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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.

How long did it take for your nexus 1 to get 3g tmobile signal?

How long did it take for your nexus 1 to get 3g tmobile signal? I got my sim about an hour ago and dont think I have yet connected to 3g.

no one? nothing?

Still waiting here. I ported a number over last night around 10pm, started getting calls and was able to call out around 1pm today, started getting SMS around 2pm. Still no outgoing SMS or any 3g / edge.

Right away for me.

i never heard of anyone having to wait to get 3G. are you sure you have 3G coverage in your area?

Got it instantly and it's been pretty reliable

well it took me 6 hours to get it ugh i was dying

Instant. I havent had any problems with my N1.

i lay in bed, no 3g (only edge)... soon as i get on a main road i get 3g...

I get 3G as soon as step outside my front door and away from the roof overhang. I discovered that my cement tile roof and block walls make a pretty good bunker (only get Edge) but the N1 plays very nicely with my Linksys wireless router and comcast cable modem indoors on a locked down home network.
(Receiving or placing a call breaks in on the wi-fi, going seamlessly back to Edge, and you do have to manually reconnect to wi-fi after the call, but it sees and reconnects to wi-fi very quickly... much more quickly than a laptop or netbook does!)

I won't have 3G until I get on the highway and take my N1 on a 3-hour road trip to the nearest 3G coverage area.

Instantly for me... You guys having issues did you have a non 3G device before? Most TMO accounts are provisioned to work on 2G and 3G even if your old device is a 2G device... odd.
Also my only gripe is signal strength is about 1 bar or so below the G1 - which results in the phone switching to Edge more. Hope HTC/Google address this soon...

Instantly for me too and 4 bars inside & outside so far.

Lack of 3g might be related to this.

mine was instant

mine was also instant. 3G in most or all within northern ca - bay area.

instant in the north burbs of chicago

Instant in Chicago.

Turns out I needed to turn off wifi

Blueman101 said:
Turns out I needed to turn off wifi
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LOL, that's a good one But glad you finally found it! Enjoy Vegas 3G

Voice AND data at the same time on the tmobile network?

I got an email while on a call without wifi. I'm in dallas. Anyone else getting data and voice now?

Has been possible since the beginning of time as long as you are on 3G

I concur. ↑
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

Really? I've never been able to do that until recently.
Usually when I'd start a call I'd lose the 3G icon and if I received email while in call it wouldn't show up until after I hung up.
Couldn't mess with data without wifi.
Used to do this on my cliq and G1 as well...
Odd.

Also been doing both (on TMob 3G) since February...

Any gsm phone can do that, but it is impossible for cdma

Your phone may have been set to WCDMA only up until now.

chalk that up as a win for GSM and a lose for CDMA

JCopernicus said:
Your phone may have been set to WCDMA only up until now.
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WCDMA is 3G, it has nothing to do with CDMA

In a weak 3G signal area, the phone usually does a handover and transfers the call to the GSM network when the 3G signal falls under some threshold, and GSM doesn't support simultaneous voice and data (icon disappears while on a call)
maybe you have better 3G coverage now and your nexus doesn't need to go the GSM route

I've noticed problems with using data and voice together too. What seems to happen is that it works ok at first, but the instant you lose 3G it never comes back until the call is over, no matter how good your signal. Very frustrating when trying to use your data while on a long call.

Both AT&T and T-Mobile (as can any GSM carrier worldwide) can do voice and data at the same time as long as your phone has a "3G" connection visible while on the phone call. This has always been possible.
What you may see happen is that if you wrap your hands around the bottom of the phone during a call, the signal may drop to "E" or Edge. You can't use data and voice at the same time if your phone is on Edge.
To alleviate this, use a wired or Bluetooth headset, or hold the phone with your fingers rather than your whole palm.

