[Q] Constant Switching Between 4G LTE and 3G - Motorola Droid RAZR

Hi all,
This question might have been posted already seeing as this phone is about a year old already. I'm running the STOCK ICS ROM OTA 4.0.4 unrooted. I've noticed that after the update my phone keeps switching from 4G to 3G and back but the problem is so bad that I lose every bar of signal (i.e. empty bars and of course no data) for at least a minute when the phone switches. I've already gone through the process of getting a replacement phone and I will need another because the receiver (speaker inside when I make a phone call, not sure what its really called) sounds awfully tinny and when the hang up tone plays the speaker sounds like its about to blow out. I lowered the in call volume to half, but it still doesn't work and my phone sounds tinny when ever someone talks during a phone call. I never had that problem with my old RAZR. As for the data issue, I am aware that I live in an old building because at the most I get between 3-4 bars of 4G LTE but sometimes as low as 2 bars. However, outside on the street I get full bars of 4G LTE and it still switches back to 3G on it's own. I have tried Motorola's restore connectivity app on the play store but that didn't work and I don't have anything like smart actions or LTE on/off app running on my phone.
Is anybody else having these issues? At first I thought Verizon sucks in my house but it doesn't I still get crystal clear sound on calls and text messages are promptly sent and received. I also, of course, live in a 4G LTE area with good solid coverage. As a control I have an iPad 4G LTE with Verizon on a separate account and it consistently stays connected to LTE. It never drops below 2 bars and the LTE of course maintains its fast speed. On the other hand, the RAZR, will switch between both technologies at least 5 times a day if not more. I know that they both have different radio technologies but they should at least be similar in some respect. I have also seen an iPhone 5 at the Verizon Corportate kiosk at my local mall. It's obvious there are repeaters but they are not for 4G because none of the phones are on 4G, they are on 3G. The iPhone 5, however, had one bar of LTE and it loaded up a web page just fine and I never saw it drop back down to 3G. I'm trying to see if there is a solution. Have any of the Jellybean ROMs addressed this issue?

Related

[Q] 3G data icon

I am new to Motorola and the Photon. I have a question about the data icon. Since I have had the phone (about 2 days) I have traveled about 400 miles across remote areas and so forth and I have never seen a 1x data icon. In fact, I was roaming with a 3G icon.
So my question is, has anyone ever seen a 1x data icon? I was so impressed with the signal strength that I thought I could be getting 3G in areas where I normally did not, but a speed test tells a different story.
my2cents said:
I am new to Motorola and the Photon. I have a question about the data icon. Since I have had the phone (about 2 days) I have traveled about 400 miles across remote areas and so forth and I have never seen a 1x data icon. In fact, I was roaming with a 3G icon.
So my question is, has anyone ever seen a 1x data icon? I was so impressed with the signal strength that I thought I could be getting 3G in areas where I normally did not, but a speed test tells a different story.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
don't think any sprint phone by default will show it in 1x mode, maybe when more roms/mods are released, but never by default
Interesting. My Samsung Moment did out of the box. I had that for about 2 years before I finally made the decision to get the photon, so my experience is little. Doesn't the EVO?
Sprint just recently made a decision to cut out all 1x symbols from showing on new phones I work for sprint it came in a memo like a month ago
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App

Anyone else having reception/signal issues?

I just got my phone yesterday and noticed it today at work. With my og EVO I would consistantly get 3 bars at work and with the EVO 4g LTE I am getting 0-1 bar and roaming a lot which is killing my battery as well. Is the antenna is this EVO not as strong as the og EVO? This is a pretty big problem because I use my phone all the time at work. Iv tried updating my profile and prl and have done a couple resets. I don't want to return this phone but I may have to
massiveian said:
I just got my phone yesterday and noticed it today at work. With my og EVO I would consistantly get 3 bars at work and with the EVO 4g LTE I am getting 0-1 bar and roaming a lot which is killing my battery as well. Is the antenna is this EVO not as strong as the og EVO? This is a pretty big problem because I use my phone all the time at work. Iv tried updating my profile and prl and have done a couple resets. I don't want to return this phone but I may have to
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No idea how it compares to og Evo, I have since had 2 other phones plus this one.
