Database Users

Speed testing and RIL settings

So I felt like doing some testing with a couple different radio versions and RIL settings to see if I actually did get any differences in speed or latency.
Phone is running CM6 Nightly 09192010. I did 8 tests on each state. Tests were done from 12a-1a so virtually no load on the network. After changing settings, I rebooted twice. All 8 speed tests were done by the SpeedTest.net app. I checked radio signal strength in Settings>About>Status and waited roughly 10 seconds for it to stabilize at the lowest value. I am located in Tempe, AZ. T-Mobile has not officially enabled HSPA+ but the download speeds reflect it. I hit 6.1mbps a couple times The phone was not moved at all for the entire process. To see the exact RIL settings I used, links are in the spreadsheet.
I have attached my excel file for ****s and giggles
Here are my results:
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Green and positive means it was an increase with respect to the baseline. Red and negative means a decrease with respect to the baseline.
The "5.10 Error" is strange. I tried to flash 5.10 (see link in spreadsheet). It kept erroring in fastboot. Tried in recovery and it looked like it worked, but the bootloader was reporting 5.08. I did the tests anyway and I got different results which is strange.
In case you like numbers:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmKcnlXnO3h6dExGSUlIdUtvSG56X2lvVHAwSlpSSlE&hl=en
PLEASE take these with a grain of salt! There are MANY variables I can not control that will affect signal strength, through put, etc. etc.
Also, one thing I noticed with 5.08U+Tweaks is the download was much more consistent. The standard deviation was much lower than the others.

Where are these radios of which you speak? (particularly 5.8+Tweaks)

Links are in the spreadsheet.

Since 5.10 is a desire radio, it won't flash unless you have a "PVT SHIP S-OFF" nexus.... those are usually engineering samples where the SPL allows you to flash literally ANYTHING...
This was discussed earlier in the 5.08 radio thread.... I'll try and find the exact posts when I get home later, but IIRC, the one person who was able to flash the desire radio did notice increased speeds.... but since its not quite the same phone AFAIK your chances of bricking the phone are exponentially higher....
That being said, phenomenal breakdown of the build.prop settings! I'll have to look around and see if I can contribute anything later, but great job!
Sent from my Nexus One

