# This is why your Verizon Nexus signal "sucks"



## yarly

Originally posted here: http://rootzwiki.com..._30#entry692912

I will summarize why your signal "sucks" compared to other phones. This all based on facts--not guesses, speculation, or tests that depend on factors one cannot control. I am also mainly talking about how LTE on the Nexus mainly works and not 3G unless denoted.

First, just to be clear. If you have issues like dropped signal, static during calls, dropped calls or lots of time without a signal, this is not in reference to that. If you have those problems, your device is defective and I would seek out filing a warranty claim with Verizon for it. You unfortunately got the "luck of the draw" and pulled a lemon. People have reported those issues and swapping out for a new Nexus has helped them.

However...if that is not the case (or you just would like to read for the sake of information), read on 

ALL other LTE phones (excluding the Nexus) are reporting the RSSI of the cdma 1x signal in android 2.3, NOT the LTE signal. Android 2.3 was not capable of properly reporting the LTE signal and support was added for it in ICS. The Nexus also uses RSRP to determine your signal. RSRP has a huge difference to RSSI (for example):

*RSSI = -79 dBm, RSRP = -93 dBm*

This is why a Razr or Rezound will show -79 dBm in the same spot a GNex will display -93 dBm. Go find someone with an ICS leak of one of those and check their signal next to a Nexus. Unless the OEMs kept doing what they were doing before (which sadly they might), they should show the signal to be nearly the same.

Also, the higher your ASU under settings the better. ASU or "Arbitrary Strength Unit" is an integer value proportional to the Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) measured by the mobile phone. Basically the higher the number for ASU, the less interference you have between you and the towers. It varies by your current type of connection, but ASU a number in the range of 0 to 99 (99 means you basically have no signal [unknown] and closer to 0 means it's also bad).

*Your ASU on LTE is basically your current signal + 140. So if you have a signal of -93, then your LTE based ASU is (-93 + 140 = 47). See picture below for example: *

*







*

Technically, it'll never be 98 as it hits a ceiling of 97 if you were somehow able to get a signal of -43db (-43 + 140 = 97). If your signal is somehow worse than -140, then it will report zero, but that should also not be possible.

It's a little more complicated for CDMA ASU. On CDMA, it's some power of 2 up to 16 (1, 2, 4, 8, 16) with 16 being the best or 99 if it's unknown. It's also measured by not only your signal in db, but also by your your signal to noise ratio which is not shown to you.

_↑↑↑ Source for that was SignalStrength.java under getLteAsuLevel() ↑↑↑_

So, unless your data connection is dropping out constantly, it's just fine and not as bad as you think.

If you're wondering how the signal bars for the Nexus are computed here's some info on that. The bars are already just a relative measurement based on what we think is good or bad as we already knew. However, Google did adjust them to make them to look like you have a "better" signal in 4.0.4 though for LTE. If you mean adjust them back to 4.0.3 and before levels, that's also possible by undoing what they changed SignalStrength.java. Would be a small change that could be done by compiling the source or by a smali edit in framework.jar.

https://github.com/a...28b7fc2f6ef8bce

Shows how they were before/after 4.0.4. Mostly increased everyone's LTE bars in most cases by 1 bar.

They also use the signal to noise ratio to determine which one gets priority for showing the bars now. They take the one that looks better and use that for mapping to the bars as shown here: https://github.com/a...5a9b6889851d887

Signal To Noise ratio is just a computed number based on how much interference is in your connection. It's not exactly the best measure for data as it's just measuring interference.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Before you start comparing your signal to other phones not on ICS, at least read this and look at this link to the Android source for ICS:



> Use LTE SNR and RSRP to set signal level bar.
> The LTE signal strength level is the smaller one
> between lte rsrp level and lte snr level if both
> rsrp and snr are valid.


*↑↑↑ Android ICS source even says it uses the RSRP for LTE. ↑↑↑*

*↓↓↓ THEN....if you look down at some of the code you see things like ↓↓↓:*



Code:


<br />
	/**<br />
	 * Get the CDMA RSSI value in dBm<br />
	 */<br />
	public int getCdmaDbm() {<br />
		return this.mCdmaDbm;<br />
	}<br />
	/**<br />
	 * Get the EVDO RSSI value in dBm<br />
	 */<br />
	public int getEvdoDbm() {<br />
		return this.mEvdoDbm;<br />
	}<br />

*↑↑ Which is what CDMA phones were using before ICS. ↑↑*

If one is still in disbelief, then you can go back and look at the Android source for SignalStrength.java back in say like 2009/2010 and note that there is no mention of RSRP anywhere because it was not used yet (only mentions of RSSI are there).

Still don't believe me? Well go compile the source and change the following method in SignalStrength.java to return the cdma signal strength instead:



Code:


<br />
/**<br />
* Get LTE as dBm<br />
*<br />
* @hide<br />
*/<br />
public int getLteDbm()<br />
{<br />
// return cdma signal being used instead (i.e. if evdo is -120db it's not being used, so look for which is closer to zero)<br />
	 return this.mCdmaDbm > this.mEvdoDbm ? this.mCdmaDbm : this.mEvdoDbm;<br />
// commented out below<br />
// return mLteRsrp;<br />
}

And then watch your signal get "better."



Rythmyc said:


> It is upsetting my wife's Charge gets a much better signal than my Nexus sitting right next to it knowing it has the same radios.


↑ It's not really "better." It's (the Charge) just measuring something different (the RSSI of the 3g connection) to obtain the signal which isn't even related to LTE. If you changed the above, the signal would probably be nearly the same. From my testing, my RSSI is nearly the same as what I got at my current location on my Thunderbolt (which everyone claims has amazingly better radios and Qualcomm chipset).

*Definitions:*

*RSRP:*

Reference signal received power (RSRP), is defined as the linear average over the power contributions in Watts of the resource elements that carry cell-specific reference signals within the considered measurement frequency bandwidth. Used to measure the signal of your LTE (GSM/4g) connection. In short, it's what's used to determine the best cell tower your LTE device can connect to at the given time. Anything below say -80db is considered pretty good and you're pretty close to a tower. -80db to -90db is average what you should expect most of the time. -90db or above and you're probably in an "extended network" area for LTE and getting close to a likely handoff. -105db and above you would be likely to see a handoff to 3G if your signal does not get better.

Throughput for your connection measured with LTE is estimated to decline between 30-50% if your signal goes from -75db to -90db for RSRP. Above -95db and your throughput dramatically drops. At around -108db and worse, your throughput for download drops to nearly 3G rates or worse. Note that this doesn't exactly represent how strong your signal is, just the potential of how efficiently it will send that data.


> "But why can I have a super awesome RSRP signal and still my download/upload speeds are not that good (or why is it still sometimes good when RSRP is low)?"


Because it's only measuring the efficiency between you and the tower, not the rest of the network or the end source (the website). There are many network hops along the way to the destination and some may also handle connections inefficiently. The more hops, the slower the connection generally is.

However, it does also represent the greater likelihood that your connection will drop more packets of data that need to be retransmitted and thus not only slowing your connection but also causing it to have to work harder and draining more battery when it's actively downloading/uploading. That's why having it hand off is for the best than fighting it to stay on LTE. This is most likely why people always complained about the Thunderbolt having such poor battery life as no one ever saw what their RSRP was on it, only their RSSI like all other Gingerbread devices.

You can also consider RSRP the "absolute strength" of your current connection.

*RSSI:*

Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), is the linear average of the total received power in Watts. This is used to measure the db signal for CDMA (3g/2g [2g being your 1x and voice]) signals and used in determining the "signal to noise ratio". It was what was shown on all devices as the "signal" under the Android settings before Android 4.0. Basically this is how much noise/interference is in your connection. Not so good for measuring the overall power of it. It should be in the range of like -58db and greater (like -32db). In other words, the closer it is to being positive, the better. If it's in the high 80s or 90s, your signal is probably starting to cause some slight battery drain when idle. RSSI has less to do with how great your network speeds are and more to do with how good your potential battery life will be.

*SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio):*

The higher your SNR, the more throughput (better download/upload speed) your connection will have. The lower the number, the worse it will be. The Nexus tends to have a lower SNR on average than phones with Qualcomm chipsets, such as the Galaxy S3. What does that mean? It means you are more prone to have interference on your connection to the towers when your signal is obstructed by scenery or the building you are currently located in. That means slower speeds and higher potential for unstable connections.

*CQI (Channel Quality Indicator):*

CQI is measured 0 to 15, with higher being better. It's a measure of how good the quality is for the current channel the cell tower has you on. CQI is derived from the SNR (signal to noise ratio) and the SINR (Signal Interferance Noise Ratio).

*RSRQ (the overall quality of your signal in general) and SINR "Signal Interference Noise Ratio on LTE":*

This is the great your connection is overall (the stability of it and how close it is to handing off to 3G). RSRQ ranges from -3db to -19.5db with a number closer to -3db being better. SINR is similar to RSRQ, but the measure may differ. I still need to verify which variable relates to SINR in the source (the RSRQ weirdly shows as positive in the Nexus SDK, which shouldn't be possible, but SINR can be positive so I'm not sure if they have it linked wrongly or what just yet). It takes in account of both your overall signal strength (RSRP) and the noise/interference in the connection (RSSI). Your phone is using this to determine when to hand off to 3G or go back to LTE. Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ) is defined for Verizon as *17db + (RSRP signal + | RSSI signal |) | | being absolute value*. The graph below shows how RSRQ helps to determine when you it should hand off versus just RSRP alone:










From Verizon themselves :



> The LTE SINR should be greater than 12.5db. The connection may drop to a 3G network with an SINR value of -6, resulting in slow speeds.





> "Why does my Nexus not hand off exactly the same as <insert proprietary android os based phone here>?"


Because it goes back to what I already mentioned in that other OEMs don't measure the LTE signal with the same metrics as they do on the Nexus (it was only added to the Android source with ICS and before then each carrier just "rolled their own" thing probably using the RSSI of the LTE signal to handle when to hand off) so the phone thinks the LTE signal is also better than it actually is and so it's staying on what is really a *worse* LTE signal when it should be handing off to a better CDMA/3g signal. Also see the part about RSRQ above and the graph. It'll be far easier to tell what they're doing when they update to ICS though as we'll have access to more information.

RSSI is an okay metric to handle 3g/cdma, but it's not nearly as good for LTE as RSRP is or RSRQ. OEMs are still using it other than for the Nexus and it's those other phones hold LTE longer than they should in many cases as that was the metric they had to go on with Gingerbread and before RSRP became the standard measure of LTE signal for Android.

*You're welcome to question anything I stated above in the discussion as long as you do it in a constructive way that's not flaming. BUT if you do, please provide FACTUAL information from credible sources. That means things like "Well, I compared the Nexus to X phone and it didn't look as good" do not count as factual. Non factual posts will most likely be considered trolling or flamebait that's trying to derail this into another one of the typical "signal quality" discussions we have all seen before and be subject to removal (nothing personal, it's just you have to spend time on something if you want to disagree with it in public).

