Help Nexus One 3G problems

sooper_droid12 said:

It's a bitter love-hate relationship. They don't always have the sexiest phones. Their prices and control seem to be pretty ridiculous. But they can do it because they simply have the best coverage. I was only in San Diego a week ago, trying to find a burger place called Hodads; my brother-in-law on his BB calling on at&t and me on VZW... he dropped his call three times in succession. Not only was I able to search the website for Hodads, get a phone number and address, but I was able to then pull maps and get navigation during the same time window.

But VZW knows they have a great network, so they charge accordingly. And until the DROID came out, they were sticklers about supporting their applications (e.g. VCast, etc.) With the DROID, they seemed to relax their stranglehold. The big surprise at CES was Google announcing that the N1 will be on the VZW network.

Honestly, I'm rooting for the other carriers to get their act together to topple VZW. VZW is still the only carrier I can use to get signal in the Metro Subway tunnels. Insane! C'mon TMo, Sprint and at&t, get it together!

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Winvent said:

IT'S THE SOFTWARE!!!!!!!

OK. I found "Phone Info" screen through "Any Cut". This looks like a screen not intended for average users. It clearly has settings that should not be messed with. However, it does have a pull down menu that was set to "WCDMA Preferred". I changed this to "WCDMA Only". The phone reset, and never again saw the f'ing "E" on the signal indicator- ALL 3G. After about 1/2 hour of speed tests (150k - 800kbps) and google satellite map downloads (all definitely faster), I switched back to "WCDMA Preferred". Guess what? After a few minutes, I was back on EDGE, even with a good signal. Switched back to "WCDMA Only", and 3G it remains.

The PROBLEM with doing this is that you will have NO DATA COVERAGE if you slip into a weak area where only Edge will work. So Doing this means you have to create a shortcut and change this setting if you lose signal.

WHAT THIS TELLS ME IS THAT THIS IS A SOFTWARE PROBLEM. The criteria for determining 3G vs. Edge selection in the SW is (as I suspected) weighted heavily to EDGE. F'ing TMOBILE probably did this to reduce their network loading. Do not be surprised if they remove the "Phone Info" screen in future updates so you cannot do my patch.

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Winvent said:

OK. I found "Phone Info" screen through "Any Cut". This looks like a screen not intended for average users. It clearly has settings that should not be messed with. However, it does have a pull down menu that was set to "WCDMA Preferred". I changed this to "WCDMA Only". The phone reset, and never again saw the f'ing "E" on the signal indicator- ALL 3G. After about 1/2 hour of speed tests (150k - 800kbps) and google satellite map downloads (all definitely faster), I switched back to "WCDMA Preferred". Guess what? After a few minutes, I was back on EDGE, even with a good signal. Switched back to "WCDMA Only", and 3G it remains.

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rookie1082 said:

I changed my setting to WCDMA only, and made sure that USA band was selected. Ever since then I have not had a switch to 3g and 3-4 bars consistently in my apartment when before, I had constant switches to edge. hmmm.

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Winvent said:

It appears that you are saying that it is NOT switching to 3G when selecting "WDCMA Only"? In other words it is stuck on edge? Or did you mean to write "...I have not had a switch FROM 3G..."

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James Bell said:

I have no 3G problems so far (North Florida) and better reception (like 1/2 a bar better) than my Samsung Galaxy got.

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