But I wouldn't call the reception weak.
You can try and do what I do - force roaming with an app like Roam Control. This way you may have a better signal and good battery life.
For me, the signal strength is pretty much exactly like my Original Evo. The wireless actually working on the other hand is not.
My signal is aweful compared to my og EVO. Right now my signal is -105dbm
Strange. My signal is 2-3 bars better than my OG...
I'm having issues with 3g staying connected. I'll lose it turn the radios off and turn back on. It days connecting that's it. I have to reboot to get data working. Updated profile and prl but wats odd is that it always updates and never tells me that I have the recent prl. Any ideas? It's really pissing me off!
I thought it was the weather but yea. My og seems to pick up signal in remote places better.
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
Yes it is a known fact that the antennas in the new EVO are less efficient than the original EVO. Someone compared the FCC docs but I don't remember the difference. I think it was 2db difference.
Sent from my C64 w/Epyx FastLoad cartridge
digiblur said:
Yes it is a known fact that the antennas in the new EVO are less efficient than the original EVO. Someone compared the FCC docs but I don't remember the difference. I think it was 2db difference.
Sent from my C64 w/Epyx FastLoad cartridge
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. Looks like ill be returning my EVO today sprints coverage where I work isnt the greatest to begin with and with a weaker antenna makes the phone almost unusable. Come on HTC and sprint, if your going to charge 200 for this phone at least put a decent antenna in it so I can do the basics like calling and emails.
I'll be sitting in one spot and my 3g will drop and the. Come back . It's kind of annoying
Mine was having problems roaming to other towers as well but I went in and changed the preferred network mode from LTE/CDMA to CDMA only and it's much better.
Took me forever to find where it was located: Settings -> Mobile network -> Network mode
Thought that hitting mobile network would just toggle it on/off but if you don't hit the on/off button it puts you into a submenu with more options.
The Wifi antenna seems much better but the mobile antenna seems not quite as good to me. Once I changed it CDMA only it's comparable to my OG Evo.
i'm having the same issues, I loose 3G connections, I have very low signal strength and it is killing my battery..
Ya ive seen a few people with this same issue. it seems like its only in places where i have a weak sprint signal is when the Evo 4g is worse than the OG.
Right now I am sitting at home and the OG evo is -84 dBm and the Evo 4g LTE is -79 dBm so the 4g LTE is actually getting a better signal than the OG.
Im going back to work later and im going to see what the numbers look like there. But on the 4g LTE i was barely able to get a 3g signal at work but the OG evo always had one.
internet/phone sig are different; color of switch
I wonder where you are located OP. We called Sprint and they keep telling us that they are "repairing a tower" near us in Mass.
Two additional notes. First, our internet/3G seems to be much faster since the upgrade from OG to this device. Ookla confirmed this too, about 3-4x faster download speed, 2x faster upload (about 800+ each). However, we have two devices and neither of them can phone anymore! Sprint even drops our text sms sometimes. We are thinking of returning the devices since Sprint has told us three times (one week ago, 3 days ago, and today) that they are "repairing a tower" and always changing the date (now to June 8).
The other thing is that one of the devices, in settings> shows whatever wireless/network is toggled on with red switch, and the other device shows the toggled on with green switch.
Does anyone else have better internet and no phone?
Does anyone else have red switch? It seems logical the "on" switch should be green.
Note: It doesn't make sense to me that I still get 3-4 bars on my old Evo (which was obviously deactivated) and it calls out to a "sorry no service" message loud and clear, but my new Evo can't even reliably send a text much less make a phone call.
Same problem here but mine is weird. I will have full bars and out of nowhere, I drop to 1-2 and it goes into roaming, except even though it's "roaming" I have no data or voice (yes I enabled roaming voice and data). It will stay like that from 1-8 seconds and then go back to Sprint's service. Also, if I tried to send a text during that time, it will fail and if I was getting a call it wouldn't show for 30 to an hour later.
What's weird is that my girlfriends Evo LTE was sitting right next to mine and had full bars all the time with no problem. I am thinking at least mine is a hardware problem. I'll monitor mine for another day and then take it in if the problem stays.
Mine helped switching to cdma only.
