I have an EVO 4G and I've switched back and forth between AOSP ROMs and Sense ROMs. The problem is my 4G will show full bars but the connection is terrible and the speed slows down. For example, on CM7 2 bars of 4G is faster that 3 full bars of 4G. What's the deal?
Bars are never a true way to tell how much signal you have. Every rom has different ways they calculate the amount of bars. Get an app that shows you the actual signal strength in decibels.
yeah there are plenty of apps out of the market that will give you the actual signal like the last post said in decibls. Your 4g tower might have just been down and sprint got rid of wimax so they might not be in a hurry to fix it. I have also noticed in cm7 my bars are always less anyways.
Now just remember wimax isnt like 3g! 3g goes out much further and can cover a lot more area. but with 4g think of it as a wifi network it is really strong at the source but when you get further away it will drop speeds and bars sugnificantly.
If I helped please hit thanks!
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This is my 3rd samsung device, coming from htc which seems to have better radios and antenas.
I get one bar constantly i doors at any location and the minute im out doors signal goes to 3 bars ...with one bar i cant even get an app to download or google site to load, even in good coverage areas but when im outdoors its a bit better.Considering the well documented issue wiyh sprints slow data speeds.
Is there a tweak or hack or is this just how samsung phones are?
Ive edited my proxy address and ports with the evo msl hack still no difference??
Is it the weak radio with one constant signal bar, or weak data speeds that cause the lag
This phones crazy sometimes the speeds are decent from area to area most time indoors i cat even get an app to downlod and you have to constantly cleaer ram for anything to halfass function right.
Any mods any tweaks being looked into ?
IMO
Photon has great radio/antenna.
Evo has good radio/antenna.
Epic Touch has average radio/antenna.
Evo Shift and Evo 3D have mediocre radio/antennas.
sfhub said:
IMO
Photon has great radio/antenna.
Evo has good radio/antenna.
Epic Touch has average radio/antenna.
Evo Shift and Evo 3D have mediocre radio/antennas.
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+1
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
The bars dont really make a difference. You have to check the dB. I have perfect signal from -65 to -71 (4 bars). But sometimes, i have 2 bars and -65 dB, the bars are not always correct. -106 dB is no signal at all.
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Where do i go in the device to check the db?
I realize what your saying, its just odd im in a bad signal area at home to begin with cause of aluminum siding and the area is a dead zone especially for gsm devices, but my htc evo is the only device i could ever get to load pages or function inside my home location, ive had 3 samsung devices they all have weak signal bars where 3g drops completely inside ,but its weird cause the minute i get out into open area the phone loads google like a snap, its just i never lost signal with htc, thats why i wondered if its just the quality of the samsung radio/antenas or something else? this is not the first time ive read blogs about samsung radios being mediocre!
Maybe its something ill have to deal with, thats why i asked origianly if theres a tweak to boost signal, ive tried the msl edit hack on the proxy addresses, that dont boost signal much , it just speeds up the data speeds by a small margin, well at least on the evo it did.
lojak29 said:
Where do i go in the device to check the db?
I realize what your saying, its just odd im in a bad signal area at home to begin with cause of aluminum siding and the area is a dead zone especially for gsm devices, but my htc evo is the only device i could ever get to load pages or function inside my home location, ive had 3 samsung devices they all have weak signal bars where 3g drops completely inside ,but its weird cause the minute i get out into open area the phone loads google like a snap, its just i never lost signal with htc, thats why i wondered if its just the quality of the samsung radio/antenas or something else? this is not the first time ive read blogs about samsung radios being mediocre!
Maybe its something ill have to deal with, thats why i asked origianly if theres a tweak to boost signal, ive tried the msl edit hack on the proxy addresses, that dont boost signal much , it just speeds up the data speeds by a small margin, well at least on the evo it did.
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Settings>About phone>Status>Signal Strength
I loooooove the phone super fast videos buffer with ease hands down the best phone i had and ive went through a evo evo 3d photon and iphone 4 BUT the signal and bars (maybe i should say lack there of) is a bit of a issue for me with the photon i had full bars 95% of the time now is there anything i can do to increase it or is it a phone issue
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Get used to it. Lots of threads about this.
