Database Users

Does Firmware affect HSDPA (TMo UK)?

Hi,
I'm finding I'm connecting only to UMTS, which is certainly nice, but I know I'm well within the HSDPA coverage zone so I'm wondering why it's not using that. I emailed T-Mo to check that HSDPA is enabled for my account (because I've read about people having some troubles with it) but they've verified that it is, so that's ruled out.
So now I'm wondering if it could have anything to do with the various new builds I've installed since I got it, or whether that could have no possible effect whatsoever. At the moment, settings is saying (And i don't really understand this so any explanation would also be very appreciated, even if you don't solve my problem at all):
Firmware version - 1.5
Baseband version - 62.50S.20.17H_2.22.19.26I
Kernel version - 2.6.27-00392-g8312baf [email protected] )
Build number - dream_devphone-userdebug 1.5 CRB21 147201 test-keys
Does it make any difference that I'm in the UK, or do the ADP build settings for picking up wireless internet (radio? is that the word I want? an explanation for that would be nice as well) work the same in the US as the UK?
Cheers,
Luke =)

Did you perform a speed test to determine your downstream speed? Anything greater than 384kb/s is HSDPA. All released Dream builds are configured for HSXPA. Check the build.prop.

Just ring T-Mo on 150 and speak to technical support, ask for HSDPA to be enabled because you want the better download speed. I'm currently on hold waiting for somebody to sort it out for me as I've never breached 384kb/s in an area where I should be able to get 4.5mb/s.
EDIT: Update time, managed to get HSDPA enabled but had to add web'n'walk plus to my contract, it took effect straight away and now I'm browsing at roughly 1.5mb/s though it does go quicker sometimes.
The phone status menu still states that it is connected via UMTS, so I think that the only reliable way to tell is by your speed.

All sounds interesting..
I wondering, is the reception for HSDPA vs UTMS any different/better?
Im constantly disappointed by my phones reception, 3G seems to be good outside, but crap indoors :-/
I guess I loose around 50% of all calls due to network issues. If HSDPA is a better signal then maybe it could help with this!
Although according to the signal bar icon, my phones is never truly without GPRS reception.. although im not sure I believe it! Sometimes I'm wondering if its sending data over the GPRS alot, and thats blocking the incoming calls (I know data over GPRS will block a call, but Im just not sure how much the G1 does this when its 'asleep').
Thanks for the heads up

I think HSDPA just piggybacks on the UMTS protocol to provide higher packet data rates, the actual phone call portion should remain the same. I've not had any improvement in call quality from the upgrade but then again calls were pretty awesome quality to begin with.
Also had the issue with both incoming and outgoing calls not getting through when in 3G mode on the phone, turned out that it was an issue with their masts and equipment but eventually they got it fixed, took like a month or so and not had anything too bad happen since.

(From OP)
Okay, so i'm in Central London, I usually get about 9-12 asu signal strength, and yet I've still never got more than that 384kb/s internet on the many speed tests I've run. Just got off the phone to tmobile tech support and they've double checked everything as much as possible and HSDPA services are definitely enabled on my account, so they keep reassuring me that HSDPA is variable based on signal strength and we can't guarantee you'll connect, but I'm really not convinced because I've never actually got HSDPA speeds.
Any ideas on what I should do? I'm paying for HSDPA but I'm not convinced I'm getting it. Anywhere I can go with such an insanely high signal strength that I can definitively prove somethings wrong if I still don't surpass 384kb/s?
The person at the desk said to try and find somebody with a G1 who is connecting to HSDPA, stand by them and see if I connect myself; I'm wondering if I could go to a west end t-mobile shop and boot up their model G1 and run a speed test on that, then compare it to mine.
Any of you guys in the UK actually getting more than 384kb/s, and if so any advice?
Thanks again, Luke.

insperatum said:
(From OP)
Any of you guys in the UK actually getting more than 384kb/s, and if so any advice?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm in Burgess Hill in West Sussex, running JF ADP 1.5 rom with the associated radio update and according to Xtremelabs Speedtest app I just got 671.6Kbit/s down and 143Kbit/s up, my mobile network type is shown as UTMS and my Baseband, Kernel and Build versions match yours exactly.
Does that help at all?

