[Q] Anyone else have crappy airport data on the Cappy? - Captivate General

Hey all,
Just want to check to see if anyone else has crappy data coverage and rates in airports around the nation. In many airports, data becomes unusable due to timing out, etc.
I only really have had decent service at 2 airports - Denver and Salt Lake. It sucks at Baltimore (home airport), Washington/Dulles, LA, Chicago/O'Hare, and Houston/Bush. Been hit or miss in Las Vegas.
Voice calls and text work fine. Data just really sucks and it's annoying.
I'm curious to see if this is just AT&T being crap in those locations as their network is too heavily used, or whether it's just the Captivate.
I'm using DG's latest Cognition Rom, but it's happened with earlier versions of Captivate and Perception.
Thanks,
Super

I wish I travelled enough to actually offer an opinion. But I've noticed a pretty fair lack of free wifi at most airports I've been in. Pretty appalling actually. But in the ones I've been laid over: ATL, Charlotte, Memphis, Houston..the 3G seems to be no problem.

Salt Lake has free wifi airport wide - great if you're flying on Delta. Most airports seem to be stuck with Boingo or T-Mobile.
In Houston, it seemed to bounce between 3G, Edge, and GPRS, and the bouncing was fairly constant. It did it the times I was there the last couple months, so unfortunately, I can't say it's a one off. Just curious - what modem and ROM are you using?

LAX has mediocre service at most of the terminals. The best reception I got while doing work there was in the international terminal, and then only on the departure levels. You're mostly f'd on the arrival levels with some places that offer service. Was like that on my Aria too, just ATT being ATT imo.

DFW is pretty good

Yeah, I'm often wonder if it's AT&T being AT&T. It's fine for the most part, but it's really irritating to see it bouncing between H->3G->E and sometimes G and back just to try to maintain a data connection. It's gotten to the point where's it's almost unusable at most airports. Irritating for what was once AT&T's flagship Droid device.
I'm debating whether to hang on until AT&T goes to LTE or try switching to Verizon again. /sigh

