Develop Bugs

how's T-mobile connection in Chicago Area?

Thinking about switching to T-mobile in the SW Suburbs of Chicago; I'm on wifi most of the time, so data speed isnt important to me, but, we MUST have good phone call quality in our house.
Is this an issue for anyone in chicago land, or, if we get a phone that is "wifi capable", and we have a fast,strong, wifi network in our house, does this become a non issue?
We had ATT, which was no problem in the house, and recently switched to Sprint, with the hopes of a stong "Spark Network" here; well, one of our phones in Spark compatible, and works fine, but the other 2 phones are HTC One's, not spark "compatible", and have poor phone call quality and reception in the house. We are waiting on an AirRave front Sprint, but, if that doesnt work, we're ready to go to T-Mobile..
Sorry for this weird question here, but, I trust my buds on XDA to give a real report on stuff like this, NOT the people from T-Mobile
Thanks! :good:

What town are you in? I have excellent call quality in Posen/Oak Forest/Orland Park/Crestwood area. And LTE when available is super solid. Seen a best of 39MBPS in Ookla App. I also had ATT until recently. I really can say, that I'm happy I made the switch. I also know many ppl who are on sprint and constantly suffer from dropped calls and data connection issues, my house is a sprint problem area as well btw.
Sent from my SM-N900T using XDA Premium HD app

I'm next to burr ridge/willowbrook, in an area called Timberlake.
My Sprint Airrave is supposed to be here tomorrow, and if it doesnt fix the problem, its tmobile and wifi calling for us!
We had Sprint for many years here, using an AirRave, and it was fine, but, a couple of years ago, their network went completely to hell, so we switched to ATT; after awhile, they were just bad to deal with, and Sprint announced this new Spark Network, in Chicago, so we thought, why not, its cheaper than ATT, and with this new network, it will be fine.
Problem is, if you dont have one of their 3 tri band phones,(which I have, but my wife/son do NOT), then making calls in some areas is horrible.
My wife works from home alot, and making calls for her is bad news, especially conference calls on Global Crossing, so if the Airrave, which uses wifi/internet to make calls, doesnt work, its t-mobile for us.
I understand that using wifi to make calls from you house with Tmobile is fantastic, and I have a great, Asus ac1900 wifi router in the house, which gives super fast and strong wifi, so I am sure that t-mobile wifi calls would be clear as a bell here!
thanks for the info :good:

wase4711 said:
I'm next to burr ridge/willowbrook, in an area called Timberlake.
My Sprint Airrave is supposed to be here tomorrow, and if it doesnt fix the problem, its tmobile and wifi calling for us!
We had Sprint for many years here, using an AirRave, and it was fine, but, a couple of years ago, their network went completely to hell, so we switched to ATT; after awhile, they were just bad to deal with, and Sprint announced this new Spark Network, in Chicago, so we thought, why not, its cheaper than ATT, and with this new network, it will be fine.
Problem is, if you dont have one of their 3 tri band phones,(which I have, but my wife/son do NOT), then making calls in some areas is horrible.
My wife works from home alot, and making calls for her is bad news, especially conference calls on Global Crossing, so if the Airrave, which uses wifi/internet to make calls, doesnt work, its t-mobile for us.
I understand that using wifi to make calls from you house with Tmobile is fantastic, and I have a great, Asus ac1900 wifi router in the house, which gives super fast and strong wifi, so I am sure that t-mobile wifi calls would be clear as a bell here!
thanks for the info :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I live in Joliet, and I get great service. Always connected to LTE, and never lose signal. I get spotty service in my apartment, but that may be because I'm on the bottom floor of a 3 story building. It doesn't bother me though because wifi calling works like a charm!

how's T-mobile connection in Chicago Area?

Thinking about switching to T-mobile in the SW Suburbs of Chicago; I'm on wifi most of the time, so data speed isnt important to me, but, we MUST have good phone call quality in our house.
Is this an issue for anyone in chicago land, or, if we get a phone that is "wifi capable", and we have a fast,strong, wifi network in our house, does this become a non issue?
We had ATT, which was no problem in the house, and recently switched to Sprint, with the hopes of a stong "Spark Network" here; well, one of our phones in Spark compatible, and works fine, but the other 2 phones are HTC One's, not spark "compatible", and have poor phone call quality and reception in the house. We are waiting on an AirRave front Sprint, but, if that doesnt work, we're ready to go to T-Mobile..
Sorry for this weird question here, but, I trust my buds on XDA to give a real report on stuff like this, NOT the people from T-Mobile
Thanks!:good:

