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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
Hello,
I have my Nexus 5 on order and it's currently in route via UPS. For those of you that already have it in hand, whats your opinion about it's reception vs the Nexus 4's? The reason why I ask is because my nexus 4 has crap reception in my office and I can't get a signal while co-workers on the same network carrier can get a signal just fine (a weak but reliable one). It doesn't help I'm in a basement behind 3 feet of concrete and steal beams, but if I go to the stairs I get a signal right away.
If anyone who previously had "bad" reception in certain areas could test this with their new Nexus 5 and share the info that's be great!
Because of my bad circumstances and office location, I'm hoping I can get a basic signal for just talk/text. I'd be fine without data since I don't surf the web on my phone while at work.
Sooo.. got my N5 yesterday and I normally have bad signal at home. I had the same bad signal so assumed everything was the same.
Got to work this morning and previously where I had a great signal with my N4 where I sat I get literally no cellular signal on the N5. Tried forcing down to 3G/HSPA and still nothing. As soon as I walk out of my area and close to the front of our building my signal comes back almost full.
Anyone experiencing these same issues? Not too pleased with this but I'd feel better if other people are affected at least.
*edit*
So in a completely random way I turned data roaming on and off just for ****s and giggles and within 5 seconds of turning it off I all of a sudden had a full HSPA signal. ????? It appears to work flawlessly now.
Hallo, Vodafone Italy still not offers LTE coverage in my city, but there are some cells that already have it enabled.
I noticed that when I'm under 4G, my signal never got past 2 notches.
So I ask to who is covered: is this right or do I need RMA?
Thanks...
I'm supposedly in a very strong LTE area and I usually see two bars. Occasionally there will be three bars holding steady but rarely do I expect to see four (out of five). My speeds rarely change from 16-18 up and down (downloads always faster. Zero packet loss on T-Mobile. My Nexus 4, on the other hand gets low speeds and between 2-4% packet loss.
gpvecchi said:
Hallo, Vodafone Italy still not offers LTE coverage in my city, but there are some cells that already have it enabled.
I noticed that when I'm under 4G, my signal never got past 2 notches.
So I ask to who is covered: is this right or do I need RMA?
Thanks...
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Are you talking about the signal bars in notification area as "notches"? Trying to see if thats what you said. If so, the signal bars do not dictate the LTE strength, just cellular call strength. The LTE download could still be great even in no signal bar areas as well, signal does not influence the data strength nor does data strength dictate the signal quality via the bars. Since the phone has to turn off LTE to "switch" to 3G in order to make calls, the "switch" may have something to do with the bars.
Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted to know! And, yes, Italians call signal bar "notches"...
I've realised that the signal strength in Phone Status (in dBm) does not seem to work correctly when on LTE. Very often, it'll show that my signal is -113 dBm, which is an extremely weak signal, while showing 2 or 3 signal bars. Something is obviously wrong as 3 out of 4 bars should NEVER be as weak a signal as -113 dBm. Is anyone else experiencing this?
G920F (bought from Germany) on 3 UK.
Japultra said:
I've realised that the signal strength in Phone Status (in dBm) does not seem to work correctly when on LTE. Very often, it'll show that my signal is -113 dBm, which is an extremely weak signal, while showing 2 or 3 signal bars. Something is obviously wrong as 3 out of 4 bars should NEVER be as weak a signal as -113 dBm. Is anyone else experiencing this?
G920F (bought from Germany) on 3 UK.
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LTE dBm are calculated differently. 113 is good around 140 is bad.
SmiLey497 said:
LTE dBm work different. 113 is good around 140 is bad.
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I've read that signal drops off at -120, so -113 is pretty close to the edge, but either way, that signal indicator is wrong. If I go into the service menu (*#0011#) the RSRP (dBm) it shows fluctuates from -91 to -98, which seems to be the more appropriate dBm for 3 bars of signal. The dBm in my phone status still stays static at -113 (it doesn't fluctuate at all)
As per your request in the other topic here are my findings.