*From a few tests of pulling the signal info out of my phone directly using the ICS source (I was in a crap signal area when I took them):*

cdma db = -100
cdma ecio = -150
evdo db = -105
evdo ecio = -150
evdo snr = 1
lte sig strength = 10
lte rsrp = -109
lte rsrq = -8
lte snr = 10
lte cqi (channel quality indicator) = 7 (measured 0 to 15, higher being better)

cdma db = -100
cdma ecio = -150
evdo db = -105
evdo ecio = -150
evdo snr = 1
lte sig strength = 10
lte rsrp = -108
lte rsrq = -8
lte snr = -30
lte cqi = 7

*You can caculate my RSSI from knowing the RSRP and the RSRQ:*

rsrq = 17 + (rsrp + x)
-8 = 17 + (-108 + x)
*x = -83db → my LTE RSSI*

*Conclusions thus far*

It's actually a good thing it's handing it off and staying on 3g for most use cases. If it were me, I'd be more upset with it staying on it when it's eating battery or handing off and switching back constantly instead of staying on one or the other as that also drains battery. If you want to force it to stay on LTE, dial *#*#4636#*#* and tell it to stay on it. It may interfere with calls though and drain more battery, so just as a fair warning.

*Additional Info/Further Reading:*

http://www.scribd.co...353976/12/RSRQ? (probably the best reference on what RSRQ is and RSRP)

http://docs.google.c...28qjNF66uPBYmfA

https://docs.google....fUvgTfFjRQ-4Mhw

But...if one wants to believe whatever voodoo makes one signal "worse" than another then I guess that's everyone's right. I give up trying to convince









*NEXT UPDATE: *add logging to the app and give stats on the signal logs taken (mean, median, standard deviation, variance, etc). Maybe a built in "speedtest" for your connection as well.

*UPDATE (2012-11-12): *Now added to the Android Market. Link is pending to when it gets added officially (day or two). The app on the market has ads to support my continued development, but the version below (scroll down) does not have them. Otherwise, they are the same.

*UPDATE (2012-05-29):* Created an app to test your signal. If you give out the link to the app, please link directly to the topic and not the apk/app itself so that people can read the topic before getting it. App signal readings update everytime the phone notifies of a signal change. So in other words, it updates as often as the signal does under settings → status. RSRP is the same signal you see under there if you wanted to match it up. Also added more to the definitions for the terms shown in the app in my post above so you can see how they equate to your signal quality. App should work on Android 2.2 and above and on any sort of carrier (including GSM), but it may not show everything for non-ics devices.

If anyone has any suggestions for things to add to it, feel free to let me know.





Market version with ads is located here. It's the same as the other version, but you'll get updates through the market + very small support for me to try to add more features in my free time.

Ad free version is available here

Changelog is available here.

Basic App Source (to prove data is legit): https://github.com/yareally/SignalInfo

*Screen shot:*









*UPDATE (2012-05-18):* Added in more explanation, another good reference and some clarification. Fixed a typo in RSRQ formula.


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## poontab

This a million times this. Now maybe the number of "Samsung don't havers 1337 waydee-0s" posts will decrease.


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## NatemZ

Yarly Layin that smack down. Great explanation. like like like like


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## Mustang302LX

Wait so we have a signal meter that reads accurately? That's hogwash and I demand a refund lol. Great post man!


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## yarly

Thanks. Hopefully this clears up the misunderstandings about the signal. All that crazy assumptions out there going around were killing me


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## BlackDobe

yarly said:


> But...if one wants to believe whatever voodoo makes one signal "worse" than another then I guess that's everyone's right. I give up trying to convince


Freaking AWESOME. Good find & even better info. A+ for you.


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## akellar

None of this explains why a Rezound, for example, gets solid LTE where my Nexus won't pick it up at all.


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## jellybellys

I have actually never complained about my signal. Get better signal on my gnex than I used to get on my Dinc2 on CM9.


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## yarly

akellar said:


> None of this explains why a Rezound, for example, gets solid LTE where my Nexus won't pick it up at all.


From my explanation (which never claimed to justify why anyone has dropouts, only why signal was not as bad as one thinks):



> So, unless your data connection is dropping out constantly, it's just fine and not as bad as you think.


If you still think your signal is bad, well it's your imagination or <insert magical reason you really think it is>

The signal as I said, if measured in the way it was measured in gingerbread, nearly the same (perhaps +/- a few db).

This is a fact. It's right there in the code. If still don't believe me and you cannot read the code, understand the facts in my post or compile the code change listed, then I'm sorry you wish to be so stubborn, but that's your right as an individual. Just don't try to continue to derail the thread please by trolling.

Appreciate the wasted offtopic post though


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## tu3218

good stuff dude! Very nice read and very informative. thanks


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## Mustang302LX

akellar said:


> None of this explains why a Rezound, for example, gets solid LTE where my Nexus won't pick it up at all.


That might be the case for you but not overall. My wife has a Rezound and my Nexus gets the same signal as her phone (both 3G and LTE).


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## nocoast

This affirms the feeling ive had in my gut all along. Every time anyone has ever mentioned the galaxy nexus's poor radio quality i think about my personal experience and in personal experience i get voice/data drops in ALL THE SAME places/scenarios/variables as my thunderbolt did. I.e. in the middle of an eleavtor shaft heading up a large downtown skyscraper or anything like that. In areas WITH coverage (where your not sitting inside a steel building) the galaxy nexus has had some of the best reception/consistency with LTE and doing quick handoffs from lte to 3g all make the radios/firmware for the (cdma variant) a BOSS


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## Mustang302LX

nocoast said:


> This affirms the feeling ive had in my gut all along. Every time anyone has ever mentioned the galaxy nexus's poor radio quality i think about my personal experience and in personal experience i get voice/data drops in ALL THE SAME places/scenarios/variables as my thunderbolt did. I.e. in the middle of an eleavtor shaft heading up a large downtown skyscraper or anything like that. In areas WITH coverage (where your not sitting inside a steel building) the galaxy nexus has had some of the best reception/consistency with LTE and doing quick handoffs from lte to 3g all make the radios/firmware for the (cdma variant) a BOSS


^This! I've experienced the same thing.


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## Jubakuba

nocoast said:


> This affirms the feeling ive had in my gut all along. Every time anyone has ever mentioned the galaxy nexus's poor radio quality i think about my personal experience and in personal experience i get voice/data drops in ALL THE SAME places/scenarios/variables as my thunderbolt did. I.e. in the middle of an eleavtor shaft heading up a large downtown skyscraper or anything like that. In areas WITH coverage (where your not sitting inside a steel building) the galaxy nexus has had some of the best reception/consistency with LTE and doing quick handoffs from lte to 3g all make the radios/firmware for the (cdma variant) a BOSS


Exactly the same here.
And I'm quick to boast about it.
My Droid X got service everywhere in town...except for dropping quite a bit at work. I work in the very center of a hospital and am surrounded by lead plates for radiation protection.
GNex...same exact thing.
Motorola's "superior" radios haven't helped it a bit in this situation.
I've literally never dropped...unless I'm at work (which is expected).

No 4G here yet, so I can't say...
But I'm sure service will be comparable to everyone's when it arrives.


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## eman3316

akellar said:


> None of this explains why a Rezound, for example, gets solid LTE where my Nexus won't pick it up at all.


MY wife also can get a 4G signal in my house when I can usually not. I think the reason for this is because HTC put the radio antenna in the battery door so it has less interference. If you remove the battery door, the Rezound will have no signal.

This was a great move by HTC and wonder if all their future phones with removable batteries will have this.


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## exarkun

How dare you use facts and logic!


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## jellybellys

eman3316 said:


> MY wife also can get a 4G signal in my house when I can usually not. I think the reason for this is because HTC put the radio antenna in the battery door so it has less interference. If you remove the battery door, the Rezound will have no signal.
> 
> This was a great move by HTC and wonder if all their future phones with removable batteries will have this.


That is one thing I miss about my Dinc2, with the antennas in the battery doors, you could make your own home made antennas out of tinfoil and get like 2x better service, and probably cancer someday too


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## dakoop

So my nexus has zero to one bar of 3g right next to an iphone on verizon with four bars of 3g is just different ways of calculating? Cause my phone didn't work

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## OwaN

I wish it was as simple as looking at the bars and signal reporting and saying "well ok then, its all good". Unfortunately thats just a smokescreen for the fact that this radio has major issues. I got my GNex ~36 hours ago and its spent about 70% of that time without signal, all in places where my DInc worked just fine. I've flashed the 4.0.4 radios and its made a tiny tiny tiny improvement. I still can't make or receive calls most of the time. Even when the phone says its got reception I'll make a call and it won't go through, redialing just gives me a "mobile network not available" error. I would love for the "bad signal" talk to all be a misunderstanding, but reality is proving otherwise for me


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## yarly

OwaN said:


> I wish it was as simple as looking at the bars and signal reporting and saying "well ok then, its all good". Unfortunately thats just a smokescreen for the fact that this radio has major issues. I got my GNex ~36 hours ago and its spent about 70% of that time without signal, all in places where my DInc worked just fine. I've flashed the 4.0.4 radios and its made a tiny tiny tiny improvement. I still can't make or receive calls most of the time. Even when the phone says its got reception I'll make a call and it won't go through, redialing just gives me a "mobile network not available" error. I would love for the "bad signal" talk to all be a misunderstanding, but reality is proving otherwise for me


Dropped calls/data and no reception period ≠ what was talking about. I even stated that in the post.

You mostly sound like you have a lemon for a Nexus and should probably look into having Verizon swap it out. That's not normal by any means as people have complained about such things, swapped them out and things were fine after. If anything, my post is trying to point out the difference between a defective device like that and one that's actually working fine so those that are unsure know and can do something about it. I would never deny some that some people (including myself) had a fault Nexus. Mine constantly rebooted even on stock at random times throughout the day. What did I do though? I complained to Verizon and got a different one. I fully recommend doing the same and not just living with it.

Since you've had it for a very short time they should even give you a new one instead of a "like new." I think it's within the first 14 days. If they try to give you a like new, don't let them spin you. Look it up before you go in (though someone can probably chime in and verify it for us) and have all your facts straight so they can't try to make any excuses.


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## Schoat333

Thanks for taking the time to explain this. I read about it before, but not in as much detail as you provided.


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## asianrage

Best post ever! Thanks for the detailed clarifications.


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## automaddux

thank you for putting this up but I have a question, if this is true is there something that can be done to where it reads correctly to the signal bar on the status bar? Like baked into a custom rom for example? I'm not that technically sound so having something work that I can just look at makes sense to me. I hope this isn't considered trolling and I get smote down by the Gods of Root.


