On my Nexus 4 I used to get LTE in my office. Granted I had a hybrid radio installed on that.
With the Nexus 5 I can pull 3-4 bars of H and H+. Anyone else notice this. Funny how the "uncertified" phone for LTE gets a better signal.
biggiephat said:
On my Nexus 4 I used to get LTE in my office. Granted I had a hybrid radio installed on that.
With the Nexus 5 I can pull 3-4 bars of H and H+. Anyone else notice this. Funny how the "uncertified" phone for LTE gets a better signal.
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It's happening to me too, brother. I too had Nexus 4 that was a champ at keeping an LTE signal while I was within LTE coverage, but this Nexus 5 treats LTE like it has cooties or something. I feel like I have to demonstrate to the Nexus 5 that I have LTE by going to the secret dialer menu and selecting LTE Only and then switch back to LTE/GSM. However, if LTE gets to 2 bars or less, the phone switches back to HSPA+ and stays there. Some suggest that this saves power, but I call BS on that. I really did not notice a difference in my Nexus 4's battery life when I enabled LTE--it seemed the same to me.
On my N4, a low LTE signal would be faster than HSPA at full strength. I want my N5 to try harder and I have been souring these forums to see if there is some sort of fix. I'm going to try and get a new SIM and see if that fixes anything.
I have the same problem. Great signal for HSPA but bad on LTE. Did you try a new sim card? Any fix out there?
Related
I know this is a question, but it's also the only Skyrocket forum. Sorry...
Does the Skyrocket get straight 3G reception? The AT&T Vivid does not. H+ and above work great, but in straight "H" areas the Vivid reverts to edge. I'm considering returning the Vivid and getting a Skyrocket because of this. Also, how's the battery life on the Skyrocket? The Vivid's is abysmal.
Thanks!!
Both the Vivid and Skyrocket work on 2G, 3G and LTE.
When the indicator says 4G without the LTE under it you are on 3G/UMTS/H/H+ whatever...
If you lose the 4G then you are on 2G/GSM/EDGE.
The LTE indicator only works for data. When you make a voice call the LTE will go away because the Ue falls back to 3G or even 2G if necessary. You can still talk and surf at the same time, but it will be at 2G or 3G speeds depending on where you fallback.
Thanks for the reply!
Unfortunately, that's not the way my Vivid is working. I have confirmed that my Vivid drops to Edge in several areas that my HD2 retains 3G. Plenty of bars, so good signal. It's just that the Vivid doesn't seem to stay on 3G in less than H+ areas. Lots of people reporting the same issue.
As far as talking and surfing simultaneously on edge/2G: Maybe it's different in your area, but getting an "E" ALWAYS coincides with failure to surf and talk and the same time here. I do believe you need 3G to do that.
What I'm looking for is a first hand report from a Skyrocket user about 3G reception in less than an H+ area.
Thanks!
Nakel said:
Thanks for the reply!
Unfortunately, that's not the way my Vivid is working. I have confirmed that my Vivid drops to Edge in several areas that my HD2 retains 3G. Plenty of bars, so good signal. It's just that the Vivid doesn't seem to stay on 3G in less than H+ areas. Lots of people reporting the same issue.
As far as talking and surfing simultaneously on edge/2G: Maybe it's different in your area, but getting an "E" ALWAYS coincides with failure to surf and talk and the same time here. I do believe you need 3G to do that.
What I'm looking for is a first hand report from a Skyrocket user about 3G reception in less than an H+ area.
Thanks!
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At the basement of our office for supplies, I revert to 4G on my Skyrocket. Once I go upstairs, LTE comes back. I can confirm making a phone call and surfing the web in the basement on pure 4G (3G+).
truciet said:
At the basement of our office for supplies, I revert to 4G on my Skyrocket. Once I go upstairs, LTE comes back. I can confirm making a phone call and surfing the web in the basement on pure 4G (3G+).
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Thanks! My Vivid works great on 4G too. My problem is that it drops to Edge in areas where my HD2 stays on 3G. I'm not sure why; some people are reporting the Vivid doesn't recieve pure 3G. I have no idea what--if any--the difference is between 3G and 3G+.
