Related
Have been having issues here in NE MA with horrible 3g, GPS dropping too often and a bad phone signal to the point of not being able to make or receive calls in areas that are marginal...but areas where my EVO always showed 2 bars and worked fine.
In what I would call "strong" signal areas, still had GPS and 3G issues no matter what. What I found with the phone signal is that in these areas, mit works fine, although it fluctuates every few seconds from a full set of bars, to 2 or 0 and then jumps back up again....constantly.
In the "marginal signal" areas where my EVO 4G worked fine and always showed 2 bars, the 3D shows none and won't make or receive a call. What is most perplexing is that even though it is set to "automatic" on the networks, it is not roaming to Verizon...and my buddy taking the ride with me had a full boat signal on his Verizon phone.
I was totally unable to get on the internet in these areas, although I could still send a text.
I don't get it???
Sprint re-provisioned the phone twice, and today a service center wiped and reloaded everything and also claims to have installed a "fifth update" which my phone never got.
My tests were done post upgrade and it did NOTHING to fix these issues.
With your fifth update did you check to see if you had S-OFF? lol
I just sent a reply back to HTC regarding Bluetooth and Roaming data issues and GPS issues... I await their response... However, I may be returning it and going to some other device.
I've found my old Evo3D, and the exchanged one to show 0 bars in places the Evo4G showed 2-3 bars. For the first time in my life, thanks to the Evo3D, I've had a dropped call, and it was in a place the Evo4G gets 2 bars and perfect voice.
Yeah, today at work I missed 3 calls and couldn't read XDA in the bathroom. That was the final straw. I reactivated my 4G, did some tests...and...well...the 3D has gone back home. Perhaps just for now. The 3G radio on that thing sucks. Maybe a radio update will fix it, but I'm not so sure.
Since I'm impatient and have kinda decided to go the Nexus rout from now on I stopped by the sprint store afterwards and did some signal tests with the NexusS4G--which has known 3G reception issues. Well, it had identical bars...that was a good sign, so I dug in a little deeper and it had nearly identical reception as my E4G.
The .3" of screen size will be missed, and it'll be hard to get used to the light weight...but I think tomorrow I'm gunna buy it. Sure, no SD slot, but, 16gb should be pretty damned good...I never did replace my 8gb card, though I did bump the limit a lot. I'm also sure the camera is way better...
...or I'll just wait for the SGS2. I'm not so antsy to get a new phone now after anticipating one so hard and being mostly disappointed. It's funny, the one thing I was the most critical of beforehand ended up being the only thing I'll really miss...the 3D. Lol to that.
Unfortunately I did a stupid thing and traded my EVO 4G in when I "upgraded" to the 3D.
I tried to get Sprint to do a swap....take back the 3D, take away the $150 trade in credit and give me a new or used EVO 4G for the time being and they absolutely refuse to do it without using up my upgrade to get back what I traded in.
Looks like will deal with this phone and return it on day 29, activate my BB Tour (YUCK) and live with that till something reliable comes out hopefully at the end of July or more likely in August.
This sucks.
I am having nearly similar issues. I am dropping calls in area's that have 4-5 bars. I look and when it reconnects it will be down to 0 signal and then back up 4-6 bars. Really odd.
Sad thing is I am coming from ATT and I only have till early next week to decide to stay with sprint or not.
Ohh decisions... not fun and not a good sprint evaluation.
Yeah, I really hope this is something that they can tweak with a radio update. My old Hero got a lot better reception than my Evo 3D.
w9sig said:
I am having nearly similar issues. I am dropping calls in area's that have 4-5 bars. I look and when it reconnects it will be down to 0 signal and then back up 4-6 bars. Really odd.
Sad thing is I am coming from ATT and I only have till early next week to decide to stay with sprint or not.
Ohh decisions... not fun and not a good sprint evaluation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can assure you it is not Sprint...it's the phone. I had the same/similar with my 3D...but never with the 4G.