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## yarly

automaddux said:


> thank you for putting this up but I have a question, if this is true is there something that can be done to where it reads correctly to the signal bar on the status bar? Like baked into a custom rom for example?


No, not a troll at all, that's a legit question . I don't like removing posts anyways. I rather most speak their minds. Just some people don't think before they do or think how they are wording something.

What do you mean by reading correctly? The bars are already just a relative measurement based on what we think is good or bad. Google did adjust them to make them to look like you have a "better" signal in 4.0.4 though for LTE. If you mean adjust them back to 4.0.3 and before levels, that's also possible by undoing what they changed SignalStrength.java. Would be a small change that could be done by compiling the source or by a smali edit in framework.jar.

https://github.com/a...28b7fc2f6ef8bce

Shows how they were before/after 4.0.4. Mostly increased everyone's LTE bars in most cases by 1 bar.

They also use the signal to noise ratio to determine which one gets priority for showing the bars now. They take the one that looks better and use that for mapping to the bars as shown here: https://github.com/a...5a9b6889851d887


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## automaddux

yarly said:


> No, not a troll at all, that's a legit question . I don't like removing posts anyways. I rather most speak their minds. Just some people don't think before they do or think how they are wording something.
> 
> What do you mean by reading correctly? The bars are already just a relative measurement based on what we think is good or bad. Google did adjust them to make them look like you have a "better" signal in 4.0.4 though for LTE. If you mean adjust them back to 4.0.3 and before levels, that's also possible by undoing what they changed SignalStrength.java. Would be a small change that could be done by compiling the source or by a smali edit in framework.jar.


oh, ok I didn't realize that they changed the way it "maps" it to the signal bars.


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## JMac4

I'm not saying this is the best post ever....I'm just sayin.......

Kudos. Great stuff.


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## yarly

Just added in lots of additional information and computed some example formulas for RSRQ. Also listed a source from verizon's site saying your LTE connection will most likely drop to 3G if your RSRQ is +12db or greater.


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## Dream

First I would like to thank the OP for taking the time to explain whats going on with the Nexus. I would like to explain my story. I came from the Thunderbolt and I had fantastic reception everywhere I went. Ever since I bought the Nexus (on release day) I was dropping calls left and right, and my data was dropping ALL the time. I finally got sick of it and placed a claim and got a replacement phone last week.

The new phone is better, but its still not up to par with how my Thunderbolt performed. I'm still dropping data at least once a day. It drives me insane. Sitting at work (been here a few years now) my Nexus bounces between 3G and 4G and no data all day, KILLING my battery. Never had this problem with my bolt. So should I assume I have _another_ bad phone?


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## garyd9

This is pretty interesting, and being you seem to have a good understanding of this stuff, I'm wondering if you might help to explain a situation I'm experiencing with my verizon nexus:

I work in a downtown area, and maintain a constant LTE signal. Everything works perfectly. There are about 3-4 different cell towers I might bounce between when walking around the office building. (Wanted to mention this to establish that the phone appears to be functioning.)

When I go home (somewhat rual area), however, it's like entering the twilight zone: I literally bounce between 18 different cell towers (based on Cell IDs reported by programs such as "tasker" and "llama".) Watching the logcat (which will display the tower changes), I can put my phone down on a table and see the phone switch towers at an average rate of one change every 45 seconds, and sometimes as frequently as once every 10 seconds. In most cases, the phone "status->about" reports between a -93 and -100 dBm CDMA signal while I'm at home.

It gets more interesting - if I turn off wifi and gps, and then run google maps (so its forced to use the current tower as a center for location), it appears that I'm apparently bouncing between every single verizon tower in a 10 mile radius around my home. Yes, I do live on a hill, but it's only a HILL - not a mountain.

Needless to say, all that tower bouncing is a massive drain on the battery on my phone (even when wifi is on.)

The phone doesn't always do this wild jumping around when on 3g... it only appears to do this at my home. (The house is wood framed/asphalt shingles - so there's no real interference there. In addition, the same thing happens if I stand outside my front door.)

Verizon has, so far, been completely useless. My support calls have resulted in them saying "we'll get back to you in 72 hours" - they never get back to me, but leave a remark on my account saying that the nearest cell tower is 2miles away and I might be getting weak service if I'm indoors.

Edit: I tried exchanging the phone, and the replacement does the exact same thing as the original.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Gary


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## terryrook

Your probably bouncing between radio's in the BTS cabinets themselves, The CDMA/EvDo is Nortel, rock solid, the LTE System that they use (In my market anyways) is Ericsson, but there are hybrid combiners, attenuators, it gets kinda finicky still, especially if the nearest hub hasn't had the host installed yet. I can say that Verizon has very strict guidelines to follow when building or working on their equipment. Someday we'll be able to talk on 4g and this will all be over. my phone drops signal out in the world as well, I was standing inside a verizon shelter the other day and lost all signal.....I almost died laughing. In my house my signal is ALWAYS -85 which seems kind of weird to me but my signal stays strong in my house, its almost like my phone falls asleep. I'll show full service, reboot and have 5 voicemails all of a sudden. I'm ready to exchange it or throw it in the pool and see if it floats. I'll let you guys know.
Awesome thread BTW.


----------



## Quaff1976

Thanks for the detailed explanation. First, I would like to say that I previously had a Thunderbolt, and the Nexus (on 4.0.4 radios) seems to perform generally the same as the Thunderbolt. In known weak signal areas, the phones usually perform the same with similar data speeds.

My main issue is with the RSSI or RSRP being reported in large increments, especially on 3G. The Thunderbolt always reported 1X (or EVDO if using the CDMA field test app where it would display both) in increments of 1. At home the thunderbolt would display somewhere between -91 and -104, but usually in the mid to upper 90s. On the Nexus (3G only), I only see -100 (1 bar) or, more often, -120 (0 bars). On LTE, it is better, but not increments of 1 or 2. On 3G, I can be at 0 bars and -120, and still pull 1Mbps download. On LTE, I can be at 1 bar and -113, and pull 10 Mbps.

I would like to see the signal being reported with more precision. Even the GSM Nexus reports in increments of 2, always odd, IIRC.

Also, the only other real signal issue is the reported time without signal. When at 0 bars, but usable signal, that time is reported as time without signal. this can be quite high if I am at home all day.


----------



## terryrook

Quaff1976 said:


> Thanks for the detailed explanation. First, I would like to say that I previously had a Thunderbolt, and the Nexus (on 4.0.4 radios) seems to perform generally the same as the Thunderbolt. In known weak signal areas, the phones usually perform the same with similar data speeds.
> 
> My main issue is with the RSSI or RSRP being reported in large increments, especially on 3G. The Thunderbolt always reported 1X (or EVDO if using the CDMA field test app where it would display both) in increments of 1. At home the thunderbolt would display somewhere between -91 and -104, but usually in the mid to upper 90s. On the Nexus (3G only), I only see -100 (1 bar) or, more often, -120 (0 bars). On LTE, it is better, but not increments of 1 or 2. On 3G, I can be at 0 bars and -120, and still pull 1Mbps download. On LTE, I can be at 1 bar and -113, and pull 10 Mbps.
> 
> I would like to see the signal being reported with more precision. Even the GSM Nexus reports in increments of 2, always odd, IIRC.
> 
> Also, the only other real signal issue is the reported time without signal. When at 0 bars, but usable signal, that time is reported as time without signal. this can be quite high if I am at home all day.


Mine does the same thing, Ive heard of people swapping sims working, and of a new sim doing nothing, well of course thats what they offered me today, so we'll see...I don't think its gonna change anything but I can dream can't I??


----------



## yarly

garyd9 said:


> This is pretty interesting, and being you seem to have a good understanding of this stuff, I'm wondering if you might help to explain a situation I'm experiencing with my verizon nexus:
> 
> Edit: I tried exchanging the phone, and the replacement does the exact same thing as the original.
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> Thanks
> Gary


That's an interesting puzzle. It's tempting to blame it on the hill, but as you said, it's a hill and not a mountain and it seems silly that it would really be a cause of that. Is there any noticeable difference whether you're inside or outside (like outside around the perimeter of your property and not just the porch)?

I never tried the llama app or tasker before, but I did try the llama one today and it seems to only show two towers where I am right now using 3G (few miles outside of a suburb and no hills or mountains for miles with no forest really). Signal was around the same as ours, but it was remaining stable on the tower it was pointed to. Not that any of that has any huge bearing in comparison to your location.

It might help to get the rest of the stats I was mentioning so we can see what else your phone is reporting offhand. I wouldn't post this up yet, since it's not too useful to most people but here's the little test app I hacked together last night to get the signal info. Just paste it over a "hello world" android app and add in the network permission so it doesn't crash, compile and run on the Nexus. It'll show your stats in the logcat as long as you have it in the foreground. After you get some good data (perhaps both inside and outside) and don't mind sharing, paste it up somewhere. I'm curious to what else it says. Comparing it to the data at your work might also be useful.

Using the app though, we should be able to get the rest of your cdma stats and that will give a better picture. Things like that ec/io and the snr will help out.

The hill could maybe cause signals to show up as ghosts (assuming you're at the top of it) -- that is, the signals are not being picked up directly from your device, but are first being reflected off of something like the slope of the hill or the ground below and then reflecting up towards the hill (most likely the 800mhz cdma frequencies). This would only happen if there's 2 paths to the signal (the reflection and direct). The signals being received by your phone out of phase with each other would cause degradation and battery loss.

The other perhaps more likely possibility might be due to a shortcoming in the CDMA standard called the "near-far problem." This could happen when you have one or more towers transmitting with the same amount of power, but since some are closer than others, then the closer ones will reach you with more powerful signal in the end. Since the other towers you are currently not connected to are basically "noise" to the current tower you are using and will make the signal to noise ratio (SNR) for the farther tower much worse as the closer tower overpowers it. If it's way way too powerful, then it ends up jamming the channel and makes your device unable to filter out the noise. It's kind of like being in a party where everyone is talking loudly and you can't hear your friend. Your friend has to talk even louder, thus forcing everyone else to talk even more loudly except that in the case of the phone, there comes a point where your friend would not be able to be heard even standing next to you.

CDMA towers hack around this by dynamically adjusting the power of the transmitters on the towers so the closer ones use less power and the SNR is fairly uniform for all towers at the receiving point. However, if there's too much noise (SNR) where you currently are for whatever variable, it can cause the closer towers to boost their signal and then the distant ones will also do the same in order to keep the SNR uniform. Eventually, the distant ones reach a point where they can't go any higher and drop off the network. It tends to happen with areas that have a decent signal that should be usable, but when there's too much power load in the transmitters, the SNR becomes dramatically worse. Your device might be trying to compensate by switching to a different tower that has a lower SNR (SNR is one of the things we can read from the Nexus, so we can find out what it currently is). The device switches to another tower in this case by the current tower telling it to reduce its transmit power.

