Develop Bugs

True cause of "signal" issues

Has anyone read this article? Very informative.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5254/investigating-the-galaxy-nexus-lte-signal-issue
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

interesting read.
For a long time people have blamed their handsets for problems when the truth is there are always a lot of network issues out there at any given time.
Simply blaming your handset and assuming the network is 'great' because it has full bars or a good db is not the way to go.
Bars or db ultimately mean nothing, they do not mean you will get good speeds or in some cases to be able to make a call, in my experience its rare that the handset is to blame

True.
I had the RAZR before my phone. I would bet that the RAZR wasn't showing the correct signal strength and this is what a lot of people are comparing.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

aye it would be interesting if someone ran some speed tests on the two devices side by side to what what the speeds v coverage were like

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jimdurt said:
They still have some issues to work on. My OG Droid gave me a better signal at my house on 3g. At least measuring the db strength. I dont have 4g here so the measurement in db strength should be sufficient to accurately see which phone has better reception.
Give Google time. They have the right hardware. Just need to get the software tweaked a bit more.
My wifes DroidX consistantly shows -93dBm with 3 bars of 3g service, while my GNex bounces a little more between -120dBm(most of the time) to -93dBm(rarely)
Even with no bars and @-120dBm, i get 600kbps download. Thankfully i have 18mbps download service through ATT Uverse wifi.
I do have to mention, my service improved ALOT from 4.0.1 to 4.0.2 update.
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At -120 on 3g your lucky to anysort of dl

My 3g/4g signal has never been better. This phone is twice as good as my incredible.
WiFi signal strength does seem to be a little less strong but nothing horrible. Now I wish they would figure out why the OS won't go to sleep.

Well, Verizon resolved all my Nexus, CDMA, and LTE issues for me in one fell swoop. They called me yesterday and told me that they couldn't provide me service at my house and recommended I switch to a different carrier.
I was with them for less than three days. Brought my Galaxy Nexus and wife's temp phone back to the store, then went to the Apple Store to get my wife an iPhone 4S on AT&T with the plan to stop at an AT&T store to get myself a Skyrocket. While standing there playing with the 4S waiting for a sales associate, I got the warm fuzzies from back when I used the iPhone and decided to get one for myself as well.
It was a fun year with Android, but looking back at how I spent yesterday debating if I was going to keep the GN with all its issues, I think I made the right call for me.
I also forgot how much better GSM is than CDMA. I have full bars in my office, whereas on Sprint and Verizon the phones were struggling to hold onto a 3G connection. Amazing difference.
Anyway, sorry to hijack the thread for a moment. I truly hope that this is an issue that can be fixed with software; it seems like poor reception has become a hallmark of Samsung phones and I haven't seen a software update yet that makes a notable difference. We'll see what Sammy and Verizon come up with.

i can understand the signal strength display not being accurate but explain this...
for one, the signal strength on this Nexus is always 1/2(or more) then what i had on my Thunderbolt or Rezound at any given time/place.... which apparently is explained above.
what isntvexplained is this... my Thunderbolt was able to download fast, but not nearly as fast as my Rezound. on the R, i was able to download 1GB in roughly 5 minutes. ive tried downloading the same file(s) from same location various times(test) on this Nexus and it always takes 30 - 40 minutes.
so if the signal strength isnt being reported accurately i can accept that.... but what about the significant difference in data speed?
i also want to note that on my Reound, whenever i played a track in Google Music it started up right away and could jump/skip forward in a track without delay...
now on this Nexus, theres always a delay before the track starts & when you jump/skip to. buffering b.s.

Your Rezound probably already had the music cached.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

You guys also have to keep in mind that the LTE network slows down the more people that use it. When it was first intro a year ago, it was STUPID fast. Like 50mb DOWN. I remember my Droid Charge hitting low 40's in May. Now that there is a plethora of phones that have LTE and a lot of people using it, the network will be slowed. It still beats the hell out of any other network.