Download Open Signal Maps. It will show you what tower you're connected to. I noticed something similar with my phone (the signal bars fluctuating). I checked Open Signal and lo-and-behold, my phone was tower jumping between 5 different towers in my area... I didn't even know I had 5 different towers in my area.
Ideally, your phone should lock on to the strongest signal in your area and not jump from strong signal to weak signal to slightly-less-weak signal, to strong again... Also, check out this thread:
http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-3d/361044-official-solution-3g-issues-3d.html
This problem doesn't affect everybody. For instance, my brother got a 3d the same day I did, and he's consistently getting 500-700 kbs d/l in the same places I'm getting 11 kbs d/l.
ballr4lyf said:
Download Open Signal Maps. It will show you what tower you're connected to. I noticed something similar with my phone (the signal bars fluctuating). I checked Open Signal and lo-and-behold, my phone was tower jumping between 5 different towers in my area... I didn't even know I had 5 different towers in my area.
Ideally, your phone should lock on to the strongest signal in your area and not jump from strong signal to weak signal to slightly-less-weak signal, to strong again... Also, check out this thread:
http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-3d/361044-official-solution-3g-issues-3d.html
This problem doesn't affect everybody. For instance, my brother got a 3d the same day I did, and he's consistently getting 500-700 kbs d/l in the same places I'm getting 11 kbs d/l.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do ##786# (or 768, not sure). Then click menu key and due a reset. This will also factory reset your device unfortunately. But I was having eh same problems, getting horrid 3gs speeds of around 50 kps. Once I did this my evo3d is constantly getting better 3g speeds than the 4 other evos in my family.
For some reason a lot of the evo 3d did not get the data set up right on one end or another. This seems to fix it.
Looking at that link now. Yes I've had open signal maps installed and I too have noticed that I am jumping between towers "a lot" say every 10-15 seconds or so. And that can be just sitting still in a parking lot and dropping calls :-( Will take a look and glad to hear that it is more with the phone than the actual network. I may have to downgrade to the 4G or NS4G.
BlueGoldAce said:
Do ##786# (or 768, not sure). Then click menu key and due a reset. This will also factory reset your device unfortunately. But I was having eh same problems, getting horrid 3gs speeds of around 50 kps. Once I did this my evo3d is constantly getting better 3g speeds than the 4 other evos in my family.
For some reason a lot of the evo 3d did not get the data set up right on one end or another. This seems to fix it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anybody confirm that this works? My girlfriend's 3D gets a lot worse signal than mine. I'd definitely try this but only if it might actually work. She really doesn't like the factory resets because she has to redo all of her preferences.
Her's is so much more worse than mine that we've been thinking about getting it replaced.
BlueGoldAce said:
Do ##786# (or 768, not sure). Then click menu key and due a reset. This will also factory reset your device unfortunately. But I was having eh same problems, getting horrid 3gs speeds of around 50 kps. Once I did this my evo3d is constantly getting better 3g speeds than the 4 other evos in my family.
For some reason a lot of the evo 3d did not get the data set up right on one end or another. This seems to fix it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
##786# will do a factory reset on your phone. ##72786# will do a "Data Only" reset (i.e. you don't lose any installed apps). I would try that before ##786#. You will need your MSL for both. I have done both. Unfortunately, in my case, the 3g improved for only a couple of hours and then it went back to tower jumping both times. I now have an appointment with the sprint store to replace my 3d later this evening.
do this guys... http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1153371&referrerid=1002610
xanadu1979 said:
Anybody confirm that this works? My girlfriend's 3D gets a lot worse signal than mine. I'd definitely try this but only if it might actually work. She really doesn't like the factory resets because she has to redo all of her preferences.
Her's is so much more worse than mine that we've been thinking about getting it replaced.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
#786## worked to fix my 3G speeds. I was consistently getting under 100 Kbps up and down before walking through this procedure with Sprint a week ago. Since then, latency has gone down and speeds have improved significantly.
It did not fix persistent problems with GPS not locking and having poor signal reception compared to the 4G. Between these issues, overheating and the locked bootloader, I am pretty close to returning this phone (although I like most other aspects of it).
