Can someone help me to understand what I'm seeing? I'm at work, and saw that I had full bars on my phone. Thinking, ''Hey, full signal, gonna download the latest myn.'' But the network connection was horribly slow.
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So I ask, what does the signal bars actually mean? If not connection, then what?
Just because you have strong signal strength doesn't mean your connection will be fast. If the towers are bogged down with a lot if users in your area at the time you could be standing next to the tower and have a slow connection. Same goes for as to whether it not sprint is having network issues at the time. Happens to me everytime I go to a sporting event or major concert.... Strong signal but slowass network speed.
Sent from my PG86100 using xda premium
The signal bars are a visual representation of your connection to the voice network, which is completely independent from and far more reliable than their 3g network. On AOSP ROMs however, this is the opposite, the signal bars show your data connection instead of voice network connection.
You could use an app like Signal Status to show your -dBm readings for both CDMA and EVDO. It will give you a better idea of your signal strength. The lower your -dBm the stronger the signal.
welcome to sprint enjoy your 2 years
p3tr0s said:
Happens to me everytime I go to a sporting event or major concert....
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True. I have noticed that.
joehunni said:
The signal bars are a visual representation of your connection to the voice network, which is completely independent from and far more reliable than their 3g network. On AOSP ROMs however, this is the opposite, the signal bars show your data connection instead of voice network connection.
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I didn't realize there was a dual connection. Now that explains a lot!
Wiley_11 said:
You could use an app like Signal Status to show your -dBm readings for both CDMA and EVDO. It will give you a better idea of your signal strength. The lower your -dBm the stronger the signal.
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Perfect! Thanks for the info.
twiztidninja said:
welcome to sprint enjoy your 2 years
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Thanks! Your sarcasm is very motivating.
Related
So I just finished flashing the True Connection mod from UnNamed and noticed I am on 3g.
Yesterday I noticed when I was a few cities up north from my area my signal bar turned green, does that mean it was actually H+ or I just had really good connection?
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I never had it shown green and drove mostly all over south Florida except one area in Dania Beach so I was rather confused if it was bad or good till I Googled it.
My speeds are great and I really don't need them faster, its twice as fast as my iPhone 3gs, when downloading files its around 600kb/s which is plenty fast.
Wifi Tethering:
Right now its bouncing between H+ and 3g depending where I am in the house.
So I am a little confused...
Im curious...what did you expect from the true connection mod?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App
defnow said:
Im curious...what did you expect from the true connection mod?
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Well I didn't know what it was till I read this:
Simba501 said:
By default, the status bar shows HSPA (H) as the connection even if UMTS (3G) is active. HSPA is only in use when data is actually being used. In idle, it goes back to UMTS (3G). The addon will show this if you flash it. In areas where there is only UMTS (3G), this will be indicated by the addon as well. AT&T defaults to showing HSPA for everything because they want to pull the wool over their users' eyes, and make them believe they have HSPA everywhere they go.
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I just don't get how the signal and speeds relate.
I would think a good connection would get you the best speeds but maybe I am missing a whole lot more stuff that I don't understand.
LiLChris06 said:
I just don't get how the signal and speeds relate.
I would think a good connection would get you the best speeds but maybe I am missing a whole lot more stuff that I don't understand.
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Hey LilChris06, are you the mod from OCN?
On topic:
Samsung's default setting is to give you the H+ symbol at all times, even though you may be connected to 4g or 3g. The "true connection mod" you flashed just changes the symbol to show you what you really are on, as the quote states.
As for your question, there are more complications to it, but generally yes, good connection does mean good speeds.
So you got 3G = UMTS
and the H = HSDPA, which in laymens would a "3.5G" in relation to 3G
H+ is an upgraded version of HSDPA, which occurred in 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Speed_Downlink_Packet_Access
I read how to toggle it off, but if I'm in an area that has no LTE yet maybe it doesn't matter. Or is it always scanning for LT? I have great battery so far without messing with the setting, but would it be a little better by shutting LTE off?