I got the Epic Touch 4G today and I have the same exact concern. Great phone but signal strength is not good in weak coverage areas. My Photon pulls a good signal everywhere, even in weak coverage areas. I might be returning this Epic Touch 4G. I'll give it a few days and see.
Don't let the signal bars fool u. They can be programmed differently. The epic touch might show one bar while the photon shows four bars but they have the same signal strength. To find the signal strength on the epic touch its under settings, about phone, status, and then look for signal strength. Compare that number to the photon's number.
Sent From My Evo Killer!!!
musclehead84 said:
Don't let the signal bars fool u. They can be programmed differently. The epic touch might show one bar while the photon shows four bars but they have the same signal strength. To find the signal strength on the epic touch its under settings, about phone, status, and then look for signal strength. Compare that number to the photon's number.
Sent From My Evo Killer!!!
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-76 dbm 0 asu
I dont know much about sig stregth reading is that good?
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Do we even know what those bars are measuring? I have the feeling that some phones measure 2G and some measure 3G...2G (voice and text) being a far strong signal. I seem to recall from my Evo4G days that the stock rom measured 2G and CM6 measured 3G and this caused an endless amount of complaints about signal strength regardless of the fact that nothing was actually any different.
Or how about how when I went from stock, which uses 6 (?) bars and on 00001.PRL I get 3-4 bars...but on Starburst which uses the AOSP 4 bar meter I'm at 4 bars almost constantly?
My point? Ignore the bars. If you aren't looking at the signal strength in dbm you aren't looking at anything particularly useful. If the phone works for you then I'd say things are likely fine. On standard Sprint PRL (which oddly hasn't been updated in almost 2 or 3 months?) I get 0-2 bars on stock ROM...the phone and data still work almost perfectly.
and -76dBm? that's fantastic. The closer you can get to 0 the better.
My photon drops calls in the same areas my ET4g does, I don't think there's much of a difference in signal strength personally between the phones.
Yeah don't pay attention to the bars. Ill have 1 or 2 bars and make crystal clear voice calls with no dropped calls and send texts and data works fine so....if that all works, then what is there to worry about?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
I have compared a photon to my epic touch and while the photon had two more bars the signal strength was the same. Running speed test shows similar results as well.
lafester said:
I have compared a photon to my epic touch and while the photon had two more bars the signal strength was the same. Running speed test shows similar results as well.
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Same here, my buddy has a Photon and while it does roam less often, it also shows the same dbm while showing 2-3 more bars. If I have any service at all I can call, text, and browse with my Epic Touch. My Evo Shift would drop service at my parents house and show 40% time without signal....this phone never loses service when I visit them.
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rruss said:
-76 dbm 0 asu
I dont know much about sig stregth reading is that good?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
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-76 is good. -65 is the best signal strength. Just compare those numbers to that if the other phones. Ignore the signal bars uptop.
Sent From My Evo Killer!!!
I'm using Open Signal Maps to see my connection. Apparently I have -95 dBm thru -104 dBm. I heard that -100 is practically no signal.
I'd also lyk to add that I have seen my phone drop to 1X. I didn't even know that existed in cities. Is that Sprint Version of a GSM phone on 1G? I'm sorry, I'm a previous Tmo customer, where we had 1G(.005Mbps)), 2G(.5Mbps), 3G, 4G. Here on Sprint, it seems lyk it's 1X, 3G, 4G.
I have an attachment of my closest tower. Shouldn't I be way above what I'm getting? The box is me, the circle is a McDonalds I go to. When I'm at McDonalds, my data speeds flourish. I see those 10Mb 4G speeds with full bars. At my house, I only get 3G. And I'm lucky if I get that. Sometimes it drops to 1X. Luckily we have WiFi 10Mb speeds at home.
This, however raises a huge question. Why do I have to be SO close just to get good signal? I mean, the fact that my phone is dropping to 1X means there's something up, right?
P.S. I know it's not called 1G and all that. I'm just saying that for those to easily understand. So you don't have to make a post correcting me.
