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Greets,
I have an AT&T Tilt and 1-1/3 years left on my AT&T contract. Unfortunately, my Tilt is not getting a very good signal (and most of the time, any signal) in my home area. The AT&T signal map shows the coverage as 'moderate' despite having a huge AT&T building 2 blocks away and an AT&T store which, I guess, was positioned just outside the bad signal area.
Someone was recently over with AT&T and a regular phone and he seemed to have a good signal. A friend a few blocks away with a HTC 8925 is in the same boat I am, so it may very well be (i) HTC phones or (ii) PPC's.
If anyone has any idea how I might be able to go about modifying the Tilt to possibly get a better signal, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks!
try a different radio and see if that improves reception.
Radio Fixes That?
I was under the impression that the radio effected the camera, screen, and sound; not reception signal strength.
Is this incorrect?
jdmba said:
I was under the impression that the radio effected the camera, screen, and sound; not reception signal strength.
Is this incorrect?
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The radio is what controls the phone aspect, much like a Nextel two way setup is better than a dime store walkie talkie setup. Read this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=393182
I also found that limiting the connection to non-3G signals (under settings -> phone) helped as the 3G signal in my home town is a little dodgy and the handset will try to use a crappy 3G signal (and drop calls every minute or two) rather than a half decent 2G signal.
As far as making and receiving phone calls, do you use 3g? Any phone I've ever seen that uses 3g absolutely sucks. My dad's phone, my mom's phone, my girlfriend's phone, my phone. What happens is the call either doesn't go through. If you listen to the dial tone it has a small click right before each tone, if I hear that, it mean's the call isn't going through.
My mom and girlfriend have gone through replacements on their phone, but the 3g still sucks. I've even noticed they don't get that great of reception.
Even on my Tilt, if I switch to 3G i only have 2 bars and apparently people have complained of calling me but I never received the call. Now with Edge, I have full bars, and no one ever complains about the call not going through.
So what's your guy's take on 3g?
Similar to what you've experienced. I generally leave mine turned off the majority of the time, since I have the WiFi running when I'm at home anyway. I turn it on only when I need to browse the web or something when I'm out and about.
Not to mention the immense battery drain that 3G demands. My battery life is dramatically better on Edge as opposed to 3G.
Your provider needs to update/fix their network. This is not a device issue, it's a network issue. Proper 3G (well, 3.5G / HSPA, not just UMTS per se) should also use less power than GSM / EDGE for transfers... (in watt/kbps, though)
I know for a fact that all devices in my signature (that support 3G) can work perfectly with 3G on a proper network.
Chainfire said:
Your provider needs to update/fix their network. This is not a device issue, it's a network issue. Proper 3G (well, 3.5G / HSPA, not just UMTS per se) should also use less power than GSM / EDGE for transfers... (in watt/kbps, though)
I know for a fact that all devices in my signature (that support 3G), plus the Touch HD, Omnia and i780 can work perfectly with 3G on a proper network.
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I don't experience network issues as bad as the OP seems to have, but I've always had terrible battery life on my Tilt and my iPhone, my two most recent 3G devices. My 8525 was actually very good on the battery with 3G running all day long, never had a problem getting through the day.
Maybe the intermittent GPS usage on the latter two? I don't know.
Chainfire said:
Your provider needs to update/fix their network. This is not a device issue, it's a network issue. Proper 3G (well, 3.5G / HSPA, not just UMTS per se) should also use less power than GSM / EDGE for transfers... (in watt/kbps, though)
I know for a fact that all devices in my signature (that support 3G) can work perfectly with 3G on a proper network.
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Click to collapse
I should go in and ask them about it, just to see what they say. Ask them why the new and greatest 3g is worse than edge. I have AT&T, I live in Washington, and I live right by a Cell tower too (only a 2 or 3 blocks away from it).
I woudln't mind using it for data but the fees here are prohibitive for private use. We use it on our work phones for data and it works well on Telstra.
mikeeey said:
I should go in and ask them about it, just to see what they say. Ask them why the new and greatest 3g is worse than edge. I have AT&T, I live in Washington, and I live right by a Cell tower too (only a 2 or 3 blocks away from it).
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They'll probably say it ain't so Thing is, when 3G first got rolled out here, we had much the same issues. The big providers here spent some $$$ to replace "faulty" hardware at the towers, and voila, the problem disappeared (2 years ago?). Seems many 3G networks around the world have similar issues to the ones you described in the opening post. I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the 3G cell-tower hardware manufacturers - probably the cheapest and hence most used - makes some really crappy equipment. I could almost imagine that manufacturer is Qualcomm
In all seriousness though, all I know for sure is we had these issues here too, and they fixed them by fixing the towers. (Though of course there is some difference between different devices and how well they do 3G)
From talking to some guys at work Telstra's 3G network has been pretty much flawless for them asides from cost issues associated with Telstra.
I live in indonesia and never have any problem with 3G,. , the only problem is, its expensive,. lol,.
