Is it my phone or the network? - Sprint HTC One (M7)

I'm having a hard time figuring out if i'm having a phone issue or is it a network issue that I need to get used to. Simple tasks such as navigation I can rarely get to work if i've already started moving. It will act as if searching for service for 2 or 3 minutes before it gets a lock and will begin navigating. I have had times with AT&T where I had little to 0 service and navigation would pick up fine, but with Sprint I see connection lost a lot more. Is this a Sprint thing or you think I got a bad phone?
I will have 3-4 bars of service on 3G and can stream music but refreshing something like Twitter can take several minutes or timeout completely. I live in Atlanta and have rarely seen 4G/LTE which I believe to be strange because Sprint's coverage map indicates they have strong coverage most of the places i've experienced the hiccups.
What do you guys think?

I think it's a phone issue. I have it as well. ...at least the "GPS lost" issue. Didn't have it with my note 2. I get fast GPS locks though.
No issue with data except for sprints typical slowness
Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 2

I haven't had that issue but I don't live near anywhere as large a metropolitan area as Atlanta so that could be an issue. My GPS locks are nearly instant but I do have problems streaming music sometimes.

war eagle said:
I'm having a hard time figuring out if i'm having a phone issue or is it a network issue that I need to get used to. Simple tasks such as navigation I can rarely get to work if i've already started moving. It will act as if searching for service for 2 or 3 minutes before it gets a lock and will begin navigating. I have had times with AT&T where I had little to 0 service and navigation would pick up fine, but with Sprint I see connection lost a lot more. Is this a Sprint thing or you think I got a bad phone?
I will have 3-4 bars of service on 3G and can stream music but refreshing something like Twitter can take several minutes or timeout completely. I live in Atlanta and have rarely seen 4G/LTE which I believe to be strange because Sprint's coverage map indicates they have strong coverage most of the places i've experienced the hiccups.
What do you guys think?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would call Sprint Customer care and tell them you are having issues with data services and that you have heard of this issue. Have them verify your UUIC ID number under settings/about/Phone identity. This is also the same as the SIM ID. They may say oh thats for international only but what they don't know yet is that number must match on your account for all your data services to behave properly. I figured this out after 6 phone exchanges.....the phone was fine....it was that number that was messed up.
My symptoms where:
- Slow data
- Dropped calls
- Radio was always using EvDo rev. A (check in settings/about/network)
- Never on EHRPD (Required for 4g LTE handoff with the towers)
- 104 data errors (these still happen but much less and is because they are still building out the 4g network here)
I hope this helps and will fix your issues. It did for me.

Related

(Poll) What's your opinion on 3g?

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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
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).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.

Manual network/antenna selection possible?

I use my nexus one on ATT - in my area, there are two antennas.. ATT's "preferred" antenna which barely gets any signal at all (resulting in dropped calls every couple of minutes), and there's a "roaming" antenna which gives me full signal and works great. The problem is that when I'm on the roaming (good) antenna, the phone gets a tiny bit of signal from the "preferred" (bad) antenna, switches me over then my calls drop.
I had a Palm Treo which had a hack to manually select the antenna I wanted to use, which worked GREAT. Does a similar hack exist for the nexus one/android?
interesting.... didn't know we can select antennas
there should be a way to hack radio module to allow cell tower override, i have exactly same problem. there are three cells around my house, one nearby and two far away. for some stupid reason phone switches to different cell tower and i lose my network.
in battery use, i have cell standby as my biggest battery hog. cell standby over 25%
I'd be willing to pay for this hack.
has anybody ever found a way to do this?? I just moved further out into the country to get away from the city, and i am one tower too far away to be in the local calling area to all my contacts. lol and i know I'm BARELY into the other towers coverage area. So, if i could tell my phone to stay locked on to a particular tower, and actually get a signal (It switches towers when i still have 3 bars of signal, and I live about a mile further down the street from where it switches) I can avoid long distance charges. I haven't been able to find anything anywhere to be able to do it, but I may be using the wrong search terms. I'm not completely up to snuff on most technical terms. Thanks in advance.
I think cell tower hand offs are handled by the networks, not the phone
can anybody confirm this? what antenna on N1???
mrbkkt1 said:
I think cell tower hand offs are handled by the networks, not the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
U could very well be correct! Sounds logical. I've been exploring a handful of VoIP options that ya can use from your Android/WM device using your Data connection/WiFi.
I spent a bunch of time reading and researching, and just installed one called Nettalk. No local phone number for incoming calls, but the app is free, and u can make calls to anywhere to/from any Canadian area. The app looks just like the regular dialer, and works pretty decent. So, when somebody calls, I'll just select 'reject call with message' (if calling from a cell) and say I'll call rite back, or if calling from a land line, I'll just send it to voicemail and call back and presto... problem solved. There are a few other options available, where u pay anywhere from $5 a month, to $30 a month and you still using your Data/WiFi connection, but u get a local calling number for contacts to call, and doesn't matter where your phone is, it will receive the call free of long distance charges. Problem is, i haven't found any that have the city I'm from in their numbers database. So for now, I'm going to see how this system works out.
mrbkkt1 said:
I think cell tower hand offs are handled by the networks, not the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both the handset and the base station "handle" hand offs. The handset has a programmed minimum signal level, below which it will essentially request a hand off if one is available. The network can switch the handset to another tower for load balancing or other reasons if it determines that the handset (or the carrier's business interests) is better served by another tower. It's a two way system. If the network wants to move you on to another tower, but the phone won't get a lock, you stay on the original tower.
The problem with the OP is that his SIM (which is programmed with carrier preferences) keeps pushing him off roaming and into the actual AT&T network. Basically, AT&T has its network set up so that any level of AT&T signal is preferable to any level of roaming. It does that to save money on roaming costs, since AT&T handles you for free while you're on their system, but has to pay a few cents to have the roaming partner host you.
Maybe
I think Tasks can do that.
samsung has that feature but i have to find for other handsets

