Hello Everyone,
I travel between the UK and Canada a lot (originally from UK, in Canada for school), and I purchased an HTC Radar last week while I was in England. I got back to Canada today and I've found my signal is *crap*.
I knew HSPA would be, understandably, garbage (due to the lack of frequency coverage) -- however, as I understood, I should at least have quality Edge (lol, as quality as that can be).
What I've found is that my signal is beyond abysmal -- this is the first phone I've purchased that's nearly unusable in Canada. As soon as I get into any building or otherwise, I'm out of signal. I've only got signal outside or near windows.
Is there anything that can be done? I'm here for another three weeks and I just brought this phone. lol
Thanks for looking...
Sorry, not really. Canada has just really poor coverage. EDGE speed is directly related to signal strenght unlike 3G or 3.5G.
If the phone is used in 2G mode, GPRS is suppose to be main (for talking and etc, coverage in Estonia 99%) and edge covering where able (in Estonia, thats about 75%). If in 3G then it is still not suppose to be main but also as EDGE used where able (in Estonia thats about 50%)
Related
Will it be able to at least connect to AT&T's EDGE network? It's for the wife and 3G doesnt matter. Edge would be nice though. I have an 8525 that I've done a lot to so I'm not a complete noob, but some general direction/help would be great.
What I'm working with:
I purchased a UK (orange) touch dual through ebay. It arrived this morning and I have already flashed the hard-spl and then flashed Tom Codons v2 rom. The first splash screen (orange) says "security unlocked" at the top ... does this mean it is super cid already?? I then ran the connection wizard setting everything for AT&T. With the default connection set to media net it would not connect or update weather from htc home or anything to i set it to my isp and it works; I can browse the internet, download weather from htc home, everything she needs to do on the phone.
The only thing I'm not sure about is at the top bar of the today screen, it shows a small G icon (data im assuming), and where the larger connection icon normally is I have an icon with 2 arrows and an x. Is something not fully functioning?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
It really depends on what bands ATT has in your local area. In my geography (central PA), there used to be legacy orange/blue ATT networks as Cingular and ATT merged years back, so we have pretty good overlapping coverage of 850/900 bands. In this area, 900 is pretty solid but it flips between G and E often.
If I drive to other regions though, such as northern Baltimore, MD, the coverage is much worse and there are miles of highway where I get no signal at all.
mskovrinskie said:
It really depends on what bands ATT has in your local area. In my geography (central PA), there used to be legacy orange/blue ATT networks as Cingular and ATT merged years back, so we have pretty good overlapping coverage of 850/900 bands. In this area, 900 is pretty solid but it flips between G and E often.
If I drive to other regions though, such as northern Baltimore, MD, the coverage is much worse and there are miles of highway where I get no signal at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like in a few months I'll switch her to t-mob, functioning enough for now though.
Thanks
The reason is I ask is because when the 900 comes to the US im debating on getting an unlocked version on Tmobile or switching to AT&T for the Lumia 900. The reason for the switch to AT&T is because of the iphone 4S users at my job can pull 3G in areas where I dont get reception at all. What gives? A guy that I work with gave up his Titan that he loved for a 4S just because he can pull 3G in areas his Titan cant where I work. I feel thats fair enough. So im wondering why the iphone can pull 3G in areas the Titan cant on the same service and wondering will the Lumia 900 give me the same reception service as the iphone S? Not sure if anybody is in the position to test this out.
I found the reception to be great my wife has a Mozart on same network as my lumia and I still have a couple of bars of 3g when she has lost all signal, is in underground shops.
Sent from my Lumia 800 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
that sounds good. hopefully when i get the lumia it works everywhere my co workers 4s works. I wonder why it varies between devices on the same network? KI hear that the 4s has a dual antenna and it depends on what material the phone is made out of. Is this true?
937dytboi said:
that sounds good. hopefully when i get the lumia it works everywhere my co workers 4s works. I wonder why it varies between devices on the same network? KI hear that the 4s has a dual antenna and it depends on what material the phone is made out of. Is this true?
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Click to collapse
No it's not true.
The fact is, Lumia 800 in theory supports 3g quad band (850,900,1900,2100 mhz) BUT only 900/1900/2100 are supported in current firmware releases.