I switched mine to cdma only, but I haven't seen any difference in battery life with it off vs on. YMMV
Sent from my EVO LTE using XDA
I believe turning to cdma only turns off CDMA-eHRPD.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
I will say I consistently get speeds 500 kbps slower when I go to CDMA only, so I'm leaving LTE on.
yes i also get much lower speeds when going to cdma only
My speeds are similar either way, except for my ping speed which is vastly better with CDMA only.
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
donatom3 said:
I believe turning to cdma only turns off CDMA-eHRPD.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
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This is true....discussed a little over at s4gru about this....though still some unknown/unsolved things relating to eHRPD i think...
My speeds dropped with LTE off as well. Particularly upload speeds.
With CDMA only I was around 20-30 kbps up.
With LTE/CDMA it's twice that. Interesting to know! Thanks for the post.
just ran about 5 tests on lte and cdma only. no noticeable difference.
.22-.88, hovering around .32 on LTE
.25-.67, hovering around .38 on CDMA
ping of 260-280 on both
upload of .25-.5 on both
Central Austin (no NV improvements yet)
I tested this just now, and I don't see difference either.
my pic from another thread... all the 2000s are cdma only and the others are cdma/lte
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I contacted HTC about it, and got this:
Thank you for contacting HTC about your new EVO 4G LTE! Congratulations on your new phone! Do you love it?! I’ve had mine for about a week now and I have to say, I’m in love! I do understand how important maximizing your battery life is in your phone and I’m happy to tell you that changing the mobile network from LTE/CDMA to CDMA only will have no effect on the battery life!
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when I'm traveling rural areas, I never have signal, like circle with a line thru it no signal. its times like these I need GPS more than ever. if GPS and glonass use satalites instead of radio towers, why can't I use my GPS? is there anyway to get GPS when I have no signal?
Sent from my GT-I9300 using XDA
You will have a gps signal in rural areas, use gps test to verify, you probably wrong have a data signal sio it can't draw the map. You therefore need to precache the areas where you dont have a signal
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I'd like to download precache data for my entire state, but it only lets you do 10 miles at a time, is there a way to do a larger area?
Sent from my GT-I9300 using XDA
I heard things about google maps getting an update to let you download a whole province/state/city/country...
You can download multiple areas at the same time, I also heard google are releasing a better version soon
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soraxd said:
when I'm traveling rural areas, I never have signal, like circle with a line thru it no signal. its times like these I need GPS more than ever. if GPS and glonass use satalites instead of radio towers, why can't I use my GPS? is there anyway to get GPS when I have no signal?
Sent from my GT-I9300 using XDA
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I use GPS without signal all the time....I use Sygic.....its paid....but there must be a free one somwehere
With regards to the precaching, the area it caches is much larger than 10mi. It's more like a 10mi radius (though rectangular) from the point you start it at. As examples I have my town cached and from side to side it is covering about 30km. I also have a good portion of Brisbane covered in 2 caches, most of the sunshine coast (approx the top end of bribie to above noosa) in 2 caches and the gold coast (from about raby bay to below kingscliffe nsw) in 2 caches. So if you are going into an area where you don't think your gonna get signal then definitely precache it, but plan the start point of the cache. You can get an awful lot in.
ps I'm in Queensland Australia for those whop don't know where I'm talking about.
Here are two images of precache areas I have done. That will give you an idea of how much it covers. Remember, the point you select to precache will be the middle point of the area it covers.
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Each of these tests is 4G LTE:
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I feel lucky if I ever get over 5 megabits. This is my first LTE phone and I don't have another Verizon LTE device to see if it's just my S4 or the network. Should I be calling Verizon to complain?
What was the signal strength like at the time of the speed test? Also try changing the test site to another one near you.
The screenshot looks like your on WIFI...
OwenTT said:
What was the signal strength like at the time of the speed test? Also try changing the test site to another one near you.
