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[VERIZON] Anyone noticing worse data connection and reception?

Coming from a Bionic. On that phone, I kept LTE in every room of my apartment. On this Galaxy S3, I only get LTE in one room and the others throw me onto 3G. Just seeing if anyone else was experiencing something similar, hopefully enough people are affected to warrant a fix in a future update.

Have you tried network booster from market?
White Hot! GS3.

LuRock said:
Have you tried network booster from market?
White Hot! GS3.
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Never heard of it. Comments say all it does is quickly turn your phone to airplane mode then back to normal. No, I'm not downloading an app for that

I will agree with you the signal on this is not as good as my 4s on att

Mine is pulling the same dbm's as maxx was.

I'm coming from the Razr Maxx...and I do notice a slight decrease in radio strength...nothing to complain too much about though...my main concern is the 4G LTE speeds...with my MAXX while being very close to an LTE tower I was getting 30+ Mbps download and 20+ Mbps upload... when standing in the same spot with my GS3 I only get about 6 Mbps download and 7 Mbps upload....I did test all around the city and I never break those numbers....My Maxx used to smoke it was so fast... If anyone else is experiencing this then hopefully a future update will fix it...or maybe my phone is buggy?? or the SIM card is bad?? I have no clue...I'm coming from Sprint from before my MAXX so anything over 150 Kbps is fast for me LoL...but still I know the Verizon network is fast and my GS3 is Slowing me down when it shouldn't....

my signal is the same on this as my bionic dbm is the same

monkey28rb said:
I will agree with you the signal on this is not as good as my 4s on att
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Worthless comparison. You're comparing a different phone on a different network. There is so much wrong with this I can barely even touch it.
Suffice it to say that, at the bare minimum, it's quite possible that you're simply closer to the AT&T tower than to the Verizon tower.

Yes it's not as good as my rezound. I have very weak signal in my office and the rezound would always get 1 bar and the gs3 gets no signal at all

I don't see any difference in signal strength from my previous phone (DX).

monkey28rb said:
I will agree with you the signal on this is not as good as my 4s on att
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Att or verizon? 3g or 4g/lte? Android or iOS? Uhhh maybe you have the wrong forum or you are just trying to be funny...... yeah let's go with it being a joke. Lol that was a good one .

I think verizon 4g is just a bit buggy still. I'm routinely in cherry hill new jersey and usually have full 4g here. The past 2 days 4g is no where to be found... Here's to hoping verizon gets this figured out.
-Hai guise I haz problems on the pre-alpha release and I don't know why.

I've had a lot of fluctuation in my mbps. Signal strenght is usually decent (3 bars on average) My fastest mbps was 25 down 23 up, but on average I get about 6-10/sec. I have had the phone for a week as of today, and I've only switched to 3g twice for about 30 seconds. I live in the chicago area where I believe there is a lot of coverage.

Still hoping Samsung can get a proper radio out both my thunderbolt and rezound get great signal and speed both at work and home twhere as the S3 get horrible speed and signal :'(
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

95talondsm said:
I've had a lot of fluctuation in my mbps. Signal strenght is usually decent (3 bars on average) My fastest mbps was 25 down 23 up, but on average I get about 6-10/sec. I have had the phone for a week as of today, and I've only switched to 3g twice for about 30 seconds. I live in the chicago area where I believe there is a lot of coverage.
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I get a huge fluctuation is speed too although I am on 3g and have not seen 4g yet.
Two speed tests done back to back, one can be as low as 30 kbps down with 500 kbps, the other 1500kbs down with 100 kbps up.
My phone is being returned as "DOA." It's not my network as I made the 3 hour drive to the city to compare it there. As compared to phones running the same apps, in the store, side by side mine was noticeably slower and far less consistent.
My battery life is miserable as well so if you have these issues- sounds like the device is faulty.
Let me stress- I have not received a replacement of my S3 yet so I am unaware if this issue is across the board, or, isolated to particular phones.

I have better speed and a good signal strength. coming g from the bionic so ...yeah

SightSeeker said:
Yes it's not as good as my rezound. I have very weak signal in my office and the rezound would always get 1 bar and the gs3 gets no signal at all
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Same here, my three Rezound's have a much better radio than any GSlll.
I knew this going in however, Samsung has always had [email protected] radios (my Droid Charge was the same way) & the radios in the Rezound are some of the best out there.

Just ran a speedtest in my office... 186kbps / 21 kbps on 3g... WTF?