Sent from my EVO using XDA
ptrd said:
Mine helped switching to cdma only.
Sent from my EVO using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been doing that for a couple days and just yesterday it started dropping 3g for no reason again... Cell is just fine everywhere, but i called sprint and they said that there were tower outages until June1st. I'm sorry but i could've sworn today is the 4th? And i guess there is no more tech support department? Because I've called twice and they won't transfer me. Grrr
Sent from my Viper tuned ltEVO
So i was able to do some testing and found the Evo 4g LTE to be about 10 dBm less than the OG Evo in almost every place i tested them. Also sitting in my house about a quarter mile from a tower my 3g speed on speedtest.net was 97kbps down and 51kbps up with a 255 ping!!!!!
These speeds are not acceptable even in 1x let alone 3g.
I am trying everything not to return this phone but these kind of issues are so disappointing. I never had issues like this with my evo when it first came out :/
How I got my signal fixed
Racer Of All said:
Same problem here but mine is weird. I will have full bars and out of nowhere, I drop to 1-2 and it goes into roaming, except even though it's "roaming" I have no data or voice (yes I enabled roaming voice and data). It will stay like that from 1-8 seconds and then go back to Sprint's service. Also, if I tried to send a text during that time, it will fail and if I was getting a call it wouldn't show for 30 to an hour later.
What's weird is that my girlfriends Evo LTE was sitting right next to mine and had full bars all the time with no problem. I am thinking at least mine is a hardware problem. I'll monitor mine for another day and then take it in if the problem stays.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My problem was so bad - I was missing almost every incoming call, but instantly get a voicemail notification. Texts would come in once or twice a day - in large groups. After my phone working fine for 4-5 days I thought for sure, hardware problem. I hadnt rooted, reset to factory, update prl/profile (Through update and *2) etc etc .... no luck
Call and talked with CSR and techs etc for 3 days or so, with no luck. So I take it into my local repair shop - the lady took maybe 15 minutes with my phone, and told me something got hung up initially with the provisions. (Even though it worked fine for days)
So she reflashed software/reprovisioned my phone and its been golden since. Seems that "reactivating" the phone did the trick!
Traceamount said:
My problem was so bad - I was missing almost every incoming call, but instantly get a voicemail notification. Texts would come in once or twice a day - in large groups. After my phone working fine for 4-5 days I thought for sure, hardware problem. I hadnt rooted, reset to factory, update prl/profile (Through update and *2) etc etc .... no luck
Call and talked with CSR and techs etc for 3 days or so, with no luck. So I take it into my local repair shop - the lady took maybe 15 minutes with my phone, and told me something got hung up initially with the provisions. (Even though it worked fine for days)
So she reflashed/reprovisioned my phone and its been golden since. Seems that "reactivating" the phone did the trick!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any idea if this can be done without going to a tech shop? I am often getting voicemails with no call. I have an Airave on the way because of this issue, but I'm not 100% sure that's the problem.

Question about Verizon network, different from Sprint's

Just something I've noticed and if anyone has some insight I'd appreciate it. I have the evo 3d on sprint, my fiancé has the droid bionic on Verizon. Sprint just works, but on the bionic, and lg revolution before that, wouldn't get data connection or calling/texting if the bars and data indicators in the notification bar were lit up blue. If they're white, she gets nothing. Why? It's like there's service available but the phone won't connect to it at times. This happened to the revolution too so I'm under the impression its Verizon of the way they do things.
And to clarify, the number of bars will still fluctuate like ours, not that some are blue and some are white. Same goes for the data connection, it'll list 3g, 4g, or not be present depending on what's available. But no matter what's showing, if it's white, you might as well be in airplane mode.
I asked in the bionic forum too but no one shared any info yet.
Sent from my PG86100 using xda app-developers app
I'm assuming you won't get many responses here, since this isn't a Verizon forum. But I have experience with the Bionic actually. Two of my friends have the Bionic, and have the same issues you do. I recently took an 8 hour trip with two friends that have the Bionic, and one friend with another phone on Verizon (a new samsung I think). I of course, being a Sprint customer, literally had no data/cell coverage about 80% of the trip. The one with the brand new Verizon phone had 4g about 75% of the time, and 3g the other 25%. She was streaming pandora and had Navigation going the whole time, without a SINGLE hiccup or buffering in the music. The two with the Bionic always had cell coverage, but their 4g was VERY spotty, and only worked about 40% of the time.
