Signal Strenth, Number of Bars

[HtcEvoLemon]

For those who own the phone who also prior to purchasing this phone, had a different t-mobile device, have you noticed any signal strength differences between your old device and new vibrant. Is your signal strength good, full bars?

Just curious because I was playing around with this phone today. Noticed it kept going from max 1 bar to zero bars inside the t-mobile store, while my t-mobile device had full bars.


update:
guess what I picked up first myself, is popping up all over the net and being confirmed.. seems like this phone has iphone issues.

here is a galaxy with similar problem
this problem is popping up everywhere online.

look at this youtube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LROTHrTR92k&feature=player_embedded

 

[aci78]

I did notice I had 4 bars on Edge prior to entering an Albertson's, only to have my call dropped halfway thru store. WTF?

 

[spiz]

I did notice I had 4 bars on Edge prior to entering an Albertson's, only to have my call dropped halfway thru store. WTF?

Your bars don't correlate to your data (3G/Edge) connection. Your bars are strictly voice service.

Anyways, I haven't noticed any problems and I live in a fairly rural area.

 

[HtcEvoLemon]

Your bars don't correlate to your data (3G/Edge) connection. Your bars are strictly voice service.

Anyways, I haven't noticed any problems and I live in a fairly rural area.

Are you sure that statment is correct? I was told by t-mobile technical support that signal strength correlates to both data and voice. If you have no bars, you wont receive data. This is actually how my current t-mobile phone works.

Also Edge and 3g have their own distinct number of bars. Meaning 1 minute your phone can be on edge with 5 full bars, then switch 2 seconds later to a 3g signal that it picks up only 2 bars. Then switch right back to Edge with 5 bars. Edge and 3g have their own distinct signal strenghts depending on the neighborhood you are in, and which towers are up in the area.

This is why on t-mobile phones you can choose 3 settings for your mobile network:
1) GSM (Locks into Edge only)
2) WCDMA (Locks into 3g only)
3) GSM/WCDMA auto (automatically switches back and forth between edge and 3g to keep your data and voice without dropping)

 

[spiz]

There was a guy on these forums a while back who said he installed GSM towers. I wish I could find the old thread, but that's just where I got that info and he appeared to know his stuff.

Now that I think about it though, I think the conversation might have been about download speeds not correlating to the bars. Hopefully someone around here knows for sure.

Where I live, I drive between cities on rural roads quite a bit and tend to lose service in spots (mountainous area). In a couple particular areas, I have terrible voice service, however I can still access Facebook, Gmail, etc... So I'm not too sure.

 

[HtcEvoLemon]

I did notice I had 4 bars on Edge prior to entering an Albertson's, only to have my call dropped halfway thru store. WTF?

I think the occasional droped call is okay, as long as its not on zero bars all the time.

 

[RJA]

I used to own a g1 and I would get 2 bars where I Would sit then I used to own a boost mobile phone i856 and I would get 0 bars now with my vibrant I get 4 bars in the same location (my desk at work)

 

[DKYang]

Bars isn't everything. I don't get full bar at my house. I think the phone still needs to be calibrated, but like I said before, bars don't really mean you don't have signal. I have 0 bars, 3G, and making clear calls without it dropping.

I hope no one brings the "death grip" nonsense up.

 

[macprv]

earlier i had zero bars and a called went thru lol

 

[HoldFastHope]

For those who own the phone who also prior to purchasing this phone, had a different t-mobile device, have you noticed any signal strength differences between your old device and new vibrant. Is your signal strength good, full bars?

Just curious because I was playing around with this phone today. Noticed it kept going from max 1 bar to zero bars inside the t-mobile store, while my t-mobile device had full bars.

I noticed that yesterday when I went and tried out the Vibrant. It only had one bar in the store. I take out my G1 and it had 3 bars...

 

[chaoscentral]

I get 5 bars of 3G where my HD2 used to get 2-3, so improvement for me

 

[HtcEvoLemon]

earlier i had zero bars and a called went thru lol

how strange, it must just be a software problem, maybe it doesn't report the bars correctly.

 

[thetube]

Are you sure that statment is correct? I was told by t-mobile technical support that signal strength correlates to both data and voice. If you have no bars, you wont receive data. This is actually how my current t-mobile phone works.

Also Edge and 3g have their own distinct number of bars. Meaning 1 minute your phone can be on edge with 5 full bars, then switch 2 seconds later to a 3g signal that it picks up only 2 bars. Then switch right back to Edge with 5 bars. Edge and 3g have their own distinct signal strenghts depending on the neighborhood you are in, and which towers are up in the area.

This is why on t-mobile phones you can choose 3 settings for your mobile network:
1) GSM (Locks into Edge only)
2) WCDMA (Locks into 3g only)
3) GSM/WCDMA auto (automatically switches back and forth between edge and 3g to keep your data and voice without dropping)

How do you change these settings? Im showing zero bars where my blaxkberry shows 4 bars... Very frustrated!

 

[03machme]

i havent noticed a difference from my G1 in signal but this this is FAST LOL

 

[DKYang]

If you're going to worry about bars forever, then you will loose all your hair! If it makes calls, then you should be fine for now. Hopefully, Samsung fixes it in there next update.

 

[HtcEvoLemon]

Ok something very interesting. I been looking at phones all day, I'm going crazy lol.

So I popped into two t-mobile stores. Both phones had zero bars most of the time, although you could place calls(this is what the store employee said...he said on his vibrant even though it is zero bars he can place calls)....but speedtest.net app failed to run...it kept getting stuck on latency, because it wasn't picking up a signal.

So i tried going to the browser, broweser wouldn't load pages until the phone popped into edge network, then it ran super slow. When it switched back to 3g zero bars, the phone failed to resume loading the page.