I’m glad somebody posted this.
I did a little experiment in my office this morning with three Verizon LTE phones:
1) Samsung Charge
2) HTC T-Bolt
3) Samsung Galaxy Nexus
With all three phones laying side by side, I opened up the same “Network Signal” app. All three phones we ranging in the -85 to -100 dB strength. There was no phone that clearly had a better or worse signal.
However, the Samsung Charge was showing 4 out of 5 “bars”, the T-bolt had 3 of 5 while the Nexus has a whopping 1 out of 5 bars. Amusing since they we all reading between -95 and -90 dB at that moment.
One thing I noticed different though, is that the Nexus requires at least -85dB before it will connect to LTE. Anything less, it switches to CDMA. I can’t speak for the T-bolt, but I could have sworn I saw the Charge at -95 / -100 dB and still reporting LTE Net. Type.
So, food for thought. Hopefully this “update” that Verizon is working on isn’t anything more than a recalibration of the “bars” indicator.
-Gp

Grannypotts said:
I’m glad somebody posted this.
I did a little experiment in my office this morning with three Verizon LTE phones:
1) Samsung Charge
2) HTC T-Bolt
3) Samsung Galaxy Nexus
With all three phones laying side by side, I opened up the same “Network Signal” app. All three phones we ranging in the -85 to -100 dB strength. There was no phone that clearly had a better or worse signal.
However, the Samsung Charge was showing 4 out of 5 “bars”, the T-bolt had 3 of 5 while the Nexus has a whopping 1 out of 5 bars. Amusing since they we all reading between -95 and -90 dB at that moment.
One thing I noticed different though, is that the Nexus requires at least -85dB before it will connect to LTE. Anything less, it switches to CDMA. I can’t speak for the T-bolt, but I could have sworn I saw the Charge at -95 / -100 dB and still reporting LTE Net. Type.
So, food for thought. Hopefully this “update” that Verizon is working on isn’t anything more than a recalibration of the “bars” indicator.
-Gp
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There needs to be some kind of way to trick the OS into thinking it actually has the real signal so it will stop switching between 3G and 4G.

One thing I noticed different though, is that the Nexus requires at least -85dB before it will connect to LTE. Anything less, it switches to CDMA.
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I have -86dB with 3 4G bars as I write this. I know that's not much of a difference from the -85dB, but I thought I would just mention it. Also, I've had -93dB with 4 4G bars (no picture of that though).

Syn Ack said:
There needs to be some kind of way to trick the OS into thinking it actually has the real signal so it will stop switching between 3G and 4G.
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Click to collapse
My 30,000 foot uneducated view is simply that the calibrations for the Nexus require a stronger signal to both acquire and then maintain an LTE data connection. These calibrations probably could be tweaked, but at what cost? I suppose (assuming my theory is correct) the decision came down to a flaky 4G or a solid 3G... and Verizon chose the stronger connection over the faster one. Do you blame them?
However, when I do get a solid 4G connection... the speeds are stupid fast.
On my lunch break today:
30.6M down
15.7 up

Anyway to improve the signal on the nexus

First i switched to verizon from att and got a razr and i used to get full bars signal on it but i switched it for the nexus and now i only get one bar or two if im lucky
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pumasmedina7 said:
First i switched to verizon from att and got a razr and i used to get full bars signal on it but i switched it for the nexus and now i only get one bar or two if im lucky
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You can thank the people who complained their signal bar was reporting too strong. Seriously. (Well, that and the fact that Motorola has the best radios.)
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Just to support a fellow Gnex owner. I had a sony x10 and yeah, it definitely pulled in a signal much better than my Gnex.

you cant compare motorola radios to samsung. Moto makes the best radio on a phone with the exception of blackberry while samsung makes one of the worst. But i find that samsung has improved since the captivate. This is the only thing i really missed about my Atrix.