atconc said:
I'm in Burgess Hill in West Sussex, running JF ADP 1.5 rom with the associated radio update and according to Xtremelabs Speedtest app I just got 671.6Kbit/s down and 143Kbit/s up, my mobile network type is shown as UTMS and my Baseband, Kernel and Build versions match yours exactly.
Does that help at all?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha, well it certainly was very helpful. Narrows a lot of stuff out =D
As for useful, I'm not too sure All that's changed is I know there's somebody out there in seemingly exactly the same situation as me but without a problem
Oh also, what's your signal strength? I tend to max out at 11 or 12 asu.

insperatum said:
so they keep reassuring me that HSDPA is variable based on signal strength and we can't guarantee you'll connect, but I'm really not convinced because I've never actually got HSDPA speeds.
Any ideas on what I should do? I'm paying for HSDPA but I'm not convinced I'm getting it. Anywhere I can go with such an insanely high signal strength that I can definitively prove somethings wrong if I still don't surpass 384kb/s?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem isnt so much signal strength as bandwidth saturation. Unlike Time-Division based access schemes, WCDMA allows theoretically for an infinite number (limited only by how much bandwidth loss is considered acceptable by the carrier) of users to connect to a cell node over the same swath of frequency. By encoding each user's data stream with a unique code, the cell node can pick out a user's signal by looking for the expected coding (all the other user's streams appear as overlapping noise basically). Of course the more users on that same band of frequency, the more perceived "noise" there will be, which will result in reduced bandwidth for each individual user (you).
If you run a speed test at night, it should have a much better outcome.

jashsu said:
If you run a speed test at night, it should have a much better outcome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Midnight, 113Kb/s, and I'm off to bed. I'll see how it's doing in the morning. Night ^.^

insperatum said:
Midnight, 113Kb/s, and I'm off to bed. I'll see how it's doing in the morning. Night ^.^
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yikes. How many bars signal do you have for 3G?

Morning -yawn-
jashsu said:
Yikes. How many bars signal do you have for 3G?
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Click to collapse
Generally 3 bars, and settings saying something between 9 and 12 asu. I think I was on 11asu when I ran the test last night I think I was on 11asu. This morning for some reason I'm down to 2 bars, 6 asu and up to 190kb/s. *sigh*
Oh, and by the way, t-mobile list my postcode as being within the 4 bar (out of 5 this time) 'very good coverage' area for 3G.
Recommendations?
Update: Blimey. Just went up to 12 asu and scored 350kb/s. Soooo close!

Oh my god! UPDATE!
So a couple of days ago I bought a packet of those crappy chinese £2 signal booster stickers which you just stick to your phone and supposedly you get insanely better reception, not expecting it to work at all but hey, what's £2 for a chance at amazing signal.
And it worked! Turned off phone, stuck it inside behind the battery, rebooted and BAM: first speed test I ran I got 550kb/s. Next one I got over 700!
So I'm really surprised. Anybody having similar trouble getting an HSDPA signal should definitely try getting a a pack of these on ebay to see if it helps.
=D
Update: Turns out all of the above is total bull****. Please disregard.

I have 4 full bars - My signal strength shows -77dBm 18 asu
Today I'm hitting up to 1288.0 Kbit/s too I guess that Burgess Hill is probably not too heavily saturated in terms of 3G use and it probably helps that I can see the 3g masts on the building across the street from the office window.

insperatum said:
And it worked! Turned off phone, stuck it inside behind the battery, rebooted and BAM: first speed test I ran I got 550kb/s. Next one I got over 700!\
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those stickers are pretty widely regarded as junk science. The reboot probably did the trick.

jashsu said:
Those stickers are pretty widely regarded as junk science. The reboot probably did the trick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah okay, I'll try again with a control and see how it does. Thanks.
________________________________________________________
Yep, you're entirely right. It was the reboot that helped (also coincidence played a nice part; it just happened that I got really high the first time I tried with the stickers in). I tried a few times without them, and didn't score too well the first two times, but got over 800 the third =)
So this leads me to my last question in my journey then. Why is it that my internet is really fast when I first boot up, and then sinks down again. No matter how many speed tests I did, nor when I did them I could never get more than about 350kb/s until I rebooted. Why should rebooting help - Programs I've installed using up resources? Overheating?
And thanks again Jashsu, you saved me from continuing to be a massive idiot.