Kreeker said:
Just ran a speedtest in my office... 186kbps / 21 kbps on 3g... WTF?
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Exact same symptoms mine displays.
Lame.
Keep trying it and see if it fluctuates.

Hmm I've been bouncing back and forth between no data, 1x, and 3g all day in an area I always have strong 4g. Weird.
EDIT: and full 4g just magically reappeared here. -83 dbm , 57asu

Is the radio in this device really that bad?

so long story short I am looking at ditching sprint where I have an EVO LTE. Trust me when I say I am used to crap reception and data speeds. I was reading the thread full of other people who have came from sprint and most seem happy but... I read a lot of comments from long time Verizon users saying things like " I have to contort like a monkey to get a message to go through". Are these just spoiled Verizon users that don't know how good they've got it? Or is coming from sprint a waste of my time? Thanks for any and all input.
PS: Verizon has LTE all over my area, sprint has not announced any LTE anywhere near me. Is the LTE utilized for voice and text? Will this help?
Sent from my EVO using xda premium

Im sure others have problems, but mine has been great. Not a single issue to speak of. Been running CM10 for 2 months now.

Gordon Ramsay said:
so long story short I am looking at ditching sprint where I have an EVO LTE. Trust me when I say I am used to crap reception and data speeds. I was reading the thread full of other people who have came from sprint and most seem happy but... I read a lot of comments from long time Verizon users saying things like " I have to contort like a monkey to get a message to go through". Are these just spoiled Verizon users that don't know how good they've got it? Or is coming from sprint a waste of my time? Thanks for any and all input.
PS: Verizon has LTE all over my area, sprint has not announced any LTE anywhere near me. Is the LTE utilized for voice and text? Will this help?
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
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NO radio problems here.... I think a lot of people with problems may be on the border of having coverage where they are...? I have FULL bars no matter where I go in Michigan (except in Walmart) LOL I have LTE coverage too and it's been a solid performer and I may drop a call here and there but nothing out of the norm... Just my personal experiences...:good:

My .02
Go to a verizon store, put a rezound side by side to a samsung galaxy s3 and compare the dbm and asu and u will see how terrible the signal is . My phone is constantly at least 20 dbm less than the rezound .
It feels like i am back to sprint or tmobile since i got my device, constant data drops, phone call break ups and 4g/3g handing off is terrible .
Btw this is my 4th sim and second samsung galaxy s3 trial now , still reception in comparison to any htc phone is horrible.
Htc put their 4g antennas on the back cover which i think makes them practically immune to low signal issues.
Its a pretty phone , but if u want a device that actually communicates with satellites and cell towers, then get a real phone . not this one .
waiting for htc dlx

Mine has been completely fine.
Currently not being productive on my S3.

I came from Sprint at the beginning of the month. On Sprint it had gotten so bad that I was on 1 bar 90% of the time in the middle of the New Orleans area. I gave up waiting for it to get better and installed Roam Control so I could force it to roam on Verizon. Forced roaming only gets you 1x data, but it gave me full signal which prevented dropouts and draining the battery.
Now I'm on Verizon with the S3 and have no signal issues. I don't think I've ever seen less than 3 bars. The signal starts might be lower than other phones based on other people's experience but I wouldn't know because I haven't had any problems to make it worth checking. I think it really depends on your area. If your current phone is rooted, you could try Roam Control to get an idea of what the signal strength will be like, although you'll be stuck on 1x data.

I too was scared by the reports in various threads that these devices have horrible radios. We switched to Verizon from ATT because ATT doesn't work at all at my office (searching for reception).
I haven't been looking at dBM or anything but from a functional standpoint I haven't had any issues. There are some areas where before I was getting 4-5 3G bars on my ATT iPhone4 where the SGS3 bounces between 1-3 bars 4G LTE. It's always disturbing when you see 1 bar of reception, but the phone operates well even getting 4-5Mbps in speedtest. If you look at bars (I know not really accurate) and whether or not I can browse, call, etc. the SGS3 compares favorable to the wife's iPhone5. In fact there were a couple places where I was getting 1-2 bars 4G and the iPhone5 dropped to 3G.

Her are some screen shots of my signals after an update last night. These are the best I've gotten on both and better than anything I saw on my Rezound.
Currently not being productive on my S3.

Never had an issue with signal on my S3. You also need to realize that the most vocal people are those that have an issue. For every 1 person posting about an issue there a dozens that have no problem at all.

