a hot potato if they don't give you the correct APN settings. They're doing false advertising by telling you just because it's not their device that they cannot help you. Oh really jerks? I'd ask them why the f you pay full price like everyone else then. Try playing rough, maybe you'll get a response. I'd answer you but I don't know AT&T's settings. I use T-Mobile.
After some research, it may be a problem on their end. They may have you set up for a non-smartphone data plan or HSPA or LTE, not HSPA+ data. Look at your statement and see what plan you're on. You can always call them and make sure you're set up with HSPA+. Tell them to die in a ditch if they refuse to service a paying customer. Try reading this: http://forums.androidcentral.com/google-nexus-4/226814-anyone-activated-nexus-4-att.html

BeastKiller450 said:
I've had this problem for a while now but it's starting to get extremely annoying. If I'm not connected to WiFi I will have no mobile data at all. I can still send texts or make a phone call but I can't go on the internet or receive MMS. I've tried at least 5 different APN settings and I've made sure that "Data Enabled" is checked but nothing works. When I contacted AT&T they said there is nothing they can do because it is not an AT&T device.
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I'm having a similar issue that seems to have started around 4-5 days ago. I'm in the Twin Cities area, btw, if that matters.
Prior to that, I was only the victim of the occasional data drop or ARP offload delayed-notification issue.
The problem usually, but not aways, occurs when I leave a WIFI area and get handed off to the cell towers. I get no data, but calls/SMS works fine. Anywhere from 5-15 minutes later, I will get mobile data again, but only briefly before it goes away again.
The issue can also occur when seemingly changing towers, or going from HSPA > HSPA+.
On occasion, when the problem is occuring, my cell bars will still show blue as google services don't know they've been disconnected, but when I attempt to access, for instance, gmail or GNow, I will get no connection. Finally the bars will turn grey as the phone attempts to (apparently) cycle the radio.
Oddly, I stopped into a retail store here locally and the gal said they were having data issues so I figured it'd be fixed. That was 5 days ago. 3 days ago I called customer care and logged a case. They've found no issues with their towers or my provisioning thus far.
I also switched out my SIM card. No change.
At this point I think I'm going to walk over to T-Mobile and try a prepaid SIM to see if it's the phone or really and truly something with AT&T's network.
I'll post a logcat here if anyone is interested but I couldn't find too much interesting within it.

dispatch said:
I'm having a similar issue that seems to have started around 4-5 days ago. I'm in the Twin Cities area, btw, if that matters.
Prior to that, I was only the victim of the occasional data drop or ARP offload delayed-notification issue.
The problem usually, but not aways, occurs when I leave a WIFI area and get handed off to the cell towers. I get no data, but calls/SMS works fine. Anywhere from 5-15 minutes later, I will get mobile data again, but only briefly before it goes away again.
The issue can also occur when seemingly changing towers, or going from HSPA > HSPA+.
On occasion, when the problem is occuring, my cell bars will still show blue as google services don't know they've been disconnected, but when I attempt to access, for instance, gmail or GNow, I will get no connection. Finally the bars will turn grey as the phone attempts to (apparently) cycle the radio.
Oddly, I stopped into a retail store here locally and the gal said they were having data issues so I figured it'd be fixed. That was 5 days ago. 3 days ago I called customer care and logged a case. They've found no issues with their towers or my provisioning thus far.
I also switched out my SIM card. No change.
At this point I think I'm going to walk over to T-Mobile and try a prepaid SIM to see if it's the phone or really and truly something with AT&T's network.
I'll post a logcat here if anyone is interested but I couldn't find too much interesting within it.
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I've been on the T-Mobile network now for about an hour and I have had ZERO of the aforementioned issues. The phone definitely handles leaving WIFI > HSPA better as well.

Starting to get annoyed with the O variant phone in the UK

It's all too frequently dropping 4G or LTE connection when on the move. It's showing a connection, good strength too, but no data connection working. Often needing an airplane mode toggle or reboot to get online again.
5G is disabled as I'm nowhere near a 5G area.
Anyone got any ideas? Different firmware or something?
I'm starting to regret moving away from the SD note 10 plus I had. That phone was rock solid.

joebongo said:
It's all too frequently dropping 4G or LTE connection when on the move. It's showing a connection, good strength too, but no data connection working. Often needing an airplane mode toggle or reboot to get online again.
5G is disabled as I'm nowhere near a 5G area.
Anyone got any ideas? Different firmware or something?
I'm starting to regret moving away from the SD note 10 plus I had. That phone was rock solid.
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I read that some people have issues with connection with some ISP providers. Try putting it on 3G and see if it works fine then. If it does then ISP has either sn issue with 4G network or phone needs a firmware fix to solve 4G connection issue if this isn't a hardware problem thought. Since for me it works fine here and my 4G shows all time and I even have 4G+ as status without an issue.

try disabling WiFi calling that helped in my case

Tried all that. Went into a town and it didn't again.. Had to force it onto 4g to get a connection.

Tried all that. Went into a town and it didn't again.. Had to force it onto 4g to get a connection. This is what I had before I forced the change in network.

Haven't had any issues myself, on giffgaff. Tried O2 briefly, it seemed okay too.

joebongo said:
Tried all that. Went into a town and it didn't again.. Had to force it onto 4g to get a connection. This is what I had before I forced the change in network.
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Give this app a try, might help fixing it to one band
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ray.samsungbandselection

Yes u have that thanks. It seems to be band switching that's the problem. Or is it possible my carrier has live but unused bands that the phone is locking into? So when I travel I find myself with a dead data connection?