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People with G2X signal problems...

Hi all, Just wanted to contribute to this wonderful community as it has given me so much. I was having signal issues, very weak 4g...Constant switching from 4g to E. I read about people who didnt have the right 4g service applied to their contract from T-Mobile.
Mine was a $25 a month data service which did not benefit my phone like it should. The guy who helped from t-mobile showed me that indeed my phone should have been running the $30 4g service which replaces the one I had. Once I had the switch done my service went from E - four bars to 4g - three bars instantly.
Go check your contract and make sure you make the switch if you have a 4g phone. Good luck. I'm running the eagleblood 1.02 and its perfect, Never had any freezes, Reboots etc...A little screen bleeding but overall best phone I have had.
I have also removed the blue tape behind the cover for the heck of it. NOt sure if it has had any effect but definitely check your services.

I have the 4G Data on my plan, and I still have the same issue. Thanks Anyway

This is NOT true. My very good friend works in the tech support side for T-Mobile and he told me the only difference between the 4G plan and my plan is 5$. The 4G plan is only a computer code for pricing and does nothing for your service. I should know because I had it on my phone and after he took it off for me, guess what.....I still got the same service and download speeds.

The problem with this phone is low signal strength. It seems to have problems with low signals, 1-2 bars and then loses connection intermittantly. If your 4G keeps going down to 2G do a hard reset to clear the settings. It should keep the 4G regardless of the signal after. For me I lose the signal at home especially if I hold the phone from the bottom with my palm to the back, I can watch the bars go away then when I remove my hand it raises up. Antenna is in a bad place I think. LG messed up!

I'm still on the MT3G $24.99 a month unlimited data + 400 texts plan, my phone gets great 4G speeds, (at least as great as T-Mo's "4G" is capable of) definitely faster than the same plan on my N1.
ETA: I'm in Seattle, T-Mobiles U.S. base of operations. I dunno for sure, but it makes sense that the data coverage here would be a little better than in a lot of other areas.

ashton4life said:
The problem with this phone is low signal strength. It seems to have problems with low signals, 1-2 bars and then loses connection intermittantly. If your 4G keeps going down to 2G do a hard reset to clear the settings. It should keep the 4G regardless of the signal after. For me I lose the signal at home especially if I hold the phone from the bottom with my palm to the back, I can watch the bars go away then when I remove my hand it raises up. Antenna is in a bad place I think. LG messed up!
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I'm suddenly having IPhone 4 flash-backs!!! Sheesh.. For what its worth I was having the same issues with low to no signal, but I recently (last night) installed the 2.3.3 GB Rom and I must confess that I have all the bars and no WIFI sleeping issues.. YMMV..
They didn't change the radio firmware but apparently my phone likes the GB ROM better I guess.....
Good Luck

dlammons said:
I'm suddenly having IPhone 4 flash-backs!!! Sheesh.. For what its worth I was having the same issues with low to no signal, but I recently (last night) installed the 2.3.3 GB Rom and I must confess that I have all the bars and no WIFI sleeping issues.. YMMV..
They didn't change the radio firmware but apparently my phone likes the GB ROM better I guess.....
Good Luck
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So do you think the Gingerbread update may help the low signal issues? I returned my phone today and now I have to wait for them to send me my deposit back. I may just wait a month or so and buy it again if others see a difference also. The Tmobile 2.3 update is suppose to happen some time this month.

I got my unlimited 4g with 5gb cap for $20/month,u got ripped off
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

bobthq said:
I got my unlimited 4g with 5gb cap for $20/month,u got ripped off
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
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It doesn't matter if you have the 4g plan or the regular plan. The speeds stay exactly the same. Anyone who thinks the 4G data plan has anything to do with your data speeds needs to delete there screen name and stop fallowing this website.

The plan doesn't affect the speed or the fluctuation issues of 4G/2G/EDGE. It basically just comes down to your coverage area.
I was having absolutely no issues with 4G signals since I bought the phone, but when I went to Dallas last weekend I was having weak signals, slow downloads, etc. Went back to Austin and signal was fine like before.
I'm still on the old G1 unlimited data plan and speeds are faster than when I was on my G1.

g2x signal weaker then g1 signal
My G2x gets a weaker signal then my G1 does in the exact same spots. My G1 can be 3g when my G2x is EDGE in the exact same spot. Walking from an EDGE spot to 3g/4g coverage area my G1 bumps up 100-500 feet sooner the the G2x. Nobody at LG or t-mobile would do anything about it. Returned the g2x on day 14 but they had to pry it out of my hands because other then having a sucky signal I loooooved the phone.