I am in NZ
No problems with 3G whatsoever. Have Imate JasJar - loving every second of it.
New Jersey, USA
3G has always seem pretty good around here in New Jersey with AT&T, but I'm 25 minutes from New York, so imagine how many towers they have on the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut). Very rare to lose 3G reception (exept on the iPhone 3G that everybody complains about losing it often). But important to mention also is that Kearny, town where my sister lives, I lose reception a 100%, my phone's reception just dies, and when I switch it to GSM instead of 3G...voila. Full signal strenght.
wow.. the results turned out quite different than I imagined.
Obviously it's just in my area that 3G sucks. I really wish they would fix this, considering that every phone released now is 3G...and you think someone would notice... well, I'm sure if I wait long enough people will start to notice, but who knows,
I can't remember the last time I had problems with 3G. though I remember before Cingular got bought by AT&T and they were just rolling out there 3G, I used to have problems then, I guess it was due to them configuring/re-configuring the towers. I think the engineers were just going by what the manual said, which weren't the best settings for each area.
I'm on 3G all day everyday on the hour and it's good. even when I'm in the basement and have 1 bar I still receive all my calls and I can make calls. though on this 1 bar I sometimes have to repeat myself every 1.5 minute, but I don't complain about that because it's 1 bar and I'm in the basement. at my friend's apartment I'm the only one that get signal, nothing else work there, not T-Mobile, not sprint, not verizon, not alltel, not vergin nothing else only AT&T works and I get 3 bars of 3G there. I always laugh because he has to leave his phone by the window and use his blue tooth.
I honestly don't think you're by a 3G tower because you should be getting way more than 3 bars. also ask them about the issue you're having AT&T is a good company they will listen to you. call them and open a ticket (before this they will have you go through the basic steps, restarting by removing the battery, etc) tell them you've done that multiple times and yet you have the same issue so it must be a network issue. have them escalate the ticket (they will send an engineer out and he/she will call you, they will work on the towers around your area). don't forget to be polite, no one likes a hot head.
in roughly mid year last year I was only getting edge at my job even though it is a 3G area. at home inside my house had full bars, so I called them up and they worked with me. the engineer stayed in my area roughly 2 weeks to deal with the issue. after that I've had 2 bars of 3G in doors at my job.
So we just got 3G here this week, but when I am on the 3g network, my cell triangulation doesn't work. can someone with 3G in their city confirm that it is working for them so I can stop worrying about it?
Thx
NC?
How does one know if triangulation is working exactly, ha
SLC utah
make sure your GPS is off then open Google Maps and hit menu - My Location.
I go to lunch in a few and will test. Raleigh NC just turned 3G this week as well.
Confirmed: same issue... can not find my location, where edge can (did not cut off 3g, basing that off of 1 year of using maps up till this week when i got 3g in my city).
Anyone have thoughts on this?
For that matter.... why do i not have 3g in buildings/homes? I only have 3g when outside.
Worked on edge.
In phone status it shows my network as UTMS, not 3G (used to say Edge).
I guess this in normal?
Think about how "triangulation" works (improper name, really):
Along one of the low-bandwidth data channels (along with network time, network name, etc.) are a few small numbers: your MCC and MNC (describe which network: 310/410 for att usa, 310/260 for tmo usa. Those are compared against the return from AT+COPS (or actually a little database if you see "T-Mobile" or "AT&T", compared with "Voicestream Wire", "Cingular", "ATT0", or often just "") to get your network.
Those are then combined with two more numbers, the LAC and CID. The Location Area Code is unique to a region on a network (pretty wide range), and the CID is unique per tower. There is no lookup (similar to COPS) that provides a location from a given cid. This means that you have to look up the LAC/CID against a database (MCC/MNC sometimes speed up searching/possibly sort out duplicates - idk). There are a few of these databases available - there's one free one which I'm thinking about, google probably keeps one (they keep a wifi database too), microsoft probably keeps one, etc. AFAIK, there's no unified database... please correct me if I'm wrong. However, the networks do provide their tower lists to big-name lists.
One last thing to think about - the companies will always try to sell you on the idea that they use multiple towers and find the area their coverage overlaps, or that they use "the unique footprint of a tower"... basically, they put your rough location as the complete coverage area of the tower to which you are currently registered. Actually, they don't really calculate it well - it's just a circle around the tower. What google means by this second claim (the footprints one) is that some of the circles are different sizes, depending on whether the cell is full power, low power, etc. This is especially provable in my bedroom - I have access at full signal to two 3g towers (I love this area ), that seem to overlap right here. This means that, when I use google maps, or another similar program, the circles constantly move between the two. It also means that I get spammed with unsolicited +CREG's on my modem line, as it moves around .
Combining all this knowledge, I know exactly what's wrong. #1: the lac/cid on the EDGE tower elements is different than the 3g towers (makes sense, for signal range calculations), #2: google knows about the LAC/CID on the EDGE towers, and #3: google doesn't yet have the new 3g towers' LAC/CID information in their database. Therefore, the program is passed information it doesn't know about, so it simply returns an error.
