Database Info

How's your Signal strength?

I've had the s3 since it came out and I've always had crappy signal compared to my droid charge. At first I thought it was a crappy modem but the more I try to get better signal the more I get confused @[email protected] I live 4 miles away from a vzw tower. Outside my home I get 2-3 bars but if I just walk 100 ft towards the tower I get a solid 3-4 . Another problem I've been having is that I'll have 2 bars on 3g and it will switch to 1x until I turn data off and on. I thought as long as I had some signal it would stay at 3g; 2 bars is decent strength right?. I was just wondering if anyone else is having similar issues or has any idea what's wrong.
Sent from my SCH-I535

I've commented in a ton if these types of threads. There's a lot of these types of problems. Look through my comment history and you'll find most of them.
Also, please call and file a complaint with Verizon and Samsung. I know its time out of your day but they are refusing to admit this as an issue (at least to me) but for the sake of all those having problems, please make your voice heard.
/end stand on soapbox
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

I'm really irritated! I was out with my friend, in a great 4G area, and her crappy (2-year-old) LG whatever it is Virgin Mobile 3G was pulling up information about theaters and movie time MUCH faster than my S3!
---------- Post added at 07:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:29 PM ----------
I just got off the phone with a CSR. She said that if I dialed *228 then I probably messed up my sim card. She told me to go into a Verizon store to get a free sim card.
I didn't know that pulling the battery updates roaming capabilities.

gentleart said:
I'm really irritated! I was out with my friend, in a great 4G area, and her crappy (2-year-old) LG whatever it is Virgin Mobile 3G was pulling up information about theaters and movie time MUCH faster than my S3!
---------- Post added at 07:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:29 PM ----------
I just got off the phone with a CSR. She said that if I dialed *228 then I probably messed up my sim card. She told me to go into a Verizon store to get a free sim card.
I didn't know that pulling the battery updates roaming capabilities.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
must be a network issue in certain areas...my signal and data is great! Never see LTE speeds less 10mb, normally runs 20-30mb in my area. I do agree tho the 3g radio on this device is mediocre.

Any chance we will get better signal on this phone in the future???

Let me start off by saying that this is by far the best phone I've ever had feature wise and this thing is smooth and quick, but my signal strength is no where near as good as my thunderbolt was. I live just outside of Pittsburgh and the signal has always been great here. Since I got this phone, I have noticed many spots where I have no signal at all where I previously had a good signal. Do you guys think there's any chance that Samsung will release something that gives us a better signal. That's my only gripe.

In settings>about phone what is your baseband version?

Vrlg1

Certain ROMs tweak signal settings to get better results.
-Need to figure out how to do something with your phone? Check out this Guide
-Did my rantings somehow help you? Hit the thanks button [email protected] :silly:
-Sent from my Synergized SIII

Brian Gove said:
Certain ROMs tweak signal settings to get better results.
-Need to figure out how to do something with your phone? Check out this Guide
-Did my rantings somehow help you? Hit the thanks button [email protected] :silly:
-Sent from my Synergized SIII
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried all the different ROMs and so far the signal has been subpar on all

Likely, yes
ercDROID said:
Do you guys think there's any chance that Samsung will release something that gives us a better signal. That's my only gripe.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a distinct possibility that we will see at least one more baseband released for this device. Snapdragon wasn't in the original concept for the S3. It might very well have been a little rushed.
The VRALEC baseband that was used during early development has been leaked.
The VRALF baseband shipped with the first phones out the door (like mine).
The VRALG baseband shipped with the second batch of phones and as I understand it was rolled into the OTA update that I would have received if I'd chosen to live within Verizon's little corral for this device.
This thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1788313
was the first "modification" I rolled onto my phone (or any phone for that matter) and it did help me pick up 1X coverage where I didn't have it before. The thread indicates that each phone might respond a little better or worse to a given baseband depending on its own manufacturing variances. You might give the older (VRALF) baseband a whirl and see if it yields an improvement for you. As with everything Odin... proceed at your own risk =)

That shipped on my phone. Tried it for a while but not long enough. I know that in my house the signal strength was the same but not sure how it was in some of the weak areas. I might give it a try. Can't hurt.

My signal has been all over the place but I haven't dropped any calls. I have been running root66 and haven't had any problems but now I'm CleanROM for the past two days so we will see.

thunderbolt as far as I remember reports RSSI and S3 is reporting RSRP which is a proper way of reading LTE signal values, but it's ~20dBm lower. My signal is much better on S3 than let's say GNex.

Yea I would hope with the phone updates, it gets us new ones. Complain enough and they might just listen to us.