Looks as though the Photon 4G cleared the FCC today.
I think I will live with the 3d a bit longer just in case they come out with some miraculous software fix, otherwise return it, activate the BB until the Photon comes out.
Hopefully, for where I live and work at least it will have much better reception.
That's strange that a few of you guys have had every issue that was reported in some of those awful reviews. I've actually found my 3D has the exact same signal as the 4G sitting right next to it. It also recognizes changes in signal faster than the 4G. I must have been lucky to get one with no issues.
My EVO 3d is straight out of a snoop dog song, my calls are droppin like their hot!
My 4G never did this crap!
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA App
I'm sorry to hear that from you guys.. My experience is the opposite, I'm getting 6 bars in my basement which I used to get 2-3 and I can always stay connected to 4g in the upper parts of my house when my 4g could not..
Irishman42 said:
That's strange that a few of you guys have had every issue that was reported in some of those awful reviews. I've actually found my 3D has the exact same signal as the 4G sitting right next to it. It also recognizes changes in signal faster than the 4G. I must have been lucky to get one with no issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't believe that there is anything wrong with the phone itself, however I do believe that there was a bad batch of radios installed on some of the 3vo's. Like I said, my brother's 3vo is working just fine while mine seems to be a lemon.
I have been happily using my UK version of the Galaxy S2 on AT&T for over a month. But I have a weird problem that AT&T claims is because I have a UK phone.
I live in an area with very few cell towers. When something goes wrong with one of those towers and AT&T says it is in degraded status, my phone continues to connect to that tower just because it is the strongest signal. AT&T claims that they send updates to our phones which would prevent connecting to a degraded tower. They also tell m that because I didn't purchase my phone thru AT&T and it is a UK phone, they can't send me those updates and therefore, my problem continues.
Has anyone else seen this issue or have a workaround? Is AT&T full of bs?
i think they are full of bs because an att rep told me that there is no way to get my phone to connect to another tower that the phone will select the strongest signal by default, oh good luck getting att to fix your degraded tower the one by my house has been degraded foor 2 weeks now with no fix in sight or even an attempt to fix it. every time i call in i get the same run around bs gives me about there are alot of degraded towers in pa due to the flood and we are working hard to restore them.
voltmeter101 said:
i think they are full of bs because an att rep told me that there is no way to get my phone to connect to another tower that the phone will select the strongest signal by default, oh good luck getting att to fix your degraded tower the one by my house has been degraded foor 2 weeks now with no fix in sight or even an attempt to fix it. every time i call in i get the same run around bs gives me about there are alot of degraded towers in pa due to the flood and we are working hard to restore them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know the feeling. I live in Oregon in a very rural area mostly farmland and forest. Most likely the only people that use the towers I use are people driving thru the area which aren't going to complain, me, and 10-20 houses with people that probably won't bother complaining. Many of them use landlines or are verizon customers. So it is very difficult to get AT&T to care enough to look into it.
I work for an At&t dealer and I would try calling back a couple times and see if you can get a different answer. I would ask them to "Refresh the service to your phone because..." I know they push updates out to the phones but I'm pretty sure all it does is disconnet and reconnect the phone which will then find the tower with the good signal. It sounds partially true what you were told but i can't say 100% cause i'm no cell tower tech.
