Captivate good in rural areas?

[Idomeneus]

I am seriously thinking about the captivate for my wife and I. We live in a very rural area......no internet options and only 1-2 bars of edge on our current iphone 3g. Does the captivate have an antenna stronger or at least equal to the iphone 3g in edge only places like this? Can't seem to find good info on this. Thanks in advance.

 

[mnemonicj]

My in-laws live in rural areas and I receive a signal in almost all of the areas that my Nokia did. I wish the phone had a way to turn off 3G and use Edge like my Nokia N95 does. Any 3G phone that uses Edge service wastes battery power looking for 3G signals. I have looked around this forum and found there is a way to make the phone prefer Edge, but it sounds like it still searches for 3G.

 

[nyydynasty]

I am seriously thinking about the captivate for my wife and I. We live in a very rural area......no internet options and only 1-2 bars of edge on our current iphone 3g. Does the captivate have an antenna stronger or at least equal to the iphone 3g in edge only places like this? Can't seem to find good info on this. Thanks in advance.

it should work but there's only one way to find out
with that service, i'm sure your battery life will go to shit, though LOL

 

[northernale1]

in rural areas,, its great,, as there is a app to milk cows,,,

but where i work the service is very marginal,, and in our lunch room the apple people cant use there phone,, I can use mine,, also notice BB phones working also,,

 

[sremick]

Sounds like you're a good candidate for an in-home 3W booster using a high-gain outside antenna and a repeater on the inside.

One-time purchase/cost.

 

[t-readyroc]

One-time purchase/cost.

Heh... mebbe so, but those bad boys'll run ya ~5 bills. That said, we've got one here in our bldg so that we can get service down in the basement. Works as advertised.

 

[jeremytanner]

I live in a very remote, rural area. I have as good of service with AT&T as I previously had with Verizon, the exception being that I don't drop calls nearly as often with AT&T. So slightly better, IMO. The Captivate performs well. Calls can get broken up at times, but when I have enough reception for calls, they sound crisp and clear.

I did try a booster as mentioned above. Installed properly and such. However, I found that the phone would take two attempts to do anything before the booster helped, for some reason. For instance, inside my house I can receive texts, but need to be by a window to send them. With the booster in place, I could attempt to send a text in the center of the house, and it would immediately fail. I could retry, and the booster would suddenly show activity, and the text would send. I don't know if this was just a booster issue. Probably so. I was using the zBoost dual-band. I'm almost always near a window, so I gave that up.

The biggest issue I have is that I'm nearly dead-center between three towers, so depending on which side of the house I'm on, the phone will start switching between the towers. This can cause a little delay. One of them is a 3g tower, the other two run Edge. I can't tell much of a difference there, but I rarely use it at home since I have wifi/broadband.

If you have any other questions regarding specifics on rural usage, feel free to PM me. I'll answer anything I can. I'm not checking back on the forums very often (seems like these posts keep getting pushed into subfolders anyway, and I don't have time to browse them all.)

 

[gcobb]

It is going to depend on how far the towers are from you. I honestly don't believe the Captivate is going to have much better signal. But I would turn off 3G if all you're doing is edge anyway. A good booster will cost hundreds but will resolve your issue.

 

[ardyer]

When I visit my in-laws in rural Western North Carolina, I get better reception and call quality with my Captivate than I do at home in Northern Virginia/Washington DC.

 

[Captain19]

I live in a very rural area in Florida. I get a better signal with the Captivate than I did with my iPhone 3GS. I can't switch 2G and 3G like I could on the iPhone so I just let it do it's thing. My battery life is great. I get about twice that of the iPhone. I only have 2G ( Edge ) where I live and my phone just uses that all the time. I don't know about the Captivate constantly looking for a 3G signal. It seems very happy staying on 2G until I get into a 3G area and then it switches automatically.

 

[fldude99]

I can't compare to Iphone, but being in a sketchy area myself at home, I find the Captivate one of the better phones I've had for signal. It's much better than my previous Nokia N97 & N95. However, my wife's simple SE W610 outshines them all for a basic phone call

 

[sremick]

Heh... mebbe so, but those bad boys'll run ya ~5 bills.