Why is 3G Slow?

Ok I use have a Wing and ive never gotten a data plan because of the price. I finaly broke down and got a G1 cause there was more power under the hood plus anyone could develop on it being open. Well i got a deal on one and the price was decent so I got a data plan bundled with my original plan. Ive never used a data connection before so when I got home I started playing with it. I wasnt all that impresed with the connection speeds, Its almost like its on a crappy dial-up connection. The Youtube app is pretty much useless unless your on wifi it only plays about 2sec's before it buffers for a minute and then plays another 2sec's. Now is this normal? Is this what 3g really is? Am I missing a bigger picture here?. Heres some of the things i have done to try and get some sort of improvement.
Screwed around with APN's.
Tryed it in diffrent areas around the state.
Flashed it with 1.5 which i do believe came with a new radio.
Any input would be greatly appreciated, Im not putting down the phone as a matter of fact i love it, Im just not too fond of this connection technology.

I was dealing with some of the same issues.I installed Adrenaline and my connection seems way better

How is the coverage in you area? I've never had any problems with my 3G on my G1, always between 2 and 3 MBit connection...... Are you sure your carrier supports UMTS/HSDPA? Without those 3G is worth nothing..... Also make sure you are stationary when testing speeds.

Coverage is great ive never lost a 3g connection its just slow as hell and almost is useless to me, My carrier is T-mobile and wether or not it is supported i dont have a clue as to find out if it is.
well my test speed stationary was 38.6 Kbit\s with full bars, Doesnt even come close to your speeds. Any other Ideas?

When you're using your mobile network, does the 3G symbol show in the notification bar? Or does it say E? If it says E and you're getting those speeds then those are about right for the EDGE network. However, if you're connected with the 3G symbol next to the link, then those speeds are too slow. If it says E, make sure you don't have 2G network only checked under settings>wireless>mobile network. If that's not checked, then its likely you just don't have 3G in your area.

nope the notification is always 3G

Meh my edge is 10kb download, I would kill for 3g...
It takes miniutes to load pages and seconds to load google.

RBRat3 said:
Im just not too fond of this connection technology.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not the connection technology - it's either a problem with your phone, or just that your carriers network isn't very good and/or doesn't have the necessary backbone to cope with the amount of traffic generated by its subscribers. Given that T-Mobiles 3G network in the US isn't exactly pervasive, I'd hedge my bets that it is a network issue.
Here in the UK, I live in a very rural area, and I get 2.4mbps on my G1 via T-Mobile UK. Can't really tell the difference between being on WiFi and 3G given the actual processing speed of the device.
Of course, we're very lucky here in the sense that we are a small country (thing of Georgia and Florida combined) with a high population density. This means it is comparatively simple to get blanket 3G coverage (say 95% ish at least in terms of population).
Regards,
Dave

I never really said it was the connection technology, Its just that my first impression with 3g has been unfavorable, Damn I just sold my wing and i didnt even think of trying out the 3G on it to see if anything was better. Ohh and sadly when i do get edge Its great and alot more faster which is odd to say but to face the facts i can watch youtube videos with edge with no problem. Ill probley reflash it with official 1.5 and if i get the same results then is there a way to dumb down the browser to make it almost txt based without any image and uneeded script loading to atleast make browsing the web alittle more likeable.

