I've had a DROID Bionic since just about when it came out (I got it on Sept. 15th) and recently I've had reason to suspect that my Bionic has reception issues. At work I mostly end up on 3G, getting 4G occasionally. I didn't think much of this at first, thinking that perhaps the 4G signal in the area wasn't that strong. I now think otherwise.
Since I got my Bionic, three other employees at my work all got Verizon 4G phones. Two of them have the Thunderbolt and one has the DROID Charge. From asking them and looking at their phones, they seem to have a 4G connection the majority of the time while my Bionic is stuck on 3G. They get consistent, steady 4G while my phone switches back and forth between 3G and 4G, mostly ending up on 3G.
This discovery prompted me to check Verizon's coverage map. According to it, my work is very, VERY clearly in a Verizon 4G LTE coverage area (not the LTE extended coverage, but full LTE coverage). That seems confirmed by the fact that the Thunderbolts and the Charge here are almost always on 4G. This has be worried that my poor little Bionic is having some issues.
Anyway, to cut the exposition here and get to the point, I was wondering if anyone else has noticed poor 4G reception on the Bionic. I'm curious to see if perhaps I just have a bad phone or if the Bionic, in general, is poor in the reception department. I have tried toggling airplane modes and rebooting the phone. That helps me get back on 4G momentarily, but I end up back on 3G shortly thereafter.
In the same boat
I work in Pittsburgh and mine wont hold a steady signal either, unless I set in on this metal canberra by the radio in my room. Kinda weird really.
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I have cognition rom and instead of having 3g I have this H internet. It sits on 3g for a milla second then switches to H. My buddy with iphone four is getting way higher speed tests than me, why can't I get 3g and get better speeds?
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Since this has only been answered 100 times in the past three weeks...
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=H+instead+of+3g+XDA
AND as far as the better speeds for the Iphone go......you can Google that as well............ I'm guessing your on At&T?
I don't know why but my buddies 3g was consistently hitting 300-350 kbs. The max I was hitting was like 150. We were right next to each other when we were testing this, I guess that the iphone blows the captivate away in 3g reception and speed. Also in the spotty areas he was keeping his 3g and I was dropping down to edge. Kinda disappointed . Had anyone else noticed that the 3g reception isn't that good our is it just my area?
jamezz23 said:
I have cognition rom and instead of having 3g I have this H internet. It sits on 3g for a milla second then switches to H. My buddy with iphone four is getting way higher speed tests than me, why can't I get 3g and get better speeds?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
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this is why i hate american cell providers, they want you to remain ignorant. it's not your fault but it is funny that people arent familiar with grps, edge, hspa, and hspa+ it is like they are telling you that you are too stupid to understand so you dont need to know.
the cdma providers are the worst. but att should be proud of having hspa, but i think they want to hide the fact that it is not available in all 3g areas. instead they advertise the hspa speeds as there 3g speeds as hspa works on there 3g network. they dont distinguish the two so you think there network is so much faster in so many places
meanwhile verizon advertises the hspa coverage for att as 3g coverage to make att's coverage look smaller. they say they have so much more coverage, if they showed a current 3g map for att instead of the hspa coverage you would not see a big difference at all. also cdma 3g is totally different from what att has and is not a fair comparison in the first place. how can you compare coverage if the speed is not comparable?
Comparing phones side by side with speed test is also not the best way to test which device is faster, especially if they are on the same network. I am annoyed by the input on this device or Id go in depth. Use some google-foo and read on cell phone signaling and theory and youll see what I mean.
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Hey guys, I'm planning on buying this phone and I was just wondering if there was any signal issues. I currently have an S3, and I get fairly weak signals depending on what area i'm in and it really blows.
External antennas with active tuning and send/receive diversity.
It's better than the GS3 in reception.
Yes there is a specific problem with 4g signal experienced by me and others.
The 3g and gsm coverage are excellent but there is no doubt that 4g reception is terrible on this phone. It drops calls far to quickly when switching to 3g in low signal areas; whilst this does not happen when using other 4g devices.
The thread for signal is here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2201898
The signal quality on this phone is excellent in my opinion and just as good as my old Lumia 920 can't vouch for 4G yet as it's not available where I live but cannot fault it.
I live out in the country in a dead spot and before I couldn't make calls on my EVO LTE without the connection dropping, now I can actually make calls, data is still horrible, but I can live with that.
Before I couldn't get LTE in my office, now while the connection sometimes jumps between 4G or 3G I can mostly use 4G and data on my Sprint is actually useable now.
Initially I was having buyers remorse paying $600 off contract, but having use able LTE is worth that alone.
BamAlmighty said:
I live out in the country in a dead spot and before I couldn't make calls on my EVO LTE without the connection dropped, now I can actually make calls, data is still horrible, but I can live with that.