wase4711 said:
Thinking about switching to T-mobile in the SW Suburbs of Chicago; I'm on wifi most of the time, so data speed isnt important to me, but, we MUST have good phone call quality in our house.
Is this an issue for anyone in chicago land, or, if we get a phone that is "wifi capable", and we have a fast,strong, wifi network in our house, does this become a non issue?
We had ATT, which was no problem in the house, and recently switched to Sprint, with the hopes of a stong "Spark Network" here; well, one of our phones in Spark compatible, and works fine, but the other 2 phones are HTC One's, not spark "compatible", and have poor phone call quality and reception in the house. We are waiting on an AirRave front Sprint, but, if that doesnt work, we're ready to go to T-Mobile..
Sorry for this weird question here, but, I trust my buds on XDA to give a real report on stuff like this, NOT the people from T-Mobile
Thanks!:good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
T-mobie has pretty solid service in chicago but if you are in the suburbs go with a wifi capable phone if you have prepaid as you cant roam on prepaid. With a wifi capable phone it wont be an issue.

that's what I thought; it looks like most of their high end phones are wifi capable, so that means perfect calls in a strong wifi house, right?
thanks again!

wase4711 said:
that's what I thought; it looks like most of their high end phones are wifi capable, so that means perfect calls in a strong wifi house, right?
thanks again!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All T-Mobile smartphones have WiFi calling, so yeah as long as you're in good WiFi coverage you should be ok.. Just keep in mind it cannot switch out of WiFi calling while you are in a call, so if you get out of range during a call in WiFi, it will drop
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk

thanks, thats understandable..

[Q] T-Mobile Simultaneous Voice and Data

Anyone else noticing that the G3 won't do data while on a call now? Stock, ROM or otherwise? Is it a T-Mobile thing or did they bork the M update?

I've had no problems.

No problem here either.

What are you talking about. Im on completely stock and absolutely can do data while using voice. If yours wont I'd be sending it in for repair or doing a warranty or something.

Testing...
This morning I did a test and it seems to be only in certain areas. So I think it's T-mobile.
I'll call them.

kingotch said:
This morning I did a test and it seems to be only in certain areas. So I think it's T-mobile.
I'll call them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem here

kingotch said:
This morning I did a test and it seems to be only in certain areas. So I think it's T-mobile.
I'll call them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The G3 does not support VoLTE, so it will drop to HSPA ("4G") when you make a call. It's very possible the HSPA network in the areas you are having issues is saturated or having data problems so your data feels broken. When you end the call and the phone goes back to LTE, your data comes back. Easy way to test would be to disable LTE and test your data. Then report to T-Mobile.

I lose data completely sometimes while on a call. Not even 2g or h+.

I'm in the same boat. Any idea how to fix?

[Q] Data service iffy on LTE - phone or Straight Talk issue

Hi,
I've been having data issues with my HTC ONE M8 on Straight Talk for the past couple of weeks. the data service for some reasons got really iffy. before everything was absolutely fine. now sometimes I cannot access data at all, sometimes something is working and something doesn't.
when the data doesn't work:
- most of websites are not reachable
- google.com seems to work normally
- google maps might work; sometimes very slow, sometimes not working at all
- ookla speedtest won't start, but if I set a fixed server it might work
- facebook.com might work in the browser but the app doesn't work
- refreshing the page seems to help
on WI-FI I have absolutely no problem. everything works fine.
phone and txt messages work without problems.
on 3G (HSDPA) everything seems to work fine. I see problems when on LTE.
anybody has the similar issues?? any suggestions?
many thank!!

I am having the exact same issue! So frustrating, I don't want to use 3g if we should be on "Full speed 4G LTE for up to 3GB"!
tried so many different APN's, no luck can't get over 2.5mbps with any of them

I would be happy with anything that works right now. the service is just NOT WORKING. I am paying for a service that doesn't work and that's not acceptable.
I opened a case with the help desk; useless. I was talking to people who don't understand the basic concepts of networking. made me add a proxy to the APN; no difference at all.
then I put a complain on Twitter and got some other people "helping" via email. at least they asked for the address of where I am always having problems; hopefully, they check out the service at the antenna. I think it's not a BTS (antenna) issue but something related to their proxy, firewall or network gateway since google.com works without problems!
I talked to a friend of mine who has StraightTalk as well and he said that he had the same issue last year!