Yep, they aren't free... but compare that to what people pay for their TV. Or gaming console. Or what some peoples' monthly cell bill is over for 6 months. In the grand scheme of things, it's part of the "rural tax": things cost more when you live in the sticks, whether it's internet/cell reception, the gas required to go buy groceries or anything else, etc. Painful purchase at first, but once you have it you have it and it'll pay for itself given enough time and doesn't involve any additional fees.

Kudos for linking to Wilson Electronics gear. Good stuff, and certainly what'd I recommend.

 

[Andrewdroid]

I really feel like their should be some kind of subsidy for these signal boosters if there is so much NIMBY sentiment and inertia standing in the way of actually getting proper towers out in the rural areas. It's difficult to place cell towers with this country being so massive, and population spread out and the competing wireless radio technologies certainly do not help.

I feel for my rural friends!

 

[BookLover]

My in-laws live in rural areas and I receive a signal in almost all of the areas that my Nokia did. I wish the phone had a way to turn off 3G and use Edge like my Nokia N95 does. Any 3G phone that uses Edge service wastes battery power looking for 3G signals. I have looked around this forum and found there is a way to make the phone prefer Edge, but it sounds like it still searches for 3G.

SAMSERVMODE from the Market will allow you to force your Captivate to Edge.

Once you have it installed, you need to open the app and do the following to force your phone to Edge:

NOTE: Works on Samsung Captivate. Not sure if this would work on other mfgs or other Samsung models.

[1] Debug Screen
[8] Phone Control
[4] UE State Control
[3] Change RAT to GSM
-Click MENU button
-Click END (to save the setting - very important - if you don't do this your settings aren't saved).

Can't remember if this survives are reboot or not, but it does stick even if you go in/out of Airplane mode.

 

[stephlu2k]

I am seriously thinking about the captivate for my wife and I. We live in a very rural area......no internet options and only 1-2 bars of edge on our current iphone 3g. Does the captivate have an antenna stronger or at least equal to the iphone 3g in edge only places like this? Can't seem to find good info on this. Thanks in advance.

I wouldn't recommend the Captivate at all if you have bad edge service......my car recently broke down in a very rural area, I couldn't get the GPS to lock (even with "wireless network" turned on) and couldn't tell the roadside assistance person my location. Good thing we had an Iphone 4 in the car, even though bad cell reception, we were able to pinpoint my excact location and get help. Even in metro area, my Captivate contantly goes from 3 bars to none and come back up again, thus dropping my calls. It only works well when I have full bars in 3g, then it outperforms the Iphone 4 in terms of customization and ring tones.....but reception wise, I would say the Iphone 4 actually works better (my Captivate kept on freezing up when trying to answer calls when I have no bars)

 

[Captain19]

Captivate gets a better signal than iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4 in a weak edge area. I know because I can use my Captivate at home and I couldn't use the iPhone. Simple as that.

 

[mnemonicj]

SAMSERVMODE from the Market will allow you to force your Captivate to Edge.

Once you have it installed, you need to open the app and do the following to force your phone to Edge:

NOTE: Works on Samsung Captivate. Not sure if this would work on other mfgs or other Samsung models.

[1] Debug Screen
[8] Phone Control
[4] UE State Control
[3] Change RAT to GSM
-Click MENU button
-Click END (to save the setting - very important - if you don't do this your settings aren't saved).

Can't remember if this survives are reboot or not, but it does stick even if you go in/out of Airplane mode.

I have done this, but from what I have heard, it doesn't force it into GSM it makes the phone prefer GSM. That means that it is still searching for 3G and will waste the battery doing so.

 

[BookLover]

I have done this, but from what I have heard, it doesn't force it into GSM it makes the phone prefer GSM. That means that it is still searching for 3G and will waste the battery doing so.

My icon changes to E and stays there. In my WinMo phone that signified it was on Edge. But IDK for sure. Doesn't hurt to test. If it kills battery, then undo it.

Where it would hurt battery is if you decide to surf while on Edge. Takes longer to surf than on 3g and hence uses more battery because of more time needed to do that same action.