Before I couldn't get LTE in my office, now while the connection sometimes jumps before 4G or 3G I can mostly use 4G and data on my Sprint is actually useable now.
Initially I was having buyers remorse paying $600 off contract, but having useable LTE is worth that alone.
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+1. We also live out in the country and my Evo 4G LTE would often drop phone calls, especially if I was in the basement of our house. So far, the S4 seems much better about that. Call quality is overall better, too.
I live in LA, where LTE service was introduced a little less than a month ago. Just switched over to Sprint from Verizon, and right now, Sprint's 4G coverage is spotty enough to make me reconsider my decision.
A question, for folks in areas that have had LTE for a while longer, is this the kind of situation where there's likely to be real improvement early on as some initial kinks get worked out, or is it pretty much already as good as it's going to get when sprint rolls it out?
Even though sprint officially announces Lte coverage doesn't mean it's 100% compete! They are constently adding towers.
I live in LA and get lte in my city but next door cities don't have it yet! I believe L.A is only 50% covered right now.
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Same here. I am greatly disappointed with the Sprint service. I always have 3g, but EVDO is pathetically slow... I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Verizon... I wish I would have gone with AT&T. :/
You might want to check out this thread: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1413-network-visionlte-la-metro-market/
There's also a separate thread for OC.
Sprints wimax coverage was actually decent in LA. I live and work in La Verne at the eastern edge of LA County. There is like two LTE towers out here. I'm pretty sure it will get as good if not better than their wimax coverage, if you can wait another year you should
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FrozenRiff said:
Sprints wimax coverage was actually decent in LA. I live and work in La Verne at the eastern edge of LA County. There is like two LTE towers out here. I'm pretty sure it will get as good if not better than their wimax coverage, if you can wait another year you should
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Another thing to consider too is that at some point Sprint is also going to deploy LTE on the 800MHz band, which has a longer reach and penetrates buildings better than 1900 (current LTE deployment) or 2600MHz (WiMax and future LTE). That could also have a significant positive impact on reception. They are supposed to begin do that sometime towards the end of the year. However, none of Sprint's current phones support that LTE band unfortunately.
Check out the Sensorly app
Play Store link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sensorly.viewer&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDMsImNvbS5zZW5zb3JseS52aWV3ZXIiXQ..
It will help with your decision about service in your area. Where I live EVDO isn't bad so when I'm in an area without LTE there isn't much of an issue. As far as LTE just starting in your area, yes it continues to get better. Verizon's LTE was the most spotty junk you've ever seen when they first started. It takes a while to fill in all the gaps in coverage and I have noticed my phone's 4G icon coming on in more places. The plans for Sprint Network Vision exceed all the other major carriers' LTE networks and will be easily upgraded to LTE Advanced. The problem is it's still in it's early stages. Verizon got a huge jump on LTE while Sprint was messing with WiMAX so it's likely that Verizon will have the LTE advantage for now in most areas.
Yeah, towards the beginning of roll out, signal is.horrible. But don't lose hope. It can, and does, only get better from here :thumbup:
As the title says I am looking at what to expect data wise with the M8 without circuit switch fall back. I live in an area where Sprint Spark is not available (Virginia Beach, VA) and as of recently, I am getting great LTE coverage with my EVO 4G LTE. The concern for this issue has become a little obsession because it derailed my 100% wanting of the M8. I understand I will definitely loose SVDO but all the features of the M8 allow me to overlook that. Thanks in advance to all that looked and wrote.
Not sure exactly what you are asking but I can say that my data coverage is noticeably better with my M8 than it was with my EVO 4G LTE. I normally stream Slacker radio on my commute to and from work, with the EVO LTE I would almost never keep a solid data connection the entire trip, with the M8 it is the opposite, I almost never lose data connection. It appears to me the radios and antennas in this phone are noticeably better than the ones in the EVO LTE. Additionally, and I don't know why this would be so, but my lte speeds are about twice as fast on my M8 than I was seeing with my EVO LTE.
wfrandy said:
Not sure exactly what you are asking but I can say that my data coverage is noticeably better with my M8 than it was with my EVO 4G LTE. I normally stream Slacker radio on my commute to and from work, with the EVO LTE I would almost never keep a solid data connection the entire trip, with the M8 it is the opposite, I almost never lose data connection. It appears to me the radios and antennas in this phone are noticeably better than the ones in the EVO LTE. Additionally, and I don't know why this would be so, but my lte speeds are about twice as fast on my M8 than I was seeing with my EVO LTE.
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Thanks for the reply, do you know if your area has been upgraded with the CSFB tech?
I do not know, As far as I know Sprint hasn't even officially announced LTE here yet. We have only had 4G for about 3-4 months, until a couple of months ago it was off more than on as they were working on it.
If you have LTE in your area you almost certainly have working eCSFB. If you didn't, the phone wouldnt connect to LTE at all.