Is anyone else having issues with decreased cell service after doing the KK update for AT&T. I can see the cell tower plain as day behind my house, its only about 3/4 of a mile away. Before the KK update I always had full cell signal, now I have 3 bars.
Yes, noticed similar results with my KK update too. There is definitely a reduction in signal over JB.
It may not be a reduction of signal at all it could be the sensitivity levels that the software reports has changed. I.e higher thresholds to trigger more bars
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Hello everyone!
I received my Vibrant from the US a week ago and noticed that when 3G is on, the reception is 1/2 bars at most. While it's connected, the device gets hot in the top part and the battery drains like a F1 racing car.
I though I could see how good is the signal and it's about (-90) - (-100) dbm.
I never had reception issues with my previous phone that is 3 years old (HTC Touch Cruise) whose reception is quite good. My company's antenna is about 1 Km far and it's emitting 3G in the WCDMA 2100 MHz band.
Could any setting improve the reception to avoid heating and battery consumption?
Thanks a lot!!
You may want to try to set it to 2G only if you want a good battery life.
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Maybe somebody knows an application that switches from 3G to 2G when the reception is not good. It might be very handy.
Also, I wanted to know what levels are acceptable in dbm for a 3G connection that doesn't drain the battery like crazy.
Thanks for your reply!
In West Palm I have full signal and wifi on and batt life is like 20 hours with heavy use. Here in West Broward I have 1 bar on and off and no wifi. 3G is ridiculous here. I get 2 hours max. Cant wait to leave tomorrow.
I Haz 3D
Yeah I only get 1 bar where I live and I have horrible battery life.
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Signal significantly effects battery life. The more the radio fluctuates between signals and loss/recovery of signal the faster battery will drain.
I update my PRL at least once a week to receive new tower & roaming updates...
Check this out: http://opensignalmaps.com/
i was out riding my motorcycle yesterday and didn't have great signal the whole time. i chewed through 2 stock batteries yesterday. while sitting at Hooters with my phone on the table it would go back and fourth between roaming about once a minute.
needless to say i'm going to try to get it changed out tomorrow for a Photon, that was the last straw.
You are right, but you dont have to frequently update your PRL. Your device will find new towers even if they arent in your current PRL. The only time the PRL really matters is if your carriers gains a completely new roaming partner.
SpartanEvo said:
Signal significantly effects battery life. The more the radio fluctuates between signals and loss/recovery of signal the faster battery will drain.
I update my PRL at least once a week . . .
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pretty much, the less bars you have, the more power your phone has to use to get the signal.
My phone is on a death bed right now with this signal.
I Haz 3D
Was the same on the Evo 4G. Weak signal = battery gets raped. I wish they'd put a limit on the current draw. The phone can draw as much as 1 full amp of power searching for/holding a signal in fringe areas.
Mike
Have yall notice that lately and more often to the date of october 7 wierd huh what could it be?
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It might be that Sprint is upgrading their network.
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mine has been doing that to.
Most likely your phone is jumping from tower to tower. I use to have an app that would show the currect connected tower and my phone would skip around to several towers in the area within a few seconds.
Usually signal strenth doesn't indicate quality of service. As long as you have connectivity, the 0s will still be 0s and 1s will still be 1s.
I am not sure I trust the signal strength meter at the top of the home screen at all. I have an airave here at the house, and sitting on my couch, I can see the "bar" go from 1 bar to full strength. But just for comparison, I loaded an app that displays the actual signal strength in db, and that is holding steady at -72db regardless of the where the bar graph is at. Keep in mind that for every change of 3db equates to a change of half power. Since the phone works well when not at home with a signal of -92db, I am not sure what the bar graph is intended to represent.
Just realized that that thing I had to climb up to get to my front door is actually a Verizon Cell phone tower!
So, just noticed this condition today and thought I'd share. I have a Smart Action set up to enable my Home Wi-Fi based on location - Trigger is my location; Actions are to turn on Wi-Fi, turn off Data and Max Ringer.
While home this afternoon I just happened to look at my phone and noticed that my battery seemed to be dropping a little quicker than normal and my cell signal strength was max bars which NEVER NEVER happens at home - kind of on the fringe in my house and I'm lucky to get 3 on a good day. I checked network strength and my 4G was 2147483647 db. Gotta be a world record, right? oh wait . . . is more db bad?
Just got me wondering if, while on the fringe, the radio actively looks for a signal (like it does between 1X, 3G and 4G) and maybe gets stuck in some type of high output state. Would explain some of the intermittent hi-temp, unusual battery drain I experience occaisionally/intermittently. Just so we're clear - I'm not complaining at all about my Maxx battery.