I was told by a customer service rep that works for sprint that 4G for Tmobile only works if you switch to Sprint and put the sim card in the Sprint phone. Then you will have to get some foil and wrap your phone in it and hold it 91 degree from the angle of the sun.

I got my G2x a few days ago and was having some serious signal issues. Half of the time it was on emergency calls only. T-mobile suggested I swap my SIM that I had for 3 years, saying they had reports of older sims not working with the upgraded HSPA+ 42 towers. It immediately fixed the issues everywhere except at home where they are having problems upgrading that tower.
If you have signal issues, try swapping out that old sim. Also check if you are in a market that is getting upgraded

lokibtm said:
I got my G2x a few days ago and was having some serious signal issues. Half of the time it was on emergency calls only. T-mobile suggested I swap my SIM that I had for 3 years, saying they had reports of older sims not working with the upgraded HSPA+ 42 towers. It immediately fixed the issues everywhere except at home where they are having problems upgrading that tower.
If you have signal issues, try swapping out that old sim. Also check if you are in a market that is getting upgraded
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Same here. Apparently my old SIM card was only good for Edge whereas I got a free 3G (works with 4G) sim card replacement at a T-Mobile store.

My observations....
When i was using my Nexus One as my main phone... i could tell the day hey turned on HDSPA+ in my area...i was getting about 5mb down and 1.5 - 2 MB up almost consistently for about a few weeks ...then it dropped down to regularly 2-3 down and about 1.5 up. Which is about what i was getting up until i ot my G2x. Now my top speeds are about 7MB down and if i am lucky i hit 1mb up otherwise it is almost always a hair below 1mb up. Yes i know the Nexus one was not 4g HSDPA+...but like i said i could tell they day they turned it on. When i got the Nexus One i switched from Blackberry and I never switched my actual plan until i got the G2x. So to me it seems there is some type of throttling involved somehow. Just think about it... if you go over your 5GB limit with the so called unlimited plan.... they throttle your speed right? hit has to be done automatically.... so why can't some type of computer coding error be wrong on someones phone/account an only giving them 3g or less speeds?
Also is anyone getting terrible upload speeds like me? Before you say upload speeds do not matter unless you are uploading... consider that even when you download...a data packet has to be sent back (Uploaded) to say give me the next set of data packets for download... and the faster your upload is...you would see increased/faster downloads also. Think T1 vs aDSL at the same speed. It seems that our data is not "unlimited" and it is aDSL as well. Sorry i am rambling LOL anyway i would much rather get steady 3MB down and 1.5 up if it got better battery life. I did notice when i had my nexus one it would only kick in the high data when you went online like opening a web browser etc.. otherwise it throttled it down. (yes i saw it change by quickly going back to the settings are for status and watched it change back and forth) which was done in a fix that helped battery life... by increasing the idle time.
As far as switching 2g (edge) to 4G and never showing 3g..i read a few posts that said that LG was aware of this and would be fixed in the next patch update or/ Gingerbread update. So perhaps this is also effecting people phones as well.
Sorry if i strayed from topic... i just tried to paint a bigger picture about throttling speeds based on plan or phone type. Maybe it does not happen to everyone...but it could happen to some.

In my home I get very weak signals with any phone, whether its GSM or CDMA but when I tried the G2x it continuesly disconnected and lost signal. This happened more on the G2x then any of my previus 5 phones. I was forced to return it. I would have kept it but this was a big problem. I believe that this phone does definetly have reception problems plus it loses the signal just holding the phone from the bottom with my palm to the back, basically just holding it normally. If I raised my hand to the top it got better.... I really liked it. I'm back with my old LG envy2 and it never loses signal any where in my home. I may just try the Sensation when it comes out and pass on the G2x getting fixed.

[Q] Verizon SGS3 same LTE radio as Galaxy Nexus?