Breakdown
Okay, found it here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=723839&page=42&postcount=413
From that page forward is the discussion I was referring to earlier...sorry it's somewhat long, but I think they covered the desire radio question thoroughly there...
Okay, I apologize in advance for the following post, I know it's rather long-winded, so feel free to flame away if you disagree with anything I'm saying here or any of it is blatantly incorrect (I apologize if it is)
And these are just my thoughts and observations of what works for me, I'm not recommending you settle on anything here before figuring out what works for you...
OP, I'm sure you know this already based on your research here, but here's a breakdown of the "H" and "U" 'versions' of the radio for others who might be reading this thread and are interested in "tweaking the radio"
H - as in 32.36.00.28H_4.06.00.12_7 or 32.41.00.32H_5.08.00.04
Means that ro.ril.hsxpa = 1 (in the build.prop) is set, putting the radio in HSDPA mode rather than just plain old UMTS
U- as in 32.36.00.28U_4.06.00.12_7 or 32.41.00.32U_5.08.00.04
Means that ro.ril.hsxpa = 2 (in the build.prop) is set, which enables HSUPA
Now, not having these values set in build.prop doesn't necessarily mean that you won't get the HSDPA goodness (AFAIK AOSP ROMs are usually preset to hsxpa = 1 and Sense ROMs are usually preset to hsxpa = 2) because I believe that Android (or at least the radio) is hard-coded to jump up to the higher speed connection if available, but having these settings in build.prop just means that the phone will try making an HSDPA connection sooner than it would otherwise...
The OP has compiled an EXCELLENT breakdown of both speed tests/ping times/signal strength....that's outstanding work....
Sorry I'm making this post a little drawn out, and I'm not trying to hijack the thread here, but I'll share my 2 cents on what works for me if anyone is interested. Also, I apologize in advance for not having as much hard data as the OP, as these are merely my observations....
Ultimately, there is not one way of specifying these settings that will work for everyone....they are HIGHLY dependent on location, signal strength, radio version, ROM, service provider, number of applications running, clock speed, kernel type and version, maintenance on the cell towers.....etc....I could go on for a while here....
So what I'm trying to say here is that THERE IS NOT ONE SOLUTION THAT WILL WORK THE SAME FOR EVERYONE....
For reference, I'm living in Chicago, on T-Mobile, running eVIL's NXSense Desire Rom v1.20 with the network fix described in the second post (of that thread) applied (it replaces libhtc_ril.so and libhtc_acoustic.so because of connectivity issues when waking up the phone from standby, sorry, I don't know enough about how those executables work to give a better explanation) so I'm sure that makes a bit of a difference...
I'm also using the 4.06.00.12_7 radio (Official Froyo OTA), I tried the 5.08.00.04 radio for a while and I felt like it got slightly faster speeds and ping times (could be just placebo) but I ultimately switched back because it did seem to cause noticeably increased battery drain and my girlfriend repeatedly complained about my voice sounding "digitally mangled" during calls...
Though I agree with the OP's statement that the 5.08 radio did provide much more consistent speeds....with the 4.06 radio I've hit 5.2mbps (same situation with HSPA+, not officially turned on in Chicago) and then I'll be lucky if I can get 1mbps a couple tests later.... I did notice that ping times were also much more consistent with the 5.08 radio (usually around 90ms-160ms) and that unlike the 4.06 radio, did not usually require a "warm-up" test (usually the first speed test was garbage because the speed only kicked in about half-way through when radio/software/network realized that it needed to switch into HSDPA mode, this happens CONSIDERABLY more often with the 4.06 radio)
Okay, sorry, I don't mean to turn this into a discussion on radio versions....back on topic...
There seem to be some settings that work globally across both areas and providers, but most of what works well is limited to your location and your service provider.
It seems that setting ro.ril.gprsclass = 12 should work universally, from what I've read in other threads there hasn't been any negative reaction to this setting, as it just adjusts the number of GPRS timeslots requested by the phone. A quick glance at wikipedia reveals that UMTS (and by extension HSDPA) is still based on the GPRS core network, and while the nexus one's official specifications stated that it only supports GPRS class 10, I did notice a slight improvement with Class 12 set compared to without.
From what I've read during my time lurking on XDA, it seems that setting ro.ril.hsxpa is a bit of a mixed bag...some people are reporting that when it is set to = 1 they see dramatic differences in speed compared to = 2 or not being set at all....though some report that = 2 seems to work better and more quickly than = 1....like I said earlier, AOSP ROMs (Cyanogen, etc...) usually have it set to = 1, and that seems to work for most people using those particular ROMs....on the other hand, Sense ROMs (like any Desire Port) usually have it set to = 2, which also seems to work well for most users of those ROMs
What I've noticed when I have it set to ro.ril.hsxpa = 2, upload speeds seem to double from hsxpa = 1 regardless of location....
Also, these are not mentioned by the OP, but setting ro.ril.hsdpa.category = 8 and ro.ril.hsupa.category = 5 seem to increase the speed slightly from not having either set (look up "HSPA" on Wikipedia for more information on HSDPA/HSUPA categories and what they usually mean)
Since HSDPA category 8 is the highest speed the chipset in the nexus will support, there isn't really any reason to set it higher, though setting it lower could potentially increase speeds for those living in areas that haven't been upgraded to HSDPA 3.6 or 7.2... Same thing for HSUPA category 5, it's the highest the nexus will support, but not having it enabled would probably help in areas where your service provider has not enabled HSUPA...
Setting ro.telephony.default_network = 3 is the same thing as setting the preferred network type (in the *#*#4636#*#* testing menu) to GSM Auto (PRL), whereas setting it to = 0 would be the same as setting it to WCDMA Preferred....I'm not sure what setting 1 or 2 would do here, as this is just what I learned from my build.prop
Ever since I got my nexus I had it set to WCDMA Preferred, though when I switched to eVIL's NXSense about a month ago and found the default setting to be GSM Auto (PRL), I ran with it and it seems to be faster that way....or I'm at least getting less instances where it will randomly lose signal....but this could also be due to T-Mobile upgrading the network in the Chicago area (HSPA+ here we come! )
Okay, so that's about it....sorry again about that being so long winded, I just wanted to share what has been working for me and hopefully clear up any confusion for those reading this thread....
I'm sure there's some things I've left out of this or stated incorrectly, it wasn't meant to be exhaustive or authoritative, just merely my observations on the matter....
And thanks again for the OP for starting this topic and putting up their findings in spreadsheet form (I'm a statistics geek ) it is very well compiled and organized....I hope I didn't clutter up the thread too much here....