Signal on my s3 is great its 100 times better then gnex was and about on par with my old droid RAZR.

dwyw42 said:
I came from Sprint at the beginning of the month. On Sprint it had gotten so bad that I was on 1 bar 90% of the time in the middle of the New Orleans area. I gave up waiting for it to get better and installed Roam Control so I could force it to roam on Verizon. Forced roaming only gets you 1x data, but it gave me full signal which prevented dropouts and draining the battery.
Now I'm on Verizon with the S3 and have no signal issues. I don't think I've ever seen less than 3 bars. The signal starts might be lower than other phones based on other people's experience but I wouldn't know because I haven't had any problems to make it worth checking. I think it really depends on your area. If your current phone is rooted, you could try Roam Control to get an idea of what the signal strength will be like, although you'll be stuck on 1x data.
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This doesn't work, each manufacturer measures it slightly differently. You have to use a third party app to compare phones that are not the same model.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Yes, it is. My GS3 consistently drops in places where my Rezound and iPhone work without a hiccup.

I actually just switched from Sprint to Verizon last week and love it. My gs3 has great reception and the network is very fast. I get a consistent 30 mbps down all over my area. With Sprint I was lucky to get 500 kbps
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

The Nexus was the worst for reception. The S3 is a close second. It seems to be people in some parts of the country don't notice the issue - possibly because they don't use their phone much or because they have towers that use different technology than the towers in the areas I travel. I spend a lot of time in Los Angeles, Vegas and Dallas. I can be at 4 bars one second and no bars (drop the call) and go back to 4 bars the next.
I was on Sprint and the HTC EVO 3D had that same issue even though the EVO didn't. I did always get crap data speeds on Sprint though. Some phones get great signal like the Motorola - so the question is - which is more imporant to you - the PDA or the phone. I use about 3000 minutes per month so I notice quickly when there are issues with a phones reception. My data speeds on the S3 are much better than I had on Sprint.

No the radios are not bad.
Excellent service, all the time here. In fact, I've never seen my phone with less than 3 bars, anywhere I go. And I travel a lot.

Yes the radios are very bad.....although improving. With the HE radio I finally have seem -99 dbm at my house although most of the time it is around -105. This is much improved compared to the original radio where I saw on average -110. I still drop calls in areas where I never have before. The poster that stated that HTC's have better signal are definitely correct. My wifes old rezound normally saw -80 to -85 at my house and never dropped calls anywhere. My old Thunderbolt was the same. Funny thing is that no matter what direction I go from my house, once I am a minute away I get full reception.....no matter what way I go. The radios don't do a good job of reaching out for the signal. The range is bad. Those stating that they are happy with their radios are probably in areas that don't have any weak spots. I'm holding out for newer radios cause every release seems to be a small step in the right direction.

ercDROID said:
Yes the radios are very bad.....although improving. With the HE radio I finally have seem -99 dbm at my house although most of the time it is around -105. This is much improved compared to the original radio where I saw on average -110. I still drop calls in areas where I never have before. The poster that stated that HTC's have better signal are definitely correct. My wifes old rezound normally saw -80 to -85 at my house and never dropped calls anywhere. My old Thunderbolt was the same. Funny thing is that no matter what direction I go from my house, once I am a minute away I get full reception.....no matter what way I go. The radios don't do a good job of reaching out for the signal. The range is bad. Those stating that they are happy with their radios are probably in areas that don't have any weak spots. I'm holding out for newer radios cause every release seems to be a small step in the right direction.
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Same exact thing here! You took the words directly out of my mouth.
Sent by one of my many Anthromorphic Personifications

Here are the results of a real world test that I just did with a co-workers HTC Thunderbolt compared to my SG3:
Both phones on 4g and side by side
HTC dBM -66
SG3 dBM -92
I think the results are pretty clear. Nothing else really needs to be said about the quality of the SG3 radio......it is not as good as the competition. If it was close by a few dBM then it would not be of concern to me. A 26 dBM difference is huge!
Because of this difference in signal strength he was able to have much faster download speeds. I was 17 down compared to his 27 down.