RBRat3 said:
I never really said it was the connection technology, Its just that my first impression with 3g has been unfavorable, Damn I just sold my wing and i didnt even think of trying out the 3G on it to see if anything was better. Ohh and sadly when i do get edge Its great and alot more faster which is odd to say but to face the facts i can watch youtube videos with edge with no problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Theoretically, EDGE maxes out at 192kbps and "standard" UMTS 3G at 384kbps. With HSDPA, the theoretical maximum is 7.2mbps, but most carriers don't support speeds such as this yet (T-Mobile UK supposedly at 4.5mbps).
So, if you are getting better performance over EDGE than you are over 3G, and assuming that T-Mobile uses the same backhaul network for both 3G and EDGE traffic, it seems more likely to me that you may have a problem device. I'd suggest a trip to a T-Mobile retail location may help, since they should be able to compare your experience with other devices.
Regards,
Dave

Well ill check out some nearby stores and see if they have working display models to try it out and cross refrence them to see if they compare the same. To get alittle off topic here so far i have had one problem with the device I played Retro defense from the market (Game BTW) and i played it for 2 hours straight. After 2 hours of gameplay that phone was hotter than hell which was kinda scarey and It just shut off blinking red on the notification LED so i figured the phone can actually overheat. I can reproduce this over and over only with that game. So if that hasnt happend to anyone then its a possibility that your assumption might be right that my device might have a defect. But its kind of a big crossover between overheating and connection difficulty.

Slow 3G speeds with new EVO

I picked up a refurbed EVO Tuesday and immediately rooted it. I later found out that the 3G is really slow, i'm only getting .05-.1Mbps through speedtest.net's app but the actual experience feels much slower. Switching to 4G or wifi will yield appropriate speeds.
I thought maybe it was the ROMs but i went back to the stock ROM, Myn's ROM, and Fresh's ROMs and they all had slow 3G speeds.
Any ideas on what's up? My last resort would be to unroot it and bring it back for them to check it out :/

it's not your phone as sprint is having random outages right now with voice & data. your not alone.
i also believe they also may be doing some sort of network change due to the big announcement they will have here shortly. i could be wrong on that but i have a feeling that's whats causing the issues.

Try this by gokuman56. His post his credit. Is great and it works.
You will need your MSL, Call Sprint or follow this:
1. Dial ##3282#
2. It will open a menu, click WiMAX and enter MSL. Note: 4G radio must be on.
3. Go to extensions and Hold EntryRX and Write Extension
4. Change the Value to -110 (The Lower the weaker the signal can be for the phone to connect.
5. Change EntryCINR to 0004
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are tired of the Radio taking forever to reconnect once you loose your 4G signal, then:
1. Change Scan Retries to 00015
2. Change Scan attempt timeout to 0002
You will now have a somewhat faster and much stronger 4G signal!!!
EDIT: Easier Way to get MSL. Okay so you have to download connectbot from the Market
1. Open ConnectBot
2. Agree Next Next Yada Yada
3. Press SSH and select Local
4. type in whatever you want by local and press enter
5. ok once you see a black screen and to the left a cash sign, type in "getprop" without the quotes
6. You should see a lot of words, scroll up all the way at the top.
7. Near the middle of the screen until you see [ril.MSL]
8. It will be 6 digits and that's your MSL
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For 3G Try This..
It may already be implemented in your ROM, just check again:
Steps:
1. Know the MSL
2. Dial ##3282#
3. Go to multimedia
4. HTTPPD Proxy Port must be 0
5. HTTPPD Proxy Address must be 0.0.0.0
The 3G hack was found here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=922978
For the EVO a similar 4G hack has been discovered here.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=922978
Sent from My PC36100 on the great x1 MetroPCS network

fixxxer2008 said:
it's not your phone as sprint is having random outages right now with voice & data. your not alone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I sure hope so. My speeds are downright pathetic right now.

If you are rooted, the easiest way to get your MSL is to download the MSL Reader app right from the market.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Guess this is what i have to look forward to when i replace my current evo with horrible 3g speeds. They think a new evo may solve the problem....i think not.

fixed! re-provisioning worked. i had to do ##3282#, Edit, Data, Menu, Restore. It rebooted my phone and now i'm back to 1Mbps download speeds Thanks for the link and help everyone

Yeah, it's happening to me too right now. I'm getting .02 down and .16 up. I normally get around .8 down and .7 up. It's been three days of the same sh*t. Its getting annoying because I love my evo and the internet is super slow right now.

