3G/1x switching back and forth

[jdb]

I'm a noob to the whole smartphone with data thing. Is it normal for my phone to switch in and out of 3G in an area that the verizon map shows as being a 3G area? At home I seem to stay on the 3G fairly constantly, but at work (which is at the edge of coverage) and especially while driving I seem to drop 3G quite a bit. It makes playing Slacker in the car not worth while. Just wondering if this is "just the way it is" or if I may have an issue.

 

[clos1084]

I'm a noob to the whole smartphone with data thing. Is it normal for my phone to switch in and out of 3G in an area that the verizon map shows as being a 3G area? At home I seem to stay on the 3G fairly constantly, but at work (which is at the edge of coverage) and especially while driving I seem to drop 3G quite a bit. It makes playing Slacker in the car not worth while. Just wondering if this is "just the way it is" or if I may have an issue.

It sounds normal if you are on the edge of service. Samething happens at my job, I constantly go between 3G(evdo) and 1x

 

[Clementine_3]

It's "just the way it is".
At home mine mostly stays in 3G but will go to 1X, luckily I can switch to wifi if I want. I live on the edge too. lol
At work it is a solid 3G and blisteringly fast

 

[jdb]

hhhmmm, okay. At work I don't care much as I don't need 3G all the time, and at home I actually am on 3G all the time, plus I have wifi, so all is good there. But man it is frustrating driving (50 min commute) and listening to Slacker, then nothing for a while, then maybe another song kicks in, really not worth listening too while driving. Thanks for the responses.

 

[gotwillk]

mine switches from 3G to 1X quite a bit at work too. and only certain parts of the building, like in my office, where i actually am most of the day. it has no windows and is pretty much located in the center of the building itself. so that sucks. also, i think it drains battery faster because it keeps switching back and forth, trying to acquire a signal. i also notice my bars hover around 1-2.

 

[cpetku]

Download Cellfinder to discover how far you are from the tower. In my case I'm showing 1.5 miles and getting 1-2 bars but staying in 3G mode. Also download xtremelabs speed test. My numbers are about 300 - 400K on downloads indicating I don't get great 3G speeds at home. If I switch over to Wifi this goes up to 4-6M/S. So, then you can decide if you should download locale and set it up to automatically switch on WIFI at the house and 3G where you don't have WIFI access.

 

[ladybadger2007]

My first one did. It would switch from 3G to 1X even in a 3G area. At times it would drop my data all together. My icon would disappear completly and hte phone would not recieve calls or texts until the Icon came back. They switched it out for me at Verizon. The second one never had an Icon at all. I am now on number 3 I hope they get the bugs worked out soon cuz I love the phone, but am getting very frustrated.

 

[gtdriver]

if you open the phone app and type *#*#4636#*#* it will open a menu, if you click Phone info and scroll to the bottom there is a pull down menu to set prefered network type. You can lock it onto what you want, but if you leave an area and go somewhere what its locked on you won't have service.. sometimes it will choose the slower connection cause the signal is stronger so you can prevent it from using the slower connection this way.. Someone else can probably explain the options better then I can, I just know its there from using my G1 on tmobile and kept it locked on 3G unless I was leaving town..

 

[jdb]

I'm not sure locking on to one cell tower for 3G would work in my case, as far as driving goes, as I have a fairly long commute and part of it is in the hills, and I'm pretty sure I get service from more than one tower.
I got to thinking, and last night was far and away the worst it has been for streaming Slacker, which prompted this thrread, and I think it may have had something to do with that supposed "silent update". I was driving at the 6:00 hour pacific time...and shortly after I got home I started seeing the "green corners" threads. What I have noticed though is that Slacker streams flawlessly early in the early a.m. on my way to work...less people on the 3G network?

 

[gotwillk]

if you open the phone app and type *#*#4636#*#* it will open a menu, if you click Phone info and scroll to the bottom there is a pull down menu to set prefered network type. You can lock it onto what you want, but if you leave an area and go somewhere what its locked on you won't have service.. sometimes it will choose the slower connection cause the signal is stronger so you can prevent it from using the slower connection this way.. Someone else can probably explain the options better then I can, I just know its there from using my G1 on tmobile and kept it locked on 3G unless I was leaving town..

so i go into that menu and select EVDO for my preferred network? and thats 3G?

 

[stearic]

I set it to be evdo only, and then poof it says i'm in roaming. But when i set it back to default, i'm back in 3g/not roaming. This is def odd.

 

[gotwillk]

yea i set it to evdo but it didnt seem to make a dif to me. actually it seemed like it was worse because its forcing it to 3g and when there is no 3g, theres no service. at all. id rather have it fall back on 1x than nothing at all.

 

[iamloco724]

if you open the phone app and type *#*#4636#*#* it will open a menu, if you click Phone info and scroll to the bottom there is a pull down menu to set prefered network type. You can lock it onto what you want, but if you leave an area and go somewhere what its locked on you won't have service.. sometimes it will choose the slower connection cause the signal is stronger so you can prevent it from using the slower connection this way.. Someone else can probably explain the options better then I can, I just know its there from using my G1 on tmobile and kept it locked on 3G unless I was leaving town..

ok i just did this to see if i coudl get a better signal and set it to evdo i was getting a better signal in the stats but now i cant make calls nore can i dial this settings to change it back im stuck now what do i do i need help asap

 

[iamloco724]

internet seems to be working but cant dial anything including *228 or that number for those settings

 

[gotwillk]

yea dialing that number and then setting it to evdo only doesn't do anything for call quality. it just switches it over to evdo only so thats all youre gonna end up getting. evdo, which is data. calls cant be made or received. i found this out the hard way when my sister tried to call me and asked why my phone was off. it wasn't off but i did remember changing it to evdo only. everything worked fine at first, even when i switched to evdo only but that was because it didn't take effect until after the phone was restarted. i quickly switched it back to original setting.

i remember i fixed it by dialing that number again and then switching it back to original, and then reboot.

 

[iamloco724]

if i didndt read ur message i probably wouldnt have tired again because i tried like 5 times to do that to dial the number again and change the setting but it wouldnt let me now for some reason it let me back in and was able to switch it..thank you for putting it back in my head to try again lol