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The Open Signal app is not that accurate add far as location. Many times it would locate my tower in the middle of a lake. Data speeds vary greatly depending on distance, tower traffic, etc. 1x is what we sprint users call 2G.
Sent from my Epic 4G Touch using Tapatalk.
No_Nickname90 said:
I'm using Open Signal Maps to see my connection. Apparently I have -95 dBm thru -104 dBm. I heard that -100 is practically no signal.
I'd also lyk to add that I have seen my phone drop to 1X. I didn't even know that existed in cities. Is that Sprint Version of a GSM phone on 1G? I'm sorry, I'm a previous Tmo customer, where we had 1G(.005Mbps)), 2G(.5Mbps), 3G, 4G. Here on Sprint, it seems lyk it's 1X, 3G, 4G.
I have an attachment of my closest tower. Shouldn't I be way above what I'm getting? The box is me, the circle is a McDonalds I go to. When I'm at McDonalds, my data speeds flourish. I see those 10Mb 4G speeds with full bars. At my house, I only get 3G. And I'm lucky if I get that. Sometimes it drops to 1X. Luckily we have WiFi 10Mb speeds at home.
This, however raises a huge question. Why do I have to be SO close just to get good signal? I mean, the fact that my phone is dropping to 1X means there's something up, right?
P.S. I know it's not called 1G and all that. I'm just saying that for those to easily understand. So you don't have to make a post correcting me.
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1X= 1xRTT which is a voice/text network. it SOMETIMES works with web, albeit painfully slow. and just incase you didnt know, the ''G's'' only stand for "generation", so really, you could say 1G=talk, 2G=text, 3G=web, 4G= faster web.
demonlordoftheround said:
The Open Signal app is not that accurate add far as location. Many times it would locate my tower in the middle of a lake. Data speeds vary greatly depending on distance, tower traffic, etc. 1x is what we sprint users call 2G.
Sent from my Epic 4G Touch using Tapatalk.
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Yea, but I mapped it, lyk looked at the visual and saw a tower there. I understand the whole network traffic and all, but when I go to work, my location is farther, but I still connect to that same tower, and I still get better reception. It's seeming lyk there is something at my house causing my phone HORRIBLE reception. That's the only thing I can think of. I don't know what's going on. -_-
It just seems that all the places I rest, by that I mean hang out, it seems I have no reception, but when I'm at the store or some place random I have great access. The more convenient places, but that's not very practical. This is making me want to break off this family plan and go back to Tmo.
Call Sprint and inquire about the Airave or search for that term on this forum. That device will fix your low signal issue where you hang out and they'll probably give it to you for free instead of lyk losing you as a customer
I know that 4g aka WiMax runs at 2.6Ghz frequency. 3g runs at a much lower frequency. The higher the frequency the worse the signle is at penetrating building and obsticals and is drastically reduced in effectiveness the farther away you are from the tower. See Verision uses LTE which used like 900Mhz i beleive which penetrates deeply into buildings and has a much farther range. Sprint is making the transistion to LTE on a 700Mhz frequency band i beleive which will be the best 4g out. Should be completed by the end of 2013 but i beleive it may take a bit longer than that. As for 3g and 1x getting a very weak signal can led to a tower not having a strong enough signal to support data of 3g. Also some towers are older and havent been upgraded to the 3rd generation of wireless data as a previous poster stated 1g 2g 3g is first, second and third generation techknology. What is weird and doesnt make sense to me ans many other people is that how many bars you have does NOT necessarily coinside with how fast your 3g connection will be. I and thousands of others have learned that even if you have full bars your 3g may to slow as snails and i have had 1 bar to no bars and gotten better 3g speed that certain places with full bars. Some of it has to do with weather, obstacle and how up to date the tower is. Like i said there are still older towers out there that don't even support 3g still. Hope this helpa you a little and im sorry that even pro's i have talked to cant say for sure why full bars and almost no bars doesnt always mean greater and less 3g speed necessarily :-(
So my area is scheduled to get 4g the 17th but I had a few questions about 4g...
First of all how do you tell if you have a bad lte radio? Does it just not connect to 4g or does it do something else? I've been testing to see if I got it yet everyday and it hasn't popped up even once yet so I'm not sure if I might have a bad 4g radio or not
Second of all how long does it take for 4g to pop up after switching to cdma/LTE? does it usually connect to 3g first or just go to 4g?