Don't know why or how, but when running speed test app, when I turned off the location setting, i noticed anywhere from .2 to .8 on average. With location off,i also was able to get over 1.4 mbps on 3g. I dont know if it had the same effect, but was able to get over 6.5 mbps on 4g.
Mainly, the location service turned off repeatedly returned higher speeds on mine.
Sent from my Evo 4G

I have been having very similar issues lately. I first purchased my EVO about two weeks ago. I had hboot 2.10 and hardware 0004. I finally managed a root and stuck with Sprint Lovers Rom for a little bit. Trying to get over to Myn's Warm2.2, I started having serious 3G issues.
I flashed the most up-to-date radio, wimax, nv, and PRI (the combo zip), but it didn't improve the speeds. Most webpages would time out when trying to load, even though I showed full signal strength.
I restored to Sprint Lovers ROM where I've been able to get pages to load, albeit very slowly.
My speedtest results are a mixed bag. With full 3G signal strength, I recently got a DL speed of 275 kbps. It goes up and down, and even reached 900 kbps on one test. However, the experience when using the internet seems much, much slower than that, and certainly slower than when I first got the device.
Running a test on 4G yielded DL speeds of around 500 kbps, which is certainly slow.
I'm in Houston and don't know of any outages or service disruptions here.
Should I try an older radio? If I flash pc36img again to unroot, would that restore my previous radio versions and what not?
Any help would be appreciated.
Baseband radio 2.15.00.11.19
Kernel 2.6.32.17-gee557fd
PRI version 1.90_003
Software 3.70.651.1
Running Sprint Lovers ROM with Android 2.2

Something is wrong with sprints service today. Its just crazy slow right now.

bdwright77 said:
I have been having very similar issues lately. I first purchased my EVO about two weeks ago. I had hboot 2.10 and hardware 0004. I finally managed a root and stuck with Sprint Lovers Rom for a little bit. Trying to get over to Myn's Warm2.2, I started having serious 3G issues.
I flashed the most up-to-date radio, wimax, nv, and PRI (the combo zip), but it didn't improve the speeds. Most webpages would time out when trying to load, even though I showed full signal strength.
I restored to Sprint Lovers ROM where I've been able to get pages to load, albeit very slowly.
My speedtest results are a mixed bag. With full 3G signal strength, I recently got a DL speed of 275 kbps. It goes up and down, and even reached 900 kbps on one test. However, the experience when using the internet seems much, much slower than that, and certainly slower than when I first got the device.
Running a test on 4G yielded DL speeds of around 500 kbps, which is certainly slow.
I'm in Houston and don't know of any outages or service disruptions here.
Should I try an older radio? If I flash pc36img again to unroot, would that restore my previous radio versions and what not?
Any help would be appreciated.
Baseband radio 2.15.00.11.19
Kernel 2.6.32.17-gee557fd
PRI version 1.90_003
Software 3.70.651.1
Running Sprint Lovers ROM with Android 2.2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One more note, I just changed by HTTPD ports by dialing ##3282# like the instructions said. I didn't find any improvement in speeds after though.

mkeena0305 said:
Something is wrong with sprints service today. Its just crazy slow right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
???

mkeena0305 said:
Something is wrong with sprints service today. Its just crazy slow right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Something is wrong with sprints service this year. *Fixed*

Sprint is a victim of their own success.

Do not forget to share your fondness for Sprint's network with the CEO
[email protected]

Well this is all really funny, but if any of you jesters had a suggestion or two, I'm all ears.

bdwright77 said:
One more note, I just changed by HTTPD ports by dialing ##3282# like the instructions said. I didn't find any improvement in speeds after though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is not suppose to make your speeds better just make you get data with a lower signal level. your phone has like a meter that when it has a sertain signal level you get no data all were doing here is lowering that level so we can get data working at a lower signal level.

Wow, not even close.
is not suppose to make your speeds better just make you get data with a lower signal level.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, it doesnt make it so you can get data with a lower signal. NOTHING can give you a better signal except an airave. The only thing opening the ports does is redirects the data to your phone, without going through sprint's servers first.
your phone has like a meter that when it has a sertain signal level you get no data all were doing here is lowering that level so we can get data working at a lower signal level.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. Not even close.
And way to bump a month old topic.