Also, the more towers that are trying to serve your device, the worse the ec/io (the signal transmitted connected tower / sum of the signals your phone can detect). If you're getting around the same level of signal from each tower, it results in "pilot pollution" (that is the towers can't decide which should be the dominant ) as the device sees them all at once and can't decide which to connect to. If that's the case, talking to someone higher up in a tier at Verizon might be able to understand what that is and give you a better answer. It would be nice to be able to hack around somehow and manually adjust which towers you connect to, but that's probably something in the binary blob radios more than the OS.

LTE overcame the near-far issue with some specifications they added as requirements to the standard, but CDMA still has the issue.

Hopefully that is of some help. We'll find out.


----------



## yarly

Quaff1976 said:


> Thanks for the detailed explanation. First, I would like to say that I previously had a Thunderbolt, and the Nexus (on 4.0.4 radios) seems to perform generally the same as the Thunderbolt. In known weak signal areas, the phones usually perform the same with similar data speeds.
> 
> My main issue is with the RSSI or RSRP being reported in large increments, especially on 3G. The Thunderbolt always reported 1X (or EVDO if using the CDMA field test app where it would display both) in increments of 1. At home the thunderbolt would display somewhere between -91 and -104, but usually in the mid to upper 90s. On the Nexus (3G only), I only see -100 (1 bar) or, more often, -120 (0 bars). On LTE, it is better, but not increments of 1 or 2. On 3G, I can be at 0 bars and -120, and still pull 1Mbps download. On LTE, I can be at 1 bar and -113, and pull 10 Mbps.
> 
> I would like to see the signal being reported with more precision. Even the GSM Nexus reports in increments of 2, always odd, IIRC.
> 
> Also, the only other real signal issue is the reported time without signal. When at 0 bars, but usable signal, that time is reported as time without signal. this can be quite high if I am at home all day.


Are you using a ROM based on the 4.0.4 source? Any one before that shows less bars as 4.0.4 takes into account SNR (signal to noise ratio) for LTE besides the RSRP (takes the larger of the two in computing the bars). They also added more tolerance for how many bars your signal gives. If you check out my top post here, I have a link somewhere that talks about the change within the android source itself. It was merged in a few months ago.

CDMA display in bars hasn't changed. It's still the same as it was on the thunderbolt (this is from slayher's repository for the thunderbolt):



Code:


<br />
	private int getCdmaLevel() {<br />
		final int cdmaDbm = mSignalStrength.getCdmaDbm();<br />
		final int cdmaEcio = mSignalStrength.getCdmaEcio();<br />
		int levelDbm = 0;<br />
		int levelEcio = 0;<br />
		if (cdmaDbm >= -75) levelDbm = 4;<br />
		else if (cdmaDbm >= -85) levelDbm = 3;<br />
		else if (cdmaDbm >= -95) levelDbm = 2;<br />
		else if (cdmaDbm >= -100) levelDbm = 1;<br />
		else levelDbm = 0;<br />
		// Ec/Io are in dB*10<br />
		if (cdmaEcio >= -90) levelEcio = 4;<br />
		else if (cdmaEcio >= -110) levelEcio = 3;<br />
		else if (cdmaEcio >= -130) levelEcio = 2;<br />
		else if (cdmaEcio >= -150) levelEcio = 1;<br />
		else levelEcio = 0;<br />
		return (levelDbm < levelEcio) ? levelDbm : levelEcio;<br />
	}<br />
	private int getEvdoLevel() {<br />
		int evdoDbm = mSignalStrength.getEvdoDbm();<br />
		int evdoSnr = mSignalStrength.getEvdoSnr();<br />
		int levelEvdoDbm = 0;<br />
		int levelEvdoSnr = 0;<br />
		if (evdoDbm >= -65) levelEvdoDbm = 4;<br />
		else if (evdoDbm >= -75) levelEvdoDbm = 3;<br />
		else if (evdoDbm >= -90) levelEvdoDbm = 2;<br />
		else if (evdoDbm >= -105) levelEvdoDbm = 1;<br />
		else levelEvdoDbm = 0;<br />
		if (evdoSnr >= 7) levelEvdoSnr = 4;<br />
		else if (evdoSnr >= 5) levelEvdoSnr = 3;<br />
		else if (evdoSnr >= 3) levelEvdoSnr = 2;<br />
		else if (evdoSnr >= 1) levelEvdoSnr = 1;<br />
		else levelEvdoSnr = 0;<br />
		return (levelEvdoDbm < levelEvdoSnr) ? levelEvdoDbm : levelEvdoSnr;<br />
	}<br />

and here's from ICS 4.0.4 (note that the only change is they now use constants as place holders for the integers that were representing the numbers 0-4 for signal bars (same numbers though still)):



Code:


<br />
	 /**<br />
* Get cdma as level 0..4<br />
*<br />
* @hide<br />
*/<br />
	public int getCdmaLevel() {<br />
		final int cdmaDbm = getCdmaDbm();<br />
		final int cdmaEcio = getCdmaEcio();<br />
		int levelDbm;<br />
		int levelEcio;<br />
		if (cdmaDbm >= -75) levelDbm = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_GREAT;<br />
		else if (cdmaDbm >= -85) levelDbm = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_GOOD;<br />
		else if (cdmaDbm >= -95) levelDbm = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_MODERATE;<br />
		else if (cdmaDbm >= -100) levelDbm = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_POOR;<br />
		else levelDbm = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_NONE_OR_UNKNOWN;<br />
		// Ec/Io are in dB*10<br />
		if (cdmaEcio >= -90) levelEcio = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_GREAT;<br />
		else if (cdmaEcio >= -110) levelEcio = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_GOOD;<br />
		else if (cdmaEcio >= -130) levelEcio = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_MODERATE;<br />
		else if (cdmaEcio >= -150) levelEcio = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_POOR;<br />
		else levelEcio = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_NONE_OR_UNKNOWN;<br />
		int level = (levelDbm < levelEcio) ? levelDbm : levelEcio;<br />
		if (DBG) log("getCdmaLevel=" + level);<br />
		return level;<br />
	}<br />
   /**<br />
* Get Evdo as level 0..4<br />
*<br />
* @hide<br />
*/<br />
	public int getEvdoLevel() {<br />
		int evdoDbm = getEvdoDbm();<br />
		int evdoSnr = getEvdoSnr();<br />
		int levelEvdoDbm;<br />
		int levelEvdoSnr;<br />
		if (evdoDbm >= -65) levelEvdoDbm = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_GREAT;<br />
		else if (evdoDbm >= -75) levelEvdoDbm = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_GOOD;<br />
		else if (evdoDbm >= -90) levelEvdoDbm = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_MODERATE;<br />
		else if (evdoDbm >= -105) levelEvdoDbm = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_POOR;<br />
		else levelEvdoDbm = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_NONE_OR_UNKNOWN;<br />
		if (evdoSnr >= 7) levelEvdoSnr = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_GREAT;<br />
		else if (evdoSnr >= 5) levelEvdoSnr = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_GOOD;<br />
		else if (evdoSnr >= 3) levelEvdoSnr = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_MODERATE;<br />
		else if (evdoSnr >= 1) levelEvdoSnr = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_POOR;<br />
		else levelEvdoSnr = SIGNAL_STRENGTH_NONE_OR_UNKNOWN;<br />
		int level = (levelEvdoDbm < levelEvdoSnr) ? levelEvdoDbm : levelEvdoSnr;<br />
		if (DBG) log("getEvdoLevel=" + level);<br />
		return level;<br />
	}<br />
<br />

However, it was only displaying the 1x signal under settings I believe.


----------



## TechSavvy

Its sooooo weird you just posted this. I had a GNexus from December drop date to about a month ago. Had great service everywhere. Got a Rezound, had equal (drop calls, etc) everywhere. All signal drops in exact same places. Great service and coverage though with both phones.

However, three days ago, switched back to a different brand new GNexus......dropped signal from full bars to absolutely nothing about every ten minutes, or anytime there was heavy data usage. Tried multiple roms and ALL the different radios, same results. Took it in, had sim card swapped out.......bam, same results. Drops all the time. Took it to Verizon and had them swap out the phone, EXACT same results again.

However, since I had a great working GNexus before, I refused to believe that they just went to crap in my three week period off from it. So it took it in again and had Verizon swap it out for a third (fourth overall) phone. This time, ironically, all signal is great again!!!

Moral of the story.....I'm living proof that there are literally many many many dud GNexus' out there. You literally get the luck of the draw. To find out, open "battery" in your settings, click on the graph, then look at the mobile network signal history thing. Mine had almost as many red dashes on it as grey/green/yellow/whatever color. Now its perfect.

PS - They should look into adding this info into the OP of EVERY SINGLE THREAD for this phone, lol. Signal issues are literally half the thread conversations these days. You truly did a great job with the explanations here. Thank you a million.


----------



## blaineevans

Yarly, I just wanted mention that anytime I see a post of yours (regardless of the topic), I take the time to read it. Idk what you do for a living, but every post I learn more about my phone/cell phones/Android in general. So, thanks for the knowledge you take the time to share.


----------



## mistermojorizin

this is basically what Verizon said back when we first got the GNEX 6 months ago. The phone just reports it more accurately....

Until the 4.0.4 update of course. Now it made it display the wrong signal, like every other verizon phone, and yet it still doesn't *display* as good a signal as the other phones.

But I still wonder, why did Verizon originally say that it was a signal problem? Also, why is it displaying the CDMA as less strong? Shouldn't the issue only concern the LTE?


----------



## yarly

blaineevans said:


> Yarly, I just wanted mention that anytime I see a post of yours (regardless of the topic), I take the time to read it. Idk what you do for a living, but every post I learn more about my phone/cell phones/Android in general. So, thanks for the knowledge you take the time to share.


Software development mostly and some systems/db admin. I like reading about other random stuff, like how the wireless spectrum works in my spare time. I think it's interesting.

I'm glad my posts aren't just me talking to myself though, haha


----------



## yarly

mistermojorizin said:


> this is basically what Verizon said back when we first got the GNEX 6 months ago. The phone just reports it more accurately....
> 
> Until the 4.0.4 update of course. Now it made it display the wrong signal, like every other verizon phone, and yet it still doesn't *display* as good a signal as the other phones.
> 
> But I still wonder, why did Verizon originally say that it was a signal problem? Also, why is it displaying the CDMA as less strong? Shouldn't the issue only concern the LTE?


It's still not displaying exactly the same as every other device for LTE. They just sort of had Google hack the signal bars to be more lenient in what they display so it would look kind of the same in most cases. I don't ever look at the bars if I really care about my signal. The cdma signal decibels is generally the same as what I had on the thunderbolt though at least for me, but most of what I was talking about in my original post was about LTE as it measures it with different metrics than previous phones. I did read the Anandtech articles about all that though.