Radio Interface Description
If anyone is interested, I found a more detailed explanation (from Google themselves!) on how the Radio Stack works...
http://source.android.com/porting/telephony.html
It gets into technical details that are a little over my head and it doesn't have a ton of information in regards to what is in question here, but I think it is still somewhat relevant and, if you have time, is a very informative read...

I'm not so concerned with blaaazing speed, as I am with sensitivity of the radio. I need reception in outlying areas, and I suspect this would help with speed as well, getting HSDPA sooner.

Wifi roaming question/problem

My wife and I both have galaxy s2's and I've set the house up with 3 wireless routers... The problem is when roaming throughout the house the phones don't want to make the jump from one router (same ssid's/settings/passwords/different channels) to another. If I turned Wifi on and I'm on the middle floor I have max signal strength... If I move upstairs and stand next to the other router my signal on the upper info bar is at its lowest.... If I look at available networks though it shows my strength at max. It's only when I shut the Wifi off for a few seconds then back on that it Connects to the strongest channel but the process will repeat again when I go downstairs. What can I do to get our phones to switch to the strongest channel automatically? This is really annoying...
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

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Here you can see what i mean... The strength is excellent when I view the network but it's still connected to the channel for the router downstairs even when a stronger "excellent" channel is 6 inches away.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

Turn Wifi off for 10 seconds then back on and it looks like this...
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

you could try using those routers as repeaters, assuming that many people wont use the wifi. Wait, how big is your house? And do you really need three?

my house is about 2000 square feet but I live in japan where typhoon proof houses have 18inch thick rebar and concrete walls and floors...I have 3 routers, one on each floor wired with cat6 through conduits in the walls. Each router is on a separate channel (1,6,11) and they all work flawlessly as long as I shut the wifi off for several seconds. I just think its strange that the pic in post two shows that the closer router can be seen but its choosing not to switch in favor of the one that it originally connected to even though there is next to no signal.

You're not alone - Galaxy S2 wifi roaming isn't working
Wifi roaming isn't working on my S2 running 2.3.4 (stock Samsung firmware).
Looks like it's the same for others. Google:
"Issue 12649: WIFI roaming not working."
"you tube Hh2XXi4LQ1c"
(I'm not allowed to post links yet )
Waiting for ICS I guess.

It would be nice for galaxy s plus to get working wifi roaming.

I have the same issue on a Samsung Infuse running GB 2.3.6. Only way roaming works for me is brute force - either manually disable/reenable WiFi, or get far enough away from connected WAP that the connection drops. After either, a scan typically picks up the closest router.
I work in a building with a dozen or so APs, so a working roaming config would be very helpful.

Roaming roaming roaming
I use 2 APs that act as Bridge repeaters for my Sky broadband.
I cannot roam between them.
If I disable and enable wireless, the preferred access point is the last one connected, not the strongest signal. The only time I automatically get transferred to another AP is if the original is out of range.
Has anyone tried roaming with the new ICS official ROMs? Does this work?
Will upgrading my Modem to the latest version for Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100) help this?
Any answers to these questions would help greatly.
evilgrin78
Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100)

Galaxy S2 WiFi roaming *not* fixed with ICS
psychochicken said:
Wifi roaming isn't working on my S2 running 2.3.4 (stock Samsung firmware).
Looks like it's the same for others. Google:
"Issue 12649: WIFI roaming not working."
"you tube Hh2XXi4LQ1c"
(I'm not allowed to post links yet )
Waiting for ICS I guess.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just got the OTA update to ICS (4.0.3) in New Zealand. Unfortunately WiFi roaming has not been fixed.
Come on Samsung, sort it out! I was thinking of buying a S3, now I might go for an HTC instead.