GatoEnFuego said:
???
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Click to collapse
LMAO. I'm screwed as soon as i'm off wifi with this phone sometimes

[Q] will APN change to fast.tmobile help with H speeds?

Alright here it is. stock rom, rooted 4.2.2. I dont have LTE in my area so this is not the purpose of this. My issue is my speeds suck. I haven't experienced more than 7 mb down ( this happened only once to date) even in an excellent areas per t mobile's coverage map. I tried selecting t mobile's network and not leaving it on automatic. No difference.It goes from H to E and I never get H back. even turning off data, or toggling airplane mode in said areas don't give me back H. I havent flashed any custom roms because simply, with every custom rom ive tried theres always some kind of bugs to live with ( no disrespect to our excellent devs out there :angel and stock is most stable.
Now im not looking for 20mb down. I just want actual H or H+ speeds. I considered trying a new sim. I got a new micro sim when I got my n4 from tmobile but i dunno maybe I got a wonky one? Any other rooted stock users try this? Also if I do tweak APN settings is flashing the older baseband necessary or no for H speeds? Thanks

uploder said:
Alright here it is. stock rom, rooted 4.2.2. I dont have LTE in my area so this is not the purpose of this. My issue is my speeds suck. I haven't experienced more than 7 mb down ( this happened only once to date) even in an excellent areas per t mobile's coverage map. I tried selecting t mobile's network and not leaving it on automatic. No difference.It goes from H to E and I never get H back. even turning off data, or toggling airplane mode in said areas don't give me back H. I havent flashed any custom roms because simply, with every custom rom ive tried theres always some kind of bugs to live with ( no disrespect to our excellent devs out there :angel and stock is most stable.
Now im not looking for 20mb down. I just want actual H or H+ speeds. I considered trying a new sim. I got a new micro sim when I got my n4 from tmobile but i dunno maybe I got a wonky one? Any other rooted stock users try this? Also if I do tweak APN settings is flashing the older baseband necessary or no for H speeds? Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I doubt it but it doesn't hurt to try.

i had a worse connection and worse speeds using that apn without lte.
your data speed would only be 20mb+ if, and only if, tmobile has hspa42+ in your area. most of tmobiles coverage is hspa21+. youll never see 2omb download speeds on hspa21+, maybe around 10-14mbps. the data speeds would also depend on how much of the network is being used at the moment, how busy it is. so, generally, youll get your highest speeds late at night/early morning.

just to confirm is "excellent" on the coverage map considered hspa42+?

uploder said:
just to confirm is "excellent" on the coverage map considered hspa42+?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no. its probably 3G/hspa/hspa+. some places regular 3G, some are hspa21, and some hspa42. you could probably find out by calling tmobile, then ask for tech support. dont let the regular tmobile customer support try to help(lol).

simms22 said:
no. its probably 3G/hspa/hspa+. some places regular 3G, some are hspa21, and some hspa42. you could probably find out by calling tmobile, then ask for tech support. dont let the regular tmobile customer support try to help(lol).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Their tech support dont know much either. I called them to ask them when i will get 1900 mhz reframed and they said I'm suppose to have LTE when I will most likley not get lte till 2014

ross1998 said:
Their tech support dont know much either. I called them to ask them when i will get 1900 mhz reframed and they said I'm suppose to have LTE when I will most likley not get lte till 2014
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i found this http://androidandme.com/2012/12/car...-new-metro-areas-to-4g-hspa-on-1900-mhz-band/

Radio Bands

Just got 2 s4's and signal strength lower in house than my htc one s
i checked default bands and set to lte/gsm
changed to lte/gsm/cdma preferred and better dl speeds
is there a best setting
i obviously need to do more testing in other locations, just curious

It all depends on where you are and what equipment is on the towers you happen to be around at any given time. Also, like you just found out, some devices will get better reception than others. It's just something that you have to play around with on your own to see what works best for you.
I'm with Sprint, which in my area completely SUCKS. I hate Sprint and am seriously considering paying the etf to switch to AT&T (which in my area gets LTE almost everywhere). What I'm getting at is when I'm around my home I turn 4G off. When I get a couple of miles out I'll turn it back on if I need to, then when getting around our downtown area when going to work I'll turn it back off.

well i put it back to default. will recheck coverage maps. tmo was bad here too, in valley. but, i think they were improving cells getting ready for lte here. that was when my signal got better. before that it was bad also.
really need to check work and the real bad areas I had were tmo's coverage was real bad even on map.