Like the normal answers that our "favorite" wireless service provider gives, they're typically watered down and vague when it comes to technical issues so they can probably skirt around whatever they think is bad PR or a potential lawsuit. I do think there's plenty of dud Nexus devices out there, but I do not think they are all duds of course.


----------



## garyd9

yarly - it might be a day or two before I can run those tests... However, I did get a call from a verizon engineer. They admitted that my house is in an area they have problems at. Something about the geography here that messes them up. 700MHz might be good for going through buildings, but it's still line of sight.

Anyway, they are shipping me a free refurb network extender. I'm really hoping that my phone locks on to that and stops bouncing all over the place. (I'll turn it off before running those tests.. it might not be until this weekend..)

Take care
Gary


----------



## yarly

garyd9 said:


> yarly - it might be a day or two before I can run those tests... However, I did get a call from a verizon engineer. They admitted that my house is in an area they have problems at. Something about the geography here that messes them up. 700MHz might be good for going through buildings, but it's still line of sight.
> 
> Anyway, they are shipping me a free refurb network extender. I'm really hoping that my phone locks on to that and stops bouncing all over the place. (I'll turn it off before running those tests.. it might not be until this weekend..)
> 
> Take care
> Gary


Oh good, glad to hear they actually had someone that knew what they were talking about get back to you.


----------



## Dream

Dream said:


> First I would like to thank the OP for taking the time to explain whats going on with the Nexus. I would like to explain my story. I came from the Thunderbolt and I had fantastic reception everywhere I went. Ever since I bought the Nexus (on release day) I was dropping calls left and right, and my data was dropping ALL the time. I finally got sick of it and placed a claim and got a replacement phone last week.
> 
> The new phone is better, but its still not up to par with how my Thunderbolt performed. I'm still dropping data at least once a day. It drives me insane. Sitting at work (been here a few years now) my Nexus bounces between 3G and 4G and no data all day, KILLING my battery. Never had this problem with my bolt. So should I assume I have _another_ bad phone?


I picked up a Droid RAZR last night on Craigslist and I haven't had one data drop or a dropped call. Imagine that.


----------



## Oman0123

Dream said:


> I picked up a Droid RAZR last night on Craigslist and I haven't had one data drop or a dropped call. Imagine that.


Thats cool. Enjoy your Razr.

Anywho,

I read every single post and I feel like my brain is gonna explode. I dont normally have signal issues, exepct at home. Even then its not too bad....i guess...... usually like "1 bar of 3G". Im surrounded by great 4G coverage for the most part but once I hit my driveway it just dips to the 1 bar of 3G.	Im not on a hill or anything. Not like it matters Im on WIFI at home anyway. Ill stop blabbling and ask 2 questions.

1) Why when I wake my nexus at home, does it show 2-3 bars of 4G then pretty much about 5 seconds of being awake does it dip to 1 bar of 3G?

2) What exactly happens if I punch in that number at the end of the post? Is it reversible? Does it just "Ignore" cdma? Id like to test it out but its not important enough to bork anything lol.

And like somebody else said, I try to read every post of you make because I learn something new or hell something like this.....just makes my brain explode but I somewhat understand the gist of it


----------



## terryrook

I show full 4g but when I try to make a call or use data.....Nothing! I throw it in the gutter and go buy another....actually I'm just gonna have them send me another, hopefully it works.


----------



## blaineevans

terryrook said:


> I show full 4g but when I try to make a call or use data.....Nothing! I throw it in the gutter and go buy another....actually I'm just gonna have them send me another, hopefully it works.


Cruisin' down the street with 4.0..


----------



## terryrook

blaineevans said:


> Cruisin' down the street with 4.0..


jockin the signal, smackin my phone. Went through the park to get to the damned vzw store cause of course they want me to try a new sim first. I swear if eazy was still alive he would get gangster on those people....I wonder what Too Short is doing right now?


----------



## blaineevans

terryrook said:


> jockin the signal, smackin my phone. Went through the park to get to the damned vzw store cause of course they want me to try a new sim first. I swear if eazy was still alive he would get gangster on those people....I wonder what Too Short is doing right now?


WOAH, WOAH, WOAH. Eazy-E brah.
Too Short's still kickin' it, though.


----------



## yarly

Oman0123 said:


> Thats cool. Enjoy your Razr.
> 
> Anywho,
> 
> I read every single post and I feel like my brain is gonna explode. I dont normally have signal issues, exepct at home. Even then its not too bad....i guess...... usually like "1 bar of 3G". Im surrounded by great 4G coverage for the most part but once I hit my driveway it just dips to the 1 bar of 3G.	Im not on a hill or anything. Not like it matters Im on WIFI at home anyway. Ill stop blabbling and ask 2 questions.
> 
> 1) Why when I wake my nexus at home, does it show 2-3 bars of 4G then pretty much about 5 seconds of being awake does it dip to 1 bar of 3G?
> 
> 2) What exactly happens if I punch in that number at the end of the post? Is it reversible? Does it just "Ignore" cdma? Id like to test it out but its not important enough to bork anything lol.
> 
> And like somebody else said, I try to read every post of you make because I learn something new or hell something like this.....just makes my brain explode but I somewhat understand the gist of it


1) Could be a number of things. I could have you measure your LTE stats and we could find out more. I could link the really basic app I used for it, but it's not very friendly. I just had crap dump to logcat so you have to run logcat at the same time as you have it running. If you don't mind doing that, then i'll post it up. Otherwise, I'll eventually get to making it a graphical thing that logs without using logcat.

2) Nah, it won't do anything really screw up your phone exactly. It may not let calls go through if you force LTE only until you reboot though. Anything you do as far as switching the radio being used under there will revert back when you reboot. I've switched it to LTE only before and just in my experience, you won't be able to make calls as it seems to not let it use the CMDA radio period in the system. So what would it be good for? I guess if you have a really big download and you want it to stay on LTE despite the signal being sort of weak and probably eating more battery.

Would explain more on the reasons, but I'm sort of short on time today. Running the app and getting all the signal data would narrow it down though.


----------



## jkc120

dakoop said:


> So my nexus has zero to one bar of 3g right next to an iphone on verizon with four bars of 3g is just different ways of calculating? Cause my phone didn't work
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-nexus/553550-vzw-cdma-dbm-comparison-nexus-dinc-iphone-4-a.html


----------



## jkc120

TechSavvy said:


> Its sooooo weird you just posted this. I had a GNexus from December drop date to about a month ago. Had great service everywhere. Got a Rezound, had equal (drop calls, etc) everywhere. All signal drops in exact same places. Great service and coverage though with both phones.
> 
> However, three days ago, switched back to a different brand new GNexus......dropped signal from full bars to absolutely nothing about every ten minutes, or anytime there was heavy data usage. Tried multiple roms and ALL the different radios, same results. Took it in, had sim card swapped out.......bam, same results. Drops all the time. Took it to Verizon and had them swap out the phone, EXACT same results again.
> 
> However, since I had a great working GNexus before, I refused to believe that they just went to crap in my three week period off from it. So it took it in again and had Verizon swap it out for a third (fourth overall) phone. This time, ironically, all signal is great again!!!
> 
> Moral of the story.....I'm living proof that there are literally many many many dud GNexus' out there. You literally get the luck of the draw. To find out, open "battery" in your settings, click on the graph, then look at the mobile network signal history thing. Mine had almost as many red dashes on it as grey/green/yellow/whatever color. Now its perfect.
> 
> PS - They should look into adding this info into the OP of EVERY SINGLE THREAD for this phone, lol. Signal issues are literally half the thread conversations these days. You truly did a great job with the explanations here. Thank you a million.


You sir had bad hardware for sure. I had 2 like that and finally have one that works. I filed a bug here, but it's hardware:

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=24345

Such crappy QC with the Nexus, I swear...


----------



## yarly

jkc120 said:


> http://androidforums...iphone-4-a.html


Not to mention he's comparing bars. That's just so "scientific" and can't possibly vary by whatever the OS maker wants. Sorry, if you want to compare, compare the signal of 3g on both.


----------



## blaineevans

yarly said:


> Not to mention he's comparing bars. That's just so "scientific" and can't possibly vary by whatever the OS maker wants. Sorry, if you want to compare, compare the signal of 3g on both.


Bars are very technical, yarly. You of all people should know this.


----------



## emaN resU

When I'm in the bar I get no bars. Then, when I go home, I get in trouble...









Great and informative post. Thank you for taking the time to spell it out for us.
Now I have to go read something dumb to level myself out again.


----------



## LoyalServant

yarly said:


> CDMA towers hack around this by dynamically adjusting the power of the transmitters on the towers so the closer ones use less power and the SNR is fairly uniform for all towers at the receiving point. However, if there's too much noise (SNR) where you currently are for whatever variable, it can cause the closer towers to boost their signal and then the distant ones will also do the same in order to keep the SNR uniform. Eventually, the distant ones reach a point where they can't go any higher and drop off the network. It tends to happen with areas that have a decent signal that should be usable, but when there's too much power load in the transmitters, the SNR becomes dramatically worse. Your device might be trying to compensate by switching to a different tower that has a lower SNR (SNR is one of the things we can read from the Nexus, so we can find out what it currently is). The device switches to another tower in this case by the current tower telling it to reduce its transmit power.


I thought this is referred to as "cell breathing" and IIRC it was a nuisance problem because the cells shrank and expanded causing
interference with one or more base stations and with handsets.

Once upon a time I worked on repeaters, land mobile radio, trunked systems, and some earlier cell systems.
(AMPS and Digital AMPS were king in my day)
This newfangled stuff was being talked about when I was getting out of that line of work. (IS-95, etc)
I know a lot of people back then said that it wouldn't work but it obviously did... here we are today.

A lot of these new things whack me round a little bit since I moved on many years ago towards software engineering
instead of working on old, dirty radios 
My knowledge is mostly useless so I try to not chime in about it much.
Since some of you understand these newer software radios better than me let's ponder this..

Galaxy Nexus in the same place as a HTC Rezound with an ICS leaked rom.
I get the RSRP values from this device when it is in LTE mode so in theory I have a device that "should" be reporting
properly to compare with.
I fashioned a sim adapter so I could cut the mini sim down into a micro sim to fit in the Nexus that is being returned to Verizon.
Then I borrow my wife's sim from her Rezound 

With both devices next to one another on the desk the Rezound is reporting typically 10+ dBm higher than the Nexus.
This has been typical of all Nexus devices I have had. (5 of them)
I had some that were worse than others (had the LTE radio crash messages in logcat) and others that did not exhibit that behavior.

The conclusion I draw is that the radio in the Nexus is clearly not as good as the Rezound but now that I think about this I wonder if my test methodology is flawed... and here is the question for you newer radio gods...