Wi-Fi is intermittent, buffering, dropping connections...

Hey Guys,
I'm currently on the Nexus 5 Experience Stock Kernel - Release 2.4.1 ROM: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2545838, I've tried flashing other kernels such as Francos and a few others but my issue is still around...
Basically the phone can't keep an active connection for long at all, I could be sending messages over whatsapp and it doesn't appear to send but then suddenly It shows that it's sent and the other person has replied...
Loading webpages can take several attempts, refreshing facebook can take several attempts and occasionaly when I look at the tiles the wifi tile is different color (reconnecting to the router) but the wifi in my place is very stable, fast and should work fine... I switched back to Paranoid Android for a test and the wifi works fine on it...
My wifi is awful on all of the 4.4 ROMS, anyone know why and anyone know how to debug and fix?
Thanks

You should flash this zip or add the line to your file by the root app, like root explorer...
gDataInactivityTimeout=200
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
in WCNSS_qcom_cfg.ini.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2300873

keb00 said:
You should flash this zip or add the line to your file...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2300873
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I flashed that before it did nothing, I also tried someone else version (had different modified lines)

In that case the only way to fix that is change the kernel or the entire rom...
But wait for "insider" users, did you reported in the rom topic?

keb00 said:
In that case the only way to fix that is change the kernel or the entire rom...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried over 10 kernels, over 10 ROMS including 100% stock and even tried different radios / bootloaders but the only thing working for me is 4.3 and lower...
It couldn't be a router setting could it?
Wifi Settings:
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Anyone got any ideas about this?
I've tried changing the wifi band to 2.4 and change the region code to Europe, tried wifi optimization on and off but still it's awful

Do you have similar performance issues with other wireless devices when using your router? If so then it likely is a router problem. Does your router have an 'auto' mode for channel or is there a reason you're using 6.

DrFredPhD said:
Do you have similar performance issues with other wireless devices when using your router? If so then it likely is a router problem. Does your router have an 'auto' mode for channel or is there a reason you're using 6.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The wireless works perfectly on laptops, other phones (Samsung S2, HTC Desire Z...etc), I'm using channel 6 as in the other part of the house the wireless there uses Channel 1 and the garden uses channel 11, (odd shaped house means parts of the house wouldn't get wireless if I ran them through one router)
I can try changing them all to auto but I doubt it will make a difference.

Hyflex said:
The wireless works perfectly on laptops, other phones (Samsung S2, HTC Desire Z...etc), I'm using channel 6 as in the other part of the house the wireless there uses Channel 1 and the garden uses channel 11, (odd shaped house means parts of the house wouldn't get wireless if I ran them through one router)
I can try changing them all to auto but I doubt it will make a difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All three on auto and still the same issues, turned two of the extenders off and just ran it like a normal setup and again the same issues
Anyone else got any ideas?

Tried another ten roms with and without custom kernels, all give Me the same problem

Wi fi issues!
The same things you described also apply to my case!! I expected that new radio or kit kat kernel would solve wifi issues of my nexus 4 but nothing. I have tested also various kernels-roms-fixes but the result is always the same. I compared every new configuration with my nexus 7 2013 and it feels disappointing!!! wifi speed 1.5Mbps for Nexus 4 10.5Mbps for Nexus 7! The only thing I have noticed is that I can achieve 10Mbps also with nexus 4 when I change small settings such as set to 2.4Ghz channel and disable wifi battery optimization.. Speed is improved instantly up to 10Mbps but it works only for some minutes. After that it is the same bad speed / bad signal reception / weird behaviors among different routers!! nothing of these happen with samsung phones!!
Almost bad signal reception also applies to my Nexus 7 2013 depending on the router!! I am very dissapointed with nexus devices! I bought them mainly due to the fact that google used to support its products.

