I work at 270 and olive and drive after 8 pm south on 270 near Jefferson Barracks cemitary.
Every time I try to talk on the phone, people say I'm breaking up and they can't hear me. Every time. Other highways don't seem to be as bad.
I tried exchanging my phone thinking I had a bad antanae after restoring to factory, updating to latest release, and even updating my PRL. Nothing seemed to help.
Well my new phone does the EXACT SAME THING!
I don't remember having the same issues with my TP2.
And if it makes a difference, I have the Otterbox Defender.
Any ideas?
Anyone else traveling the same area with similar problems?
Related
I'm on T-Mobile USA (San Diego)... Been through 3 PPCs, 4 different radio stacks, and at least as many roms, and I am **lucky** to get 9600. It's painfully slow as the rule (typically 30-45 seconds to bring up a page with nothing but a 25KB image =~ 4500bps)... once in a great while I'll be shocked with speeds approaching 28.8 but it never lasts for even a day. =(
Repeated calls to TMO always lead to me being put through their series of troubleshooting, and end in no results. If I really push, they offer to replace my phone. (Which would explain why I'm on my 3rd one.) I was really hoping this latest update (4.01) would ease my suffering, but no... I still feel like I'm back in 1984 connecting from my Commodore 64 with a 300 Baud modem.
I can't even run bandwidthplace.com/speedtest, it times out!
Does ANYONE have any ideas?! I'm getting desperate , if it wasn't for my damn contract I would have bailed by now.
Sidenote -- Funny thing is, just last week, I put the latest ATT RS ROM on, and for about a day I was getting respectable speeds... then, bam... back to the T-mobile I've known and hated. Probably was just coincidence and TMO was having a good day as I had pretty much given up on GPRS prior to that.
Anyone else in SD area have similar (or dis-similar) results?
BTW, I'm not THAT new... been lurking here for months. =) Hello to all!
Hi ...
This is weird! ... thought you guys in the US should have the top of the line in technology and infrastructure than we have in here ... no envy, but I can get 61 KB/s after midnight
In my experience, the problem maybe in the TMO gateway to the internet cloude not the GPRS traffic speed itself. If u have a contact inside TMO, most propably they can do such test.
*228. update your towers.... I just switched to 3g... not sure if you are but if not give it a try.
Iowa went live with EVDO last Thursday, they have added a couple other small areas and are working to have 80% of their coverage area by end of the summer.
So constantly update your PRL at least a couple times a month.
BTC
EVOD
did you have problems receiving calls this weekend in Hybrid I'm in SE Iowa
I have mine set for Hybrid and had no problems that I know of, nobody said I missed any calls and had no sudden voicemails.
I hear they are still testing and won't be official until the 19th, so its possible you are in an area where they are doing range testing and could be dropping back and forth in which case it might drop your call.
BTC
i've noticed
BillThyCat said:
I have mine set for Hybrid and had no problems that I know of, nobody said I missed any calls and had no sudden voicemails.
I hear they are still testing and won't be official until the 19th, so its possible you are in an area where they are doing range testing and could be dropping back and forth in which case it might drop your call.
BTC
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ive actualy noticed a lot of missed calles... late texts and even a fantom text my fiance cent me that shows up atleast 5 times a day... really annoying....
but my biggest issue is hard handoffs. i travel alot and use my internet radio cause i keep switching stations and even end up in areas with no or poor am reception even... (gotta have my talk) but every time i cross over to a new tower it buffers and quite often looses connection all to gether.
For the last week or so I've noticed my dbm goes anywhere from -78 to -109. It doesn't appear to be a ROM issue (Aloysius, xtra sense, Kaos, TazzCyanFroyo), and I've flashed some radios to see if that fixes the problem.
I've tried the *#*#4636 trick, for some reason on the TazzCyanFroyo rom when I hit Select Radio, Get the force close, it kicks me out of the prog so I can't see if that option is still set to GSM.
I've also noticed my 3g kicks down to 1g. Frequently. I'm missing a ton of texts, and some of mine aren't going through. I dug around on here, but didn't exactly see anyone running as a high a dbm as I am.
Does this mean I have to unroot and drag my ass to Verizon?
As an additional, maybe useless piece of information- I live in Florida and the weather here is not usually ideal. It's been super rainy/wet/muddy here lately, could the yucky weather be a contribution? I'd LIKE to think my paying through the nose for their sub-par service means I wouldn't have to face issues like this, but I also know technology isn't impervious to forces of nature.
Thanks for your reply, folks. I *ask* that you don't flame me, but I also sort of expect it.
Possibly a PRL issue? I don't suppose you live in or around an area that was formerly Altell strong? You may need to have someone smart at Verizon tech support send you a hybrid so your phone looks for other towers that it wouldn't otherwise lock onto. I read about an issue like this and that was the solution. Seems to me it was even in Fla.
TheBadBen said:
Possibly a PRL issue? I don't suppose you live in or around an area that was formerly Altell strong? You may need to have someone smart at Verizon tech support send you a hybrid so your phone looks for other towers that it wouldn't otherwise lock onto. I read about an issue like this and that was the solution. Seems to me it was even in Fla.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's incredibly likely, but I never even knew about that. Originally I came from South Carolina where my signal was excellent, but when I moved down here I never bothered to get my number changed.
