Develop Bugs

[Q] Question about dbm

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.
View attachment 825746

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.
View attachment 825746
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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 :-(

[Q] Very poor signal

in my room my signal is always gprs or edge, i rarely do get either 3g or hspa, outside of my house, i get 3g and sometimes hspa, but i get only 2 bar of signal, it's really annoying, i don't know is it my phone or my carrier, but i think its my phone
in addition, sometimes my phone can't get an internet connection for no reason, im have an internet data but my phone just won't connect, the signal bar color changes into white

Carrier?
Data plan?
The right apn settings?

Do you have another phone to test?
Can't just point fingers on the phone or your carrier without concrete evidence.

Check the signal using any other phone in the same places to confirm if it is only your GNex suffering this poor signal or every phone around. Maybe the coverage of the 3G Tower is already poor in your place.
If you really confirm that it is your phone after trying what I suggested above, then it worths to mention the radio baseband you are using. You may also like to check this thread for a list of radio basebands
Regarding the white (or is it "grey"?) internet signal, this is related to whether you are connected to Google servers or not as far as I know. If connected then it is blue, otherwise, it is the other color.
Update: Oh guys you were faster than me although I started replying while no one did already

[Q] [Request] Signal bar hack.

Does anyone know how to have the bar indicator read HSPA even when I'm connected to LTE? To me, when I'm connected to LTE I could care less about signal strength because speed is all that matters. I prefer to know how my call would be, so I'd like the bars to read my HSPA signal and forget about the LTE strength. I like to know I'm connected to LTE but like i said, i could care less about what the LTE strength is. If anyone knows how or could point me in the right direction, that would be awesome if its possible. I've looked all over the place and couldn't find it, all the threads I've found tell you how to change the icons and such, which I've done. But this is something I do not know. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Harmtan2 said:
Does anyone know how to have the bar indicator read HSPA even when I'm connected to LTE? To me, when I'm connected to LTE I could care less about signal strength because speed is all that matters. I prefer to know how my call would be, so I'd like the bars to read my HSPA signal and forget about the LTE strength. I like to know I'm connected to LTE but like i said, i could care less about what the LTE strength is. If anyone knows how or could point me in the right direction, that would be awesome if its possible. I've looked all over the place and couldn't find it, all the threads I've found tell you how to change the icons and such, which I've done. But this is something I do not know. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
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Signal bars don't have anything to do with LTE. Unless I completely misread what you said.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk

Harmtan2 said:
Does anyone know how to have the bar indicator read HSPA even when I'm connected to LTE? To me, when I'm connected to LTE I could care less about signal strength because speed is all that matters. I prefer to know how my call would be, so I'd like the bars to read my HSPA signal and forget about the LTE strength. I like to know I'm connected to LTE but like i said, i could care less about what the LTE strength is. If anyone knows how or could point me in the right direction, that would be awesome if its possible. I've looked all over the place and couldn't find it, all the threads I've found tell you how to change the icons and such, which I've done. But this is something I do not know. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
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Reading this as you have written it, it sounds like you want to read the other car's spedometer on your dashboard and don't care what speed YOU are going at... (not very much of a useful report)............
It makes no sense and is most likely impossible due to the fact that the "strength" is read according to the frequency the radio is working.
Also, "Strength" is not the correct description of the signal bars shown, as it is a COMBINATION of available bandwidth as well as signal strength properties. You could be having a GOOD signal, but there are too many users in your cell service area so the bars are less of a quantity, but you still have service. It's too bad they didn't have a better way of showing that condition.....
Anyways, good luck and Aloha!

bobolinko said:
Reading this as you have written it, it sounds like you want to read the other car's spedometer on your dashboard and don't care what speed YOU are going at... (not very much of a useful report)............
It makes no sense and is most likely impossible due to the fact that the "strength" is read according to the frequency the radio is working.
Also, "Strength" is not the correct description of the signal bars shown, as it is a COMBINATION of available bandwidth as well as signal strength properties. You could be having a GOOD signal, but there are too many users in your cell service area so the bars are less of a quantity, but you still have service. It's too bad they didn't have a better way of showing that condition.....
Anyways, good luck and Aloha!
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I appreciate the response. The thing is, the bars haven't been consistent with speed. At one bar where I work, I pull down 15 Megs, when I go to lunch at the Mcdonalds I have 5 bars of LTE and pull 15 megs. Bars on HSPA also factor in Call quality where as LTE doesn't because you can't make calls on it. The phone has to stay connected to HSPA because of this, I basically want to be able to see my call strength before Make a call. I've read in certain phones especially on Verizon and other carriers especially, they manipulate the signal this way to make it look better. That's what I'm after in a nutshell.