Raw android GSM radio modem access (text/call intercept)

Hello,
DISCLAIMER: This post is solely for academic purposes. Do not try to intercept a text or call as it is generally illegal in most if not all countries. Don't play with the licensed radio frequencies.
The question is: Can we use an Android phone, without any external radio receiver, to intercept a GSM call or text not destined to our phone? How?
Overview: GSM calls and texts use mostly insecure networks, protocols and encryption algorithms, all over the air.
This means that calls and texts can be intercepted and deciphered. This has been demonstrated at various security conferences and it is documented carrier-by-carrier at gsmmap.org.
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Source: Decrypting GSM phone calls (Karsten Nohl)
Prequisites: To hack GSM call or text we need:
1. Processing power to run the A5/1 cracking software.
I don't know if there is any port on Android(ARM) platforms but that's probably not a real issue.
2. A programmable radio receiver to have raw access to GSM uplink and downlink frequencies digital data. That's where we DON'T want to use an external radio module, and use the phone built-in radio module.
Let's have a look at the different issues behind this question:
A. Can the phone GSM modem listen to the uplinks (phone to GSM network) of other phones?
It is normally built to listen to the GSM downlinks. But whatever, we can already intercept much with the downlink.
Moreover, antennas may use some sort of beamforming that may require the hacker phone to be in a specific zone, if using a passive intercept technique.
B. What piece of software "filters" the GSM data not destined to the phone ?
First, we need to understand how the radio data is accessed on Android.
Source: Radio Layer Interface (Android Open Source Project, Kandroid)
The GSM filtering (in terms of frequency selection or data dismiss) should either occur at the baseband level or at the RIL level. Otherwise, that would mean it's handled directly in the radio chipset (and I don't think we can do much in this latter case...).
The RIL communicates with the baseband with AT commands (specs here). These AT commands seem too be to high level commands to treat raw data streams.
So I guess the suspect is the baseband firmware but I may be wrong.
C. Can we hack the baseband to access raw GSM data not destined to the phone?
Technically, yes, it's a file flashable with ODIN. (The RIL can be flashed too).
But I've not seen on this forum any special activity on custom baseband development (it's always official baseband firmware).
The issue is that the baseband is hardware-specific and it is closed-source: "Every mobile device that is connected to a cellular network runs some kind of baseband processor with highly proprietary and closed-source firmware." (source).
Attempts to hack official baseband firmwares to develop custom baseband firmwares is still only an emerging concept, at the specification study level.
Regarding open-source software, note that "Airprobe has, for most users, since been replaced by the cheaper Osmocom phones". OsmocomBB is an Free Software / Open Source GSM Baseband software implementation. It intends to completely replace the need for a proprietary GSM baseband software". However the list of OsmocomBB compatible phones is very limited.
The help and knowledge of xda community would be much appreciated to progress on this topic :highfive:
[EDIT] Interesting links:
Decompiling baseband firmware?
HackRF external transceiver (~300$)
[FAQ] The Baseband (Optimus 2x) by sudden36
Monitor mode for Broadcom WiFi Chipsets by Omri Ildis, Yuval Ofir and Ruby Feinstein (check their RECon PPTX presentation with footnotes to see how they reverse engineered the WiFi chipset firmware based on ARM)

First of all, this thread should be moved to "Security Discussions".
Second, you'll have quite some additional reading to do...
Then you'll have to realize that the firmware on the baseband is on the order of 60 MB for Qualcomm and 12 MB for Intel (XMM) BP's.
Whats you propose is certainly possible, if not already done with some NSA devices. (Check out their product catalog!) And they a have help from QCOM and Intel etc.
Also, much of the BB code running in QCOMs modem devices, are for Hexagon cores, which are harder to decompile, because of proprietary reasons. But the type of interception you're talking about seem very difficult if you don't know PhD loads of GSM and other mobile phone technology.