I had the exact same issue with Net10 it is so annoying and unacceptable =(

Have you tried calling straight talk a call

U can try this from what I know ur phone gets chooses the strongest signal tower example u are around 3G tower it has a 9/10 signal and the 4g tower is a 6/10 strength it goes with the 3g hope this helps in ur dial pad dial *#*#4636#*#* then Phone Information....Scroll down a little bit to Set preferred network type. I was able to lock in LTE only doing this and gave me the fastest signal on my device hope with works for u. If u can post ur original settings before u change to lte option only on this post so u can always revert to ur original setting good luck.

SOEBOMB said:
U can try this from what I know ur phone gets chooses the strongest signal tower example u are around 3G tower it has a 9/10 signal and the 4g tower is a 6/10 strength it goes with the 3g hope this helps in ur dial pad dial *#*#4636#*#* then Phone Information....Scroll down a little bit to Set preferred network type. I was able to lock in LTE only doing this and gave me the fastest signal on my device hope with works for u. If u can post ur original settings before u change to lte option only on this post so u can always revert to ur original setting good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if I lock it to 3G it actually works well. I will try your suggested settings.
on another note I wonder if it's an issue with the phone radio implementation. my Nokia/Windows phone sees LTE very very slow but it doesn't stop working completely.

xmkgenzo said:
if I lock it to 3G it actually works well. I will try your suggested settings.
on another note I wonder if it's an issue with the phone radio implementation. my Nokia/Windows phone sees LTE very very slow but it doesn't stop working completely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm Idk but anything's worth a try what settings do u have it on already?

if I put it on GSM/WCDMA (so no LTE) data works fine in 3G.
and if I do a speed test in 3G it gets about 5Mbps in download vs 1, 2 or 3 Mbps when LTE works (ZERO otherwise)

The exact same thing started happening to me two or three weeks ago. More often than not, the LTE connection simply doesn't work, and when it does, it's excruciatingly slow (anywhere from 0.01 to 2.50 mpbs, and usually less than 1.00). Do you guys have AT&T or T-Mo sims? I'm starting to wonder if going to Cricket would solve the problem, but since I'm running an AT&T sim, I'm not sure if anything would change since it's on the same network.
Straight Talk support is worthless... they think a factory data reset will fix it, when it's clearly a network issue. I just told them to stop right there and started troubleshooting myself. That's a good tip about dialing *#*#4636#*#* and turning off LTE that way. It seems like that is where the issue lies - I'm having good luck with HSPA; it's slower than LTE should be, but at least it works. It'll do as a stopgap through the end of my billing cycle, at which point I can decide whether to go somewhere else or get by on HSPA until they fix whatever the problem is.

SOEBOMB said:
U can try this from what I know ur phone gets chooses the strongest signal tower example u are around 3G tower it has a 9/10 signal and the 4g tower is a 6/10 strength it goes with the 3g hope this helps in ur dial pad dial *#*#4636#*#* then Phone Information....Scroll down a little bit to Set preferred network type. I was able to lock in LTE only doing this and gave me the fastest signal on my device hope with works for u. If u can post ur original settings before u change to lte option only on this post so u can always revert to ur original setting good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
spinninbsod said:
Have you tried calling straight talk a call
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
tried and on pure LTE it simply doesn't work. the only way is to set GSM/WCDMA and it goes at 3G speeds but at least it works.
the funny part is that Google.com always works, whatsapp works, googleplay works. so it seems a problem with throttling or filtering to me.

spinninbsod said:
Have you tried calling straight talk a call
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes. completely incompetent. asked for a supervisor; no way to speak to one.
I posted on Twitter and ST got back to me asking to send them an email. I did. 10 different people sending me emails with conflicting actions.
insanely frustrating.

spinninbsod said:
Have you tried calling straight talk a call
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
bushpilotwannabe said:
The exact same thing started happening to me two or three weeks ago. More often than not, the LTE connection simply doesn't work, and when it does, it's excruciatingly slow (anywhere from 0.01 to 2.50 mpbs, and usually less than 1.00). Do you guys have AT&T or T-Mo sims? I'm starting to wonder if going to Cricket would solve the problem, but since I'm running an AT&T sim, I'm not sure if anything would change since it's on the same network.
Straight Talk support is worthless... they think a factory data reset will fix it, when it's clearly a network issue. I just told them to stop right there and started troubleshooting myself. That's a good tip about dialing *#*#4636#*#* and turning off LTE that way. It seems like that is where the issue lies - I'm having good luck with HSPA; it's slower than LTE should be, but at least it works. It'll do as a stopgap through the end of my billing cycle, at which point I can decide whether to go somewhere else or get by on HSPA until they fix whatever the problem is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have ST on AT&T.
a friend of mine with iPhone 6 down in Newport has no problems. he sent me screenshots of speed test at 15Mbps.
I really wonder if it's some radio firmware issue...