I went from the Droid Razr when I found had good LTE reception at my house to the Galaxy Nexus which was terrible. After that, I got the Rezound which brought back the good LTE reception, about 10Mbps every time. Then the iPhone 4S which obviously doesn't have 4G. Then I got the Droid Charge which got me about ~10Mbps on 4G.
I always had 4/5 bars on my Droid Charge, at times I would have 3/5 and my LTE speeds were fast but I just got the Galaxy S III today and my LTE speeds are way, way down. I usually only get ~4Mbps down now and upload speeds have decreased as well. Ping also rose pretty dramatically.
Signal strength on the Droid Charge was usually about -85db and right now the GS3 is reading -111db. The radio in the phone is definitely inferior to the ones in the Rezound, Razr and Charge.
For reference, I'm 1.78 miles away from the Verizon cell phone tower. Is anyone else experiencing a drop in signal quality? I remember it was a pretty big deal with the Galaxy Nexus.

I have the same question... curious how VZW SGS3 radios / network connectivity are in comparison to Verizon Galaxy Nexus.

geekaren said:
I have the same question... curious how VZW SGS3 radios / network connectivity are in comparison to Verizon Galaxy Nexus.
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I've had both home and they appear to be the same because they perform similarly, which is not a good thing. I have noticed that the phone does allow for simultaneous voice and data over 3G which is different from Verizon's Galaxy Nexus, I'm always in 3G on the first floor of my house unfortunately.

Agree, if the radios perform similarly.... that's not a good thing. Appreciate this feedback.

Its not exactly a "scientific" test but I had full 4G on the SGS3 while my friend next to me had 2 bars on his Nexus.

I just tested this today with my Thunderbolt running a very old GB radio version against my SGS3.
Thunderbolt gets 3 bars, SGS3 only has one at my house. Did two speed tests inside, and one outside. All three times the TB had almost exactly double the Mbps down of the SGS3. Twice the SGS3 failed to start the upstream test citing communication issues. The time it did complete, the TB again was twice the speed.
Pretty disappointing to say the least. What's more disappointing is I only get 4-5Mbps down these days with the TB, while the SGS3 was only getting 2-2.5Mbps down. Little over a year ago when I got my TB, I'd always get 11mbps+ down at my house. So looking like the network is getting pretty saturated in my area these days.
I've been on vacation since before I got my SGS3, so we'll see how it goes at work when I return tomorrow. LTE signal is better there, on the TB anyway. Not a big deal at my house since I have FIOS 75/35 internet, but it will suck if the SGS3 gets poor speeds all over the city.

Well it's good to know that I'm not crazy then. It MAY be better than the Nexus but it's still not great.

I'm in an area that's pretty new to LTE. Where I sit now, I have 4 bars and with a speed test have seen speeds at around 41Mbps down and 13Mbps up. My coworker with his Droid 4 gets about half of the speed I do. I can't test my Thunderbolt right now (no microSIM adapter yet), but before activating my GS3, I was getting around 26Mbps on speed tests from this same location.

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.

How much can different phones affect signal strength?

So we've been testing a Verizon and T Mobile phone (currently have Sprint) as Sprint has been pretty poor in our area as of late. The T Mobile phone is a Galaxy Blaze, and with it we get amazing 4G signal in the street outside our house. However, we can move literally 3 feet closer to the house, and the signal will drop to absolutely nothing. Inside the house it just frequently switches between very low 4G and very low Edge signal. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Is there any chance that a different phone (we want Nexus 4's) would have stronger reception and not have this problem, or is our house pretty much screwed?

Different internal radios will be different, yes.
However, I get absolutely no signal in my house with my T-Mobile S3. I don't find this to be a problem since T-Mobile has native calling over WIFI. Whole house is covered by strong WIFI signal and the call quality has been pretty great when used that way. I don't know if you can get WIFI calling onto the Nexus 4, I would guess probably not but who knows (maybe someone has found a way) - I'd have to research that.
I don't know how well a signal repeater would work, but it seems like it could since you could place it outside the home where it would have access to a great signal and repeat it inside.
If your Sprint phone can roam on Verizon, I'd question how much of a difference it would make to switch to Verizon itself. I have had both and the signal in my home was basically the same - the Sprint phone was connected to the same Verizon towers the Verizon phone was. I'm sure there might be some technical reasons there would be differences at some point (radios, how roaming is dictated), but I never noticed them in practical use.
Depends on the plans you're looking at and where you're willing to compromise.

For whatever reason, roaming doesn't seem to fix the problem on Sprint here. Verizon gets great signal, but 4 days in the 2gb plan is clearly not going to work. This pretty much leaves T-Mobile our only choice. T-Mobile also seems to just get better and faster service everywhere we go, so it would still be better than Sprint, as we're used to not having service at home anyway. It would just be unfortunate to have to continue like that.

[Q] Poor mobile network connectivity...

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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