Also at my house, the person with the samsung always has 4g and never had a problem with data connectivity. The two with the Bionics very frequently experience 4g dropouts, and the handoffs between 4g and 3g normally cause streaming audio/video to cut out.
So based on my experience, the Bionic is just a bad phone all together.
Thanks. I did get a response this morning in the other forum. They're saying it's having trouble connecting to Google services. But that doesn't make sense why nothing works...
Sent from my PG86100 using xda app-developers app

Slow to switch up to 4g, 3g and even 2g

I've had my S4 since VZW released it, and one of my only gripes is that the reception seems to be weaker than almost any other phone. Meaning, it seems to default to the weaker service wherever I am.
It is most obvious at home; on the 3rd floor I get a mix of 3g/4g whereas other phones have solid, constant 4g. The 2nd floor is the same. On the 1st floor I never see 4g, instead it is a mix of 3g and 2g whereas other phones are solid 3g. Sometimes I won't even have data service.
Even when I go out and I am in an area that you might consider a fringe zone it seems my S4 will default to the "lesser" service. And it also seems to take longer to switch up to the "higher" service when moving; for example where all phones will have 1x and then moved to an area where all phones will have either 3g or 4g, my S4 will be the last to switch up, if at all.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Gulanowski said:
I've had my S4 since VZW released it, and one of my only gripes is that the reception seems to be weaker than almost any other phone. Meaning, it seems to default to the weaker service wherever I am.
It is most obvious at home; on the 3rd floor I get a mix of 3g/4g whereas other phones have solid, constant 4g. The 2nd floor is the same. On the 1st floor I never see 4g, instead it is a mix of 3g and 2g whereas other phones are solid 3g. Sometimes I won't even have data service.
Even when I go out and I am in an area that you might consider a fringe zone it seems my S4 will default to the "lesser" service. And it also seems to take longer to switch up to the "higher" service when moving; for example where all phones will have 1x and then moved to an area where all phones will have either 3g or 4g, my S4 will be the last to switch up, if at all.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm noticing the EXACT same issues! My other phones (DNA,Rezound,iPhone5,etc) have been much better for both signal and switching.

What is going on with Sprint Service

As some of you have probably read.
I gave up on the M9, mostly prompted by dropped calls, or calls going straight to voice mail.
I had the M9 replaced and gave it to my wife. It's been near perfect for her, she even dunked it and it's still running great.
My G4 is now doing the SAME thing. Although it has not dropped many calls, tons of calls go straight to voice mail.
Had a very important call this morning and even shutoff LTE, WIFI and Bluetooth and only had 3G on. And it went to voice mail.
The signal is not great, but should be fine for CDMA. Previous generation phones were fine (M8,M7, etc.)
I do see the signal bounce. Where it will be 3-4 bars one minute and none the next. The bouncing can be common in weak LTE (which is definitely weak).
But it's even bouncing with LTE off.
Even at home with two phones in the same location.
My wifes M9 will work, but my G4 will go to voice mail.
Where a couple months ago at home
My wifes M8 will work, but my M9 will go to voice mail.
Could their be something on the account that limits my phones? Like wrong bands or something. Not enabled for Spark but on a Spark Network.
As soon as Verizon gets the LG V10, I'm 99% sure I'm gonna switch. Don't know what else to do.
I don't really care for how locked down Verizon is, but I need a working phone.
This problem happens at multiple locations.
Any ideas appreciated.
I know this isn't specifically an M9 issue, but I know their are more experienced folks around here that might know something.
It is related to M9 TYPE phones though (Spark Generation 2-ish phones). It started when I switched from M8 to M9.
Upgrading my wife from M7 to M8 went fine and from M8 to M9 went fine.
Upgrading me from M8 to M9 went south and from M9 to G4 went south.
All SIM cards cam with respective phones.
All bought new.
All S-Off and/or rooted.