Just change the data settings so that the phone only goes up to HSPA connections. Basically turn off LTE entirely.
That will always show HSPA strength in the status bar because it will always be connected at HSPA signal strength.

He wants lte. But does not care how strong the lte signal is. He only cares about being able to see the hsdpa connection strength.
With that said, if you have lte, you more than likely have full connection to hsdpa. I've forced hsdpa while in a one bar lte zone and hsdpa read full bars. So if your data connection says lte, 99.9 percent of the time you will have full hsdpa connection.
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elesbb said:
He wants lte. But does not care how strong the lte signal is. He only cares about being able to see the hsdpa connection strength.
With that said, if you have lte, you more than likely have full connection to hsdpa. I've forced hsdpa while in a one bar lte zone and hsdpa read full bars. So if your data connection says lte, 99.9 percent of the time you will have full hsdpa connection.
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If he wan'ts that then he can't have it. The radio can only connect to one signal type at a time. And the only way to know what the HSPA signal strength is would be to be connected to it so it can be monitored. So in any situation where it's possible to determine the HSPA signal strength, you can't be connected to LTE.
Unless you carry another phone around that's always connected to HSPA and use that as a refference, but that seems....dumb.

Skipjacks said:
If he wan'ts that then he can't have it. The radio can only connect to one signal type at a time. And the only way to know what the HSPA signal strength is would be to be connected to it so it can be monitored. So in any situation where it's possible to determine the HSPA signal strength, you can't be connected to LTE.
Unless you carry another phone around that's always connected to HSPA and use that as a refference, but that seems....dumb.
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I was just wondering if it was possible My question becomes, if it can only be connected to LTE and not both, how do I receive incoming calls cuz I know that they don't do calls over LTE yet cuz they haven't launched VOLTE. Unless you were a lucky Mtetro PCS Customer. Not trying to be a pain in the ass, legitimately curious.

Harmtan2 said:
I was just wondering if it was possible My question becomes, if it can only be connected to LTE and not both, how do I receive incoming calls cuz I know that they don't do calls over LTE yet cuz they haven't launched VOLTE. Unless you were a lucky Mtetro PCS Customer. Not trying to be a pain in the ass, legitimately curious.
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Your connection switches to hsdpa. If you set your connection to "lte only" calls will not work. So it switches before connecting. And about VOLTE, will we need a new phone for that to work or is it basically a T-Mobile side thing?
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[HELP] Still having signal issues

I'm on virgin 3.1.2 and I'm still habit the same issues. When I turn my screen back on after letting the phone sit for an hour I start getting every notification that should have came in when the screen was off. My phone says im on mk2 modem but I still only have 2 bars of lte like like I had on MDL. Also my bootloader says write protection enabled, is this stopping me from. Getting my modem flashed correctly?
Sent from my GT-I9505G using Tapatalk

PostMeridianLyf said:
I'm on virgin 3.1.2 and I'm still habit the same issues. When I turn my screen back on after letting the phone sit for an hour I start getting every notification that should have came in when the screen was off. My phone says im on mk2 modem but I still only have 2 bars of lte like like I had on MDL. Also my bootloader says write protection enabled, is this stopping me from. Getting my modem flashed correctly?
Sent from my GT-I9505G using Tapatalk
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Flashing of MDL wont magically make your signal better. Might help with consistency and other things, but it won't make your bars go up. With the new TW update on 4.4.2 samsung has manipulated the signal to make it look better, but you're not actually getting a better LTE signal, it's just telling you the bars of your HSPA signal to make it look better. As far as the MK2 vs MDL modem, it wont make your LTE signal boost either, it will just make your signal not drop so often. Signal has more to do with the tower distance and type of frequency its using than software on the phone. Hope this clears a couple things up for ya.