Is it a piece of hardware that perhaps does it, or is it an internal program?
Where exactly are you? If you did move into a divested market that was bought by Verizon then it could be causing problems.
MrObvious said:
Where exactly are you? If you did move into a divested market that was bought by Verizon then it could be causing problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A little north of Miami, in West Palm Beach.
lilly1185 said:
Is it a piece of hardware that perhaps does it, or is it an internal program?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not hardware at all. Purely software programming. Actually, if you haven't dialled *228 since you moved that may fix your problem. PRL stands for prefered roaming list(or something close to that). Basically it's the program that tells your phone's radio which signals to pick up if you can't find a strong Verizon signal. In some markets, especially ones where Verizon has squires towers rather than built them, the default programming may not be looking for those towers even if the signal is very strong.
Try dialling *228 and updating your roaming capabilities and if that doesn't work a call to Verizon should really help.
So shortly after the GS2 came out I bought it to upgrade my Atrix. Loved the phone, the speed, screen..etc...
Then the SR came out and being that I live in an LTE area, although on the fringe, I exchanged my GS2 for a SR. Loved the extra screen size of the SR, didn't notice any of the pixelation other people mentioned. LTE was fast when in a good coverage area, SMS and MMS even sent noticably faster. At first I didn't notice any lag on the SR, but after having it a week I started to noticed a little bit here and there.
But although I really loved the SR, there are a few things that killed it for me.
The biggest reason was all the APN issues people are having, which I was as well. Randomly whether on LTE or HSPA I would get web sites which didn't load, or even some of my apps which use data wouldn't be able to make a connection. Of course WiFi worked just fine, but the data issues over the network is what in the end made me take it back. I know it will eventually get corrected, being as I am sure it is just a routing issue on the APN which just needs to be sorted out on AT&T's end. But I just didn't want to deal with it for however long it was going to take for them to fix it. I also didn't really feel like being a beta tester for AT&T's experiments at this time.
Also I spend more time in non-LTE areas than I do in LTE coverage, and when at home which is LTE I am always on my WiFi.
The other issue is the lack of accessories for it. There just aren't any good cases out yet that I like for it, and I suspect you will see much more stuff for the GS2.
My original opinion on getting the SR was to be more future proof being as it's newer and LTE, but AT&T will probably drag their feet updating LTE coverage and by the time it is more wide spread, the GS3 or 4 will probably be out. I'll also be moving next year to an area which isn't even HSPA yet, so I'm sure it will be awhile before that area gets LTE.
So I ended up returning the SR and going back to the GS2. I do really miss the bigger screen though. .2 of an inch doesn't sound like a lot, but to me it was. The GS2 screen just "seems" much smaller. That's pretty much all I miss I guess, it just the bigger screen.
Anyone else in the similar boat or contemplating it? Chime in.
I have noticed a good amount of threads popping up with people talking about signal issues, 3g/4g issues, connection issues or phone issues.
I was wondering if we could find out what the common factor here was and what fixes everyone has been using. I know that some people got new sim cars, problem solved. Some people restored to a full stock image via odin, problem solved. Reflashing the stock radio, problem solved.
So has anyone had any other solutions, issues or any other info regarding signal issues or anything relating to that?
Been through this with the Nexus, S3 and S4
The solution is to buy a Motorola RAZR or iphone.
Things that do not work -
Upgrading to the newest version of Android
Updating the Radio
Changing it to CDMA only
Lifting one leg up, putting one hand on your head and pointing your other hand due north
Attaching a sticker antenna to the back
Using some custom baked firmware
Reading posts from people who claimed they've solved the problem.
Using Bluetooth
Not using Bluetooth
Buying a special case
You can get a femtocell repeater if you are in an office or home where you get little reception but it won't help you on the road or just visiting a friend unless you want to set it up every place you are stationary.
In the end trying to fix the radio design flaw with a firmware update is about as useful as trying to fix a shattered TV screen by adjusting the brightness setting. If you read the radio issues on the Verizon Nexus and the Verizon S3 there are a lot of people claiming they solved it but in the end it still sucks.
I have zero issues with data on my s4 I'm on the east coast running clean rom 1.6.5 solid LTE everywhere..
boe said:
The solution is to buy a Motorola RAZR or iphone.
Things that do not work -
Upgrading to the newest version of Android
Updating the Radio
Changing it to CDMA only
Lifting one leg up, putting one hand on your head and pointing your other hand due north
Attaching a sticker antenna to the back
Using some custom baked firmware
Reading posts from people who claimed they've solved the problem.
Using Bluetooth
Not using Bluetooth
Buying a special case
You can get a femtocell repeater if you are in an office or home where you get little reception but it won't help you on the road or just visiting a friend unless you want to set it up every place you are stationary.