Combination of 3 things here.
1) The signal displayed on the Galaxy Nexus is the actual signal strength, whereas the RAZR likes to be generous with holding onto signal bars and over-display your actual strength.
2) On the Galaxy Nexus, when connected to LTE, the signal bars show your actual LTE signal strength (as reported by the phone settings). The RAZR will show your 3G signal strength in bars, even when connected to LTE. The best way to compare signals between the two is look at the Settings > About phone > Status, and compare specific dBm's.
3) The RAZR (and most Moto phones, honestly) just have better radio hardware. They blow Samsung out of the water.

do you have any connectivity issues? dropped calls? low data speeds?
if not then why do you even care how many bars you have? would you be happier if it always displayed full bars no matter what??
Different manufacturers use different algorithm to determine the graphical representation of signal strength in dbm. The actual performance is what matters.
If you do have problems then it might be your radio. What radio are you using right now?

ArmanUV said:
do you have any connectivity issues? dropped calls? low data speeds?
if not then why do you even care how many bars you have? would you be happier if it always displayed full bars no matter what??
Different manufacturers use different algorithm to determine the graphical representation of signal strength in dbm. The actual performance is what matters.
If you do have problems then it might be your radio. What radio are you using right now?
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Yes to all your questions. Is a fact, the GN reception sucks. Places where you get 2 bars of LTE on any other phone, on the nexus you'll drop to 3G.
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Dxtra said:
Yes to all your questions. Is a fact, the GN reception sucks. Places where you get 2 bars of LTE on any other phone, on the nexus you'll drop to 3G.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
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I don't have cdma so I can't comment on that. my gsm gnexus has decent reception, dare I say better than my iphone 4.
Have you tried the new 4.0.4 radios?

Hi, recently i upgraded to Codename 1.4.0 -4.0.3 CDMA and noticed improvements... Phone has better signal strength and actually works faster after upgrade.
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Getting low signal on Gnex yakju

Getting only 2 signal bars on Galaxy Nexus on maguro yakju device. Is there a fix for this?

bump

Maybe you are in a bad reception area?
Swype'ed on my CM10 Galaxy Nexus

Nah I plugged it in the same place as my old phone. But my old phone is getting minimum 4 signals. What else could be the problem?

Mike556 said:
Nah I plugged it in the same place as my old phone. But my old phone is getting minimum 4 signals. What else could be the problem?
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you are comparing apples to oranges. Different phones display 'bars' at different signal levels. Also different phones have different radios etc etc. This is the nature of cell phones.

you need to look at the actual db levels. bars mean nothing.

Signal Strength- -91 dbm max with 4 bars
Usually it shows 2 bars only and sometimes no bars at all

Not sure what you are looking for, seems fine to me. Are you using a case on your phone? Some cases use a metallic color paint and this drastically reduces signal. Otherwise I'd say don't worry about it.

If you are rooted, go to the market and download the app GetRIL, then run it and match your RIL to your baseband, seems to help signal strength a bit, I constantly have 3-4 bars all the time.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

4.1.2 has fix Signal Bar Issue!!

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?

Radios on my GNex suck

Seems that my Radios on my Verizon GNex are getting worse. I can set the phone down on the table in my house and watch the signal go from 2 bars 4g to 1 bar 3g to no signal then to 1 bar 4g. My wife's Motorola RAZR has 3 bars 4g solid. I am really getting tired of this. The luster has faded. Don't really want to go to a RAZR and wondering if a S4 is any better.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Wasn't there a big debate on this before and signal bars mean nothing.
If you compare actual -db, you might find they aren't that different. Motorola has strong radios though I've heard.
This was a big ordeal back in the day where Verizon and At&t actually increase the bars display and also display 4G all the time, even when not.
So basically your phone may be accurate and your wife's is lying. Check -db and play with upgrading your radios.
Also you are supposed to update your roaming profiles on Verizon occasionally. I think its like **2424 or something. It downloads all the most recent tower information. Could be a new tower that your phone doesn't know about.
Lots to think about.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

^^^ Excellent reply!
Agreed, the only way to find the best radio for YOU is to play with them. Not everyone has the same experience with a particular one. It depends on the market you are in.
When we say play, we mean test it for a couple of days in routine situations not a 30 minute test to see if both your phone and your wife's phone retain the same amount of "bars". But even then, as player911 stated, bars are just a graphical representation of signal quality. Different phones have different thresholds for different representations. Inspect the Signal strength in About Phone -> Status. The lower the "dBm" the better your signal quality.