Paul22000 said:
What you may see happen is that if you wrap your hands around the bottom of the phone during a call, the signal may drop to "E" or Edge. You can't use data and voice at the same time if your phone is on Edge.
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Have you ever seen my problem where once the signal drops to Edge it will never go back to 3G? It doesn't seem like normal behavior to me but it seems to always happen when I need my data during the call. I've been stuck on multi-hour calls where my phone refused to go back to 3G almost from the beginning, and then the second I hang up the phone goes right back to a 3G signal with full bars again. Very frustrating!

pfmiller said:
I've noticed problems with using data and voice together too. What seems to happen is that it works ok at first, but the instant you lose 3G it never comes back until the call is over, no matter how good your signal. Very frustrating when trying to use your data while on a long call.
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the ATT 3G network is not setup to do handoffs from gsm back to 3g. it currently will ONLY handoff from 3G to gsm during a call, and if you are still on your call, it will not switch back until you hang up. in the future this can be enabled both ways. tmobile apparently is setup the same way for now. so you're experience is normal until they reconfigure their network.

Actually it depends on the phone hardware. It IS possible to use GPRS and voice as well if the hardware supports it, its not only something available on 3G/UMTS/WCDMA. There is a pretty even split between class A and class B phones these days, you should look up the specs of the phone you're using.
Nearly all 3G devices allow you to use data and voice together since it isnt timeslot based and so voice and data is logically split and not time divided. This means you dont need specially designed hardware to do it, just the processing power to do it.
Class A
Can be connected to GPRS service and GSM service (voice, SMS), using both at the same time.
Class B
Can be connected to GPRS service and GSM service (voice, SMS), but using only one or the other at a given time. During GSM service (voice call or SMS), GPRS service is suspended, and then resumed automatically after the GSM service (voice call or SMS) has concluded.
Class C
Are connected to either GPRS service or GSM service (voice, SMS). Must be switched manually between one or the other service.

@kam187, thanks for that. I've been with T-Mobile since they were Voicestream, about 10 years now. And I thought I was making voice and data connections with my Nokia phone years ago, before their 3G rollout.
Here is the last phone I used before going the G1 route.
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_e61-1322.php

Yep E61 is on nokia's list of Class A devices:
http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.p...s_supporting_GPRS_Class_A_(Dual_Transfer_Mode)

[Q] What is needed for voice over WiFi (WiFi calling) on Verizon?

Hey all so I just got the 6t and I use Verizon and noticed that there is no option for WiFi calling. I guess after searching around Verizon needs to enable it? But I'm just confused as to what needs to be done to allow users to use it.
It's a big deal for me because the reception in my house is bad. I have thick walls (wooden log cabin). On past phones my phone's would drop lte to 3g then back a lot and only way around this was to use wifi calling.
To hold me over I just dumped 200 bucks on a lte externder from Verizon (femto cell) but I thought I would ask what needs to happen for Verizon users to get wifi calling and if it would ever come down the road

I would love to know the same info for AT&T

I tried all the modules and tricks to get it working and never could. I had all settings enabled in the hidden menus and by all appearances it should have worked but it never did. I ended up returning the phone because I don't have a good LTE signal at work or my house. Loved the phone otherwise but not getting texts and phone calls was a no go.

Usage Verizon 4Glte availability in 3g areas.

I'm not sure so asking for a friend. He has a Verizon Pixel XL, works well, wants a One Plus 6T.
He wants to know what happens when you have a One Plus 6T, on the Verizon network with “CDMA-less device” engaged in his house, when his house only gets a 3g signal?
My response was that his speeds would only transmit at 3g, but would like to hear from real persons using Verizon with 6T.

If he only gets 3G on his other phone, them he will most likely have no service at all with the OnePlus 6T at his house. Try having your friend put his phone in LTE only mode on his other phone to see if he gets a signal at all. By the end of the year Verizon is shutting down their 3G network anyways. I used to put my phone on airplane mode and have the wifi on, so I could use wifi calling in areas I didn't have service but had wifi

If he only gets 3g then tell him not to buy it. There is no wifi-calling on Verizon with the 6t so he will have no signal at all. I bought the phone and loved it, except I never had a signal at home or work so o returned it. With only a 3g signal you cant even get a text.