Proposed solution: wait a week or two
ADDITION: You don't have 3g in houses because the 3g signal does not penetrate as well (It's on a higher frequency, and the signal drops after less interference than edge). Since these are new towers, they may also be running at reduced power.
I'm in SLC as well, and can also confirm wierdness with the non-GPS location over the first couple of weeks... including one day where my phone absolutely insisted that I was just outside of San Diego. Quite mean of my phone to tease me like that considering that I was in West Valley City at the time. It seems to be getting better as time goes on.
^^ wow, I can feel the authority. Thanks for a great post. I think you are correct, the 3G seems to be getting better coverage (sometimes getting it in my house now). I trust t-mo and google, thank you man.
I don't know EDGE technology (never delved into it), but I seriously doubt poly's claim that it uses a different frequency than 3G. If you're using a USA spec G1, then your tphone has a single radio for t-mobile's 1900 MHz band.
The issues you are noticing with 3G coverage are more likely due to SIR parameter set by the deployment engineers (i.e. they are telling the 3G cell to only 'talk' to your phone if the signal is strong).
This is just a guess, though. There could be any number of issues going on, like some misconfigured settings on the RNC's for your sector (which makes sense if the coverage is new).
UMTS is the 3G technology that T-mobile (and AT&T) use, so that is normal.
Tarzanman said:
I don't know EDGE technology (never delved into it), but I seriously doubt poly's claim that it uses a different frequency than 3G. If you're using a USA spec G1, then your tphone has a single radio for t-mobile's 1900 MHz band.
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yeah, it's generally not too much of an issue - all the frequncies are pretty close (I think the 850mhz stuff from att might go a bit better than the old 1900, but it is pretty close). And, as I just discovered, tmo is entirely 1900mhz, so that part was mistaken. The rest should be accurate to the best of my knowledge (eg. EDGE can take more interference before it drops, etc.)
EDIT: Nope, their entire EDGE network is 1900mhz, but their 3g is only 1700/2100. So, it's a tossup, and that close makes not much of a difference.
can give me the bearing, relative strength, and ID for any cell towers in range?
I've been with AT&T for 12 years in the same location, with few complaints. However, in the last 30 days my reception (and everyone in my house) has been crap. I always used to get 3-4 bars on the E network. Now I waver back and forth between one very weak G bar and 2-3 E bars. I get lots of dropped calls, failed dialing, missed messages, etc.
Since I live in a quite rural area, I'd like to have some leverage when I talk to AT&T about this problem. I'd like to be able to track what signals I'm getting from which towers. Have they added towers? Did I wind up i n a dead zone? Am I in an area where different towers are competing for my signal? Etc.
Mind you, I'm not trying to triangulate *MY* position. I want to find the bearing, relative strength, and any available ID information for nearby cell towers.
Why not open the topic at Raphael software
Look for Fieldtest.exe in your windows folder. This a nifty little program by HTC ( I think). This program will give you the signal strength, etc...
ronald-is said:
Why not open the topic at Raphael software
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Because these guys in the ROM forum are the smartest people I know about this phone. Maybe I bent the rules a little...
Since you've been using Edge network usually, just turn the 3G off on your raphael... This may help lock on to the older tower that you're used to. Perhaps they built a new tower a little farther off that is giving you a weak 3G signal.
i don't know how you would do that for your other phones since I don't know what they are.
I've had crappy reception in my home and the area around it - yet ATT's coverage map says I have 3G and best voice signal in my area. What could be causing this? I've been on a bunch of custom roms, everything the same, all the modems, the same, even on stock it's crappy, my data is intermittent, signal always jumps from to two no signal at all... I am able to get decent connection speeds elsewhere, but why is this happening? Did I just get a bad phone or what?
miahsoul said:
I've had crappy reception in my home and the area around it - yet ATT's coverage map says I have 3G and best voice signal in my area. What could be causing this? I've been on a bunch of custom roms, everything the same, all the modems, the same, even on stock it's crappy, my data is intermittent, signal always jumps from to two no signal at all... I am able to get decent connection speeds elsewhere, but why is this happening? Did I just get a bad phone or what?
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You really trust AT&T's coverage map? According to it I shouldn't even get a signal where I live.
Coverage map
Unfortunately, cappysw10 is right - at best, AT&T's coverage map is wildly inaccurate, at worst, an outright lie.
Try testing a different phone where you think you should be getting coverage (a friend's, coworker's, your old one, etc.) - if it works fine, it's possible that you did get a bad phone. In that case, you might be able to get AT&T to replace it.
I think the Captivate's reception overall is poor. We live in the country. My wife has a Motorola Bravo and gets phenomenal reception all over our house. I've got a Captivate running Paragon RC6. When my Cappy was stock, there were only about 3 places in the house I could get any reception. With Paragon it's much better, but still not as good as my wife's Bravo. I still have to find sweet spots.
If you haven't tried Paragon, give it a wing. It helped me.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=915698