If both devices are next to one another would these devices not desensitize one another?
When one transmits would it not hammer the frontend of the other and vice versa?
The Rezound still could be reporting improperly - it is a leak after all









I was going to drop the Nexus in the mail Tuesday but now I am wondering if I should not do a few more tests just for the hell of it.
My knowledge of all of this is somewhat dated so I am probably of no use... much smarter people have probably looked at these issues already.


----------



## yarly

Interesting. I was hoping someone would finally chime in that actually had another device on ICS and had some experience.

Yes, multipath distortion would be what that is. I didn't know the term for it exactly. Thanks 

If you have any troubles with the app, as it's not overly friendly to use, just dumps to logcat, let me know. I'm pretty busy the past week, so I haven't done anything to improve it yet. What you saw is what there is still.

If you could, run it in a good area with both devices and then somewhere typical you would use it (like in your house) and then somewhere you think reception is poor. It'll give you an update of all your stats each time the signal changes and then show them in logcat under the label "SignalStrength". Try it on 3g and LTE if you can.

It might be possible the devices would interfere, but the app readings should indicate that fairly easily if they are. We'll know for sure if it's reporting the RSRP as the signal as well when you run it and finally get a good comparison as to how the Nexus really fairs in a neutralized experiment.

Then all the "HTC/Moto/etc has better radios" people can rub their noses in being right or whatever







. Doesn't matter to me. I just like to know the truth and give an accurate summary in the OP.


----------



## LoyalServant

yarly said:


> Then all the "HTC/Moto/etc has better radios" people can rub their noses in being right or whatever
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> . Doesn't matter to me. I just like to know the truth and give an accurate summary in the OP.


I do believe there is some truth to the "Motorola has better radios" urban legend personally since I have worked with Motorola systems extensively in the past.
Amateur radio operators for years built repeaters out of old motracs because they were built like tanks and had good adjacent channel rejection plus the
transmitters were clean.
Couple of those, a controller and a well tuned duplexer and you were sitting in the tall cotton in those days... and those were the days for sure.
You could also get them real cheap too 

The HTC may well perform better because IIRC it has a "real" Qualcomm radio in it and I thought the Nexus has another radio (VIA chipset?) and obviously that
would be tech that was licensed from Qualcomm.
At least I am pretty sure I read someplace that it was a VIA made radio.

As soon as I can snag the wife's sim again I will give it a go.


----------



## yarly

Yeah, it's made by VIA and also by Samsung. I forget which one made the LTE and which made the CDMA part offhand.


----------



## LoyalServant

Here is a screen of the Rezound with an ICS rom.
I have to go get the box that has the Nexus out of my car.. but it's late and I don't want to make a whole lot of noise since the wife is sleeping.
That's a tomorrow project.
I rubbed out the lat and long because I am too lazy to hit AOSP to see if that's the location of the base station or the phone









Edit: Wife got up for some reason so I went and grabbed the phone.
I changed the images to links to make it a little easier on the forum.

Edit2: This was flashed back to the stock images since it's being returned as a defective device.

Rezound on my desk:
http://img7.imagesha...20527001534.png

Galaxy Nexus on the same desk:
http://img217.images...20527005802.png


----------



## yarly

LoyalServant said:


> Here is a screen of the Rezound with an ICS rom.
> I have to go get the box that has the Nexus out of my car.. but it's late and I don't want to make a whole lot of noise since the wife is sleeping.
> That's a tomorrow project.
> I rubbed out the lat and long because I am too lazy to hit AOSP to see if that's the location of the base station or the phone
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Edit: Wife got up for some reason so I went and grabbed the phone.
> I changed the images to links to make it a little easier on the forum.
> 
> Edit2: This was flashed back to the stock images since it's being returned as a defective device.
> 
> Rezound on my desk:
> http://img7.imagesha...20527001534.png
> 
> Galaxy Nexus on the same desk:
> http://img217.images...20527005802.png


I'll see if I can find some time in the next few days to make that app work easier so we can get all the readings on it. Interesting so far though with the RSRP being noticeably different.


----------



## LoyalServant

yarly said:


> I'll see if I can find some time in the next few days to make that app work easier so we can get all the readings on it. Interesting so far though with the RSRP being noticeably different.


This is the reason I was going after Verizon hard about this.
I knew something was amiss when I changed from a Thunderbolt and the "bars" was one indicator.
The other indicator was overall performance fell thru the floor and I had bad call quality and instances where data would just die
altogether.
I got mine on launch day and did not start to really put two and two together for at least a month.
The Nexus goes back on Tuesday and I keep the Rezound, which has been performing normally and as my Thunderbolt did.

What would be nice is if we can get other people to do such a comparison.
In my mind there is no doubt an issue with the device and I am not in a fringe area.

The downside to this is even if we see a pattern in in how it's performing the only people that can do anything work at Verizon
and Samsung.
If it requires an antenna modification that's completely out.... but if it's software we have a slight chance to get this resolved.

Or.. we are simply looking at the quality of the VIA chipset used in this device vs. a real Qualcomm chipset.


----------



## gnex44044

yarly said:


> From my explanation (which never claimed to justify why anyone has dropouts, only why signal was not as bad as one thinks):
> 
> If you still think your signal is bad, well it's your imagination or <insert magical reason you really think it is>
> 
> The signal as I said, if measured in the way it was measured in gingerbread, nearly the same (perhaps +/- a few db).
> 
> This is a fact. It's right there in the code. If still don't believe me and you cannot read the code, understand the facts in my post or compile the code change listed, then I'm sorry you wish to be so stubborn, but that's your right as an individual. Just don't try to continue to derail the thread please by trolling.
> 
> Appreciate the wasted offtopic post though


It is as bad as we think. When indoors the signal drops significantly to the point where I cant even get an internet connection and my voice calls produce lots of static for the people on the other end. My friends right next to me with Xperia (ICS) and iphone dont experience the same issues. Not our imagination, just a fact.


----------



## yarly

gnex44044 said:


> It is as bad as we think. When indoors the signal drops significantly to the point where I cant even get an internet connection and my voice calls produce lots of static for the people on the other end. My friends right next to me with Xperia (ICS) and iphone dont experience the same issues. Not our imagination, just a fact.


Static on your device during calls is more than just a bad signal. If it were, then you would just hear the other person cutting in and out and not some sort of scratchy, loud static sound that some users are reporting. There's lots of theories as to why it happens, but the two most convincing seem to be either electromagnetic interference due to something in the device (nfc or something else and the phone not filtering it out properly) or hardware related. Some users never experience it, some have it randomly and then it goes away, while others never have had it at all.

I'm also convinced by facts, not anecdotal evidence (no offense or anything). I'm also talking about LTE and last I knew, neither of those are LTE devices. You also don't know if the signal it's reporting is really the one for 1x or evdo (because there is a big difference between those and many phones only show the 1x signal to the user). Neither of those also have eHRPD (only Rev-A). It should be reporting both evdo and 1x signals in ICS given on which is being used (evdo when you are not in a call and 1x when you are I believe), but given that OEMs muck things up, they may not. The only way you can tell for sure is to pull it from the API in Android and I'm guessing the Iphone probably has no way period to do that.

If you want to give some really useful information for us, compile this little code snippet I wrote into a basic android app and watch the signal results in logcat as it runs and paste the results for whatever devices you can find that has Android. If you can't do that, then I'll eventually have an app that will be set up to do it for you as soon as I get some time make it work better for those that don't want to deal with logcat. That's basically the most concrete information there is for the signal on Android. Anything else is just kind of









Everyone is already aware of what users say about the Nexus as there have been many threads about it. I just like it to be spilled out in numbers (by many tests and by many devices) in front of me before I make up my mind on any technical issue and find the root of the problem if there is one instead of leaving it up in a hazy cloud of guessing. Just the way I work 

I think we'll know soon though and then if there's an issue, it's easier to yell at Verizon because you know what the actual problem is so they can't just say you're making it up if it's backed by facts (as well as a large sample of data) and we have the information pushed out to those that report on it.

I'm not against believing there's an issue, I just like it to be confirmed scientifically without unknown variables if there are any. That means using data you know has to be 100% correct. It's really my goal to get Nexus (and any other ICS LTE/CDMA device) users to be able to run the little snippet I have and then upload and aggregate all the data as a whole to show what our signals are in comparison to other devices. Stuff like that is what can be pressed out in the news and pressure put on whomever to fix something if it needs fixed.


----------



## yarly

Finished the initial version of the app I was working on to measure your signal statistics. App is in the OP at the bottom. Please use this to measure your signal if you plan on posting on about it. Other signal measures will be ignored. If your phone doesn't support the app (i.e. below Android 2.2 or you have an iphone), well those phones don't count







.

EDIT: I fixed a few bugs in it if you were one of the first few to download it. If so, may want to get it again (any time before 10:07am Eastern Standard Time the day of this post).


----------



## jkc120

Great thread yarly. Awesome stuff!

So I fired up your test app at my desk. It's reporting -111 RSRP and -82 RSSI. An -82 RSSI seems like it should mean fairly good performance, but as you can see, the speeds aren't very good at all.

My main complaint about the Nexus radios is that they seem to suffer when entering structures. I wish I could afford to buy a Rezound so I could test them side by side with your app inside and out. I know you don't want to hear anecdotal or imprecise information, just an observation that the Nexus signal does drop quite a bit the moment I enter most buildings - whether the Rezound or Razr do this, I can't say. Maybe I can find someone at work with one of those devices who is willing to install your app and let me collect some data. 

screen shot from your app:

http://dl.dropbox.co...29-09-41-03.png

screen shot from speedtest.net (ran a few back to back and on different servers to rule out a route or server issue, all about the same speeds):

http://dl.dropbox.co...29-09-45-36.png


----------



## yarly

jkc120 said:


> Great thread yarly. Awesome stuff!
> 
> So I fired up your test app at my desk. It's reporting -111 RSRP and -82 RSSI. An -82 RSSI seems like it should mean fairly good performance, but as you can see, the speeds aren't very good at all.
> 
> My main complaint about the Nexus radios is that they seem to suffer when entering structures. I wish I could afford to buy a Rezound so I could test them side by side with your app inside and out. I know you don't want to hear anecdotal or imprecise information, just an observation that the Nexus signal does drop quite a bit the moment I enter most buildings - whether the Rezound or Razr do this, I can't say. Maybe I can find someone at work with one of those devices who is willing to install your app and let me collect some data.
> 
> screen shot from your app:
> 
> http://dl.dropbox.co...29-09-41-03.png
> 
> screen shot from speedtest.net (ran a few back to back and on different servers to rule out a route or server issue, all about the same speeds):
> 
> http://dl.dropbox.co...29-09-45-36.png


Thanks for posting that up. Any other devices you can get or readings in better areas are also helpful. Mostly curious to see what the SNR and RSRQ are (well the RSRP as well) on other devices. Crappy SNR means pretty much the phone is not getting much of a signal and probably eating battery from having to use more power and resend data that doesn't reach the endpoints when you're downloading. I don't put too much faith in the RSSI number. It's actually just calcuated from the RSRQ and RSRP. You can see by how great the number looks it's also deceiving and a contributer to why RSRP was used to show to users under the status screen in settings instead of RSSI like how evdo and cdma work. I am somewhat curious as to what will show for a GB phone with that as well. It may not take all the readings though depending on the API.