Signal is great on my device. Have not been anywhere where there was no signal...must be the area maybe?

droidstyle said:
Signal is great on my device. Have not been anywhere where there was no signal...must be the area maybe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you always have stable 4g?
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium

blestsol said:
Do you always have stable 4g?
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes its rock solid never pulls less than 10mb down from anywhere in my city...even gets good 4g in the surrounding areas. I have only found 2 areas in a 50mi radius that it switches to 3g.

the signal on my S3 is worse than my fascinate. A phone, which, was known for having bad reception.
samsung just seems to have horrible radio in their phones. The guy one cube over at work gets 1-2 bars of 1x on his bionic, I get nothing

jtiger12 said:
the signal on my S3 is worse than my fascinate. A phone, which, was known for having bad reception.
samsung just seems to have horrible radio in their phones. The guy one cube over at work gets 1-2 bars of 1x on his bionic, I get nothing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I disagree, i had a fascinate for well over a year...

I can confirm bionic signal > SGIII
jtiger12 said:
the signal on my S3 is worse than my fascinate. A phone, which, was known for having bad reception.
samsung just seems to have horrible radio in their phones. The guy one cube over at work gets 1-2 bars of 1x on his bionic, I get nothing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i traded up from a bionic and indeed get weaker signals with the SGIII from the same locations (including some dropped calls).
Solution: purchased a Samsung Network extender for Verizon Wireless of ebay for my home. Now 4-5 bars
Its stupid I had to do that since I live in a major city (pop>600,000)

hollywoodo said:
i traded up from a bionic and indeed get weaker signals with the SGIII from the same locations (including some dropped calls).
Solution: purchased a Samsung Network extender for Verizon Wireless of ebay for my home. Now 4-5 bars
Its stupid I had to do that since I live in a major city (pop>600,000)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Motorola has the best radios, this is nothing new...however part of the reason the gs3 gets better battery life is because of reducing power to the radio and wifi antenna. As already stated signal is no issue for me, i could care less if it had twice the signal. It does seem to be a issue for other folks, so hopefully a new radio version will roll out or some crafty dev will figure out a way to increase voltage to the radio(if even possible) at the expense of battery life.
---------- Post added at 10:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:21 AM ----------
On a side note i just compared signal with my mother inlaws moto razr, -101db on the razr vs -107db on my gs3.

Poor Signal. Worst than my Nexus

Hey Guys I just got this phone recently. 2-3 wks ago. My problem is I get very poor signal. Mainly in my Neighborhood and in my house. Now I am wondering if I have a faulty device. The nexus is known to have very poor signal but it had better signal than this phone. I drop calls all the time (Mainly in my neighborhood)I do get texts just fine. I am on the latest VZW Modem/Baseband. Should I Odin back to stock to see if it improves? At my job I still get 0-1 bars but I do NOT drop calls. Should I ODIN back to stock using mobile Odin without the data wipe and ever-root to see if it improves? I do not remember what signal was like on stock and i pretty much put it on AOSP a few hours later.

I just realized I can go stand outside and get 7.5 mb on 4G but my dBm is 106. In my bed room it toggles between -112 dBm and 0 dBm 99 asu. Is that odd?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4

96 views and no replies? At least let me know of going to stock would be a good idea?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4

Sandman-007 said:
I just realized I can go stand outside and get 7.5 mb on 4G but my dBm is 106. In my bed room it toggles between -112 dBm and 0 dBm 99 asu. Is that odd?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sandman-007 said:
96 views and no replies? At least let me know of going to stock would be a good idea?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I live in a similarly low signal area as well, my dBm hovers around -105 to -117 given the day. I don't frequently drop calls but mobile data is slow. Maybe Odin flashing a stock tar will help, maybe it won't. I don't expect much better results for you to be blunt.

SlimSnoopOS said:
I live in a similarly low signal area as well, my dBm hovers around -105 to -117 given the day. I don't frequently drop calls but mobile data is slow. Maybe Odin flashing a stock tar will help, maybe it won't. I don't expect much better results for you to be blunt.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I appreciate the response. I'm going to Odin back today just to see. I wonder why I drop calls so much. I think I only drop calls in my neighborhood so I don't think it's the device so much. At Least I Hope Not
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4

Sandman-007 said:
I appreciate the response. I'm going to Odin back today just to see. I wonder why I drop calls so much. I think I only drop calls in my neighborhood so I don't think it's the device so much. At Least I Hope Not
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know the feeling. I don't typically hold long phone calls at home so the dropped calls don't occur too often. I'm fairly certain if I made calls every day, I'd see dropped calls 3/7 days with the same dbm each day. Mobile data strength doesn't bother me since I have wifi at home. When I'm out and about, my signal is fantastic so its a tradeoff I accept.