Ironically, I ran into something very like this too recently....I was on an at&t straighttalk sim...lte had been OK prior to me updating to 4.4.4. It was never spectacular, but it was, at least, lte speeds. After the update I noticed it had become really sketchy...just as described, pretty much; even when mine worked it was trash. 3g was much better and totally stable. I thought it might be the update, but long story short, it wasn't. I inserted a friend's sim from tmobile and got full lte with no issues.
Now, in my case, I had been using a shaved down microsim rather than a nano sim, so I thought, maybe that's the issue. I noticed when ordering the new one, the tmobile one actually said htc m8 compatible on the page(plus my friend's legit tmobile sim got good signal and lte so I thought that's a good basis for comparison). Got the new one, put my number on it, and voila! I'm getting on average 20mbps lte. And it's very consistent too. So now I'm on the tmobile straighttalk sim and everything is fine.
Anyways, it's only $7 with free overnight shipping, so that's something easy to try. This wouldn't be the first time a new sim fixed all sorts of weird data problems with straighttalk either. I've been on with them for several years now and this is probably my 4-5th sim I've had to get for various reasons.
So, anyways, your mileage may vary but that fixed it for me. Hope it helps.

gokun said:
Now, in my case, I had been using a shaved down microsim rather than a nano sim, so I thought, maybe that's the issue. I noticed when ordering the new one, the tmobile one actually said htc m8 compatible on the page(plus my friend's legit tmobile sim got good signal and lte so I thought that's a good basis for comparison). Got the new one, put my number on it, and voila! I'm getting on average 20mbps lte. And it's very consistent too. So now I'm on the tmobile straighttalk sim and everything is fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it seems ST on T-mobile is not having the same issues as ST on AT&T. the problem is that T-mobile coverage is not so good in my area.
I tried my phone in a different location (400 miles away) and had the same issues.

I've done some more testing.
it is really weird that Google.com works flawless while any other site seems not to work.
activating "save data usage" in Chrome seems to help. however it doesn't solve the problem. sometimes pages needs to be reloaded a few times.
even when LTE works, the OOKLA speed test gives me 2Mbps in dowload and 5-6Mbps in upload. so no matter what, I am better off with 3G.

I found an interesting thread here on XDA. I am not rooted at the moment and can't try.
<<
If you are rooted there is simple FIX, simple disable FD8 (Fast dormacy 8)
ro.ril.enable.r8fd=1
ro.ril.enable.pre_r8fd=1
Change both to =0 and issue will be fixed.
If your not rooted only fix is to keep HotSpot enabled than data connection wont break.
>>
I tried the hotspot trick but it doesn't work for me

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I just wanted to give a brief update. My LTE issues with Straight Talk went unresolved for about 6 weeks despite multiple conversations with customer service. I experienced this in Raleigh, NC, Greensboro, NC, and Virginia Beach, VA. Then for Thanksgiving, I went to New York City and New Jersey (the part just outside of Philly), where all data connections were unreliable. Yes, that means 2G, 3G, HSPA, and LTE were all spotty at best the entire time.
I ran out of patience after that, and since my billing cycle was ending on 12/4, I switched to Cricket when I got home. As soon as I popped in the Cricket sim card, everything started working flawlessly again. Cricket does limit you to 8 mbps down, but that's good enough for my purposes. The issue, if it's still going on, is with Straight Talk and not the phone.

Lollipop Fixed the Issue on my HTC M8
Hey all,
I've been following this thread as I too had issues with LTE on my HTC M8 using StraightTalk. When I first got my phone, it worked perfectly with LTE on ST. Then I ran the OS update that was released sometime near November. That's when I noticed the problems. I could run a search on Google but any webpage I would try to connect to would not load. The phone would hang and eventually time out. Your instructions to turn off LTE was great help. Pages load perfectly provided LTE is not used. I was getting really frustrated and you kept me from throwing my phone at a wall. Thanks for that.
So that brings me to this post. I updated my phone to Lollipop this morning. Thought I'd give turning LTE back on and bam.... works perfectly. I've been testing it all morning and so far, all pages load really fast. I will keep an eye on it for a while and post any updates but thought I pay it back a bit with the good news since you guys helped me.
Thanks again.
AC

thank you for sharing!!
trying to upgrade to Lollipop. unfortunately I am having an issue with the recovery (flashed from TWRP to a stock that doesn't work with the OTA and can't flash any other recovery -not sure what's wrong).
when I solve this issue and able to upgrade to Lollipop I will share my LTE test results