Related

Getting flack from friends for switching

They all are saying AT&T is evil, I'm crazy blah blah vampire emergency blah...
OMG WHAT HAVE I DONE????
Seriously. All Cellular carriers in the US are evil. Just in different ways. Why all the AT&T hate? Where's the gotchas?
Are they paying for your phone or wireless bill?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
mesasone said:
Are they paying for your phone or wireless bill?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ditto. Plenty of people have legitimate reasons to complain about AT&T (dropped calls, lack of coverage, etc) but plenty of people have never had a single issue with them. Personally I just switched to AT&T for the Captivate (formerly with T-Mobile) and I've been happy so far. I get at least the same if not better coverage and my bill is actually cheaper thanks to a 21% discount from my employer.
it's fashionable to hate at&t. If you listened to these people, at&t would have worse coverage than tmobile. Anyone who's ever owned both outside of a major metro area knows that's a joke.
AT&T issues are market-based and are not universal. If any of your "friends" are iPhone 4 users, their problems are universal.
i dont have any real complaints with service anymore (one perk of the iphone)
but i dont think ive had one single interaction with att that they didnt mess up (ex. adding a line and putting a messaging block on the whole account. wtf?)
I was one of those that had trouble with at&t. I had each iPhone generation, and all 3g versions would drop calls. Now I will say I worked for apple retail at the genius bar for this time period, and it was all to frequent in terms of customers complaining. I bought the hype that it was at&T's sucky network causing all the issues.
Then the iPhone 4 hit. I had one. Returned it due to lack of satisfaction with he fix for the search grip as well as the proximity sensor issue. I immediately went and got the captivate.
I haven't dropped a single call since. Not one. Even in areas that were guaranteed to drop on 3 successive generations of iPhone. I have yet to have any issue.
That tells me something.
That I will not go back. No matter what.
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id10terrordfw said:
I haven't dropped a single call since. Not one. Even in areas that were guaranteed to drop on 3 successive generations of iPhone. I have yet to have any issue.
That tells me something.
That I will not go back. No matter what.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same, my wife and I were disgusted with our iPhone 3Gs, both dropped calls and limited customization, and poor performance with the iOS 4 update. It was so bad we thought it was AT&T's network and were contemplating on switching carriers. I decided to try out the Captivate, and it's been awesome.
And your buddies are jealous, that's all
id10terrordfw said:
I was one of those that had trouble with at&t. I had each iPhone generation, and all 3g versions would drop calls. Now I will say I worked for apple retail at the genius bar for this time period, and it was all to frequent in terms of customers complaining. I bought the hype that it was at&T's sucky network causing all the issues.
Then the iPhone 4 hit. I had one. Returned it due to lack of satisfaction with he fix for the search grip as well as the proximity sensor issue. I immediately went and got the captivate.
I haven't dropped a single call since. Not one. Even in areas that were guaranteed to drop on 3 successive generations of iPhone. I have yet to have any issue.
That tells me something.
That I will not go back. No matter what.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My experience is similar. I have had at&t for years.i never had a problem with them until I had an iphone. The three I had dropped calls constantly. Now I have the captivate and at&t is great again.
thanks all. You'll never get a die hard apple fanboi to admit the iphone problems are problems with the phone. Thanks for the positive stories
Yeah, when I had my first gen iPhone, I occasionally dropped calls and just generally had bad quality. I figured it was AT&T's infamous network. I almost switched carriers, but I was prepaid at that time and had built up nearly a 500 dollar balance on my account, so I didn't want to lose that. So, I gave the Blackberry Bold (9000) a try - turns out it was the iPhone all along. I got great reception and fantastic call quality on my Bold.
I haven't made many calls with my Captivate - frankly, the voice/phone portion of my cellphone is fairly low on my priorities - but while it doesn't really seem to quite be up to the level of my Bold, it's still far ahead of my iPhone.
Same story here.
Had a WinMo phone for years (HTC Hermes) then switched to iPhone, started dropping calls, and losing data. It wasn't too big, and at about the same time I moved into a basement apt. I chalked it up to all the concrete that I could not talk on the phone when home. We moved again, and on my commute to and from work there were 3 spots that would lose signal EVERY time. Calls would drop, Pandora would stop playing, etc. Then I got my HTC Aria, same commute, far fewer dropped calls, then my Captivate (day 30 of my Aria return window) and haven't dropped a call since on the commute. AT&T having network issues? I think not.
I am giddy at the chance of a Verizon iPhone, so all the people complaining about AT&T will see that the iPhone on any network sucks.
I've had at&t for years, because until recently it was all we had I'm my area that was any count at all. Recently Verizon has moved in, and I did consider switching because of hardware choices. But I waited it out, and decided to go ahead with my Captivate, and I'm loving it. My friends all have iPhones and so did I. I never had the problems that they seem to have, but I'm happier now anyway being away from the tyranny of Steve Jobs.
Sent from my GT-I9000-Captivate using XDA App
i had to switch to at&t because of work. i do a lot of international travel and at&t's list of countries is about 5x bigger than any other carrier for reduced roaming rates. and GSM is more universal and i didn't want verizon's blackberry offerings.
i had minor issues with call drops, but that's because i'm usually in large metal/concrete airplane hangers.
so far though, no issues with captive. even with one bar, no call quality issues either in the states...or as of so far hong kong.
oh and my entire office but 2 others have iphones and i got nothing but flack for not getting one. glad i didn't
I have been with ATT since 1998 and the only issues I have ever had with dropped calls was with the following phones since the Cingular/ATT Merger: Nokia N-Gage QD, Motorola V551 *just close to my house*, Motorola V3 *close to my house and when the phone was at the end of its life*, Samsung Sync *bought it used of fleabay worst cell ever*, Nokia N55 *would drop in typical black hole areas*, Motorola Razr2 *POS never could get a good voice call on it no matter what area I was in*, Blackberry Curve 8300 *dropped calls in blackhole areas*, BB 8310 *same as 8300*, BB Bold 9000 Same as the previous BBs, and now the Captivate *same as the BB in terms of dropped calls which equals about 2 dropped calls in the past 5 weeks or so*...
Now funny thing when I talk to a couple of my friends who actually have the iPhone, they drop randomly and it is pretty funny where I dont have the issue with my Captivate. Even my friend who is also a snake breeder *boas, pythons and other snakes*, told me today he likes his iPhone 3G besides the dropping call issue and asked me how Android is treating me, I said I love it and not going back to BB...
HTH,
Charlie
Gunny, wtf Re you doing here in the ATT phone section? Shouldn't you be in the Hero section? >¦(
LOL
Sent from my iPhone with the bigger Gee Bees.
LOL notasimpleway. Got tired of having an out of date phone and super slow EVDO.