The screenshot looks like your on WIFI...
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I was on WiFi when I took the screenshot but all the test were done on LTE. I usually only have 2 or 3 bars of signal strength. All the tests were done within a 20 mile radius.
I don't believe that calling Verizon would make a difference, considering that your down/upload speeds are directly related to your location. Have your speeds always been like this?
LaTropa64 said:
I was on WiFi when I took the screenshot but all the test were done on LTE. I usually only have 2 or 3 bars of signal strength. All the tests were done within a 20 mile radius.
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I was in a known great speed/coverage area less than 4 miles from me... couldn't muster speeds faster than 24mpbs. Switched to a server 400 miles away and got 57mbps. Try different servers.
I would say its your current network conditions and not your phone. Check out the article posted by droid life.
droid-life.com/2013/05/28/americas-carrier-speeds-benchmarked-att-beats-out-verizon-while-sprint-struggles-to-perform/
Note the average speed for Verizon at 9.61 mbps download.
whiskerz said:
I don't believe that calling Verizon would make a difference, considering that your down/upload speeds are directly related to your location. Have your speeds always been like this?
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They've been like this ever since I got the phone which was only 5 days ago. Usually 2mbps or less with a couple outliers that hit 12+.
jvcjbl said:
I was in a known great speed/coverage area less than 4 miles from me... couldn't muster speeds faster than 24mpbs. Switched to a server 400 miles away and got 57mbps. Try different servers.
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I just tried different servers and it didn't make much of a difference.
Is there a way to force this phone to 3G speeds? It's been so long since I tested those on my old phone I don't even remember what I was getting. It seems like they were close to 1mbps though.
Are those all in the same location? Try going somewhere else.
It would be worthwhile calling, just mention the <1Mbps speeds though, because anything between 5-12Mbps is considered normal.
I'm in the USA. Got this phone, put my FreedomPop SIM in (a AT&T MVNO).
And pretty much everywhere in my city it stayed at 3G.
I ported my number to Red Pocket (another AT&T MNVO) because I was sick of FreedomPop's messaging app you're forced to use.
With the RP SIM, same thing, mostly 3G.
I know this phone doesn't support AT&T's main LTE band 12/17, but supports 2,4 and 5.
So, playing around with settings (*#*#4636#*#*) I changed Set Preferred Network Type to: LTE/UMTS auto and it changed from 3G 850MHz (Band 5) to 4G Band 2.
Will it fall back to 3G when it needs to with this setting?
debido666 said:
I'm in the USA. Got this phone, put my FreedomPop SIM in (a AT&T MVNO).
And pretty much everywhere in my city it stayed at 3G.
I ported my number to Red Pocket (another AT&T MNVO) because I was sick of FreedomPop's messaging app you're forced to use.
With the RP SIM, same thing, mostly 3G.
I know this phone doesn't support AT&T's main LTE band 12/17, but supports 2,4 and 5.
So, playing around with settings (*#*#4636#*#*) I changed Set Preferred Network Type to: LTE/UMTS auto and it changed from 3G 850MHz (Band 5) to 4G Band 2.
Will it fall back to 3G when it needs to with this setting?
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OK, I changed my Preferred network type from 4G/3G/2G to 3G/2G and it automatically changed to 3G.
Changed back, and back on 4G.
Think I'll be OK.
Something to check for fellow US users that might have this issue.
I'm also in the U.S.and have freedompop but I get 4G. At least it says 4G in the status (not LTE). I don't know whether I'm actually getting 4G speed. Seems fast enough.
Good to know this trick, in any event
Thanks
barth2 said:
I'm also in the U.S.and have freedompop but I get 4G. At least it says 4G in the status (not LTE). I don't know whether I'm actually getting 4G speed. Seems fast enough.
Good to know this trick, in any event
Thanks
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debido666 said:
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Yeah I know about speed test. I just didn't want to blow through my data cap lol I'm a cheap bastard.