I live in Amsterdam and I work in the harbour area (a lot of open spaces). I work next to a 4 x 3 meter window. With every device I've owned I would get full reception. Though under settings > device > status it would always say -113. My reception bar is always near empty.
When I go outside, even in the middle of a park in the middle of the city with nobody around, I will still get the same result. In my apartmentbuilding, on the 7th floor outside on my balcony, same result.
I'm currently in the office so I thought I'd send a screenshot of what the *#0011# screen looks like.
(Apologies for the big image)
In my parking garage I would even get reception with my OnePlus One, which isn't really great when it comes to reception. It would be only a sliver, but at least I would get something. The S6 doesn't get anything. When I leave the bigger urban area I'm immediately knocked off 4G and 3G and I'm pretty much left to calling and texting. The Netherlands isn't really like the outback of Australia, I had expected better
I can live with not having reception in my parking garage, but I'm more concerned with the fact that I've never seen more reception than you can see in that screenshot and that I have close to no reception when I go out of town. I'm using T-Mobile which I know only uses the higher frequencies. In the Netherlands they use 900 MHz, 1800, 2600 MHz. I don't know if that comes into play much. I had a bit better reception when I was still at Vodafone, but that was a few years back. With a top of the line device like the S6 I had expected better. Much better.
Maybe I should have the device swapped?
Thijsvr said:
As per your request in the other topic here are my findings.
I live in Amsterdam and I work in the harbour area (a lot of open spaces). I work next to a 4 x 3 meter window. With every device I've owned I would get full reception. Though under settings > device > status it would always say -113. My reception bar is always near empty.
When I go outside, even in the middle of a park in the middle of the city with nobody around, I will still get the same result. In my apartmentbuilding, on the 7th floor outside on my balcony, same result.
I'm currently in the office so I thought I'd send a screenshot of what the *#0011# screen looks like.
(Apologies for the big image)
In my parking garage I would even get reception with my OnePlus One, which isn't really great when it comes to reception. It would be only a sliver, but at least I would get something. The S6 doesn't get anything. When I leave the bigger urban area I'm immediately knocked off 4G and 3G and I'm pretty much left to calling and texting. The Netherlands isn't really like the outback of Australia, I had expected better
I can live with not having reception in my parking garage, but I'm more concerned with the fact that I've never seen more reception than you can see in that screenshot and that I have close to no reception when I go out of town. I'm using T-Mobile which I know only uses the higher frequencies. In the Netherlands they use 900 MHz, 1800, 2600 MHz. I don't know if that comes into play much. I had a bit better reception when I was still at Vodafone, but that was a few years back. With a top of the line device like the S6 I had expected better. Much better.
Maybe I should have the device swapped?
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I see that your RSRP is the same as what it states in the phone status menu. Does this number ever change? For me, I (mostly) always see -113 (such as right now in my office) but my RSRP actually fluctuates. Screenshot of my RSRP attached.
Japultra said:
I see that your RSRP is the same as what it states in the phone status menu. Does this number ever change? For me, I (mostly) always see -113 (such as right now in my office) but my RSRP actually fluctuates. Screenshot of my RSRP attached.
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In my phone status window I've never seen it change. In the RSRP it does vary a little bit, from -115 to -110.
I actually just got it working properly for the first time. I went to the rooftop of my office, as far away from anything that could interfere and I got -77. Bars actually went up too which I haven't seen before. So I guess the device really does just have poor reception. Strange that not more people are reporting on this though.
Edit. These guys are also reporting on low signal stuff: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/08/samsung_galaxy_s6/
Thijsvr said:
In my phone status window I've never seen it change. In the RSRP it does vary a little bit, from -115 to -110.
I actually just got it working properly for the first time. I went to the rooftop of my office, as far away from anything that could interfere and I got -77. Bars actually went up too which I haven't seen before. So I guess the device really does just have poor reception. Strange that not more people are reporting on this though.