[Q] Data connectivity issues - Slow 3G/H

Trying to work out whether I have an issue with my One, my sim card or the network...
WHenever I use wifi I have no issues with connectivity and data speeds. However, when I am using 3G/H (I don't have LTE/4G) the speeds are painfully slow and often nothing loads. This happens both in my place of work (Central London) and at home (North West London). I'm not sure whether it has always affected the phone, I think so. I am on T-mobile/EE and the issue doesn't change whether I have one bar of signal or five bars of signal. I downloaded the SpeedTest app to check what was happening and it seems that it can't even do the initial 'ping' to the server.
I plan on checking another sim in my phone, and my sim in another phone to try and narrow down the possible errors but was wondering whether anyone here has had any similar issues. I'm currently on my fourth One (1 and 3 - misaligned screens, 2 - dead pixels) and I am really hoping that I don't need to get this one repaired/replaced now. Hopefully someone has some good news!
Thanks in advance!

Frequent Random Network Drops

I've seen a number of threads where people post about their device dropping network data connectivity, and needing a reboot to solve it.
My issue is a bit different. Occasionally (I've noticed it 3-4 times today) when I go to send a text (SMS) or to use a data enabled service like Hangouts, that my phone shows no bars at all.. not even just no data, but the bars are grey and there's a red x. I wait about 15 seconds and it reconnects, then another 10 seconds later, the data is live again.
Phone is a private sale and under 1 month old, and all the Stamina functions are off.. I do see that the "Queue background Data" is turned on, but I don't think this should effect, no?
Not sure what digits I should be looking at to know if this might be a hardware vs software issue.. build is listed as .93
Im no stranger to unlocking and flashing, but I've kept this stock cuz it's tight and I adore the battery life.
Suggestions?
sh0nuff said:
I've seen a number of threads where people post about their device dropping network data connectivity, and needing a reboot to solve it.
My issue is a bit different. Occasionally (I've noticed it 3-4 times today) when I go to send a text (SMS) or to use a data enabled service like Hangouts, that my phone shows no bars at all.. not even just no data, but the bars are grey and there's a red x. I wait about 15 seconds and it reconnects, then another 10 seconds later, the data is live again.
Phone is a private sale and under 1 month old, and all the Stamina functions are off.. I do see that the "Queue background Data" is turned on, but I don't think this should effect, no?
Not sure what digits I should be looking at to know if this might be a hardware vs software issue.. build is listed as .93
Im no stranger to unlocking and flashing, but I've kept this stock cuz it's tight and I adore the battery life.
Suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
check in settings in network and set your network to the one you use , like gm/wcdma /lte , maybe your phone is strugling to find 3g or 4g , try it , who knows it might solve the issue , ty
Been about a month since I posted, and I'm still experiencing this issue. I often thumb my phone on and it's not connected. I don't really mind waiting for the 30 seconds or so that it takes to jump back on the network, but it often means I miss calls, and since it's my business phone, it kinda bums me out to suddenly get a VM notification of a missed call even though it never rang.
Is there some sort of utility that I can use to monitor the network activity to see how frequently it drops, and for how long? I've looked into ones on Play but they don't seem to have a history, just something that shows what data up and down is currently being reported.