I got the Motorola Photon last week because it was only $99 dollars which is an amazing price for this amazing phone. I was going to get the LG Marquee because it was a 3G only device I believe and last time I got a droid from sprint they had the $10 dollar surcharge for premium data only for 4G capable device, regardless of the fact that there is no 4G in my area. Needless to say I read recently that Sprint is going to be shutting down or re-purposing their Wimax towers and moving to LTE, I think this is a great idea, but my question is, will my Photon be able to use LTE when it is available or will I have to get a new phone when they switch to LTE? Compared to Verizon, the data connection is a joke. Its very slow, luckily when Im at school they have wireless N wifi, and at home I have wifi. I would like to eventually not have to use wifi and be able to do stuff as simple as searching the market without having to wait 5-10 seconds for a page to come up. I used that 3G supercharger, and it is better then it was, but randomly drops the connection and goes to roaming now, that doesn't really matter though. Another comment I have on the Photon, is the phenomenal battery life. I didn't update my phone with the leaked software that was suppose to fix some battery issues, but I don't have any. I easily go 14 hours a day using it as an mp3 player, etc, and usually have around 60% battery power left then it takes like less then an hour to fully charge. Call quality and reception is about a million times better then my Samsung transform. Motorola has made me a believer in good phones. I'll never purchase another Samsung cell phone again, that's for sure. The only thing that could make this phone better would be LTE.
Welcome to the club. There's several threads on LTE, so check those out but there's no conclusive answer that I've seen. Battery life and reception are great with this phone so if you ever do have a problem, look for a rogue app.
Lol The club. I like that. Anywho I was looking around in the mophos build.prop file and it actually said some stuff about LTE, thats pretty cool. Maybe this phone is already prepared to switch to LTE in a future system update.
I think(read: I'm uncertain if)the Photon has the necessary 800mhz radio in it for sprints future rollouts(rev. a, rev. b, 1xAdvanced or whatever is gonna use it).
I'm actually trying to determine this as well, for certain, since this phone has amazing radios in it as far as the reception is concerned. I dont care too much about the LTE radio but I'd like to be able to use the revised 3G band. I've been thinking of getting the Photon and moving away from my Nexus S 4G only because of what I've heard about its ability to pull down a signal.
HSPA+ is the minimum foundation for LTE so if sprint layered their network the Photon would work fine because that is the Gsm Transceiver it has.
Thats what I was thinking! Sprint just needs to HTFU and cut out wimax and give us the better LTE network. Lol I bet all the new samsung phones will be **** out of luck though! That will be hilarious when the new GSII's are useless! Samsung blows
so for over 5 years now iv been working in schools. iv been with sprint for 6+ years and iv always had a problem that when ever im at work within the thick walls of a school i get 0 to roaming service. iv delt it with for years now its what ever. i got the OG evo the day it came out and the signal was a little better.
I got my LTevo yesterday and i was thinking that maybe id get a little better service with the new phone. but to my disappointment i still have this problem...
is there anything i can do to kinda boost my signal for my phone? this is the ONLY issue i have with sprint and its always bugged me.
Warrior 3000 said:
so for over 5 years now iv been working in schools. iv been with sprint for 6+ years and iv always had a problem that when ever im at work within the thick walls of a school i get 0 to roaming service. iv delt it with for years now its what ever. i got the OG evo the day it came out and the signal was a little better.
I got my LTevo yesterday and i was thinking that maybe id get a little better service with the new phone. but to my disappointment i still have this problem...
is there anything i can do to kinda boost my signal for my phone? this is the ONLY issue i have with sprint and its always bugged me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Before re-upping for 2 more years, by now you should have known your coverage area sucks. Why would a new phone make your coverage area any better?
yeah i knowww but idk iv loved all the evos and sprint phones so i stuck with em =/
If the school will allow it you can get a box from sprint that basically is a mini tower that plugs into the internet. If you complain enough they sometimes give it for free. Be sure to pick an area (e.g. Home or something) that they claim DOES have coverage on their maps that your having a problem with. Otherwise they may do nothing.
When I see dead spots like that it's often all phones suffer from the same thing (both GSM and CDMA). Sometimes one might be slightly better than another and it can make the difference of it working or being useful.
I would not blame sprint if you get good signal outside the school. Some buildings can be tough on any service.
I'm in NW Indiana and the past week has been horrible....3g has been slower than normal and almost non existent. Anyone else in the area or is it just my phone?
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
I've had unusable phone service for 7 months. I'm now leaving Sprint this week. They have told me the towers are being upgraded for seven months. Now they say they're finished, and the service is no better. It's a joke how horrific it is. We fought them and are getting almost $500 in credits now for the terrible half-year we've had. That'll just about cover my early termination fee, haha. Good luck to you.
