Database Info

REALLY poor signal on T-Mobile, Any suggestions?

I just got a Touch Pro on T-Mobile (UK).
I love the device but the signal is poor to the point of unusable both at work (the center of a city) and at home. I've rung T-Mobile who said I should have "excellent" coverage in both my home and work postcodes. I've never been on T-Mobile before but I'd guess it should be better than this?
It's ruining the device for me. Mostly because I can't make calls but there are so many web features on it that I can't use.
Browsing around the web, it looks as if this is a problem for quite a few people. Anyone know of a solution? I have tried setting the band from "Automatic" to GPRS but that made no difference. When I put my Orange sim card in there, it's better but still significantly lower than when it's in my N95.
Does anyone have anything to suggest? I REALLY don't want to have to send this device back.

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

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

[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.

[Q] Infuse vs SGS2

First, I'd like to point out that I'm aware there are many threads here about this here at XDA alone, but this isn't a typical "phone vs phone" thread, so don't attack me about it being everywhere. I've seen a lot of people do this, but one thing that a lot of people don't ask about (that bothers me because these ARE phones...) is signal strength.
I've owned an Atrix 2 before, but it seemed to have a weak antenna and had relatively bad signal. Now, in my area, I don't really get good signal, BUT I recently flashed the newest Infuse modem to my Infuse and noticed that I had better signal (not good, but better). Thing is, it's making me wonder if my Infuse and Atrix 2 just had a weak antenna or a "weak" modem firmware for lack of a better term. In my room, previously, I could barely use up any data (like go on the market to download apps and use Facebook) and now I have almost no issues doing that whenever I want. CRAZY. One day, my phone's just sitting here racking up a relatively high bill for a phone when all it does for the most part is sit there on my night stand and now I can actually USE it and don't have problems while talking to others on the phone. In fact, I was close to leaving AT&T because of how bad things were, but after flashing this new modem, I'm honestly having second thoughts. You may be thinking, "Why not just buy an amplifier/repeater/micro cell?" Yeah, thing is, I kinda have bad signal almost everywhere I go, both with Atrix 2 AND Infuse - that is, I HAD bad signal with the Infuse until I flashed this new modem. I'd like to get more signal EVERYWHERE I go, not just at home.
On another note, I watched some Infuse vs SGS2 vids on YouTube and noticed that on each one (from different people), the SGS2 has roughly 2-3 bars more than the Infuse. Yes, bars can lie, but given that the SGS2 is a newer phone, you'd figure it'd have newer hardware, including a new antenna which generally means better signal strength.
Tl;dr: Does SGS2 really get better signal or should I just stick with my Infuse? I don't ask this in neither the SGS2 forums nor the Infuse forums because I figured that chances were, I'd get biased answers.
Little recap: I do NOT care about all their specs or anything. I just want to know which one would have better signal strength by default. Even then, I'd root the SGS2 and put in a "better" modem anyway and make that even better, but yeah...
Thanks!

There is no general answer to that question.
You will have to take both phones somewhere, try each one with your sim card and compare reception.

If you're using both 2G and 3G networks the S2 has a small advantage. It uses 850/900/1900/2100 of HSDPA compared to the Infuse's 850/1900/2100. So when you're in an area with only 900 HSDPA frequency you'll have signal if you have the S2 while no coverage if you have the Infuse. If you're always on 2G to save battery and bills then they are just the same, both works on gsm frequencies 850/900/1800/1900. Both have plastic builds so you won't have Signal issues similar to what you'll experience with other phones with metal parts interfering with the Antennae.
Here's a link from gsmarena so you can see for yourself the difference in signal reception. You can also check out their dedicated reviews to see if the reception is good, bad, or whatever. You'll also see the call quality if you're also interested in that.
http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=3705&idPhone2=3621
I hope this helps!

That makes sense. That's the kind of reply I was looking for. Thanks!

FaintPuppet said:
That makes sense. That's the kind of reply I was looking for. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to be of help! I hope you don't get dissapointed with your purchase BTW, thanks for the "thanks"!! That was actually my first

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?