Poor performance in weak signal areas

[StevieB]

1st post...and its a long one! OK so I live out in the sticks, the middle of Bedfordshire, but the Orange coverage map recons I am in an "Excellent" area for voice and text so I didn't expect to have any problem with the state of the art mobile of the moment. I have never had any problems at home with either my trusty unlocked N95 or Orange Sony Ericsson T610 (remember them?) so I had no qualms over ordering a nice shiny (dark brown) HTC Desire.

3G coverage is a bit iffy in the area as I'm right on the border of an excellent to good area so I never expected to have super fast data over the air, but I have wifi locally for that anyway.

So you can imagine my disappointment when the first call with the mobile from home cut off quite suddenly. A retry to reconnect failed with a no service message and no signal strength. I then spent the next hour playing around with the settings turning off wifi, data, setting the phone to 3G only (no chance) and then GSM only.

When the phone was working and making a call the audio was not clean and very digital. There was also a chance that mid call you would be cut off for no reason. When it wasn't playing ball at all the signal strength varied from three bars down to zero without moving the phone. Sometimes upon initiating the call it came back immediately with no signal and cutting the call off. Picking the phone up from sitting on the side in sleep mode you were usually presented with a no service message.

Orange were excellent and immediately replaced the phone, a courier arriving at 6:15pm upon reporting the problem at 8:30am that morning. Unfortunately the replacement was exactly the same.

Even worse, my place of work is in a designated poor reception area. There are a number of us on Orange as it is the only network that can at a pinch be picked up inside. My Desire...no signal at all. Moving to a window seat got me two bars but the phone refused to connect or hold a call. The only time it did calling 150 sounded like I was listening to a recording of a Darlek. A Nokia 5300 on Orange alongside was nice and clear, with very good tone by comparison.

By chance another member of staff also had recently signed up with Orange on a Desire (500mins, unlim texts, 500Mb, free phone,

 

[nx1977]

Remember these are outside settings.

I left Orange for this very reason. Zero signal inside. T mobile I get 2-3 bars 3G.

 

[carperkm]

Won't orange send it back to you as it's used?

 

[matttye]

I wonder if walls and electronic equipment can cause a severe drop in signal strength... the reason I say this is that I get crap signal in my house, but it's fine in my garden, and I live in a "good" area. At work, I get 1-2 bars of GPRS on the bottom floor, but on the top floor (there's 3 floors) where there's less electronic equipment and a huge skylight, I get 3-4 bars of 3G. Work is in an "excellent" area - bang in the middle of the city.

 

[StevieB]

Ref being used. - Orange know the history and on talking to technical they passed me through to returns. In fact the person I talked to this morning to clarify the address creditted my account to offset the cost of postage as the problem had not been resolved.

Ref Orange coverage - I have never had any real problem before and have had Orange, O2 and Vodafone at one stage or other. I just found it disapointing by the fact the Desire didn't match up to my expectations and two older phones outperform it on being a mobile phone.

Steve

 

[nx1977]

Won't orange send it back to you as it's used?

LOL, not with the desire.

When my Orange contract ended some 20 months ago, I jumped ship. Not being able to use it at home, and poor UK customer service (which I now believe is operated from India) were my reasons for leaving them after 14 years.

They didnt even want to try and retain me, and my bills were

 

[carperkm]

what do you mean by not on desire. also i think i had that idea because i got mine from dialaphone, and i think that was their policy rather than orange's.

 

[hippy247]

I am on 3 and havn't had a problem with reception or dropped calls with my desire, BUT with my last phone a crappy LG Renoir, all of a sudden I couldn't phone out or receive calls even though my phone was saying I had at least 2-3 bars, I worked out that it was my local tower and there must have been a fault so contacted 3 and explained my problem, they said they would look into it and in the meantime give me free credit etc, within a week they phoned me at work and said that it was a problem with the tower and it had been fixed.
It might be worth calling orange and asking them to send an engineer to the closest tower, perhaps if the bloke you work with does the same it might make them act on your request.

 

[StevieB]

That is a good point regarding the base station near my home but the N95 and T610i have no problems when using the SIM out of the Desire.

When at work (40 mile away in a different county) we are using a lamp post mast in the next village so it is not surprising we have problems with signal. Here my Desire and a work colleagues both sound awful when they do connect, and are reluctant to connect most of the time. A Nokia 5800 in the same location connected everytime and was of good quality and tone.

It was these results that lead to my conclusion the Desire wasn't as good on a poor low signal.

I actually found Orange Customer Service to be very good (apart from Technicals outside coverage bit) and retentions did me a very good deal which was another part of the reluctance to cancel and send it back.

Steve

 

[Lagerstars]

I'm getting the same issue with my Desire - full signal on my trusty N95 (Which im trying hard to find a replacement for but seemingly failing every time i try) and constantly getting no signal emergency calls only on the Desire.

Left hand full signal N95, right hand no signal HTC Desire - both on same network and does the same thing if i swap sims around.

Really frustrated as i love the phone, but it may as well be an iPod Touch for all its worth at the moment (All the goodies with no call making abilities)

Its so frustrating that my N95, now 3yrs at least can still out perform all the new phones i've tried at the primary function this device is intended for - MAKING & RECEIVING CALLS!!

I'm still within my 7 day period as well and have this funny feeling its gonna be going back too.

Oh and service checks from the Provider put me in an Excellent to Very Good coverage area - depending on if im at home or at work (Both within the same town)

 

[StevieB]

As there doesn't seem to be a great influx of "my Desire does the same" I am now wondering whether this was a normal Desire characteristic or if it was a second faulty phone? It is possible it was from the same batch as there was only a weekend between getting the first phone and the replacement.