You are getting signal from 1900 towers, an iphone 4s is getting signal also from 850 towers.
Titan, depending on version, may be in the same situation.
Lumia 900 will be, as HD7S, in an opposite situation: 850/900/1900, so it will work well in North and latin america and will not get good 3g signal in europe\asia\africa
You can get a good picture of the situation here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UMTS_networks
and here
http://www.cellularmaps.com/att_850_1900.shtml
Does the frequency determine if u can get reception in hard to get places such as all concrete/block building or in heavily insulated basements. At my job its hard for anybody to get a good reception but it's rare for anyone to get 3g besides these guys that have high end smartphones
Sent from my Venue Pro using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
937dytboi said:
Does the frequency determine if u can get reception in hard to get places such as all concrete/block building or in heavily insulated basements. At my job its hard for anybody to get a good reception but it's rare for anyone to get 3g besides these guys that have high end smartphones
Sent from my Venue Pro using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Quality of reception is determined by several factors:
1) Build quality of phone antenna and radio software
2) Distance from signaling tower. Different frequencies usually have different towers. Different hardware\software on the phone support different frequencies.
Of course good phones have good antennas (and lumia for example has a very good one), but if you read my links you will discover that in US you have a real mess in 3g umts phone frequencies comparing to the rest of the world and even between companies.
For example:
- T-mobile: 1700+2100
- At&t: 850+1900
- Verizon: totally different technology until they migrate to lte, however 1700 (that's the reason of manufacturers releasing few phones on this network and usually long after initial availability).
Mexico: 850 only
Latin america: like at&t, 850+1900
Australia: 850+2100
Rest of the world (europe, asia, oceania, africa, brazil): mainly 2100
So, antenna is important, frequency (and distance from tower) is even more important.
fshqbizfs said:
Quality of reception is determined by several factors:
1) Build quality of phone antenna and radio software
2) Distance from signaling tower. Different frequencies usually have different towers. Different hardware\software on the phone support different frequencies.
Of course good phones have good antennas (and lumia for example has a very good one), but if you read my links you will discover that in US you have a real mess in 3g umts phone frequencies comparing to the rest of the world and even between companies.
For example:
- T-mobile: 1700+2100
- At&t: 850+1900
- Verizon: totally different technology until they migrate to lte, however 1700 (that's the reason of manufacturers releasing few phones on this network and usually long after initial availability).
Mexico: 850 only
Latin america: like at&t, 850+1900
Australia: 850+2100
Rest of the world (europe, asia, oceania, africa, brazil): mainly 2100
So, antenna is important, frequency (and distance from tower) is even more important.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool thanks for the help, you really broke it down for me. As long as I hyave a good antenna in my phone, something better than this DVP on Tmobile in the Us, im good. Tmobile sucks in my area and im regretting getting their service. When I had ATT a few years back I didnt have much of a problem.
I just want something that can give me reception quality as close to the 4S in my area.
Hey guys,
I was looking around and there seemed to be a lot of confusion why their Photon's are only getting Edge when unlocked and on T-mobile, while others are getting 3G (some ROMs show an H (standing for HSPA+), because it's technically 4g - yes we can get this on our Photons because it's not WiMax). Here's a quick explanation, hopefully it'll help some people out. Oh, and a quick intro here: T-mobile markets their 3G as 4G because it's pretty fast in most areas. Anyway, our Photons look for 3G on the 1900 MHz range, which is a problem since T-mobile used to broadcast (and still does in many areas) on the 1700 MHz range. Recently, T-mobile started moving everything over to the 1900 MHz range, which makes our Photons happy.
What does that mean for us? If you live in an area where T-mobile has "refarmed" (moved frequencies), you will get 4G (again, displayed as an H or H+, depending on the ROM. I also noticed if the signal gets weak, it will show 3G. Kinda interesting). Otherwise, you will get only edge speeds (an E).