I get good speeds, just always only shows 2 bars. Sometimes I will watch it go from lte to 4g then 3g then the signals dissappear and I lose all signal for a few seconds. Then it comes back to lte.
Not worried about it now , tmobile sent me a replacement phone and even on stock it has the same signal.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk

Harmtan2 said:
With the new TW update on 4.4.2 samsung has manipulated the signal to make it look better, but you're not actually getting a better LTE signal, it's just telling you the bars of your HSPA signal to make it look better.
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I don't think its showing the hspa signal, I've had 3 hspa phones in about as many years and the number of bars showing is not the same like my other phones.. I'm not saying they didn't manipulate it because I tested it and compared dBm signal strength when i first updated to KK and its the same as I've always gotten, it just reports higher bars, my s3 shows 3 bars, my s4 5 bars, both on hspa and same exact dBm signal
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serio22 said:
I don't think its showing the hspa signal, I've had 3 hspa phones in about as many years and the number of bars showing is not the same like my other phones.. I'm not saying they didn't manipulate it because I tested it and compared dBm signal strength when i first updated to KK and its the same as I've always gotten, it just reports higher bars, my s3 shows 3 bars, my s4 5 bars, both on hspa and same exact dBm signal
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Depends on which HSPA signal it's reading. Sammy may have programmed it to read the 1900 signal rather than the 1700 signal which will report higher signal strength. I've compared the bars of one of the phones in the local store here in town, and the bars of the hspa coresponded with the dbm on the other phone when I forced it into wcdma only mode.

Weak antenna?

Seeing 4 bars of LTE signal strength on my phone is like seeing a unicorn.
I live in Upstate NY and I have the A705MN phone.
I have tried three different sim cards, all of them of course GSM compatible. The result is exactly the same among all three. I typically get 1 or 2 bars LTE.
My previous phones under the same carrier and same sim card were typically 4-5 bars. (The Wifi strength, BTW, is equal to what I've seen from my other phones.)
What can I do to improve the signal strength?
I've seen posts by those with S10's where they do something to disable specific bands. But I'm not sure how to do that on the A70 phone. I've tried the specific codes that were mentioned in threads for the S10, but those codes do not work on the A70.
Please help. As much as I like the Samsung otherwise, this factor might be the reason I return the phone.

Yes same problem here

106IFA said:
Seeing 4 or 5 bars of LTE signal strength on my phone is like seeing a unicorn.
I live in Upstate NY and I have the A705MN phone.
I have tried three different sim cards, all of them of course GSM compatible. The result is exactly the same among all three. I typically get 1-3 bars LTE.
My previous phones under the same carrier and same sim card were typically 4-5 bars. (The Wifi strength, BTW, is equal to what I've seen from my other phones.)
What can I do to improve the signal strength?
I've seen posts by those with S10's where they do something to disable specific bands. But I'm not sure how to do that on the A70 phone. I've tried the specific codes that were mentioned in threads for the S10, but those codes do not work on the A70.
Please help. As much as I like the Samsung otherwise, this factor might be the reason I return the phone.
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Try LTE only settings in settings>connections.

senseijtitus said:
Try LTE only settings in settings>connections.
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Thank you for the screenshots.
I edited the access point that I'm using and changed it to LTE. But then when I go to select network mode, I cannot chose LTE Only. That option does not show up. I have tried rebooting after editing and selecting the Access Point, and I still do not see that option.
I have tried using apps such as 4g Network Only and have switched to LTE only, but that change does not seem to make a difference or the network goes down altogether.
Any suggestions?

senseijtitus said:
Try LTE only settings in set5ings>connections.
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There was a post in the forum for using settings editor app to enable LTE only option. It will enable this option for both sims.

senseijtitus said:
There was a post in the forum for using settings editor app to enable LTE only option. It will enable this option for both sims.
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I haven't been able to do this or find what it is you're referring to. I've tried adding a few values through Settings editor apps. Values such as "hw_networkmode_preference" etc.
Doesn't work.
But besides, why would setting the connection to LTE only fix this problem? I don't see how this is not a herring.
Most of the times I am see 2 bars of strength. Every now and then I get 3 bars, and more frequently than that I get only 1 bar. 4 bars is quite rare.
The real problem with this antenna is that if I step inside a supermarket or bathroom then my connection is gone. If I'm traveling around the state of NY, in more remote areas, I'm sure I will not have a chance of any connection.
I would LOVE this phone if it had a better antenna. I can deal with the subpar fingerprint reader. Just give me a strong antenna like all of my previous phones and then I'd be a happy camper!
I decided not to return the phone so I am stuck with this phone.