Sadly the only Sony store in my city (and I think the country - Canada) has recently closed for good, so I'm not sure how to go about warranty repairs...
sh0nuff said:
Been about a month since I posted, and I'm still experiencing this issue. I often thumb my phone on and it's not connected. I don't really mind waiting for the 30 seconds or so that it takes to jump back on the network, but it often means I miss calls, and since it's my business phone, it kinda bums me out to suddenly get a VM notification of a missed call even though it never rang.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have a solution, but I can tell you that you're not alone. I've been experienced the same thing on my Z3C. I sometimes wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the MVNO I use doesn't support 4G LTE.
kopsis said:
I don't have a solution, but I can tell you that you're not alone. I've been experienced the same thing on my Z3C. I sometimes wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the MVNO I use doesn't support 4G LTE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting.. Your issue isn't just data, but a complete network disconnection? Im with Fido which is an MVNO under Rogers, but I thought they supported LTE. The issue also persists even on wifi
sh0nuff said:
Interesting.. Your issue isn't just data, but a complete network disconnection? Im with Fido which is an MVNO under Rogers, but I thought they supported LTE. The issue also persists even on wifi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it seems to be a complete loss of the mobile connection. When I wake the phone I see gray bars and a red X on the signal strength indicator. Within seconds the phone re-acquires and the indicator goes to 2 or 3 bars. I have also seen it happen with wifi active. The frustrating part is that it doesn't seem to do it often enough to troubleshoot. I'll notice the problem maybe a couple of times a month and there's nothing obviously different about my usage patterns in those instances.
Mine does it at least a dozen times a day. I can only assume this as I frequently miss calls and at least 3-4 times a day I see it happen. =(
Same Problem
Randomly I have no connection at all but after a few seconds everything wents back to normal. Did not have this problem with T-mobile in Germany but with with O2 I have. With T-mobile I had LTE but with O2 I don't, so I guess that's the reason.
Interesting... I've disabled LTE and now have it on 3g/GSM. We'll see how it works moving forward, and I'll post again in a week. Stay tuned.
Service Providers
In the mobile network settings one can change the service provider manually. With LTE enabled my provider has three entries: LTE, 3G and 2G. Connecting two LTE fails, because my provider blocked it in my plan. Having LTE enabled, it often tries to connect to LTE I assume. I switched off LTE and set the provider manually to 3G. Maybe that helps. We'll see.
realTobbse said:
In the mobile network settings one can change the service provider manually. With LTE enabled my provider has three entries: LTE, 3G and 2G. Connecting two LTE fails, because my provider blocked it in my plan. Having LTE enabled, it often tries to connect to LTE I assume. I switched off LTE and set the provider manually to 3G. Maybe that helps. We'll see.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting.. I have LTE as part of my network and plan... But once I made changes to the settings as I indicated, I no longer receive the network drops I originally experienced.. I might just be missing the alerts, but it seems fixed... #crossedfingers

Data issue...