Good news: Yes, you will get 4G on your Photon on T-mobile very soon
Bad news: Some of us will have to wait until mid-2013
Hopefully this helps people out who were just curious or debating getting rid of their photon
You can view where T-mobile 4g will work on our phones here
My brand new GT-i9100 is barely usable. I've spent the last week wrestling with it (bought it new from ebay) to get it to work, but I'm at my wit's end. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Here's the problem:
My Galaxy S 2 (now rooted and currently running SlimRom) partially or completely loses cellular signal about 60% of the time, often in places where I know there is reception. I'm using Telus' network in Canada. It will lose data, lose ability to make or receive calls, and fail to send text messages. The indication of signal loss is not clear, IE it will say "emergency calls only", "no service available", or even say I have service but I really don't. However the cutting out seems to occur consistently depending on where I am located. For example I seem to get OK signal at my house, but zero at my friend's house. I know it's not the network in this case, since my friend is also on Telus and they get fine reception. I've done some testing and here are some possible causes that I can think of:
network cold spot - No, see example above. It also cuts out in urban populated areas where the signal is strong
phone compatibility - unlikely, since Bell offered the i9100M, which I'm led to believe is physically identical to the normal i9100, and Bell and Telus operate over the same frequencies. Also when it does get signal it can transmit data fine
SIM card - No. The first thing I did when I discovered this problem was get a new SIM card. Nothing changed
SlimRom - No. The phone was acting like this out of the box with the stock image.
Radio firmware - Unlikely. I've flashed at least 6 different firmwares, including KG6, KH3, LQ6, LP6, KI4, and even LD3, which I believe is the firmware the Canadian i9100-M ships with, so would logically work fine. The carrier for that was Bell, and I believe Bell and Telus operate on the same frequencies
a hardware defect in the design of the phone or the antenna itself - the last possible option I can think of. I hope it's not this, because then I would have to undo all the modifications I've done in an attempt to fix my phone, and pray the seller accepts the return
Please, if anyone could offer any assistance that would be great.
Telus frequencies:
2G
CDMA 850/1900
EVDO 850/1900
3G (and fake 4G)
HSDPA 850/1900
HSPA+ 850/1900
UMTS 850/1900
WCDMA 850/1900
1x EV-DO CDMA2000
4G (called 4G+)
LTE 1700/2100
Indoril said:
My brand new GT-i9100 is barely usable. I've spent the last week wrestling with it (bought it new from ebay) to get it to work, but I'm at my wit's end. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Here's the problem:
My Galaxy S 2 (now rooted and currently running SlimRom) partially or completely loses cellular signal about 60% of the time, often in places where I know there is reception. I'm using Telus' network in Canada. It will lose data, lose ability to make or receive calls, and fail to send text messages. The indication of signal loss is not clear, IE it will say "emergency calls only", "no service available", or even say I have service but I really don't. However the cutting out seems to occur consistently depending on where I am located. For example I seem to get OK signal at my house, but zero at my friend's house. I know it's not the network in this case, since my friend is also on Telus and they get fine reception. I've done some testing and here are some possible causes that I can think of:
network cold spot - No, see example above. It also cuts out in urban populated areas where the signal is strong
phone compatibility - unlikely, since Bell offered the i9100M, which I'm led to believe is physically identical to the normal i9100, and Bell and Telus operate over the same frequencies. Also when it does get signal it can transmit data fine
SIM card - No. The first thing I did when I discovered this problem was get a new SIM card. Nothing changed
SlimRom - No. The phone was acting like this out of the box with the stock image.
Radio firmware - Unlikely. I've flashed at least 6 different firmwares, including KG6, KH3, LQ6, LP6, KI4, and even LD3, which I believe is the firmware the Canadian i9100-M ships with, so would logically work fine. The carrier for that was Bell, and I believe Bell and Telus operate on the same frequencies
a hardware defect in the design of the phone or the antenna itself - the last possible option I can think of. I hope it's not this, because then I would have to undo all the modifications I've done in an attempt to fix my phone, and pray the seller accepts the return
Please, if anyone could offer any assistance that would be great.
Telus frequencies:
2G
CDMA 850/1900
EVDO 850/1900
3G (and fake 4G)
HSDPA 850/1900
HSPA+ 850/1900
UMTS 850/1900
WCDMA 850/1900
1x EV-DO CDMA2000
4G (called 4G+)
LTE 1700/2100
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well.. I think you got one of the Korean ones.. There is someone in China or Korea, or who knows maybe Samsung who is taking the SHW-M250S, a horrid Korean version of the S2 and changing the housing and software to make them look as the GT-I9100. Even the back labels say GT-I9100 and the software itself.. however, you can tell them apart because they are way lighter and very flimsy and also because the SIM Card tray is different from the one on the original GT-I9100.