And thirdly if I have a poor 3g signal (says about 80-90 dbm but my 3g speeds are usually around 200-400 kbps), does it tend to carry over to 4g? (just as in slower speeds than if you have a decent 4g signal)
Hello.
To answer your question about the lte radio... If you aren't sure if your area has 4g and are trying to test by turning it on or off I think your best bet would probably be to ask someone else (who has a 4g phone) if they are obtaining the network. If possible, you could go somewhere you know for certain has 4g (if theres anywhere remotely close) and try it there. I doubt you have a bad radio if your 3g signal is working, have you flashed any roms or are you running stock? If you think the radio is bad you could always try and flash the most recent ones.
The time it takes to switch from cdma to cdma/LTE is almost instant. When you do so your blue 3g bars disappear and it turns grey. After no more than 5 or 10 seconds it will connect to 4g (if its available) and display the blue bars. If you're in an area with both 3g and 4g the phone will automatically connect to the 4g first if it can.
In my personal experience I've noticed that if you're in an area with bad 3g reception the 4g will be about the same give or take a little. I also believe that even if you have poor 3g and 4g the LTE will still have a higher data transfer rate.
Moonkae said:
Hello.
To answer your question about the lte radio... If you aren't sure if your area has 4g and are trying to test by turning it on or off I think your best bet would probably be to ask someone else (who has a 4g phone) if they are obtaining the network. If possible, you could go somewhere you know for certain has 4g (if theres anywhere remotely close) and try it there. I doubt you have a bad radio if your 3g signal is working, have you flashed any roms or are you running stock? If you think the radio is bad you could always try and flash the most recent ones.
The time it takes to switch from cdma to cdma/LTE is almost instant. When you do so your blue 3g bars disappear and it turns grey. After no more than 5 or 10 seconds it will connect to 4g (if its available) and display the blue bars. If you're in an area with both 3g and 4g the phone will automatically connect to the 4g first if it can.
In my personal experience I've noticed that if you're in an area with bad 3g reception the 4g will be about the same give or take a little. I also believe that even if you have poor 3g and 4g the LTE will still have a higher data transfer rate.
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Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for...I know a couple places not too far that have 4g for certain, and as for comparing to other 4g phones to see if they have 4g I can probably just check the local Verizon store
I'm definitely hoping for at least 5 mbps download for LTE speed, which I'm sure is fairly easy to get, I can't stand average 3g speeds of 100-500 kbps and maybe 1 mbps if I'm lucky
I'm supposed to be getting 4g officially here tomorrow so hopefully it all works
Thanks again
I've always got lte the house with no bars on ics now that I got the ota I'm getting 4 -5 bars which is awesome being my apt sits between two towers. I'm a happy camper.
Sent from my LG-LS970 using xda premium
You know, I've seen a lot of people post about how, with the JB update, they're getting better 4G signal. I don't think we really are. There is a spot outside my workplace where I pick up 4G, and I have a work-provided LTE hotspot. The hotspot shows the same number of bars that it always has, speed tests on each device are the same as the were with ICS, but my LGOG now shows 4-5 bars, instead of one. To me it seems like LG just changed the way that the phone reports 4G signal strength, and nothing else.
Yes they fix the signal bar. I never or rarely had bars but now I do. More than my other old lte phones. A full 4-5 bars I've never seen consistently on this phone until now with jb.
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cowfodder said:
You know, I've seen a lot of people post about how, with the JB update, they're getting better 4G signal. I don't think we really are. There is a spot outside my workplace where I pick up 4G, and I have a work-provided LTE hotspot. The hotspot shows the same number of bars that it always has, speed tests on each device are the same as the were with ICS, but my LGOG now shows 4-5 bars, instead of one. To me it seems like LG just changed the way that the phone reports 4G signal strength, and nothing else.
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I was always under the assumption on Sprint phones the signal bars were really indicating 1x and not data. Also I vaguely remember Android API not having a real method to display LTE signal strength, CDMA being RSSI and LTE being RSRP. Unless that change recently?