How's the battery lfe on your Skyrocket?
Yeah, my bad...you can't talk and surf at the same time on 2G/EDGE.
And sadly I have great coverage at my house. And I have not had my Samsung long enough to compare it to the Vivid for reception or battery life. But when you fire up these big screens and start hitting the LTE juice it can really drop.
I am not sure what people are saying about "pure 3G". All the H/H+ is just for data. I only know of 1 flavor of 3G that supports voice calls.
Just wondering how the signal reception is on the nexus 5? Specifically with tmobile.
Would you say it was below average, average or above?
At my place of work I always have a fairly weak data signal on my note 2. But it's still perfectly usable.
Here's hoping it's as good or better.
Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk
I'm in south florida and i'm getting mine today. I'm not planning on doing much driving around this week aside to fort lauderdale but i'll come back and give you my opinions.
My GNex and now nexus 4 have gotten great reception in most areas that i go to, except for my house (we have tons of metal in our walls). I can't even keep a 3G signal in my house so if the Nexus 5 somehow can that'll be a great sign.
From a quick test just around my house i'd say it's better than the nexus 4 but not that much better. I'm actually holding onto a 3G signal all the time even if it's just 1 bar. but before i would constantly lose signal. Even getting LTE in a couple places.
neok44 said:
From a quick test just around my house i'd say it's better than the nexus 4 but not that much better. I'm actually holding onto a 3G signal all the time even if it's just 1 bar. but before i would constantly lose signal. Even getting LTE in a couple places.
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Nice! I'll have mine tomorrow afternoon.
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I've seen some other threads on this but they mostly seem to be localized. Are you guys generally finding that the signal reception on the Nexus 5 just isn't all that great? Don't get me wrong. Things seem to still work fine if the signal is good enough. But I feel like it's odd that my Nexus 4 with hybrid radio was getting stronger signal than my Nexus 5.
My screenshots below are from my Nexus 4 and Nexus 5. I used the same sim card in both phones, one after the other, while I sat in the same spot in the house.
Your mobile network state says disconnected (because you're on wifi). Turning your wifi off should yield the dBm.
The chip is optimized (mostly for battery/temps). Even at -89 dBm I'm pulling 35mbps down off LTE.
N4 and N5 aren't going to be on the same bands either.
Speed tests are more realistic.
mattkroeder said:
I've seen some other threads on this but they mostly seem to be localized. Are you guys generally finding that the signal reception on the Nexus 5 just isn't all that great? Don't get me wrong. Things seem to still work fine if the signal is good enough. But I feel like it's odd that my Nexus 4 with hybrid radio was getting stronger signal than my Nexus 5.
My screenshots below are from my Nexus 4 and Nexus 5. I used the same sim card in both phones, one after the other, while I sat in the same spot in the house.
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Click to collapse
If you are on Sprint, I would try enabling Sprint Spark (tri-band) as that as greatly improved peoples reception.
If you are on T-Mobile, double check your APN settings against the ones offered by the KB: APN Settings*
If you are on AT&T, I don't know what to tell you.
*For T-Mobile, make sure the APN is fast.t-mobile.com for LTE.
I know this isn't what you were asking but these are things I know that can improve reception.
Might be able to get your N5 to beat your N4.
Verizon M8, live in Washington DC.
I am consistently getting stuck on 3G or single-bar LTE in or outdoors on my M8 in DC and in N. VA.
While on single-bar LTE (or sometimes 2 bar) I'm also getting poor network throughput. Like 2mbps down, .9 up. Sometimes I might actually get 3-6mbps down, and 1-2 up.
This is piss poor. My Moto X had LTE all day all over the place. Wasn't even sure the X had a 3G mode.
Curious if anyone is experiencing this.
I will say the phone walks circles around the X in speed, fluid UI, WiFi performance and reception, and the display is leaps and bounds better. I don't even mind the size of the M8. But if I can't sort this network thing out soon, I'm going to end up dropping it out of my car window some day!
dcmovin said:
Verizon M8, live in Washington DC.
I am consistently getting stuck on 3G or single-bar LTE in or outdoors on my M8 in DC and in N. VA.