I may have found the answer. Read this !! It has to do with having WIFI on and phone going to sleep. Which is exactly what happens on G4 and M9.
https://community.koodomobile.com/k...ot-receiving-calls-on-android-5-1-1-with-wifi
mswlogo said:
I may have found the answer. Read this !! It has to do with having WIFI on and phone going to sleep. Which is exactly what happens on G4 and M9.
https://community.koodomobile.com/k...ot-receiving-calls-on-android-5-1-1-with-wifi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I disagree...I'm using the opposite settings that he is saying to use & I've never had this issue (that I know of). I don't make alot of outgoing calls...most are incoming...I also have my work cell fwd'd to my M9 so I don't have to carry 2 devices...I'm on Wifi a majority of the time, I get calls & texts all the time w/ no issues...the only thing I have checked in Advanced WiFi is Wifi Optimization, Keep Wifi on during sleep set to always
Fix
------
The fix is to not have Wifi on when the phone is idle/sleep. change your Wifi settings below to the screenshot below.
Settings -- > Wifi -- > MORE -- > Advanced -- > "Keep Wi-Fi on during Sleep = Never"
I also have "Network notification" and "Always allow scanning" enabled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sprint did (in my opinion) a very poor job with how it handles calls. One of my favorite phones was the evo LTE which not only could do LTE and a call at the same time but if you weren't in 4G it could do SV-DO and work on 3G which it actually worked very well. Especially at the time when I had that phone, I hardly had 4G anywhere so being able to use data at the same time on 3G was great.
That said, that feature didn't stick around long. The m7 had a separate radio for LTE & 1X meaning you could surf at the same time because it had separate radios. This couldn't do 3G which was a step backwards however 4G was becoming more mature.
Fast forward to today and with your modern tri-band device while it supports multiple bands that the previous phones didn't, most people have no idea what that means they usually assuming if it's a 4G phone well then it's just that how is any different.
I have had plenty of people complain to me about calls going straight to voicemail or signal issues. Rather than having separate radios, Sprint just uses CSFB Circuit Switched fallback so when a call comes in, it lets the phone know via LTE and immediately switches back to 1X to grab the call. That said it's by no means perfect especially in a bad signal LTE area can cause issues. When I'm at home or work I usually set my phone to CDMA only since I have wi-fi there is no advantage to be on LTE, causes issues with calls coming through and wastes battery. Most users have no idea about what is actually going on so it's hard to explain to a friend why when a caller calls them, the caller might here 5-6 rings before the phone even goes off. Sprint's LTE signal frankly sucks in most places I go, even right next to the tower sometimes you won't get full signal.
Anyway if your wifes phone works fine in the same spot as your G and you are doing all your testing off of LTE and still having issues that tells me either you have a bad radio again or something is provisioned wrong. I would put the phone back to stock, reset the radio and reactive the phone then do some testing with calls off LTE again. If you still have issues at the point, I would swap the phone. My M9 is pretty good with CSFB, I haven't had too many issues with it but really I think it's a very poor solution how it works especially when your in a fridge LTE area with the phone bouncing in and out of LTE.
Once the network goes all LTE (god knows how long that will take) I think this will be a thing of the past but for now CSFB now it's here to stay. I don't see Sprint ever going back to separate radios like the previous gen phones as they would more likely be focused on voice over LTE instead.
OMJ said:
I disagree...I'm using the opposite settings that he is saying to use & I've never had this issue (that I know of). I don't make alot of outgoing calls...most are incoming...I also have my work cell fwd'd to my M9 so I don't have to carry 2 devices...I'm on Wifi a majority of the time, I get calls & texts all the time w/ no issues...the only thing I have checked in Advanced WiFi is Wifi Optimization, Keep Wifi on during sleep set to always
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has not failed in 5 days since I flipped it.
It may depend on the WIFI it's on, IPV6 etc. I don't know.
I think this may have started the same time MMS started failing for SOME folks if WIFI was enabled. Disabling IPV6 on WIFI was a work around (which is disabled on your ROM).
But not everyone had this issue and depended on their router.
So their is weird sh$t happening due to Android changes.
I think this issue is related and not everyone runs into it.