Poor Signal
I have a VZW Galaxy Nexus and have had signal problems the last couple of months and recently reverted to stock and the signal did not improve. I have signal problems in several places and have read others say it is the network and some say Samsung devices do not work well on Verizon. Of course with my issue the signal is between 0 and 1 bar toggling between LTE and 3G so my battery drains quickly within a few hours. Calls to Verizon end up turning into a sales pitch to buy a new phone. I am probably going to have to switch to another provider if I can find one that works.
---------- Post added at 05:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:08 PM ----------
Something else to try is see if there are other radios for your model and flash them and see if one works better than another. I have seen that advise given on some of the other threads.

MPDnnrd said:
I have a VZW Galaxy Nexus and have had signal problems the last couple of months and recently reverted to stock and the signal did not improve. I have signal problems in several places and have read others say it is the network and some say Samsung devices do not work well on Verizon. Of course with my issue the signal is between 0 and 1 bar toggling between LTE and 3G so my battery drains quickly within a few hours. Calls to Verizon end up turning into a sales pitch to buy a new phone. I am probably going to have to switch to another provider if I can find one that works.
---------- Post added at 05:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:08 PM ----------
Something else to try is see if there are other radios for your model and flash them and see if one works better than another. I have seen that advise given on some of the other threads.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will have to try different radios. However do notice i have a GS3. I was just pointing out the fact that signal worst than my old nexus. I'm on VRBMB1 and signal is better. Going to update my baseband now.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4

I didn't realize that mobile Odin erased internal SD and so i lost everything Luckily I baked up my titanium backups to Box.com 5 days ago but I still lost 5 days of texts and my pictures
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4

Sandman-007 said:
I didn't realize that mobile Odin erased internal SD and so i lost everything Luckily I baked up my titanium backups to Box.com 5 days ago but I still lost 5 days of texts and my pictures
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's tough, the pics matter more than texts in my opinion.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4

I'd like to add that I never had signal issues with my VZW Galaxy Nexus, and I get complaints now of the people on the other end of the call with the S3. They keep telling me they can't hear me right or that it sounds muffled or garbled. I get my second S3 replacement today so hopefully it helps.

[Q] AT&T users.

Love the Nexus 5. By far the perfect phone. But my question is does anyone get any drop signals? At times my data will just go completely blank then come back. Could be the my area. But just had to ask.

No problems with AT&T in SE Michigan.

Well it could just be the area that I am. The wife has a iphone 5s and she gets none of the drop calls.

No issues with me in STL.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

I definitely think that the signal is a bit worse than it was on my One X. It tends to drop completely in areas where my One X had marginal signal but still connected. I'm in Northeast Florida.

I've actually had this the last few days, a split second of no service and then back to normal. This is in thy southwest and west suburbs of Chicago.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I notice the signal strength shows low (2-3 bars lower) compared to my old S4 but when I make a call it jumps to max. Could this be a battery saving thing?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

android.gt said:
No issues with me in STL.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
STL REPRESENT
couldn't pass it up.
---------- Post added at 09:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:30 AM ----------
marcusva79 said:
Love the Nexus 5. By far the perfect phone. But my question is does anyone get any drop signals? At times my data will just go completely blank then come back. Could be the my area. But just had to ask.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just to be clear you did not flash any custom roms with radios or anything right?

No issues here. I travel weekly for work and so far I can say no issues in the following areas:
Lexington, KY
College Station, TX
Atlanta, GA
Houston, TX
Knoxville, TN
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it is just AT&T and in your area. I carry a Verizon Galaxy S4 and my Nexus 5 on AT&T around. I can consistently get awesome coverage and 25-35mbit speeds on my Verizon phone. Sometimes I question if AT&T data is even working, and a speedtest will show only 5mbit down. I know its not the Nexus 5 because I can have other random people I am with on AT&T do speedtest on various phones and have the same issue.

marcusva79 said:
Love the Nexus 5. By far the perfect phone. But my question is does anyone get any drop signals? At times my data will just go completely blank then come back. Could be the my area. But just had to ask.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I work in central Mass, and the signal in my office is horrid... for LTE. If I force it to only use HSPA+ (Settings > More... > Mobile Networks > Network Mode > 3G) I have full service of HSPA+ and no dropped signals. Coming from an HTC One (where there are like... 25 bars to display signal) I'm thinking it's just an aesthetic change for me mostly.

coolguy949 said:
I notice the signal strength shows low (2-3 bars lower) compared to my old S4 but when I make a call it jumps to max. Could this be a battery saving thing?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2 biggest battery drains are screen and radios. Newer radio chips are much better at conserving juice. And why turn up the radios if you don't need them. S800 soc has a lot of battery saving features, and newer lte chips use a lot less juice.
In other words, yes, that's a battery saving thing.
Coming from a gnex, this has great battery life, and has double the cores and clock speeds, and a graphics chip that compares to a lower end pc add in video card. Gotta love that technology!