Where is this setting? I'm getting no signal indoors unlike my previous phone which got near-full signal. Weird thing is that I kind of remember getting a better signal when I first got the phone. Seems to have gotten worse.

yeahmann said:
Where is this setting? I'm getting no signal indoors unlike my previous phone which got near-full signal. Weird thing is that I kind of remember getting a better signal when I first got the phone. Seems to have gotten worse.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
*#*#4636#*#*
Tao on Device Info
scroll down to Set Preferred Network
let us know what works best for you

rugmankc said:
Just got 2 s4's and signal strength lower in house than my htc one s
i checked default bands and set to lte/gsm
changed to lte/gsm/cdma preferred and better dl speeds
is there a best setting
i obviously need to do more testing in other locations, just curious
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Setting it to that is NOT improving anything...... do you even know what CDMA is? This phone does not have any CDMA bands.... CDMA is what sprint, Verizon, and us cellular run on setting it yk that won't improve anything...
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda premium

hyelton said:
Setting it to that is NOT improving anything...... do you even know what CDMA is? This phone does not have any CDMA bands.... CDMA is what sprint, Verizon, and us cellular run on setting it yk that won't improve anything...
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I know what cdma is and who has it--
Just saying when changing bands it improved quite a bit, could be many reasons. Also, I am comparing signal strength in same spot with tmo and att. Two different carriers. I am sure they can have different readings in same area. So, until I test the areas were I really need the better coverage and att map says it should be there in those areas, I won't know if it the radio or not. The only reason I swithched was to get better coverage in my business appt areas. Where I live and am currently testing att shows solid 4g.
Actually today no real difference, I seem to do a little better at first. But, it is defaulting back to lte/gsm. So, will just give it some time and see how other areas do. Was just curious if anyone had tried other bands. I may do great where I need it.
Thanks,
Mod can close this thread--

I actually have to force WCDMA only in one area constantly get between no service and service if I don't.

hyelton said:
I actually have to force WCDMA only in one area constantly get between no service and service if I don't.
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Click to collapse
Yeah, it can make a diff. But, shouldn't have to do it. I will report how i do in other areas of Dayton over the next few days. Haven't left house today. Yard work.
I hope as lte rolls out here, things will improve like tmo did.

Doesn't make a difference. I have to swap phones or something. Signal is so weak, it's unusable. Most of the time I'm getting no signal at all. I haven't had full bars yet anywhere!

That doesn't sound good. Today I went to store we shop at about 20 miles away in Springboro. I could not make calls from inside with tmo. Also, could not with att. It was just a tad better toward front of store. Tried a couple other highway locations and speedtests were always lower than tmo. Son's phone the same. This week I will appts north and see how it compares. I can't believe att is not outperforming tmo here. I know one day is no test. But, their maps show much wider coverage than tmo.
I will call them and have them reconnect me. Also, check apn's. Can't find a good apn list yet. But, also can't edit them. When I go to check networks, it just says default setting and doesn't list att or anyone. Never saw that before.
I think it is what it is since both phones run the same on the network--
Hurry up lte

Educate me if I am wrong. But, my slower than tmo speeds may be due to lack of 21mb network on att in Dayton.
tmo had that here, i don't think att does EDIT: Acording to sales rep we do--just never see it on phone--more research needed
i only get hspa 11 or 15. assume that is 11mb and 15mb
so, until i get lte am stuck with these speeds, which are 3g, NOT 4g att
Actually, looking at map and reading their Legend, I should get HSPA+ here. Haven't seen it. It is not listed on gsmarena phone specs
May try a different sim and not sure what my exact apn's should be here. Anyone have them?
Any Dayton S4 users here???