Sprint - Data Dropping 3G More Often Than Not

Anyone else on sprint have frequent data drops? For example, I'm holding my wifes N5 and mine while driving, and I swear, over the course of 1-2 miles, my 3G dropped 3 times, and heres never dropped from what my eyes saw. She was even on LTE for a mile and I was on 3G.
I'm trying to make sense of it all, if its a carrier thing or a phone defect. So I'm looking to see what other people have experienced. (Metro Detroit Area, if that helps)
Thanks in advance guys.

chugger93 said:
Anyone else on sprint have frequent data drops? For example, I'm holding my wifes N5 and mine while driving, and I swear, over the course of 1-2 miles, my 3G dropped 3 times, and heres never dropped from what my eyes saw. She was even on LTE for a mile and I was on 3G.
I'm trying to make sense of it all, if its a carrier thing or a phone defect. So I'm looking to see what other people have experienced. (Metro Detroit Area, if that helps)
Thanks in advance guys.
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I have horrible connectivity on Sprint as well - the Nexus 5 seems to have pretty bad cellular connection, while my 2nd line with the EVO LTE (and my older S4) would have a MUCH better connection at the exact same spot/time.
(Dallas, TX)
I even changed my N5 (got a replacement from Google) - no difference.

Connectivity is better in buildings in Chicago with tri-band.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I'm going to return mine... LTE speeds are terrible, especially inside. My s2 on wimax was faster!

Radio Performance

I am curious as to how the phones signal has been for those that own it. I currently have the S3 and have had it since launch but don't like how it gets stuck in 3g or 1x when losing 4g temporarily even though I know i'm back into a good 4g area. Overall signal is good but the transfer between 1x/3g back to 4g is terrible and my next phone i'm hoping to avoid all the frustration.
I have thought of buying the moto x just because its motorola and they're known for good radios. I have some time and am thinking of waiting until the moto x2 or g3 but its one of those things where why wait if it's good.
Thanks in advance.

zim2704 said:
I am curious as to how the phones signal has been for those that own it. I currently have the S3 and have had it since launch but don't like how it gets stuck in 3g or 1x when losing 4g temporarily even though I know i'm back into a good 4g area. Overall signal is good but the transfer between 1x/3g back to 4g is terrible and my next phone i'm hoping to avoid all the frustration.
I have thought of buying the moto x just because its motorola and they're known for good radios. I have some time and am thinking of waiting until the moto x2 or g3 but its one of those things where why wait if it's good.
Thanks in advance.
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To be honest with you. Samsung has the worst radios. I had an s3 and it dropped signal too many times. I then got the HTC DNA and it was so much better. I believe HTC has a way better radio than Samsung.
My All New One

I was kind of concerned about this too before I bought mine. I come from a long list of Moto phones. The only non Moto phone I've had was a Rezound. I had it for all of one day. The darn thing would only ring probably 1 out of 4 calls I received. 1 out of 3 if I was lucky. I took it back the day after I bought it and they looked at it and told me there was nothing wrong with it. Well, I've never had a problem like that in my house with any Moto phone. So, I told them to keep it and went home with a Razr Maxx. You can see why I was concerned.
Anyway, I have to say, this phone has the best radio or at least the best reception of any phone I've owned. I work in an area that is quite iffy as far as a signal goes and my Moto phones would hold a pretty good signal there but depending on where I was at any given time, I would lose the signal and have to walk around a bit to get it back. In the shop there, forget it. I pretty much had nothing. The signal on this phone shows it's slightly weaker at work than my Maxx but it's worked flawlessly for me out there. I can even take it in the shop and it works great. Signal is weak but somehow it seems to hang onto it. Listened to Tune In Radio for 5 hours in there today and never lost the signal once.
I also went to a town today where it's worse than at work. My Moto phones there would work but constantly on and off. I was listening to Tune In there today too and it did have one hiccup for 10 seconds or so but that was it in a half hour's time. But, that doesn't surprise me in that location. What does surprise me is that it only stopped once. No way any of my Moto phones would do that well there. Anyway, maybe I'm just lucky but I'm extremely pleased with mine and don't regret buying it at all.

The old faithful LTE ON/OFF FOR thunderbolt app still works like a charm to control the radio bands on an HTC phone.
Highly recommend to install to force lte or 3g when needed.

The S3 in particular had a wretched radio, I couldn't get signal for the life of me in my house. Verizon ended up replacing it for me with a Note 2 which was better in many regards. The radio so far on the M8 has blown the note 2 out of the water, it doesn't even compare. I get a steady 10-20 asu improvement over what I used to get with the note 2 in most situations.

Liking what I've read so far.