106IFA said:
I haven't been able to do this or find what it is you're referring to. I've tried adding a few values through Settings editor apps. Values such as "hw_networkmode_preference" etc.
Doesn't work.
But besides, why would setting the connection to LTE only fix this problem? I don't see how this is not a herring.
Most of the times I am see 2 bars of strength. Every now and then I get 3 bars, and more frequently than that I get only 1 bar. 4 bars is quite rare.
The real problem with this antenna is that if I step inside a supermarket or bathroom then my connection is gone. If I'm traveling around the state of NY, in more remote areas, I'm sure I will not have a chance of any connection.
I would LOVE this phone if it had a better antenna. I can deal with the subpar fingerprint reader. Just give me a strong antenna like all of my previous phones and then I'd be a happy camper!
I decided not to return the phone so I am stuck with this phone.
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Setting the band to lte only would help in better reception even at low signal strength. One thing I had noticed in lte band is its consistency in connection speeds and call quality even with low signal. I think this is because of the high bandwidth of the lte signals. But I'm not an expert in it. Try changing the band to lte only. It should work better.

senseijtitus said:
Try LTE only settings in settings>connections.
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Where did get this theme and icons in screen shots ?

Maystro said:
Where did get this theme and icons in screen shots ?
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Bodhosativa theme from xda apps section.

senseijtitus said:
Setting the band to lte only would help in better reception even at low signal strength. One thing I had noticed in lte band is its consistency in connection speeds and call quality even with low signal. I think this is because of the high bandwidth of the lte signals. But I'm not an expert in it. Try changing the band to lte only. It should work better.
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But I'm trying to get better signal, rather than better reception with low signal.
There's got to be something wrong with my phone. It blacks out if I step inside a bathroom in a building and such and it's very rarely at 4 bars.

A thing I noticed. If I go and select 2g/3g only (switch off 4g lte) my signal reception instantly switches to full (4 bars) Usually I get around 2 bars with LTE active.
The strange part is that even with lte off I can still receive an lte 4g signal when outside..this is perfect for me as it means i have a really strong signal (reception) indoors but still have the benefit of 4G outside. I don't quite understand it tbh. I mean i have switched to "2g/3g only" yet i still see 4G pop up in the status bar on my commute, and it definitely receiving 4G speeds. I'm not sure if it's a bug or not but I kinda like it.

Con500 said:
A thing I noticed. If I go and select 2g/3g only (switch off 4g lte) my signal reception instantly switches to full (4 bars) Usually I get around 2 bars with LTE active.
The strange part is that even with lte off I can still receive an lte 4g signal when outside..this is perfect for me as it means i have a really strong signal (reception) indoors but still have the benefit of 4G outside. I don't quite understand it tbh. I mean i have switched to "2g/3g only" yet i still see 4G pop up in the status bar on my commute, and it definitely receiving 4G speeds. I'm not sure if it's a bug or not but I kinda like it.
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That's a terrific idea. Thank you for bringing that up.
I am implementing your suggesteion and it's nice to see 3-4 bars of strength again.
I don't need the fastest data connection. I just need a strong or secure basic data connection, since most of the time I'm not doing anything data intensive with my phone anyway when I"m away from a wifi connection.
But I'm not sure if my phone hops up to LTE at anytime.. I wish had the same "bug" that you do. I just started testing with your settings so I'll see if I can get it so that 3g is the preferred and basic network and 4g is the optional...

After another day, I'm back to LTE/3g/2g auto.
The general reception even for 3g or 2g is lower overall than what I saw from every other phone I have used. So in areas where I can expect to have a relatively low signal I get a particularly low signal for all bands, 4g, 3g, and 2g. That being the case, there's no practical difference if I cap my connection or not.
Samsung better warranty this phone. Does anyone know who I should call?

Since I bought my phone through an Ebay seller and the phone is West Carribean stock, not USA stock, which is where I am, I have no warranty on this phone.