[Q] LTE signal strength

I'm in Chicago, and have noticed that I am barely averaging a single bar on LTE with my S6 edge, whereas my Nexus 5 was fine. I've read a couple of posts elsewhere complaining of similar issues on the Sprint site. Anyone else? Could this just be a firmware/radio problem? My PRL and profile are up to date.

I too am having troubles with my LTE signal on my edge. I also live in Chicago. I recently upgraded from an HTC one M8.

Same here switched from non spark s4 and notice slower speeds loading google maps and other apps
Sent from my SM-G925P using XDA Free mobile app

I had the same issue. I was missing notifications called Sprint and did the ##72786# and things seem to be working better.

skinneejay said:
I had the same issue. I was missing notifications called Sprint and did the ##72786# and things seem to be working better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll try that on my phone, I am experiencing the same thing in Milwaukee

Im having issues as well this is really pissing me off its an $850 phone for God's sake.

I guess it depends a lot on area. I live in SoCal, north Orange County to be more specific, and my LTE performance is way better than my Sprint GS4 in terms of speed, coverage, and stability.
Sent from my SM-G925P using Tapatalk

Each manufacturer uses the signal bars differently in terms of interpreting strength of signal. I would suggest downloading signal check pro and comparing.
That being said, the s6 is generally worse RF wise than the n5 and s5, which was known before hand. Not alot worse, but slightly. Typically about -5db

lilbilly said:
Each manufacturer uses the signal bars differently in terms of interpreting strength of signal. I would suggest downloading signal check pro and comparing.
That being said, the s6 is generally worse RF wise than the n5 and s5, which was known before hand. Not alot worse, but slightly. Typically about -5db
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I upgraded from an m7 to the edge. In my zone my speeds increased from 6 to 22. Listen.. Hitting 4.0 or more on a torrent is worth it all. Also all the ladies love me now
Sent from my SM-G925P using XDA Free mobile app

With my Sprint Galaxy S4 and Nexus 5 on AT&T, I never reached such speeds.
First run. Band 41 (Clearwire 2500 MHz).
I'm also getting 4G LTE in more places than before compared to the S4. For instance, I would always fall down to 3G inside a Costco in Garden Grove I go to. But yesterday, I was on Band 41 and the speed was good. Same for my front porch and inside my home - from 3G to 4G LTE on Band 41.
​

I don't know i try everything, reset the phone, clean cache, switch to lte/CDMA, updated prl and firmware, new provisioning, still lag in opening any data dependent app
Chicago area
No problems before on s3 s4 and s5 witch is also spark
Sent from my SM-G925P using XDA Free mobile app

Same issue here in Miami, well similar. Some apps on Sprints Network take forever to load data, keep in mind it's only Apps. Like Google Music, Facebook, Instagram and a couple more. If I connect to WiFi it all works fast and information loads immediately. Once again on Sprints Network it loads and loads and loads you get the point....
The only thing that solves this issue is connecting through a VPN. When i'm on sprints network and on VPN it all works as it should. WTF Sprint.

I am constantly moving between 1 bar with spark, and 3G. I ran the speed test and don't even get near 1mbps. Last week my Galaxy s4 was at least 10 times faster than my s6 edge. hoping for updates that fix this.

Maverick745 said:
I am constantly moving between 1 bar with spark, and 3G. I ran the speed test and don't even get near 1mbps. Last week my Galaxy s4 was at least 10 times faster than my s6 edge. hoping for updates that fix this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here in Austin. My wife and I were sitting in the waiting room at the vet so our dog could get his checkup. I was trying to download a book on the Kindle app and had only 1 bar. I ran the speedtest app and was lucky to get a download speed of 100k. My wife has Sprint's GS5 and was showing 4 bars with Spark and getting 10Mbps on the Speedtest app. I had her turn her hotspot on and I connected via wifi. Then I thought, why doesn't the vet's office offer wifi since there always seems to be people waiting. Of course, it really wouldn't be an issue if my expensive new GS6 Edge worked just as well as the GS5. I really hope an update comes out soon that fixes it. Also sad that it suffers from the same 'you can't do data and voice at the same time' issue that the GS5 had.

Returned mine two phones, couldn't stand it .Called sprint they waived restocking fee .
I think you guys should start calling them the guy from tech support said they not aware of the issue.
Sent from my SM-G900P using XDA Free mobile app

oh god I thought it was just me.
We finally got 4G LTE in Springfield, Illinois
my samsung galaxy s4 was working amazingly.
But now with this galaxy s6 edge I wait around longer than usual to load.
****ing sucks..
any ideas?
I usually check sensorly.com

My speeds are like a third of what they were with my s5
Frequently even less than that
Heck even texts take a long time to send
Sent from my SM-G925P