In the end trying to fix the radio design flaw with a firmware update is about as useful as trying to fix a shattered TV screen by adjusting the brightness setting. If you read the radio issues on the Verizon Nexus and the Verizon S3 there are a lot of people claiming they solved it but in the end it still sucks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately this is very true, every other VZW Non-Samsung phone I've had hasn't exhibited this issue.
Motorola and Apple have had their share of radio/antenna issues as well.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
I'm not really talking about comparing the signals to the iPhone or anything. I'm talking about finding a common denominator for the group of people that are suffering from signal, connectivity or phone loss on the s4.
dougmod said:
I'm not really talking about comparing the signals to the iPhone or anything. I'm talking about finding a common denominator for the group of people that are suffering from signal, connectivity or phone loss on the s4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Trying to tie it all together with a common denominator is a logical fallacy. It would be akin to trying to find a common denominator for everyone in the world that has a chronic cough. The causal factor varies from case to case.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
dougmod said:
I'm not really talking about comparing the signals to the iPhone or anything. I'm talking about finding a common denominator for the group of people that are suffering from signal, connectivity or phone loss on the s4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The common denominator is we are on Verizon and have Samsung phones. If you want to go further, you could do a subset intersect and see we have the S4 on Verizon. It's like saying what is a common denominator for those people who have safety issues with the Chevy Corvair. It is a design flaw that only could be fixed by replacing the phone with a different model. Trust me, I went down this path with the Nexus and the S3 - magical firmware updates were dangled by fanboys saying they would come and fix the issue but the firmware updates came but they never fixed the issue.
If you want better signal, you could buy a different phone or get a femtocell repeater. TRUST me, I would love a magic bullet to fix the issue but there isn't one. On the plus side you'll get a ton of helpful posts from people saying they never have issues or you must be doing something wrong.
I dont know what is up with all ur phones, but my signal is much better than my old Galaxy Nexus/RAZR M. I am getting 2-3 more bars of 4G at work. At home it use to be only 3G, but now im getting at least 2 bars of 4G. I don't even turn on my WiFi anymore at home or work.
bars dont really mean much...
i have had some odd issues where i will be in home depot or grocery store trying to look something up and it will fail; market doesnt work, browser doesnt work. phone calls and texts (over gvoice so data) wont work.
the razM i had before this was solid. my GF still has the razrM and we were at grocery store other day and if you went the their app there was a coupon to add and the s4 was refusing all data again.
i had similar issues with an old HTC Dinc2 and it was then i started using an app "restart connections" to get data back but it doesnt fix the issue on the s4 i have. if i reboot the phone data comes back.
i have also twice now went to use gmaps and it it attempts to look up an address for 3-5 min and i finally restart the phone and go back in and find the address ASAP after reboot.
something funky is going on and i havent taken the time to try and look at syslogs yet...
i am running the stock MDK rom (rooted) on VZW
reception is odd
matt1733 said:
I have zero issues with data on my s4 I'm on the east coast running clean rom 1.6.5 solid LTE everywhere..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm in a difficult reception area in the middle of manhattan. Funny thing is that I almost always have 4G - even in my house. At the same time, I never have more than two bars of signal in my house. I have occasionally had trouble making calls (I think the tower I'm reaching is too busy), but once connected, no one has complained and dropped calls are rare.
I don't understand this and don't know whether to complain or not because although there are almost no bars, there is reception that is pretty good. So I've left well enough alone.
This phone gets decent reception for me. Dropping from 4g to 3g is new for me after coming from an htc rezound though. My rez NEVER dropped 4g in my city anywhere. Guess radios is the one thing htc can do right. My s4 drops to 3g in multiple areas sometimes. Hopefully Samsung keeps getting better with their radios and they'll have me as a customer for more years of they do
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2
trekuhl said:
bars dont really mean much...
i have had some odd issues where i will be in home depot or grocery store trying to look something up and it will fail; market doesnt work, browser doesnt work. phone calls and texts (over gvoice so data) wont work.
the razM i had before this was solid. my GF still has the razrM and we were at grocery store other day and if you went the their app there was a coupon to add and the s4 was refusing all data again.
i had similar issues with an old HTC Dinc2 and it was then i started using an app "restart connections" to get data back but it doesnt fix the issue on the s4 i have. if i reboot the phone data comes back.
i have also twice now went to use gmaps and it it attempts to look up an address for 3-5 min and i finally restart the phone and go back in and find the address ASAP after reboot.
something funky is going on and i havent taken the time to try and look at syslogs yet...
i am running the stock MDK rom (rooted) on VZW
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is basically the same issue I have. Only a reboot/data toggle won't fix it. I had two bars(not that it means much, I didn't look at the db) and it kept saying it was communicating with the tower via the green/red up/down indicators, but I couldn't access any data services. I moved my car approximately 500 yards to the south and viola, data again. I don't get why I could make a call, but I couldn't access data.
That being said, it's still better than my Gnex for....well...everything. But I would say worse than my Rezound, Bionic.
i ended up flashing the modem with the ME7 version, while keeping the rest of the ROM on the original MDK. that was about amonth ago and i think ive only had to reboot 1-2 times because of data drop.