I have had WIFI Calling setup, but disabled it on both M9 and G4 (because it's extremely unstable on every phone I've tried).
Not sure if that is part of it. Like my account knows it's WIFI Calling capable. But my wifes never had WIFI Calling setup, she also does not run WIFI at work. She's never had the problem (even with the same phone I had problems with).
Again I don't know the exact details, and this is not a fix. But disabling WIFI when asleep seems to have stopped it problem. But I need to go a bit longer to be 100% sure.
I've seen similar threads on many phones and carriers and many start off saying "Problem started with 5.x.x OTA update".
I think I was close when I thought it was the optimizer. And before I found that thread, I was testing with WIFI completely off (which also worked).
Something is a miss and there may be more "options" to cause the issue.
Sim-X said:
Sprint did (in my opinion) a very poor job with how it handles calls. One of my favorite phones was the evo LTE which not only could do LTE and a call at the same time but if you weren't in 4G it could do SV-DO and work on 3G which it actually worked very well. Especially at the time when I had that phone, I hardly had 4G anywhere so being able to use data at the same time on 3G was great.
That said, that feature didn't stick around long. The m7 had a separate radio for LTE & 1X meaning you could surf at the same time because it had separate radios. This couldn't do 3G which was a step backwards however 4G was becoming more mature.
Fast forward to today and with your modern tri-band device while it supports multiple bands that the previous phones didn't, most people have no idea what that means they usually assuming if it's a 4G phone well then it's just that how is any different.
I have had plenty of people complain to me about calls going straight to voicemail or signal issues. Rather than having separate radios, Sprint just uses CSFB Circuit Switched fallback so when a call comes in, it lets the phone know via LTE and immediately switches back to 1X to grab the call. That said it's by no means perfect especially in a bad signal LTE area can cause issues. When I'm at home or work I usually set my phone to CDMA only since I have wi-fi there is no advantage to be on LTE, causes issues with calls coming through and wastes battery. Most users have no idea about what is actually going on so it's hard to explain to a friend why when a caller calls them, the caller might here 5-6 rings before the phone even goes off. Sprint's LTE signal frankly sucks in most places I go, even right next to the tower sometimes you won't get full signal.
Anyway if your wifes phone works fine in the same spot as your G and you are doing all your testing off of LTE and still having issues that tells me either you have a bad radio again or something is provisioned wrong. I would put the phone back to stock, reset the radio and reactive the phone then do some testing with calls off LTE again. If you still have issues at the point, I would swap the phone. My M9 is pretty good with CSFB, I haven't had too many issues with it but really I think it's a very poor solution how it works especially when your in a fridge LTE area with the phone bouncing in and out of LTE.
Once the network goes all LTE (god knows how long that will take) I think this will be a thing of the past but for now CSFB now it's here to stay. I don't see Sprint ever going back to separate radios like the previous gen phones as they would more likely be focused on voice over LTE instead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thx for the info!
mswlogo said:
It has not failed in 5 days since I flipped it.
It may depend on the WIFI it's on, IPV6 etc. I don't know.
I think this may have started the same time MMS started failing for SOME folks if WIFI was enabled. Disabling IPV6 on WIFI was a work around (which is disabled on your ROM).
But not everyone had this issue and depended on their router.
So their is weird sh$t happening due to Android changes.
I think this issue is related and not everyone runs into it.
I have had WIFI Calling setup, but disabled it on both M9 and G4 (because it's extremely unstable on every phone I've tried).
Not sure if that is part of it. Like my account knows it's WIFI Calling capable. But my wifes never had WIFI Calling setup, she also does not run WIFI at work. She's never had the problem (even with the same phone I had problems with).
Again I don't know the exact details, and this is not a fix. But disabling WIFI when asleep seems to have stopped it problem. But I need to go a bit longer to be 100% sure.
I've seen similar threads on many phones and carriers and many start off saying "Problem started with 5.x.x OTA update".
I think I was close when I thought it was the optimizer. And before I found that thread, I was testing with WIFI completely off (which also worked).