Sent from my EVO using xda app-developers app
im in a southwestern suburb of chicago and its been hell for 3 months now. dropped calls, missed texts, and even better is people don't get the pictures i send them. they just disappear... idk ive gotten the past 2 months free so i guess i can deal even tho they told me the 3 towers in my town getting upgraded would be done last month on the 7th... it amazes me how towns that were scheduled for completion a whole month after the ones in my town have been done for weeks and im still getting the shaft...
All of Chicago is nearly unusable. It won't get any better until early 2013 is my guess. I can't hold a call at all, and data is so slow I can't even stream Pandora. You're not alone. Sure, a few towers here and there have LTE but by and large the whole market is awful.
Sent from my EVO using xda app-developers app
it was bad by me SW burbs... for about 2 months... then they finished the NV upgrades in my area and I've noticed much faster 3G speeds... my wife's family in the west burbs are going through what we went through now... sounds like you are too... stick it out if you can... call sprint to try and get a credit... and soon enough hopefully we will be able to enjoy LTE... the few times I happened to be near a tower that was on the speeds were amazing and it gives me hope for sprint
Ok, I knew something strange was going on. I'm from NY, but I'm in the Chicago area quite often. I was driving across I-90 yesterday and when I got to Gary, IN, my phone kept bouncing back and forth from 3G to 1X. I knew something was wrong because I've driven through there many times in the past and would always get 4G LTE service. It was pretty much the same horrible service as I passed through Chicago... my phone even went into Roaming mode twice. I'm in La Grange, IL now and the service is pretty poor here too. I did receive full strength 4G LTE service while I was in Yorksville, IL last night and this morning, but my phone wouldn't hold the signal. I would be completely stationary and then the signal would disappear and go back to 3G. It was like Sprint was turning it on and off or something.
Really bad where I'm at. NW Chicago. But its especially bad at home. I can't receive calls at all when I'm home. Sometimes receive txts late
The reception of this thread is not good in general... gonna put it in Q and A where it should have been and it may get better reception...
dude i work at sprints largest 3rd party retailer. for the past 7 months, maybe since march, They tell us to tell you guys that there is maintenance on the towers. we have 10-20 new people come in a day asking why their phone sucks. As we speak, my phone has no data connection
I live in arlington heights, but my sister is in aurora. she complains as well... This is garbage
I can't even call people on sprint. Just says call can't be completed. But can call other cell phone users. Brought phone in and was told b.s. so close to buying out and going to a usable network.
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
cazman420 said:
I can't even call people on sprint. Just says call can't be completed. But can call other cell phone users. Brought phone in and was told b.s. so close to buying out and going to a usable network.
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did that recently and am so happy I did. Worth the money. Verizon has the new shared data plans, so it only costs me about $8 more per month. Completely worth it. Reliable phone signal everywhere I go, and blazing fast Internet everywhere too. I flip off Sprint every time I drive past one of their stores. They are liars and morons with terrible service right now in Chicago (has been since March).
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
I'm in Joliet and have called sprint more times in the last 7 months than I have in the previous ten years. For 6 and a half months it was "we are working on the towers, bear with us and you will be amazed at the new service and glad you stuck it out"
Well Joliet is officially "up and running' I have three towers within a two mile radius of my house, the closest being .07 tenths of a mile a way. Guess who still dont have reliable 4G?! Last night it was on but I had 256kbps down and 2.5m up. Today I called them while I was literally sitting underneath the tower. I had no 4G on my LTE phone and my wifes evo was in 3G gettting a blazing fast 561ms ping, 19kbps down and 29kbps up!
CRAP!
Nothing has changed. the service still sucks, srint still gives me a different answer ecverytime I call. Meanwhile I can't stream Pandora, Tune in Radio or watch a you tube video even at the lowest of settings. If Verizon had an unlimited data plan...I would be gone....what to do?!??!