Ha?!

E:V:A said:
First of all, this thread should be moved to "Security Discussions".
Second, you'll have quite some additional reading to do...
Then you'll have to realize that the firmware on the baseband is on the order of 60 MB for Qualcomm and 12 MB for Intel (XMM) BP's.
Whats you propose is certainly possible, if not already done with some NSA devices. (Check out their product catalog!) And they a have help from QCOM and Intel etc.
Also, much of the BB code running in QCOMs modem devices, are for Hexagon cores, which are harder to decompile, because of proprietary reasons. But the type of interception you're talking about seem very difficult if you don't know PhD loads of GSM and other mobile phone technology.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi E:V:A,
Thanks for the information. I've been investigating on how bcmon team performed their hack of the Broadcom 4329/4330 chipset on Galaxy S1.
I'm trying to check if we can apply something similar for the GSM radio.
WiFi monitor mode is just achieved by bypassing some checks on the DSP firmware like "is this packet for me?" (indeed they enable the built-in monitor mode flag of the firmware) and transfers all the received traffic on the MMC bus, on a test channel. The patched firmware is applied on the chipset by simply using Broadcom driver write functions that writes to the Wi-Fi chipset RAM (there are no signature check, and there are also some mechanisms to "overwrite" functions of the chipset ROM code).
Something similar may be achieved with the baseband. It will be more difficult as the RIL is closed-source. Stil, I think Replicant provides an open-source alternative, I have to check libsamsung-IPC and Samsung-RIL.
On Galaxy S1, the baseband is a XMM6160 as you pointed out in some thread. Lucky enough, this phone's too old to have a Snapgragon chipset with Hexagon DSP.
Decompiling the /radio/modem.bin in ARM mode makes me think it's indeed ARM and that we may be able to do something.
Despite I've very bad ARM decompilation skills, some parts of the code seem meaningful when decompiled using ARM archtiecture.
Here's some extract (reverse engineering is allowed to this extent under my country law):
Code:
ROM:0050FF0C aOemPsdPsd_utac DCB "[OEM PSD] PSD_UtaCallPsSetReqQos2gReq",0
ROM:005AFED0 aMifNjfAmfLimit DCB "i`j`m`Limit over:150charsline",0
ROM:005AFEF4 aSmsErrorInInit DCB "[SMS]Error in initialising SMS",0
ROM:007DA718 aCatTraceSta_36 DCB " CAT TRACE:: status IND cause = MS_PAGING_PENDING at Line:%u Fil"
ROM:007DA718 DCB "e: ",0x22,"%s",0x22," Func: ",0x22,"%s( )",0x22," ",0
ROM:0081A921 aT_resel_intra_ DCB "t_resel_intra_freq_high_mob",0
Baseband "modem.bin" ARM decompilation result (from what I understand, blue is successfully decompiled code, white is blank space and undecoded code, red is decompiled code with issues like references to ROM code that are indeed not part of the modem file):
By the way, this proprietary stuff (baseband + RIL) has a "backdoor" (the modem chipset actually have root access to the phone data, but that doesn't mean there's a GSM backdor in the actual baseband code).
[EDIT] After reviewing the GSM specs, SMS are carried over "Dedicate Control Channels" (between the base station and the mobile device), that the phone in certainly not going to listen to naturally. Moreover this channel, as effect of TDMA, is hopping between frequencies. As the baseband is closed-source, it's not going to be a simple hack to just read the raw radio-fraquency data and guess the next frequency hop; that's merely impossible practically without programmable standard hardware chipset or better, a dedicated hardware that sniffs all channels simultaneously. HackRF should be useful for that, but still not small-factor enough to use it as a mobile phone peripheral.