I let the t-mobile employees know, they acted weird when I told them. Like they know it shows zero bars, but they don't want to really admit why its doing it.

One last thing, the issue happens if you hold it, or if you don't hold it. So it is not a grip issue. Even if it is just sitting there on display, it shows zero bars.

 

[HtcEvoLemon]

Holly cow, I just did a search online, this problem is popping up everywhere.

look at this youtube video, its a galaxy s, it isn't branded vibrant.

YouTube - Samsung I9000 Galaxy S - signal reception issues - luinHD

 

[coolguy949]

Man they really did try to clone the iPhone didn't they? Even down to the signal problem...

I too have this issue. Having used Sprint for the last couple years I was used to rock solid reception. This is the only thing that makes me a little insecure about my purchase.

I'm not sure if this is 100% software related as mine will often switch to edge if I'm in a weak signal area while holding the phone. This really only happens indoors. In good coverage areas nothing drops the signal for me. I even managed to get this speed test while trying to replicate the problem:

 

[ajax0730]

Definitely seems to have signal issues. Did a comparison yesterday laying 3 phones next to each other and looking at the signal in dB (under about phone->status). Vibrant, Nexus One, G1 Dream.
My G1 consistently got the best signal (as good a -67db)
Nexus got around -80ish dB
Samsung Vibrant got around -100ish dB even with full bars the signal never got better than -80dB
In this scenario I did not touch any of the phones so no iPhone effect.
My conclusion here is that the radio is lousy on my particular phone. This could be hardware or software we just don't know. It seems other people are having the problem but some people claim call quality is ok. Call quality on my phone is a problem about half the time. I'm inclined to return the phone if samsung does not come forward with some news on this. Love the phone otherwise but it needs to make phone calls first.

 

[HtcEvoLemon]

Definitely seems to have signal issues. Did a comparison yesterday laying 3 phones next to each other and looking at the signal in dB (under about phone->status). Vibrant, Nexus One, G1 Dream.
My G1 consistently got the best signal (as good a -67db)
Nexus got around -80ish dB
Samsung Vibrant got around -100ish dB even with full bars the signal never got better than -80dB
In this scenario I did not touch any of the phones so no iPhone effect.
My conclusion here is that the radio is lousy on my particular phone. This could be hardware or software we just don't know. It seems other people are having the problem but some people claim call quality is ok. Call quality on my phone is a problem about half the time. I'm inclined to return the phone if samsung does not come forward with some news on this. Love the phone otherwise but it needs to make phone calls first.

How do you check the db? Also is a more positive number better, and higher neg number worse?
Meaning anything more positive than -100 is better? so -80 -60 -50 all the way up to 0 are better than -100?

thanks

 

[HtcEvoLemon]

Man they really did try to clone the iPhone didn't they? Even down to the signal problem...

I too have this issue. Having used Sprint for the last couple years I was used to rock solid reception. This is the only thing that makes me a little insecure about my purchase.

I'm not sure if this is 100% software related as mine will often switch to edge if I'm in a weak signal area while holding the phone. This really only happens indoors. In good coverage areas nothing drops the signal for me. I even managed to get this speed test while trying to replicate the problem:

wow, 5.20 mb/s that is fast! can you run the test like 10 times, and take an average of the download for us. I will be surprised if you average 5.20.. seems like that will be at the high extreme end of the sigma

 

[ajax0730]

The way to check dB is to go phone settings->about phone->status then look under signal strength. db is a measure of signal loss from the tower which is a logarithmic scale. The mathematical formula is db=10*log10(P1/P0) where P0 is the power emitted by the tower and P1 is the power received by your phone. So signal strength of 0db means there is no power loss. Obviously this never happens. I've noticed that the phone displays 0db when it has no signal at all. -100db means a power loss of 10,000,000,000 times where -90db means a loss of 1,000,000,000 times the emitted power. A larger negative number means less signal. In android phones, power is reported in dBm which means P0 is 1 miliwatt of Power.
What I'm unable to explain is how one phone can report such drastic differences in signal (keep in my mind that each 10db change is a factor of 10 less).
Again both phones sitting on my desk in a poor reception area of my house
G1 signal -99 dBm
Vibrant signal 0 dBm (i.e no signal)

 

[HtcEvoLemon]

The way to check dB is to go phone settings->about phone->status then look under signal strength. db is a measure of signal loss from the tower which is a logarithmic scale. The mathematical formula is db=10*log10(P1/P0) where P0 is the power emitted by the tower and P1 is the power received by your phone. So signal strength of 0db means there is no power loss. Obviously this never happens. I've noticed that the phone displays 0db when it has no signal at all. -100db means a power loss of 10,000,000,000 times where -90db means a loss of 1,000,000,000 times the emitted power. A larger negative number means less signal. In android phones, power is reported in dBm which means P0 is 1 miliwatt of Power.
What I'm unable to explain is how one phone can report such drastic differences in signal (keep in my mind that each 10db change is a factor of 10 less).
Again both phones sitting on my desk in a poor reception area of my house
G1 signal -99 dBm
Vibrant signal 0 dBm (i.e no signal)

i get it thanks

 

[buby13]

hi i have new samsung galaxy s and i have a problem with the network issue because outside it works good but when i am inside my house nearly had a signal i have t mobile (puerto rico) and they have edge network. can i change edge for 3g please help me really apreciate for your time and help or tell me what can i do

 

[sewred]

I"m having the same issues with the 3g to edge to nothing in NYC; in my office on my Nexus I would always have 3g. With the vibrant it seems to only pick up Edge? what is this about? I noticed this on day 1 of use; it's very frustrating because browsing and downloading takes entirely tooo0 long!