So, I know it's very late but the problem is not you, is the phone. It might look brand new, but it is not compatible with networks in the US and many countries as Korea seems to use a different network standard. I was not able to get any data working on this model when I was in the Dominican Republic. I recently got a few of them in a lot of devices I bought for resale after I moved to the US and I couldn't get any of the 14 phones I got to connect to cellular. I decided to strip them off for parts.
Hi all,
I'm in the UK and on the EE network using their 4G, and the Speed 7 downloads stuff really fast when I'm out and about. 4G when it works is really amazing... sitting on a train watching read time HD video streaming without caching is definitely miles better than 3G and to me is a strong selling point of this phone.
However, EE in the UK do charge a lot for data so I have been experimenting with other providers. I now have Three, O2, and Vodaphone PAYG SIMs. None of them have any credit on them but that should be enough to check signal... and where I am at the moment, it is not too impressive, I'm not getting 4G reception from any of them except EE - the rest are giving me 3G. I do realise that with this phone, only your chosen data SIM will get 4G, and the one in the other SIM slot will only do GSM, so I did make sure that data was turned on in the right SIM if I was using two and turned on mobile data etc.
In theory, the speed seven should be perfect for the UK, it has Band 20, Band 7 and Band 3 which should cover all of these providers. Although there are radio utilities out there that are good on signal strength, I haven't found one that tells me what Band I am actually using on 4G. (so if you know...)
So, no matter where you are in the world, I'm interested to know what you're connecting to... what 4G provider do you use, and more importantly, what bands are they on? This would be for the 'International' version of this phone which has the B20/B7/B3 radio. My phone actually reports it is enabled for 4G B1, B2, B3, B4, B7, B17 and B20 but I think that may reflect the different radio modules that can be installed, not the real hardware situation.
thanks in advance!!
Hello,
I am waiting my speed 7, it will be deliver in the next days. But if you want to know what frequency you use, try to disable 2 of 3 bands in engineer setting.
I am from France, we have also the 3 bands Band 20, Band 7 and Band 3 used by french operator, with the 2600 mhz.
I hope, I will give you a feedback at the end of the week.
Kind regards.
Salut! The problem is half the providers in the UK sell 4G as a 'premium' service, so it appears unless I activate some of the SIMs (for a pile of money) then I won't be able to validate the specific 4G service they communicate in 3G first and then switch only for selected customers... who have paid.
I recently loaded up the 'Three' SIM with some credit(Hutchinson telecom - maybe it would be under that brand in France) and their 4G service seems to be fine as well. Maybe not as good as EE for coverage or speed, but certainly not too bad. 'Three' use Band 20 and Band 3 and EE use Band 7 as well, so that's not very conclusive... yet! I have also been running the phone in dual SIM mode, using both at once, and it works perfectly. You have to choose which SIM to use for each service, and it will (as any Chinese phone) be unable to run 4G at once on both, so you have to choose one of them for calls, one for data, and one for texts. That does not stop you getting incoming calls,texts etc on both lines etc (just sets the default for outgoing) It is a real novelty having that... and two signal strength meters!
I like your idea of turning off the bands in engineer mode, it is not obvious to me where to do that, so if you can point me in the right direction that would be great... I'm using the engineering mode tool...
PS I hope you like the phone! Now that the software is mostly fixed, I like it a lot, you need the latest OTA update to make it usable, so do run the wireless update wizard! Maybe not top quality hardware, but much cheaper, and has a good screen, good speed, big battery and 3Gb memory ... and of course the dual SIM! (Camera, GPS are a bit suspect)...
This might help:
http://www.att.com/travelguide/coverage/coverage_details.jsp?CIDL=1308&MNC=CING
http://www.sensorly.com/map/4G/GB/Great_Britain/O2/lte_23410#|coverage
Thanks... Bit out of date. The thing I am interested in knowing is how much truth is there in what the phone claims to do versus what it actually does
Sent from my ZP952 using XDA Free mobile app
Hello,
just a late feedback, but i have reached with speed test 65mb dl, 25 ul, in 4G , at frequency 2600 mhz , very well indeed.