Been so so for me. I've always had ATT and personally only had bad reception in my home. Almost anywhere else I had 4g LTE everywhere. Never saw Edge connection, worst was 3G.
I just switched to Verizon for this device when it came out so first time with Verizon. I get better 4g LTE connection at home but I've noticed in stores I get only 1x (is this Edge type of network compared to AT&T?) Or maybe 1-2 bars of 3G. Only get 4G LTE when outdoors. Even inside huge Target, Wal-Mart, whatever get cfao reception when on AT&T this was never an issue. This might be a carrier thing though, nothing to do with this device but again nothing to compare to, first device and time on Verizon network. Surprising too living in southern California where LTE is literally everywhere here. Actually had much higher hopes for Verizon network, feeling let done here.

The reception thread...

I am very curious because this is rarely talked about. How is the reception on the PE? Motorola and Nokia are renowned for how good reception their phones get. Happy to have a Motorola phone on the way. Anybody have input coming from another brand? My note2 and note4 get pretty good reception. The note 3 didn't really. My htc m8 was a couple of notches above the note3. I have a cracked nexus5 that was given to me from my sister but since cracked screen haven't given it a test run. So did the advertised method of 'better' reception' from nexus6 from new tech carry over to the moto x PE? Really curious as I might give all the carriers a try for haha's.
I am really hoping Legere pulls out all the stops and goes all in to score some good 600mhz band. If they do, we probably won't t see it for u til 2017. The auction is next year. And tmobile needs to be more aggressive with the RIL's and throw 700mhz in theix more. I rarely see 700mhz being used. I have to force often times when I get bad signal.

There's another thread regarding poor LTE signal. Seems to be mixed. I have a replacement sim card coming tomorrow to see if it helps change my signal quality. I came from an iPhone 6 which had fantastic signal strength and LTE.
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

I have been using mine for a week now and I notice no problems with reception. My PE is just as good as my previous Nexus 6
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA Free mobile app

Sim card won't fix signal. It may fix apn's and signing o to network but has little to do with reception.

The reception on the Pure blows the reception on the S6 out of the water. I used to be sitting on our couch and no calls, texts would come through because I couldn't get any signal on the S6. No issues at all with the Pure.

brholt6 said:
The reception on the Pure blows the reception on the S6 out of the water. I used to be sitting on our couch and no calls, texts would come through because I couldn't get any signal on the S6. No issues at all with the Pure.
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This is why I avoid Samsung like the plague. Their cell reception blows. I live in a weak signal area and people who have Samsung phones drop signal constantly. My LG G2 does pretty good but Motorola always does the best. I've got a Verizon booster so I can get signals in my basement, which is where my office is located.

I moved from a G3 to the MXPE. I was expecting improved reception given my previous experience with Moto phones. The dB levels are equivalent at home. That being said, I had no reception issues with the G3 either!

Compared to my galaxy s3 the mxp is pretty amazing with regards to reception.(well it's pretty amazing compared to the s3 in pretty much every metric) I now have LTE inside my house for the first time ever. I drive 45 minutes to work through some very rural areas where my s3 had zero reception, and now I can complete full calls during my commute, never dropping a single call. I absolutely love the reception on this device. Verizon unlimited is very nice on this phone. I can stream podcasts pretty much everywhere while driving.

No issues here on straight talk...
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

I noticed that it switches from LTE to HSPA much easier than my oneplus....
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I have owned the S3, S4 and N4. None of them were great with signal, but the N4 was the better of the three on Verizon.

I go the phone yesterday and didn't want to start a new thread since my issue deals with reception. I have my old LG G2 sitting beside my new MXPE. The old phone is not active but I left the sim card in it so I could compare signals. I live in a bad area and have a commercial version of the Verizon Network Extender and Verizon Tier 2 support cranked it up for me. I am running the app Network Signal Info and both phones show 82% strength but the network type on the G2 shows unknown and the one on my MXPE shows EVDO A. Both fluctuate between 66-68 dBm. However, when I check GSAM my G2 shows I have had a 100% high signal all day long and the MXPE shows I have had 1% low signal, 51% at level 2 medium and 48% at level 3 and 0% at level 4, high.
I have dialed #48 to verify I am under 'Network Extender Coverage." Does anyone have any ideas why MXPE would be so much lower? It is showing it eating up about 23% of my battery.

I haven't had any problems, and I stream Spotify from home to work and work to home which is about 20-25 mile drive. Driving out on country roads too