Cellular strength and throughput

Cellular strength and throughput - Samsung Galaxy S10e Real Life Review

We know how much you like to stream, ahem, "videos", and so cellular data is mega-important. Rate this thread to express how you think the Samsung Galaxy S10e's LTE performs. A higher rating indicates that it's fantastic: throughput is excellent and signal strength is top-notch.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add.

I don't go by the bars I go by the dBm's. The way this phone reads dBm's you pretty much show no bars after 117 dBm's. All other phones I've had showed 1 bar at 117. -97 dBm right now but still only have 3 bars. Should have full signal. -97 is pretty good. Anyways, I have an app that shows dBm's in the notification shade and that's what I go by. More importantly is the fact that my unlocked 6t has Volte with TMobile and my S10e doesn't. Sucks.

westside80 said:
I don't go by the bars I go by the dBm's. The way this phone reads dBm's you pretty much show no bars after 117 dBm's. All other phones I've had showed 1 bar at 117. -97 dBm right now but still only have 3 bars. Should have full signal. -97 is pretty good. Anyways, I have an app that shows dBm's in the notification shade and that's what I go by. More importantly is the fact that my unlocked 6t has Volte with TMobile and my S10e doesn't. Sucks.
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What app do you use to show the dBm's in the notification shade?

KARVEGA79 said:
What app do you use to show the dBm's in the notification shade?
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Click to collapse
Signal Notification

The 4G signal is way less good than with my ex Huawei P20. And when it goes from bad reception area to a good reception area, it takes a lot of time to catch the actual signal, sometimes I even need to put on plane mode and then put it off.

Long time to capture signal
Sirguda said:
The 4G signal is way less good than with my ex Huawei P20. And when it goes from bad reception area to a good reception area, it takes a lot of time to catch the actual signal, sometimes I even need to put on plane mode and then put it off.
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This. Takes a long time (minutes) to capture a signal from one area to another.

Anyone has experience with dual sim use in this phone ?
I barely get connection on the second sim and feels like the first sim has even worse reception when a second sim is inserted.
I got this phone like 2 weeks and very disappointed for cellular strength. As mentioned above, often i have to put on airplane mode to get connected to the internet.

This phone has serious problems with reception. It never really bothered me, I got this phone since launch, (exynos variant, dual sim) but now that I don't have broadband until my new provider sets up their network in the house, I have to rely on my mobile data, and it's amazingly bad. I have 2 sims in the phone, but it doesn't make any difference if I remove one or other. I'm in the UK, it could be Vodafone's fault, however I tried my sim in my previous phone (honor 8) and the signal was better (in dBm ofc) and I also tried my gf's sim in my phone and the signal was worse in my phone. I've spent days searching for solution and it turns out Samsung might went cheap on antennas so there isn't much to do. I've tried some 3rd party apps, tried to force only 4g, also tried 3g, reset network settings, reset access point etc; no luck. I'll transfer my number to an other provider and hope that it will help a little bit but to be fair, I don't think it'll help.

Related

LTE poor signal?

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...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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"...

LTE signal indicator issues

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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
That matches your M8.

[Q] Signal Strength

What kind of signal strength are others getting compared to other phones they have owned. When I am in an area that has excellent LTE coverage (as consistently shown on multiple other phones I have owned) I am only getting about one half to 3/4 of the signal I had been getting. I have yet to get a full strength LTE reading on the signal strength indicator. I am also having problems with the signal dropping completely (no service) and then coming back at 3/4 strength? Very flaky.....

My AT&T signal was always terrible. Almost always 1 bar but sometimes two. I preordered a H2O Wireless SIM about a week before I got the Idol 3. My AT&T plan expired the day after I got the phone so I just popped in the new H2O sim into the idol 3. With the H2O sim I get really good signal, sometimes full; bars! The weird part is that H2O uses AT&T towers so I can't explain why I am getting better signal except that it could be the phone. Unfortunately I was unable to compare the same sim card in both phones. Overall signal strength is better for me.