Poor WiFi Signal

Hello XDA;
A great deal of our PX xx chinese headunits have a very poor wifi reception due a tiny and small wifi antenna on these units. [example # 20]
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What are our options to get a better wifi signal ?
Replace the stock antenna with a better one ? [ requires fiddling inside the unit itself ]
Extend the stock antenna with a copper wire to the radio / nav / gps antenna ?
All these units have USB ports, so i thought - plug in a wifi dongle and hope for the
best but it seems my PX6 unit cannot detect any of my 3 dongles i have tried so far.
So ... are there any options left ?

Not MTCB, requested mod moves post to (Android head-units) forum
Also, OP, being senior member should know better than this. Read the /&$₩÷(÷¥ forums which cover this very issue.

@P2.nl Is your WiFi reception bad? What are your WiFi speeds? 2.4 or 5GHz band?
I believe the antennas that come with these units are meant for close distance so that they can use a phones WiFi hotspot.
Yours looks much larger than the "antenna" on mine. Mine is only two small wires that are maybe 1 cm in length. I can access my home router from my garage and also connect to my phone while in the car for internet access. When attached to my home router, the speeds are slow, though.

mastrv said:
@P2.nl Is your WiFi reception bad? What are your WiFi speeds? 2.4 or 5GHz band?
I believe the antennas that come with these units are meant for close distance so that they can use a phones WiFi hotspot.
Yours looks much larger than the "antenna" on mine. Mine is only two small wires that are maybe 1 cm in length. I can access my home router from my garage and also connect to my phone while in the car for internet access. When attached to my home router, the speeds are slow, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When i use my phone hotspot option [2.4 Ghz] in close range, then i have a decent connection.
If i park my car straight under my appartment it can pick up my home's wifi network on a weak
level, in distance +/- 10 meters, when i park my car 5 meters further away then no wifi signal.
I do not have a unlimited data plan on my cell phone so prefer to update all my devices thru my
home network, i tried 3 different wifi [atheros/realtek/ralink/2.4/5.0] dongles to see if my android
px6 head unit would detect them as a plug & play device but that was not the case unfortunatly.

All units from all competitors with bluetooth and WiFi 2.4GHz do have this issue. The newer versions of Bluetooth and 2.4GHz are using the same frequenties and thereby disturbing each other, especially if it is a shared chip. That is one reason.
The second reason is metal around the antenna.
A special antenna can help but it is better to place it outside the metal cage of your car.
Wifi is subsceptible to surrounding metal. After all we are talking about electromagnetic radiation which is also absorbed by other metals than only the copper wire in your antenna. If you have an extra antenna with a longer wire then place it under the plastic of your dashboard (or on top of your dashboard). Most dashboards have rigid metal constructions underneath.
Another dongle is not supported as they removed that from the usb-wifi drivers.
Note also that "tiny and small antenna" is not really correct. Length is based on frequency. (and how small do you think a phone antenna is).
Only the latest units featuring 5GHz WiFi work nicely as they again function on a different frequency.

I had the same issue before I changed my cell plan to have unlimited data. I'm in Canada and there are very few carriers to choose from. There is only one reasonably priced carrier with "unlimited" data. They reduce speeds after you have reached your monthly allocation. The allocation is good but I like that there are no overage charges.
Back to your issue. Several things comes to mind:
You can try a WiFi extender for your home. It might give you more signal where you need it. However, it may not. Only way to know is to try it. If your router is not immediately above your car, this may work by placing the extender immediately above your car.
Your router may have options to increase the signal strength. Not all routers have this option.
You can update your apps where there is free WiFi available. Where I am, there are a few retailers that offer this. Parking outside while you go in for a coffee and maybe a donut.
One thing I did was to turn off Google Play Store automatic updates. If everything is working, updating is not required. This can save a lot of data as each update seems to take several hundred megabytes or more. Only update occasionally or when needed.
Another thing I noticed was that the Google Play Store kept updating apps even if they were recently updated. This happens even on my phones as well. I remember looking this up and found many people reporting this issue. One way to verify this is to check the date of the updates that are presented. You'll find that some of the presented updates are not recent or may be the exact same as the apps that you have currently installed. This is another reason to turn off automatic updates.