Edit. These guys are also reporting on low signal stuff: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/08/samsung_galaxy_s6/
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Unfortunately, I've noticed the same thing, though not nearly as bad as what The Register is experiencing. For me, it is only slightly worse than my G3.
Japultra said:
Unfortunately, I've noticed the same thing, though not nearly as bad as what The Register is experiencing. For me, it is only slightly worse than my G3.
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The review sounds pretty accurate to me, but others are reporting their device has connectivity as good as HTC's M9. Luckily I've got an M9 lying around, so I'll put my sim in that and see if it too gives me poor reception.
---------- Post added at 02:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:36 PM ----------
Haha, I guess I have to blame T-Mobile and not Samsung. The M9 I have gets -112 dBm at the same location where the S6 has -113 dBm. Seems the problem is with the network and not with the device. Not sure yet if that's good news or not
Thijsvr said:
The review sounds pretty accurate to me, but others are reporting their device has connectivity as good as HTC's M9. Luckily I've got an M9 lying around, so I'll put my sim in that and see if it too gives me poor reception.
---------- Post added at 02:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:36 PM ----------
Haha, I guess I have to blame T-Mobile and not Samsung. The M9 I have gets -112 dBm at the same location where the S6 has -113 dBm. Seems the problem is with the network and not with the device. Not sure yet if that's good news or not
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Well, it's good that you know it's not your S6! I was actually walking along a street where I got horrible reception with the G3 (after I posted the last comment) and realised I was actually holding onto a signal when the G3 would lose signal completely. Guess it's not as bad as I thought!
Japultra said:
Well, it's good that you know it's not your S6! I was actually walking along a street where I got horrible reception with the G3 (after I posted the last comment) and realised I was actually holding onto a signal when the G3 would lose signal completely. Guess it's not as bad as I thought!
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We're just too critical Glad we got it solved, haha. Back to fully enjoying the device!
I have this issue also.
I had a nexus 5 before on EE and pretty much always had 3-4 bars if not full signal. On the GS6 still with EE i rarely see it go above 1 bar.
I am still within my 14 day return time but i am stuck now with what to do. Do i risk waiting to see if this is fixed with a software update or return it. If i wait and its not fixed them im stuck with a phone that gets very little signal. If i return it i have no idea what else i would get as i love this phone. I have also tried another GS6 in store but same issue so makes me wonder is this a software or hardware issue. Seems several people on varying networks have this issue.
I have the same experience. -113 dBm at home inside our house.
1 max 2 bars on the signal indicator. Lots of places where I had 4-5 bars on my One M8 I now have these -113 dBm on S6 4G, or only 3G connection (-79 dBm - 4 bars, the max on S6). Sitting here with my SIM card placed in my M8 I get -98 dBm 39 asu inside our house. Thats 4 out of 5 bars on the HTC indicator. It's the same with other 4G handsets we have in the house. I have a cheap company Nokia 4G phone that also have 4 bars inside the house. I've had a Z3 compact that also had great reception on 4G. I think I have data enough to conclude:
Conclusion: S6 have bad LTE/4G reception. Very very sorry about this. This is a real stepdown from what I otherwise think of the S6 handset. Other than that, I don't know wether this can be made better by software, but I doubt it..
EDIT: Just tried by wifes Samsung A5, which sees -97 dBm on my SIM card.
Different carrier roms seem to deal with the signal differently, but essentially it's a cosmetic issue. I'm using the Three UK (H3G) rom and my signal bars work fine but my dBm signal level in settings is always stuck at -113dBm.
I took these 2 screenshots at the same time standing in a great 4G signal area:
http://i.imgur.com/n6eUmaS.png
http://i.imgur.com/v5KsmgH.png
As you can see, the settings shows -113dBm but the service menu (*#0011# in dialer) shows -84dBm.