While on single-bar LTE (or sometimes 2 bar) I'm also getting poor network throughput. Like 2mbps down, .9 up. Sometimes I might actually get 3-6mbps down, and 1-2 up.
This is piss poor. My Moto X had LTE all day all over the place. Wasn't even sure the X had a 3G mode.
Curious if anyone is experiencing this.
I will say the phone walks circles around the X in speed, fluid UI, WiFi performance and reception, and the display is leaps and bounds better. I don't even mind the size of the M8. But if I can't sort this network thing out soon, I'm going to end up dropping it out of my car window some day!
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I started experiencing this too (Southern California). I got this phone at launch, and didn't start having the problem of 3G until maybe a couple weeks ago. I hadn't changed anything, so I assumed it was Verizon's network rather than the phone's radio. I know they're making some changes to their lte network, so I wonder if that could be to blame. As of now the only solution I have found is to toggle airplane mode. Definitely sucks
I agree it's the network, not the phone. I have seen speeds of 30 Mbs down, if I'm in a perfect reception area, but 99.9% of the time I'm getting less than 1 Mbs up and down. I wouldn't even mind this since I'm usually within reach of Wi-Fi. I just object to being charged for a data plan when it's useless to me.
yes, they're turning on AWS or "XLTE" - our phones can access that band, and it's supposed to be faster, and I think support VOLTE (voice over LTE). The idea was that it was just them turning it on, then our phones would just magically use it.
Maybe our phone is having issues accessing the AWS band, and are in some sort of network limbo?
I recall back in the day there was some sort of mode you could go into to have your phone re-connect to nearest tower, etc.. but I can't remember if that was GSM phones, or for older EDGE phones.
This happened to me too. Got the phone at launch and the lte has been this slow. I'm convinced I have a defective unit. Gonna call vzw when the red one comes out and get a replacement.
Glad to see I'm not the only one experiencing this issue. I'm going to wait it out one more week try flashing another ROM and then just call Verizon, its been happening for about two weeks now.
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I have been using my nexus 5 on ATT since the Nexus 5 debuted. I just switched over to Tmobile for the $80 unlimited plan. I feel like I made a mistake. Since the switch, service has been less than stellar, I get maybe 3 bars of LTE in most places and even on the main interstate its still a bit dodgy.
the main gripe is that I now cant even go a day on a single charge with my nexus 5, when I was on ATT I could go almost 2 days with my GPS, wifi, Data all enabled and all apps greenified.
and Yes I did check the coverage map and every area I am in has full LTE coverage per their map. frommy Home, my route form home to work and even my work. all LTE yet i still only get a few bars and constant switching back and forth between 3G, HSPA and LTE. Many times my phone wont make it back to LTE from HSPA, I have to use airplane mode to toggle it back. when I was on ATT i had none of these problems.
I was wondering if anyone else in here has made the switch from AT&T to TMobile and how was their experience with service and battery life?
This is totally subjective. Completely depends on where you live and work and what the tmo signals are like vs att
sent from my hammerhead
I switched to T-Mobile back in the Beginning of April with a Galaxy S4 international. The 3G coverage sucked., and that model could not do LTE. Before May I ended up buying a Nexus. The default Google Kitkat ROM had kinda sucky battery from what I remember, but I only had it for a day. I switched to Cyanogenmod and have much better battery life. Depending on what I do on the phone, I can end up with 30-80% battery left. There is a bunch of variables to my usage such just checking emails to playing games and listening to music on the phone and playing Pandora or Stitcher in the car.. And I use a Live wallpaper.
LTE coverage is fair but not great, but I am saving over $25 a month.
ldubs said:
This is totally subjective. Completely depends on where you live and work and what the tmo signals are like vs att
sent from my hammerhead
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Where I live, the AT&T and Tmobile LTE coverage maps are virtually identical and I notice no difference in LTE signal strength just going by the bars in the phone screen.
even at home, i always only got 1 bar ot LTE with AT&T and its the same with Tmobile.. only 1 bar of LTE.
my battery drain stinks with Tmobile service on my nexus 5. i put in my wifes ATT SIM and tried it out for a day and battery life was much better with no other changes. so I know its the tmobile service thats doing it.