An SNR (signal to noise ratio) of 20db is not too good (though it can go way lower [at least -30db]). A decent one would be 60db or higher. Means the Nexus wherever you were was like you mentioned, getting both a weak signal and poor quality/throughput (going back to my OP that said that when the RSRP starts to get to around -108db to -115db on LTE, you're pretty much at EVDO speeds). RSRQ is also not overly good at -12db (on a scale of -3db [good] to -19db [bad]).

Those readings are about consistent to what I would get on LTE in a crappy area like at home indoors. Usually somewhere around -100db to -110db for RSRP. When I step outside though, my RSRP goes to around -95 to -100db and SNR can hit around 100db. Weak SNR could be a sign the phone (referring to the Nexus as a whole) isn't able to use enough power to boost the signal, but won't know anything like that for sure with just a few readings. If so, makes me wonder if they crippled it so it wouldn't eat as much battery when idle (since I think a weak signal is going to be more draining when it's sending data than when it's idling [as long as it's not switching back and forth a lot to 3g]) and boosting the power for the signal more would eat more battery as well. If only battery stats were as easy to read. Recording the battery life results of the various LTE phones would be useful, but it would be too complicated to pull off without clean phones running only AOSP [which makes it impossible pretty much] and making sure they're all doing the same things at the same time at the same location. Too many variables









My 3g generally stays pretty consistent (in the low to mid 90s) when I am using the app in a poor signal LTE area. However, the LTE jumps around like crazy between like -100db to -115db for RSRP and the SNR is all over the place.

The EVDO/cdma signals do seem to update while on LTE and those are not overly bad at least (low 90s). I generally got low 90s as my cdma signal on my thunderbolt where I live.

Also just random info, the app stops taking readings when it's not on the screen. I don't think listening for a signal change really takes much battery, but I just like to be efficient.


----------



## jkc120

Thanks for the explanation. Makes a lot of sense.

In my desk's location, I think I'm on the opposite side of the building in terms of direction of the tower. If I walk to a window nearby, I can get a slightly better signal:

http://dl.dropbox.co...29-10-15-17.png

But if I move into the heart of the building (I'm on the 3rd of 4 floors) where my signal is going through the 3rd/4th floors (and there's a lab on the 3rd so probably a lot of stuff to go through there), e.g. in the bathroom stall haha the signal takes a total dive. Lose 4G and almost lose 3G:

http://dl.dropbox.co...29-10-17-22.png

Then if I walk to the opposite side of the building to a window (not quite perfect line of sight, but not going through much of the building at this point), the signal is way better:

http://dl.dropbox.co...29-10-21-24.png

I'm going to ask around to see if anyone has a Razr/Rezound so I can compare


----------



## yarly

Hmm, try doing a few download tests at the 2 places you had LTE signal (noting which one is which). The one you have a crappy SNR and a realy good CQI, while the other you have an average CQI and a really good SNR for LTE. I'm guessing the SNR will matter more, but can't say for sure.

Ideally, anything under say -100db should be an average signal if you're going by RSRP alone. Under -90db would be excellent. When I'm around the suburb areas or in the downtown area of big city here, I'm getting -75db to -85db. I've had -61db before for RSRP, but I was within a few hundred meters of a tower. However, the signal doesn't tell the whole story if something like the SNR is really bad. That could account for poor download speeds, but SNR should be generally good if you're outside on flat land and not by any trees.


----------



## jkc120

Ok this first one was taken towards the "heart" of the building. Still had 4G, but it was horribly, horribly slow:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28717002/screenshots/signal/Screenshot_2012-05-29-10-53-14.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28717002/screenshots/signal/Screenshot_2012-05-29-10-54-07.png

This one is in the area near my cubicle but by the window. Oddly enough, the signal was quite different when I pulled up the signal info AFTER the test (I couldn't remember if I got a screen shot so I took the 2nd one):

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28717002/screenshots/signal/Screenshot_2012-05-29-10-58-30.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28717002/screenshots/signal/Screenshot_2012-05-29-10-59-09.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28717002/screenshots/signal/Screenshot_2012-05-29-10-59-16.png

And this one was taken from the other side of the building in a great signal area:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28717002/screenshots/signal/Screenshot_2012-05-29-10-55-14.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28717002/screenshots/signal/Screenshot_2012-05-29-10-55-35.png


----------



## jkc120

Here's an example of the "signal takes a dump inside" conjecture. 

Here's the signal and speed test from 10 feet outside the main lobby of my building:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28717002/screenshots/signal/Screenshot_2012-05-29-13-06-28.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28717002/screenshots/signal/Screenshot_2012-05-29-13-07-09.png

And here's the signal and speed test from 10 feet inside the main lobby:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28717002/screenshots/signal/Screenshot_2012-05-29-13-07-30.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28717002/screenshots/signal/Screenshot_2012-05-29-13-08-13.png


----------



## uh-oh

Thanks for this post, I have been having dropped calls, "Mobile network not available", complete signal drop-outs (once during an emergency situation) and thought they were caused by the radios. I have a new phone getting mailed to me, but I had thought the cause to be a software issue until I started reading more about it on the forums today. Verizon's response was to get a third gnex if the second turns out to be a lemon and it's google's problem because, "It's a known issue."
Thanks a lot.


----------



## yarly

uh-oh said:


> Thanks for this post, I have been having dropped calls, "Mobile network not available", complete signal drop-outs (once during an emergency situation) and thought they were caused by the radios. I have a new phone getting mailed to me, but I had thought the cause to be a software issue until I started reading more about it on the forums today. Verizon's response was to get a third gnex if the second turns out to be a lemon and it's google's problem because, "It's a known issue."
> Thanks a lot.


Hopefully it works out for you. Figures Verizon would give some BS answer like that to deflect from who's at fault. Though I don't think it's exactly Verizon as much as the build quality issues being Samsung. Still hoping to get more stats from other devices to compare on a bigger level. I might break down and go start asking rezound and the moto forums to give some.


----------



## lilfleck

How come my (and others) have issues where the phone is without data completely when toggling between Wifi -> 3G/LTE or where there is both LTE & 3G?

It's not the issue of me being on 3G when I know LTE is available, its more of, it hangs w/o data until I toggle the LTE (or data) switch. Is this considered a "lemon?"


----------



## fixxxer2012

out of all of the phones ive had on verizon the gnexus has by far the weakest signal ive seen. dropped calls, static on calls, no data or loosing 4g. there is definite issues with the samsung radios that has not been addressed with the new ota, so i assume this is a hardware problem.


----------



## yarly

lilfleck said:


> How come my (and others) have issues where the phone is without data completely when toggling between Wifi -> 3G/LTE or where there is both LTE & 3G?
> 
> It's not the issue of me being on 3G when I know LTE is available, its more of, it hangs w/o data until I toggle the LTE (or data) switch. Is this considered a "lemon?"


It could be handoff issues with device caused by software or caused by the device itself. If it consistently happens no matter where you are, then it's probably the device. If you only get it in certain areas, then it's probably related to the radio firmware not handing off correctly.

Try using my little app I made (in the OP). It will show if you have a 3g/4g connection even when you're on wifi and how good it is. If it shows you having a connection before you toggle off and then you lose it, then there's more amiss. It should hand off to mobile data within seconds or less. Mainly curious to see if you had a mobile data connection at all before you toggled it off or not.


----------



## rolandct

lilfleck said:


> How come my (and others) have issues where the phone is without data completely when toggling between Wifi -> 3G/LTE or where there is both LTE & 3G?
> 
> It's not the issue of me being on 3G when I know LTE is available, its more of, it hangs w/o data until I toggle the LTE (or data) switch. Is this considered a "lemon?"


What version are you on? My handoff issues improved (mostly went away) from .2 to .3/.4


----------



## yarly

rolandct said:


> What version are you on? My handoff issues improved (mostly went away) from .2 to .3/.4


I figured he was on the latest one, but if he isn't I recommend trying that as you mentioned.


----------



## lilfleck

rolandct said:


> What version are you on? My handoff issues improved (mostly went away) from .2 to .3/.4


AOKP M5 4.0.4
Didn't touch anything else

I'm only on wifi at home. So I notice this when I leave my home and I go out of range of wifi. Do you know anything about the latest OTA VZ 4.0.4 release and how it differs from what dev's have used in their ROMs before this?


----------



## uh-oh

Good morning, I wanted to post an update. New device arrived and works out much better, so I rooted and reinstalled AOKP b37 with the 4.0.4 radios (same as on old device). Below are readings from both devices in the same spot on my desk.
Old.









During the red line times (no signal) I would get this screen. I don't have a screen shot of the stats. If you have this problem, it seems to be hardware rather than software.









New one.








No dropped calls, no "mobile network not avaialable".










Both phones on the same ROM and radios.
I hope this helps anyone else having these problems.

P.S. With the first gnex, I also had problems toggling on the data, I would have to turn on airplane mode, turn it off, then turn on the data.


----------



## lilfleck

I have a similar graph from your before! I think its my building though...


----------



## uh-oh

lilfleck said:


> I have a similar graph from your before! I think its my building though...


I thought the same, it was the building, or my house. The "after" has the first two hours at my house, the third hour riding to work (50 miles), the last 1.3 hours at my desk. If you have the red lines and calls dropping even where you get decent signal, it's your phone.


----------



## yarly

lilfleck said:


> AOKP M5 4.0.4
> Didn't touch anything else
> 
> I'm only on wifi at home. So I notice this when I leave my home and I go out of range of wifi. Do you know anything about the latest OTA VZ 4.0.4 release and how it differs from what dev's have used in their ROMs before this?


People don't put radios into their ROMs. You flash them separately. If you haven't updated to the latest radio, I recommend it. Hand offs for one are much better.


----------



## uh-oh




----------



## MistaWolfe

Damn. You're smart, dude.


----------



## pcpimp

yarly said:


> Dropped calls/data and no reception period ≠ what was talking about. I even stated that in the post.
> 
> You mostly sound like you have a lemon for a Nexus and should probably look into having Verizon swap it out. That's not normal by any means as people have complained about such things, swapped them out and things were fine after. If anything, my post is trying to point out the difference between a defective device like that and one that's actually working fine so those that are unsure know and can do something about it. I would never deny some that some people (including myself) had a fault Nexus. Mine constantly rebooted even on stock at random times throughout the day. What did I do though? I complained to Verizon and got a different one. I fully recommend doing the same and not just living with it.
> 
> Since you've had it for a very short time they should even give you a new one instead of a "like new." I think it's within the first 14 days. If they try to give you a like new, don't let them spin you. Look it up before you go in (though someone can probably chime in and verify it for us) and have all your facts straight so they can't try to make any excuses.