I've been having this really annoying issue where all of a sudden I just wont get a data connection even though there is a strong 4g signal. Any app that uses the internet will say there is a connection error, it just completely stops. I've been getting around it by having to turn on airplane mode and then turning it off. After I do that, everything starts connecting again, but it is insanely annoying. It seems to be getting more persistent, which is why I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced the same thing and if so, how did you fix it?
Thank you.
Oh and just in case, I'm running completely stock non rooted.
I've had the same problem the past few days. Don't know why & it happens fairly randomly. Only way to get around it is to connect to WiFi or turn data off/on.
Are you on KK or LP? Its happening to me on LP. I live in CO and its even worse closer to Denver I go.
Jammol said:
Are you on KK or LP? Its happening to me on LP. I live in CO and its even worse closer to Denver I go.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm on Lollipop. I think it happened on KK as well but it's definitely happening way more now.
I'm on Lollipop. Just started having the issue a few days ago.
I'm in Atlanta, both my devices have sluggish Internet def not what I'm used to. I called into tech support twice, was told they are doing network moderization....yea ok
Sent from my: SM-N910T/SQC100-4 T-Mobile 4G LTE
Having the same issue here in Atlanta was told it should be sorted out by today. I'm also using lollipop stock but rooted. In the meantime ive been forcing 4g by using the lte dialer since I've been having frequent changing to edge network since the update, but I'm still having issues with a strong 4g connection especially YouTube app.
Sent from my SM-N910T using XDA Free mobile app
Some serious hacking went on yesterday. I'm assuming some of the slowness was related. Many online services were slow and United Airlines was take down completely.
Sent from my SM-N910T using XDA Free mobile app
ShrekOpher said:
Some serious hacking went on yesterday. I'm assuming some of the slowness was related. Many online services were slow and United Airlines was take down completely.
Sent from my SM-N910T using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Say what? Got some links?
Jammol said:
Say what? Got some links?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah be call flying
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/united-flights-grounded-mysterious-problem/
Sent from my SM-N910T using XDA Free mobile app
I have the same problem. I had it on my s5 too
T-mobile
from what i heard t mobile was doing some cleaning up of files or upgrades i called them since i was getting 3g.
I too have been seeing the same data issue. It could just be coincidental timing but within days of loading LP I started having the issue. Even flashed the ROM again in case it was a bad flash.
As stated in OP I toggle airplane mode to fix. Annoying for sure.
PopRocks v5
T-Mobile
Bump.
I have been having this issue too ever since upgrading to Lollipop. I've had it on 2 versions of Poprocks and I now it have while using Rapture. Extremely annoying.
I got around it by rebooting the phone. I did not think of airplane mode or data on/off, i'll give that a shot. I was actually thinking maybe it's an APN issue, but no one in here mentioned that. For what it's worth I live in Southern California.
This issue is really starting to annoy me. One thing I do with my phone is stream music while I'm driving, and now I'm having all kinds of issues once my phone drops off wifi & has to switch to data. My music just stops playing & I have to toggle airplane mode to fix the issue, which isn't fun/easy while driving. Plus, when I do that my phone doesn't reconnect to my car's bluetooth. Ugh! I sure hope this gets fixed soon.
As an update, months later and I still have data drops all the time. Really annoying and it has definitely soured me on the Note 4. First with the GPS issue I was having (that was only fixed after getting a replacement) and now this data issue.
They only doing this too trick us into getting the note 5.
bipoler said:
They only doing this too trick us into getting the note 5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After reading the new info on the Note 5, I'm not all that impressed. Don't get me wrong, it sounds like a good device, but I wasn't really impressed with the changes. I'm sure it'll still be a great phone, but I don't know if I'm willing to risk another year of the data issue. I may go with the new Nexus this year.
I've had this problem (5 bars, but can't even ping 8.8.8.8... but if I toggle data off & on, I instantly connect & usually get fast transfers) all the time (Fort Lauderdale area) for months, but it seems to have been particularly bad for the past few weeks.
Is this T-Mobile's fault? Or do Note 4s on other carriers (Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, etc) have the same problem?
My theory:
* The number of bars is determined mostly by the signal strength of the nearest tower
* The phone doesn't necessarily use the same tower for data that it uses for voice & SMS (in fact, when it's using HSPA+, it HAS to be simultaneously connected to two different towers).
* The modem firmware resists changing towers when there's an active data session unless it totally and completely loses sight of the tower it's currently using for data. I'm not sure whether it's the fault of Android or GSM network design, but data hand-offs seem to be "hard" rather than "soft", and always involve a connectivity break of at least a few seconds before the new one gets established.
* Thus, you can get into a situation (say, by driving a half mile or so) where the phone establishes a data connection with one tower, you drive *just* far enough away that it can still hear the original tower -- but can't actually complete a transmission without unrecoverable errors -- but voice & SMS messages go through the nearby tower. When you toggle data, it breaks the old data session, and establishes the new one from the strong nearby tower.
One thing that appears to have changed (in South Florida, at least) over the past few months: I always had problems with losing data connections while driving unless I disabled LTE, but NOW it appears to be doing the same thing even when GSM/WCDMA only is selected instead of GSM/WCDMA/LTE. It's like they figured out what was making LTE dysfunctional, then went out of their way to make HSPA equally dysfunctional.

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