Signal Indicator Problem

Has anyone else been having a problem with their newly purchased Sprint S6 where the signal shows as 1 bar LTE on the s6 while other phones activated on sprint show better LTE signal at the same location? Even though the s6 and other phone's downloads speeds are the same, it always shows as 1, max 2 bars lte on the S6, although when placing a call the LTE indicator shows more bars for some reason. My family has two new S6's on our plan, and their both experiencing this issue. That and a few calls that didn't go through are making my dad freak out and wanna go back to his GS4.

pearsonpsh said:
Has anyone else been having a problem with their newly purchased Sprint S6 where the signal shows as 1 bar LTE on the s6 while other phones activated on sprint show better LTE signal at the same location? Even though the s6 and other phone's downloads speeds are the same, it always shows as 1, max 2 bars lte on the S6, although when placing a call the LTE indicator shows more bars for some reason. My family has two new S6's on our plan, and their both experiencing this issue. That and a few calls that didn't go through are making my dad freak out and wanna go back to his GS4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bars don't matter, what matters is Settings-->About Device-->Status--->Signal Strength.

I know, but I think there may be an error with the LTE indicator in the notification bar, and my dad says its driving him crazy.

pearsonpsh said:
I know, but I think there may be an error with the LTE indicator in the notification bar, and my dad says its driving him crazy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine is the same.

i have the same problem. i updated my prl and profile to see if it would help and it didn't. then contacted sprint and they did a manual provision refresh. that seemed to solve the problem for now.

Mine is at one damn bar of LTE everywhere... doesnt seem to affect my speed of data usage... its fast... but it does have to search for that signal allot...

OK I think I see what ya'll are saying now. Just curious, what's your software version, OCF?? Also, anyone got a good fix?

Same here, on OCF
I noticed that as soon as the call connects, the bars shoot up.

I also have this issue on OCF. Question, has anyone rooted OCF yet? If so, which method did you use?

I am in exactly the same boat. I just changed from the S4, and at work we tested our phones side by side an S4, S5, and S6 and mine was the worst. I had to turn my LTE totally off in order to do anything. Please tell me this is something that Samsung can fix because I love this phone and don't know what to do.

Ya know,, 2 days ago I did changed my mobile network settings from Automatic to lte/CDMA. ALSO DID run an PRL update a d such but my signal had great actually, and my battery actually has improved alot since the change. Very well could be an Radio issue. That's what I'm guessing it is

Is it me or does this phone have a issue with making calls example tons of dropped calls, or do I need to get another phone

Guys, Samsung knows about this.... Supposedly will be rolling out an OTA soon to fix it,

Lets hope so. I'm convinced all of this poor battery life is from the modem / signal.

JoeFCaputo113 said:
Guys, Samsung knows about this.... Supposedly will be rolling out an OTA soon to fix it,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was messing around if you just select CDMA you will not drop calls until a fix if you guys want to do that

The signal display mainly looks bad because it's a Tri Band phone. On your s4 it would display the voice strength even though you were connected to LTE. On the tri band phones it only connects to LTE, and the switches to voice when making or receiving calls that's why you see the signal jump up when making a call. LTE does not travel/penetrate as well as voice and CDMA, but good news is that it does not have too to get good speeds.
Check out an app called Signal Check. It's cool to actually see your real signal and it just some bars. It will also tell you what band of LTE you are on.

sethmcmichael said:
The signal display mainly looks bad because it's a Tri Band phone. On your s4 it would display the voice strength even though you were connected to LTE. On the tri band phones it only connects to LTE, and the switches to voice when making or receiving calls that's why you see the signal jump up when making a call. LTE does not travel/penetrate as well as voice and CDMA, but good news is that it does not have too to get good speeds.
Check out an app called Signal Check. It's cool to actually see your real signal and it just some bars. It will also tell you what band of LTE you are on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand that but doesn't help the people that are getting tons of dropped calls like myself

JoeFCaputo113 said:
Guys, Samsung knows about this.... Supposedly will be rolling out an OTA soon to fix it,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any info on a update I can't take all the dropped calls driving me crazy now

Even on OC9, we were experiencing the dropped calls. Finally, updated to OCF today, to see if it helped, but actually feel it may have gotten worse, seem to be experiencing more dropped calls.