Running stock .211 rooted.
jeff_roey said:
Just realized that that thing I had to climb up to get to my front door is actually a Verizon Cell phone tower!
So, just noticed this condition today and thought I'd share. I have a Smart Action set up to enable my Home Wi-Fi based on location - Trigger is my location; Actions are to turn on Wi-Fi, turn off Data and Max Ringer.
While home this afternoon I just happened to look at my phone and noticed that my battery seemed to be dropping a little quicker than normal and my cell signal strength was max bars which NEVER NEVER happens at home - kind of on the fringe in my house and I'm lucky to get 3 on a good day. I checked network strength and my 4G was 2147483647 db. Gotta be a world record, right? oh wait . . . is more db bad?
Just got me wondering if, while on the fringe, the radio actively looks for a signal (like it does between 1X, 3G and 4G) and maybe gets stuck in some type of high output state. Would explain some of the intermittent hi-temp, unusual battery drain I experience occaisionally/intermittently. Just so we're clear - I'm not complaining at all about my Maxx battery.
Running stock .211 rooted.
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I thought after 120 db it actually means you've lost signal.....optimal is between 80 to 120....
I could be wrong
I saw that exact same thing on my Maxx the other day. I also noticed battery declining due to it. Not sure what it means though.
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squiggie said:
I saw that exact same thing on my Maxx the other day. I also noticed battery declining due to it. Not sure what it means though.
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It means your have no signal, and your battery is dying from your LTE radio trying to find signal. dbm between -80 and -120 is not optimal, that is the range where verizon techs will tell you that you may experience data connectivity issues. The lower the dbm the better signal you have, however most extended 4g service areas are at this quality. I have seen some locations, closer to the towers, where I have gotten signal around -60dbm, which gave about 38mbps down and around 16mbps up.
I ordered a sleek 4g signal booster from wilson electronics, which will get here tomorrow, and will let you guys know how much improvement I get in areas with different signal strengths.
i've seen it countless times on my razr. I think it's just a bug
No signal but my signal bars show as full? That makes no sense whatsoever. I think I have to agree that it is just a weird bug.
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I'll tell the truth. Wilson electronics sleek 4g-v is not going to improve SINR signal strength (that's what you need for better LTE speed), however it will improve RSSI signal, but this is not going to help for LTE. If you want a good LTE amplifier, you are looking to spend about $500 that includes outdoor, indoor antenna and SINR amplifier. SINR is more important then RSSI or DBM for LTE
Most of the time Wi-Fi is at 1-2 bars along with LTE.
Noticed this problem in Hong Kong,China and Taiwan. Various dim cards and various Wi-Fi routers.
poor LTE speed
desiregeek said:
Most of the time Wi-Fi is at 1-2 bars along with LTE.
Noticed this problem in Hong Kong,China and Taiwan. Various dim cards and various Wi-Fi routers.
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Click to collapse
i m facing the same problem i have note 4 that is quite well than s6 edge in 3g and 4g
This could be the cause of some people's battery drain as their phones keep switching from LTE down to 3g. If this phone was better tuned for LTE it would be more battery efficient.
Not sure a software fix can do much about this. Its probably the antenna design, but we can live in hope!
My Wifi is fine.
However, I've been having poor 4G since day 1. I keep having 1-2 bars of 4G consistently at my workplace where my G3 did 3 or more bars.
The thing is, it does stick to 4G pretty well and not loose that 1-2 bars easily to downshift to 3G, so I am not too concerned. Voice calls and data speeds are also not affected. It's just that vidual indicator...
my wifi and data signals are excellent. haven't been to a spot where there's good lte signal
Always use device status to read signal in dBm.
Many phones' "signal strength meters" are far from accurate often showing much higher perceived signal than reality.
My S5 was like that.
This may just be corrected now in as much one bar for -112dBm (instead of three) is more accurate, relatively speaking.
A device should only show five bars if the signal level is very strong, say -65dBm.
Problem is most of the time people would never see five bars. Carriers don't like that.
Perhaps we need to change to an advanced "tech" mode where the signal strength readout is in "S" units with 9 being the reference and stronger signals show in "dB over nine". Like HF transceivers and CB radios (anyone remember those? )
I would be happy with -dBm on the status bar instead of a series of bars. iOS allows for it and it's accurate. Can't believe it's not baked into Android being it's the choice OS for techies.
Compared my Wifi download speeds to my iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 was faster. These 2 pictures are wifi download screenshots from iPhone 6
Here is the same location using my Galaxy S6 Edge
Hello, compared to Note 4 S6 really hurt my Edge captures the mobile network.