Something is a miss and there may be more "options" to cause the issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd blame gremlins yes, weird sh*t...and yeah, we still have ipv6 disabled in ROM for wifi
Sim-X said:
Sprint did (in my opinion) a very poor job with how it handles calls. One of my favorite phones was the evo LTE which not only could do LTE and a call at the same time but if you weren't in 4G it could do SV-DO and work on 3G which it actually worked very well. Especially at the time when I had that phone, I hardly had 4G anywhere so being able to use data at the same time on 3G was great.
That said, that feature didn't stick around long. The m7 had a separate radio for LTE & 1X meaning you could surf at the same time because it had separate radios. This couldn't do 3G which was a step backwards however 4G was becoming more mature.
Fast forward to today and with your modern tri-band device while it supports multiple bands that the previous phones didn't, most people have no idea what that means they usually assuming if it's a 4G phone well then it's just that how is any different.
I have had plenty of people complain to me about calls going straight to voicemail or signal issues. Rather than having separate radios, Sprint just uses CSFB Circuit Switched fallback so when a call comes in, it lets the phone know via LTE and immediately switches back to 1X to grab the call. That said it's by no means perfect especially in a bad signal LTE area can cause issues. When I'm at home or work I usually set my phone to CDMA only since I have wi-fi there is no advantage to be on LTE, causes issues with calls coming through and wastes battery. Most users have no idea about what is actually going on so it's hard to explain to a friend why when a caller calls them, the caller might here 5-6 rings before the phone even goes off. Sprint's LTE signal frankly sucks in most places I go, even right next to the tower sometimes you won't get full signal.
Anyway if your wifes phone works fine in the same spot as your G and you are doing all your testing off of LTE and still having issues that tells me either you have a bad radio again or something is provisioned wrong. I would put the phone back to stock, reset the radio and reactive the phone then do some testing with calls off LTE again. If you still have issues at the point, I would swap the phone. My M9 is pretty good with CSFB, I haven't had too many issues with it but really I think it's a very poor solution how it works especially when your in a fridge LTE area with the phone bouncing in and out of LTE.
Once the network goes all LTE (god knows how long that will take) I think this will be a thing of the past but for now CSFB now it's here to stay. I don't see Sprint ever going back to separate radios like the previous gen phones as they would more likely be focused on voice over LTE instead.
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I know about the call switching for LTE and it sucks. But that was not it. I tried CDMA only and it did not fix it.
Disabling WIFI while sleeping is still working. Not one call has gone to voice mail at work in over a week. It used to happen 2-3 times a day.
I HATE disabling wifi while asleep though. I'd like to still get to the bottom of it.
I think some how it is doing something over WIFI when a call comes in, if WIFI is available. But when the WIFI is in power save mode something gets messed up.
The problem started on OMJ's ROM with IPV6 disabled. So it's not that.
The only thing common is Lollipop, Sprint and my WIFI locations (and a modern single radio triband phone).
I'd like to try getting "WIFI Calling" capability off my account. I think once you set it up once, it's enabled automatically on my account.
I will also say, if I do enable WIFI Calling, it's terribly unreliable. Maybe that's a hint.
The WIFI signal is solid and no issues using WIFI itself.
mswlogo said:
I know about the call switching for LTE and it sucks. But that was not it. I tried CDMA only and it did not fix it.
Disabling WIFI while sleeping is still working. Not one call has gone to voice mail at work in over a week. It used to happen 2-3 times a day.
I HATE disabling wifi while asleep though. I'd like to still get to the bottom of it.
I think some how it is doing something over WIFI when a call comes in, if WIFI is available. But when the WIFI is in power save mode something gets messed up.
The problem started on OMJ's ROM with IPV6 disabled. So it's not that.
The only thing common is Lollipop, Sprint and my WIFI locations (and a modern single radio triband phone).
I'd like to try getting "WIFI Calling" capability off my account. I think once you set it up once, it's enabled automatically on my account.
I will also say, if I do enable WIFI Calling, it's terribly unreliable. Maybe that's a hint.
The WIFI signal is solid and no issues using WIFI itself.
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Having Wi-Fi calling provisioned on your account is just that, it just means if you enable wi-fi calling that your phone has the green light to connect and move forward with the server. That said if you keep wi-fi calling off the fact that it is still provisioned on the account doesn't affect anything at all if the service is not active.