Did you return yours Lagerstars?

The problem is what to get next? Another Desire, an Xperia X10, wait for the HTC EVO?

Steve

 

[rasobey]

My signal strength on Orange is decidedly rubbish. Blackberry would hold 4-5 bars of 3G; the Desire fluctuates between 1-3 bars of G or sometimes 3G.

 

[nx1977]

Was the blackberry also on Orange?

If you still have it, there should be a test menu on the blackberry which will also show signal strength. Be interesting to compare the 2, on same network in same location.

 

[Kay_Vodafone]

1st post...and its a long one! OK so I live out in the sticks, the middle of Bedfordshire, but the Orange coverage map recons I am in an "Excellent" area for voice and text so I didn't expect to have any problem with the state of the art mobile of the moment. I have never had any problems at home with either my trusty unlocked N95 or Orange Sony Ericsson T610 (remember them?) so I had no qualms over ordering a nice shiny (dark brown) HTC Desire.

3G coverage is a bit iffy in the area as I'm right on the border of an excellent to good area so I never expected to have super fast data over the air, but I have wifi locally for that anyway.

So you can imagine my disappointment when the first call with the mobile from home cut off quite suddenly. A retry to reconnect failed with a no service message and no signal strength. I then spent the next hour playing around with the settings turning off wifi, data, setting the phone to 3G only (no chance) and then GSM only.

When the phone was working and making a call the audio was not clean and very digital. There was also a chance that mid call you would be cut off for no reason. When it wasn't playing ball at all the signal strength varied from three bars down to zero without moving the phone. Sometimes upon initiating the call it came back immediately with no signal and cutting the call off. Picking the phone up from sitting on the side in sleep mode you were usually presented with a no service message.

Orange were excellent and immediately replaced the phone, a courier arriving at 6:15pm upon reporting the problem at 8:30am that morning. Unfortunately the replacement was exactly the same.

Even worse, my place of work is in a designated poor reception area. There are a number of us on Orange as it is the only network that can at a pinch be picked up inside. My Desire...no signal at all. Moving to a window seat got me two bars but the phone refused to connect or hold a call. The only time it did calling 150 sounded like I was listening to a recording of a Darlek. A Nokia 5300 on Orange alongside was nice and clear, with very good tone by comparison.

By chance another member of staff also had recently signed up with Orange on a Desire (500mins, unlim texts, 500Mb, free phone,

 

[dunbad]

My wifes got rubbish signal at home on vodaphone, how much is it? Im on o2, slightly better, can I piggy back that signal?

 

[Kay_Vodafone]

My wifes got rubbish signal at home on vodaphone, how much is it? Im on o2, slightly better, can I piggy back that signal?

Good Afternoon dunbad,

I'm afraid the Sure Signal will only work for Vodafone customers. You have to register the numbers that wish to use the signal which stops other people being able to piggyback off your coverage.

Is your wife a contract or PAYG customer? To buy outright it is

 

[riverboat2001]

I'm getting the same issue with my Desire - full signal on my trusty N95 (Which im trying hard to find a replacement for but seemingly failing every time i try) and constantly getting no signal emergency calls only on the Desire.

Left hand full signal N95, right hand no signal HTC Desire - both on same network and does the same thing if i swap sims around.

Really frustrated as i love the phone, but it may as well be an iPod Touch for all its worth at the moment (All the goodies with no call making abilities)

Its so frustrating that my N95, now 3yrs at least can still out perform all the new phones i've tried at the primary function this device is intended for - MAKING & RECEIVING CALLS!!

I'm still within my 7 day period as well and have this funny feeling its gonna be going back too.

Oh and service checks from the Provider put me in an Excellent to Very Good coverage area - depending on if im at home or at work (Both within the same town)

Yep, thats what mine does....i'm with 3, what about you?

 

[dunbad]

Good Afternoon dunbad,

I'm afraid the Sure Signal will only work for Vodafone customers. You have to register the numbers that wish to use the signal which stops other people being able to piggyback off your coverage.

Is your wife a contract or PAYG customer? To buy outright it is

 

[Kay_Vodafone]

Thanks kay, shes on contract. Its got a year left to run. Personally id pay. (if I hadn't sent the phone back in week one!) However I doubt she will. Out of curiosity, can i assume that 50 quid charge is negotiable on renewl. Sorry to high jack (

Hi dunbad,

We can sometimes incorporate the Sure Signal as part of a deal so it can be negotiable

It's fantastic if your service at home is poor, It's been a lifesaver for me!

Any more info or questions let me know.

Kay
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK

 

[Caspa]

You'll always getting a poorer signal indoors and this is especially true of UMTS as its at a higher frequency (2100mhz)... When it comes to 2G, Orange and T-Mob tend to be worse indoors as they again run on a higher frequency than O2 and Voda (1800mhz and 900mhz respectively)...

Oh, and Kay_Vodafone - Nice prospecting on the phone sites, kudos to you!

 

[HTC_lover]

I stumbled upon this thread because i too was having poor signal. My NOKIA phone was in full bars and my HTC desire had NONE at all.. and boy did i get the answer through my search.

Though this will entail sacrificing your 3g network for a while in order to be able to use the desire as a phone, it's still better than having to return the phone. HTC Desire is just heaven.

Anyway, on to the solution:

Simply just go to Settings > Wireless and Network > Mobile Networks > Network Mode > Choose: GSM only. There you go. You can now call to your heart's content. ^^

Cheerio~