[Q][SPRINT] Major issues with reception vs HTC Evo

Just got in the new Samsung Nexus S from Sprint and I've noticed some major issues in reception versus the HTC Evo from Sprint as well. I'm seeing a 2+ bar difference in the exact location sitting next to the Evo on the same Sprint network.
Is anybody having this issue? Or does anybody know of a fix.
I have the latest firmware (suggested fix by Sprint) and have seen several complaints about it on other less developer friendly forums.
If I can't come up with a solution soon, I think I'll have to get an Evo. But if you guys can understand, I'd prefer to keep the phone that will get timely updates.
Thanks ahead of time for any suggestions!
You can't compare signal across different devices based on "bars". Check the actual signal strength in Menu > Settings > About Phone.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
I know you need dB... As soon as I can get the Evo next to me again for a comparison, I will post.
I'm a tech savvy guy, run a computer building company and build websites. I even develop some entry-level apps for a few clients (yes entry-level).
If one googles "spring nexus s reception," they'll find that this issue is quite common. I'm just curious as to whether it's hopeless or not.
I know I can petition for the Airave with Sprint and can at least get decent service at home.
It just seems peculiar to me that Google would endorse an inferior product. I live in a major Metropolitan area (DMA has it as a top 25 market - for those who aren't in the media business, that means it's one of the top 25 sized cities in the country). And this phone gets dismal reception.
Fact is, Evo does great in my house, Nexus S does not. I've heard some pretty bad reviews with the Galaxy S line of hardware so I'm figuring it's worth moving to the Evo.
To be honest, this phone is far superior (at the moment) with responsiveness and usability but if a phone can't operate well at being a phone, it's a waste of money. Especially if the hardware is inferior (phone-wise) to most of what HTC released a year ago. I love having a mini-computer in my pocket but I did aim at having a working phone.
Thoughts? Suggestions? School me? I will post the exact numbers when they again are available, until then, please only offer up friendly advice or questions. I am willing to try anything before taking this thing back.
You have not really described your issue. Do you have dropped calls or what?
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
I'm having issues with the Sprint Nexus S reception as well. Although my home location on Sprint's coverage map lists my area from medium to strong with 4G available right around the corner from my house I have dismal reception with the Nexus S. I had a trial EVO for a few weeks and reception was much better in the same area. If I try to call the Nexus S I often go right to voicemail, I'm told calls out (when I can) are choppy, data signal is often listed as 1x as opposed to 3g. Is it just this particular phone? Should I go to a Sprint store to have it tested?
There is atl least one thread over at the Sprint Message boards about bad reception on the Nexus S.
At work we have a repeater and the signal still only shows at one or two bars most of the time but data speeds seemed fine to me and I had no problem with making and getting calls.
No one else is having this issue?
This isn't the first post about this subject. I understand and agree. I'm not 100% sure about this when it comes to cell phones but different companies with different radios will give you different signals. If this is the same as two way radios, there's no standard on say how much signal equals one bar on the meter. Even the programs that give the signal strength in numbers, aren't universally accurate. When it comes to received signal, its how you can hear it, not really what the meter says. That number can easily be manipulated. A receiver sensitivity can be adjusted too but there are things that are thrown out too. Crank up the receive and you get more noise than distinguishing signal and adjacent frequency rejection goes to crap. You can work the receiver to have good rejection and sensitivity but you are making it more deaf too.
What I'm getting at is don't always go by what the signal meter says and take it as 100% truth. It is a good indicator of signal but not absolutely 100% accurate.
I am sitting about twenty feet from my router and yet the meter is telling me 50% signal which I know is bull****.
are you up to date?
Yobye, are you on 2.3.4? I have heard the update fixes some people's signal/radio issues.
yobyeknom said:
I'm having issues with the Sprint Nexus S reception as well. Although my home location on Sprint's coverage map lists my area from medium to strong with 4G available right around the corner from my house I have dismal reception with the Nexus S. I had a trial EVO for a few weeks and reception was much better in the same area. If I try to call the Nexus S I often go right to voicemail, I'm told calls out (when I can) are choppy, data signal is often listed as 1x as opposed to 3g. Is it just this particular phone? Should I go to a Sprint store to have it tested?
There is atl least one thread over at the Sprint Message boards about bad reception on the Nexus S.
At work we have a repeater and the signal still only shows at one or two bars most of the time but data speeds seemed fine to me and I had no problem with making and getting calls.
No one else is having this issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ditto on this. Have all the latest updates. Think it may be time to trade in for the Evo.
I am on 2.3.4. I brought home another Sprint phone from work - a Sanyo Taho and got about the same terrible reception despite the fact I'm in a Sprint Best Coverage area on their map. I miss and drop calls and can't get voice or data connection - send mms, etc from my home. I've contacted Sprint about the tower strength in my neighborhood.