If you only solution is disabling wi-fi while sleeping something in the rom is borked. Return the phone to 100% stock, hard reset it (including the radio) then try using it again. While again CSFB isn't perfect, if the phone is CDMA only you just shouldn't be having this kind of issue. If your not having issues with other phones in the same area with calls going to vm, you know it's not the network and something with the phone. If it does this on 100% stock after a re provision then you have a borked radio and the phone should be swapped. Which I have seen borked radios before, the wi-fi radio in the phone is totally separate from the CDMA/LTE radio.
Sim-X said:
Having Wi-Fi calling provisioned on your account is just that, it just means if you enable wi-fi calling that your phone has the green light to connect and move forward with the server. That said if you keep wi-fi calling off the fact that it is still provisioned on the account doesn't affect anything at all if the service is not active.
If you only solution is disabling wi-fi while sleeping something in the rom is borked. Return the phone to 100% stock, hard reset it (including the radio) then try using it again. While again CSFB isn't perfect, if the phone is CDMA only you just shouldn't be having this kind of issue. If your not having issues with other phones in the same area with calls going to vm, you know it's not the network and something with the phone. If it does this on 100% stock after a re provision then you have a borked radio and the phone should be swapped. Which I have seen borked radios before, the wi-fi radio in the phone is totally separate from the CDMA/LTE radio.
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Did that, returned to stock, same issue. Got Another M9, same issue, got a LG G4 same issue. Just signed up for T-Mobile (have not canceled Sprint yet). Two LG V10's. T-Mobile just announced a huge expansion on their network to cover areas that I needed with LTE (Sprint roams 1x Lakes Region and North in NH).
mswlogo said:
Did that, returned to stock, same issue. Got Another M9, same issue, got a LG G4 same issue. Just signed up for T-Mobile (have not canceled Sprint yet). Two LG V10's. T-Mobile just announced a huge expansion on their network to cover areas that I needed with LTE (Sprint roams 1x Lakes Region and North in NH).
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Not a bad play, Sprint's Network has come along way in the past few years but with CSFB and a crappy LTE signal is most places they still have a lot of work to do. One of the reasons I stay is my plan and they are pretty friendly towards rooting/unlocking for the most part.
Sim-X said:
Not a bad play, Sprint's Network has come along way in the past few years but with CSFB and a crappy LTE signal is most places they still have a lot of work to do. One of the reasons I stay is my plan and they are pretty friendly towards rooting/unlocking for the most part.
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The V10 was awesome. T-Mobile was extremely good at My work, My wifes work, Home and all places between. Speeds were 4-8x faster (seriously) than Sprint. Simultaneous Voice and Data VoLTE.
But what the map showed up in NH, didn't match reality at all. Sprint is pretty dismal too, but they at least Roam and you can get 1x or 3G from either US Cellar or Verizon.
But T-Mobile had nothing in the areas Sprints Roams. So I'm sticking with Sprint for now.
I've concluded it's a combination of weak locations, the requirement to switch from LTE to CDMA for calls, and something around that is complicated by WIFI while asleep. Shutting off WIFI or shutting it off while asleep definitely improved things but didn't eliminate it completely. Both phones (M9 and G4) are Qualcomm chips and probably have similar Radio Firmware. But it's overly complicated due to Sprint being a bit behind the ball with VoLTE.
I agree Sprint is not quite so tight on locking things down. T-Mobile is the least locked down, then Sprint, then AT&T then Verizon. I know Verizon would perform flawlessly. But the combination of expense and being so locked down keeps me away. T-Mobile price was really good 2 lines 10GB each, with Carry Over and free Music/Video streaming. And the V10 already had TWRP on day one. The G4 on Sprint does not have TWRP and probably never will. It is rootable, barely.
I convinced my Sister to switch to T-Mobile because she wanted an iPhone and I recommended she not Jail Break it. But she wanted Tether (I was rooting Androids on Sprint for her). She is very happy with T-Mobile. And she generally stays in Eastern MA.
We'll see what HTC does this next time around. But they really need to step up their game. The reception issue really isn't an "HTC" issue. It's a Qualcomm/Sprint issue in my opinion. It's a kludge and I think Sprint is the only one with this kludge.

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