Shodan5150 said:
My AT&T signal was always terrible. Almost always 1 bar but sometimes two. I preordered a H2O Wireless SIM about a week before I got the Idol 3. My AT&T plan expired the day after I got the phone so I just popped in the new H2O sim into the idol 3. With the H2O sim I get really good signal, sometimes full; bars! The weird part is that H2O uses AT&T towers so I can't explain why I am getting better signal except that it could be the phone. Unfortunately I was unable to compare the same sim card in both phones. Overall signal strength is better for me.
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Click to collapse
i got the same problem i had a moto G lte had all of the bars then i put in my sim card and now i dont get much signal even at work with the moto i had all of the bars and this one i get like half then dissapears goes back to half then of a sudden all of the bars show im running cricket and as same as you we run on ATT towers

I had to set mine to wcdma/gsm on T-Mobile to get good coverage. It wouldn't pull signal unless it was 5 bars LTE.

Tmobile in SF. Brand new phone less than a week in use, also terrible signal. LTE Discovery shows I'm on band 4. Funny enough I still get calls and txt messages when displays shows not signal at all. This is one thing I hate in reviews, they all mention how fast and great display and audio, but none of them mention call reception. IT'S A FREAKING PHONE!!!

My signal sucks regardless of this being a Band 12 capable phone. I know you should never go by the signal bars, but rather the dBm's/asu, but my signal strength fluctuates constantly and doesn't even show signal at all until a few seconds later as if it "reconnected" to the network and jumps 2 bars. This phone needs a major modem update. I don't think I've ever seen my signal bar icon fully lit even when I'm outside. Maybe I just need a new SIM card.

My network is fine. AT&T/AIRVOICE. SLC, Utah.

I compare my Idol 3 signal to varying Androids i know that are on Tmob, it seems to be par for the course. Often it is half a bar better. It is certainly better than the OPO i sent back.

We know how much you like to stream, ahem, "videos", and so cellular data is mega-important. Rate this thread to express how you think the OnePlus 2's LTE performs. A higher rating indicates that it's fantastic: throughput is excellent and signal strength is top-notch.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add.

As a dual sim user I'm severely disappointed. If you're using a single sim the phone works fairly well. If you use dual sims whichever one is not set as the data sim will be lucky to receive calls and when you do it is garbled and unusable. This is my only issue with this phone.

WiFi or data seems like stopping transfers(delay or pause)

Phone becomes a bit warm when using cellular data not so on Wi-Fi. Nothing alarming though

This is going to be an area I will be paying close attention to, I spend a lot of time in remote areas so I will be keeping my old faithful s5 in my vehicle just in case it doesn't perform like I hope it will

I used to have an iPhone 6 and I am weekly in an area where I can only get one bar with LTE. With nothing going on I regularly stream movies/anime. I have since went from the iPhone to zenfone 2, I could get a signal but only 4g and barely. So I returned it and I've now had the OP2 for a few months and at first it will pick the(stronger but not faster) 4g connection but by manually changing to "LTE only" in the hidden menu I get the same connection as the iPhone. Just need to change it back when done or else no phone calls.
Overall it's satisfactory as I am able to do what I want to do, would just be nice not to go through the extra hoops to do so.

For a phone I was quite worried about it's doing well so far, usually in my living room I'm at 1 bar LTE signal, the OPT is sitting on 3 bars.
Will still need to see how it performs in remote areas.

If you use this phone outside major cities in Australia, you will definitely need to be on Telstra.
Can't get any mobile data what so ever with any network other than telstra, even in major regional towns.
Not really a surprising discovery, telstra are the only real choice outside the capital cities in Australia.

muqtaliff said:
Phone becomes a bit warm when using cellular data not so on Wi-Fi. Nothing alarming though
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Same problem I am facing same problem but difference in only it is heating up too much on Cellualr Data and Wifi both.

bad signal strength on oneplus 2
compared with my htc butterfly 2 and another low-end android, one plus 2 running latest Oxygen OS has serious connectivity issues. I compared the signals strength using same sim card in same location (including being connected to the same tower) and One Plus 2 keeps dropping the connection and has really poor signal strength. I have tried the *#*#4636#*#* and tried different network modes, but none of them are helping. Its a real disappointment that the basic feature of this phone is screwed up.
I have tried with CM13 as well. Any ideas if this is a modem version issue?

Phone probably due to metal frame have worse signal, for sure it has worse than my previous phone that already wasn't good on it.

Is there a work around to fix the poor network signal receiver of this phone? This is the great let down of oneplus 2.
Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk

brainscollector said:
Phone probably due to metal frame have worse signal, for sure it has worse than my previous phone that already wasn't good on it.
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Oneplus one too has weak signal, though it has no metal frame. Something is seriously wrong with oneplus phone signal receiver! The company should fix this issue once and for all instead of rolling out one software after another which didn't resolve the problem at all.