Anyone from Tempe-Phoenix Area?

I'm thinking of going to T-Mobile and getting the HTC One S, but I'm wondering if anyone in my area (Tempe-Phoenix) has trouble with dropped calls, slow download speeds (Edge when they should be getting 3G/4G speeds), etc.
Anyone recommend?
I am in the Gilbert area and have no issues. Speeds are extremely fast. I work in Phoenix at the boarder to Tempe and I do have some issues with speeds but never dropped a call. I think my speed issues are due to the fact that I work in the large manufacturing facility at 52nd St. and McDowell. Once I start leaving work, my speeds pick back up.
Thanks ihateusernames. Makes me feel better about the transfer if we decide to do it.
Hi xjedi,
I am Melissa... I am new located in Tempe AZ from Medeast... It's beautiful city... and welcome to the forum... It's a nice place to meet some nice people.

I wish this wasn't sold as a sprint phone for a vendor

So i've used pretty much every service, between mvno's, actual att and actual tmobile, also sprint when i got it with the htc hero. for over 5 years I havent been on sprint til recently when I did the essential phone thing with them.
Now that i'm unlocked and using T-mobile. Its surprising how much the quality and usability increased! Sprint's Spark LTE had so much problems penetrating walls that I pretty much had no signals most of the time in popular places in jacksonville florida or the SNR is so high that my battery ran hard when its trying to get data on bad signals.
Anyway, I just wanted to post this perspective that I feel like if you've had a phone with sprint and experiencing issues, sprint's LTE could be one of the major culprit.

Good way to test LTE data in my area?

So, i'm switching to AT&T from Verizon to save some cash. The AT&T map for my area shows lte everywhere but I've heard from some people it gets pretty bad. I want to test things out while I'm in my 14 day grace period. Aside from going around town running a speed test, is there any app or anything that might do this better and/or give me a better idea of dead spots etc?

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