Maybe this thread is really about that - the signal interpretation internally. But nevertheless my S6 handset is 'downscaling' to 3G all the time (and staying there), hente twice the roundtrip and less bandwidth for me.
duckstardeluxe said:
Maybe this thread is really about that - the signal interpretation internally. But nevertheless my S6 handset is 'downscaling' to 3G all the time (and staying there), hente twice the roundtrip and less bandwidth for me.
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It sounds like you have a different issue. Have you tried checking what your signal is in the service menu using *#0011#?
I'm getting an error dialing the service menu (OSSD code) stating N/A.
duckstardeluxe said:
I'm getting an error dialing the service menu (OSSD code) stating N/A.
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Are you typing it in exactly like this: *#0011# ?
Here in Italy very bad signal with TIM also with 3g. Where my Iphone and Note 4 get full signal only 2 bars on my GS6. What the hell Samsung always release buggy phone!!!
I forgot to mention that I was running the Lite version of the stock rom found here on XDA. The service code don't work on that rom, which made me downgrade to my backup of the stock rom.
I'm getting RSRP:-98 RSRQ:-6 RSSI:-71
duckstardeluxe said:
I forgot to mention that I was running the Lite version of the stock rom found here on XDA. The service code don't work on that rom, which made me downgrade to my backup of the stock rom.
I'm getting RSRP:-98 RSRQ:-6 RSSI:-71
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That matches your M8.
Hi guys recently I bought an unlocked g955u1 from best buy and am on Verizon. I've noticed that my cell signal has been reading a bit off despite doing the Verizon software update. My phone is almost always stuck on 3 bars lte according to lte discovery and the range of dBm will average -100 to as low as -108 which realistically should be 1-2 bars not 3. In the past the only time I've really saw inaccurate readings like this is when I've been on gsm carriers. It's not as much as a problem as more of an annoyance as everything works fine. My question is anybody know why it's reading so inaccurate?
The bars are more or less just approximate visualizations of the network strength anyway. It varies from carrier to carrier, as well as phone manufacturer. You're better off sticking with the dB display if you want a truly accurate reading. Imho.
I have a T-Mobile variant and have noticed the my DL and UL speeds are a lot faster than any of the phone I've had in the past. We live out from town and even on the Nexus 6 it shows 3 bars and on the S8+ I get all the bars and the DL speed on the other phones at my house are around 5Mbps and on the S8+ I get 17-20Mbps at the house now. In town it has gone up from 40Mbps to 55Mbps.
My ATT S8+ reception
While I agree that the dBm is what you should be looking at, I have noticed some funky things going on with my ATT S8+ in terms of reception. Using the same SIM card, placing the phone in the exact same place, my S6 Active has a signal strength of -124 dBm /asu 16/"In service" on LTE. The S8+ gets a signal strength of -113 dBm/asu of 0/"Out of service." To me this seems like the S8+ is actually getting better reception than the 6S Active but the phone is out of service. I also tried this same test in another location using a different cell tower. Same results, the S8+ gets better reception...but the phone does not perform as well. In location number 2 I have also notice the S8+ fish for better signal and switch from LTE to HSPA where the signal strength is -99 dBm but the asu is only 7.
Since I live in a area with weak cell coverage the S8+ is driving me nuts...I contacted ATT about it last night, will see what happens.
Also somewhat related:
I'm using a US Unlocked on T-Mobile, and I've noticed my signal dropping out in areas where I previously had great signal on my Pixel XL. My buddy (also on T-Mo) just got an LG G6 and had full signal when mine dropped out.
Anyone else notice a weak signal? If I flash the T-Mo firmware, will that improve my signal? Did I get a bad unit? I hope not as everything else is perfect, screen included.
i notice (with TMobile) that if i am in 4g lte, then move to area with only edge for a few mins, then back to the 4g lte area...my phone doesn't connect back to the best signal
only a reboot let's me reconnect to 4g lte