If you have issues like dropped signal, static during calls, dropped calls or lots of time without a signal, this is not in reference to that[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]. If you have those problems, your device is defective and I would seek out filing a warranty claim with Verizon for it.[/background]

Really? So many people having this same issue means the phone is defective? I know 5 different people that is have these same issues? That doesn't make sense to me. I am not arguing just trying to understand? Thanks!


----------



## yarly

> Really? So many people having this same issue means the phone is defective?


Sadly, yes. Though some may be from people having defective ROMs/Kernels/etc and just didn't verify. Sometimes developers mess with parts of code they shouldn't or do so inadvertently (due to the way parts depend on other parts). The best way to 100% check it's not due to that is just go back to stock and sit on that for a few days. Google now has the 4.0.4 factory images for the Verizon Nexus up as well (very bottom of the page). If the issue still persists, then it's a defective phone and I would return it. You have to go back to stock anyways to return, so not much of a loss in testing it beforehand. People have also gotten multiple defective devices before getting one that worked, which makes me think they're just playing "shuffle the phones" at times when they send you another. I have also counted more defective devices that happened to be built in China than Korea (if that shocks anyone, lol).

If you have the "static" issue on the phone that some have had, it's definitely not signal related. If it were, you would be hearing the typical dropout of voice that you are used to in a bad area, versus hearing clicking/sounds like your have a slightly off radio station sort of sounds.

I know it sounds odd with all the noise going around about issues, but those with issues are a minority, but a very vocal minority, as typically you generally hear people more willing to talk about issues versus the lack of them. Perhaps the Nexus uses a bit less power for the antennas at times versus other phones due to the way it's configured (haven't gathered enough data versus other devices to know for sure yet), but if you're getting the issues like the above, those are unrelated to that. If it were though, it may not be so much of a defect versus a way to try to conserve power, since the radio is a huge power hog when idle in a bad signal area on phones like the Thunderbolt.


----------



## keeverw

Good explanation. But I never cared about the dbm reported.
I just judge my signal on whether or not I am able to use apps that require data, or whether my email is able to sync or whatnot.

And sitting in my living room my Thunderbolt had a solid 4Glte signal, and my Gnex had a weak 3G signal only.
So I am not complaining about a low 4G dbm level. I am complaining about not having any 4G at all in the same spot that I had it on my previous phone.
And to confim that the signal was still there, I switched back to the Thunderbolt and voila, it's picking up 4G where my Gnex wasn't.
That is not an issue of how it reports signal strength. That is an issue of it not picking up the signal at all.


----------



## yarly

keeverw said:


> Good explanation. But I never cared about the dbm reported.
> I just judge my signal on whether or not I am able to use apps that require data, or whether my email is able to sync or whatnot.
> 
> And sitting in my living room my Thunderbolt had a solid 4Glte signal, and my Gnex had a weak 3G signal only.
> So I am not complaining about a low 4G dbm level. I am complaining about not having any 4G at all in the same spot that I had it on my previous phone.
> And to confim that the signal was still there, I switched back to the Thunderbolt and voila, it's picking up 4G where my Gnex wasn't.
> That is not an issue of how it reports signal strength. That is an issue of it not picking up the signal at all.





> "Why does my Nexus not hand off exactly the same as <insert proprietary android os based phone here>?"
> 
> 
> 
> Because it goes back to what I already mentioned in that other OEMs don't measure the LTE signal with the same metrics as they do on the Nexus (it was only added to the Android source with ICS and before then each carrier just "rolled their own" thing probably using the RSSI of the LTE signal to handle when to hand off) so the phone thinks the LTE signal is also better than it actually is and so it's staying on what is really a *worse* LTE signal when it should be handing off to a better CDMA/3g signal. Also see the part about RSRQ above and the graph. It'll be far easier to tell what they're doing when they update to ICS though as we'll have access to more information.
> 
> It's actually a good thing it's handing it off and staying on 3g for most use cases. If it were me, I'd be more upset with it staying on it when it's eating battery or handing off and switching back constantly instead of staying on one or the other as that also drains battery. If you want to force it to stay on LTE, dial *#*#4636#*#* and tell it to stay on it. It may interfere with calls though and drain more battery, so just as a fair warning.
Click to expand...

In other words, you probably can probably pick up LTE, but the Nexus at your location decided it wasn't decent enough to pick up. I haven't dismissed the signal power is lowered in the Nexus to keep it from eating battery in low LTE areas either (as using more power to keep a crap signal on LTE is sort of futile), but that's just speculation until I can gather more data readings of various devices on ICS (I mention it in previous posts). I try to avoid guessing reasons for things and saying they're a fact until I have more than anecdotal evidence and speculation. Since Verizon isn't kind enough to give me that kind of data, I have to find it myself or ask other users to help me out. It's all part of my greater goal of adding to my app to help collect the data and post it for everyone to see as it's collected (haven't had time yet to update it to do that yet).I do all that out of personal interest and and because I kind of consider it fun to figure out (well that and it bugs me to just guess about things when I know there's a better way to do it).

I know my OP comes off as somewhat dismissing on what many have concluded with assumptions (and thus think I'm acting like somewhat of an arrogant "know it all"), but it's only because I've spent a lot of time on this and if my facts show my hypothesis is off in the end, then I have no issues with adjusting it. When people tell me I'm wrong or something can't be done, that's when I fight harder to show them it can be. Just the engineer/inventor/developer mentality.

However, I'm well aware of how the Thunderbolt functions. I own one and still have it besides my Nexus. It also drains battery on LTE in lower signal areas like a Dodge Ram drains gas (and I'm in one of those areas most of the time). The fact that the Thunderbolt is hanging onto LTE in areas where it shouldn't isn't not exactly a good thing.

Just random info about the Thunderbolt: There is also no way to figure out any of the LTE metrics for the Thunderbolt on any version of any ROM (I tried and had other users try). Only info you get is the 1x CDMA signal (not even EvDO).


----------



## keeverw

yarly said:


> In other words, you probably can probably pick up LTE, but the Nexus at your location decided it wasn't decent enough to pick up. I'm well aware of how the Thunderbolt functions. I own one and still have it besides my Nexus. It also drains battery on LTE in lower signal areas like a Dodge Ram drains gas (and I'm in one of those areas most of the time). The fact that the Thunderbolt is hanging onto LTE in areas where it shouldn't isn't not exactly a good thing.
> 
> Just random info about the Thunderbolt: There is also no way to figure out any of the LTE metrics for the Thunderbolt on any version of any ROM (I tried and had other users try). Only info you get is the 1x CDMA signal (not even EvDO).


I hear what you're saying, but if it works it works.
You say it's a weak enough signal that the Gnex ignores it and the Tbolt doesn't.
It may be weak, or it may not be. But it works well for me, and I haven't noticed it draining the battery anymore than usual.

A few times when my DSL at home has been down, I would use the Bolt as a 4G wifi hotspot and it gave my Wii (streaming netflix) a really fast connection.
And it was a solid enough connection that I could watch an hour long movie without any hiccups. And I have done this several times.

The Tbolt has it's issues, and the 4G to 3G handoff is definitely one of them.
But there is a solid 4GLTE signal at my house (I am convinced of it) and the Gnex never seemed to want to latch onto it for some reason.
And even outside my house it would barely latch on, and kept swapping back and forth.

It comes down to personal preference to me.
I would rather have 4Glte and suffer a little more battery drain, than have 3G and better battery life.
I charge my phone all the time so battery drain isn't that big of a deal to me.
It would be nice if the 3G/4G handoff setpoints could be accessed and changed by the user.


----------



## Quaff1976

I have searched and found little information on the effective range of an 700 Mhz LTE signal. So here are my observations from yesterday.

I was visiting some friends on a small island in west-central Florida yesterday with what seemed to be one tower serving this island. I ate dinner at a place that was right next to the tower (-62 dBm LTE RSRP and -75dBm CDMA RSSI). Tower appeared to be about 75 ft tall. There were no other tall structures on the island.

So at my friend's rental house that was a straight shot ~2 miles from the tower, outside I observed -110 dBm LTE RSRP and -100dBm CDMA RSSI). Note, CDMA and EVDO are generally 1900 Mhz in this area.

It may just be the case for this particular tower, but, the effective range of (usable) 700 Mhz LTE signal appears to be about the same as 1900 Mhz CDMA/EVDO signal. If this is correct, this is rather disappointing as tower spacing would need to be more dense like 1900 Mhz EVDO.

I hope there is something I am missing and this is not the norm.


----------



## Quaff1976

So I am trying to understand LTE RSRP vs RSSI as it relates to effective range or usable distance from tower. Yarly's app appears to capture both calculations.

So is LTE RSSI basically the same representation as CDMA/EVDO RSSI and LTE RSRP basically a translation into an RSSI-like metric that represents usable LTE signal? In other words, is RSRP essentially a subset of RSSI where usable LTE signal is available above -90dBm RSSI?

My guess is that the LTE extended areas on Verizon's coverage map represent 700 Mhz LTE signal below -90 dBm, but the effective RSRP signal is below -120 dBm and essentially unusable.

If this is the case, I wonder if we can expect improvements in LTE radios to be able to use signal below -90 dBm more effectively like other air interfaces or if it is a limitation of LTE that requires a relatively strong signal to be usable.


----------



## yarly

Quaff1976 said:


> I have searched and found little information on the effective range of an 700 Mhz LTE signal. So here are my observations from yesterday.
> 
> I was visiting some friends on a small island in west-central Florida yesterday with what seemed to be one tower serving this island. I ate dinner at a place that was right next to the tower (-62 dBm LTE RSRP and -75dBm CDMA RSSI). Tower appeared to be about 75 ft tall. There were no other tall structures on the island.
> 
> So at my friend's rental house that was a straight shot ~2 miles from the tower, outside I observed -110 dBm LTE RSRP and -100dBm CDMA RSSI). Note, CDMA and EVDO are generally 1900 Mhz in this area.
> 
> It may just be the case for this particular tower, but, the effective range of (usable) 700 Mhz LTE signal appears to be about the same as 1900 Mhz CDMA/EVDO signal. If this is correct, this is rather disappointing as tower spacing would need to be more dense like 1900 Mhz EVDO.
> 
> I hope there is something I am missing and this is not the norm.


Thanks for sharing the info. CMDA should be able to get somewhere between 30-45 miles for a single tower (though that may vary since you were on an island where less power is needed). GSM (at least HSPA GSM and such [not LTE]) only goes to like 20 or so miles for its radius. 700mhz LTE on paper at leastshould have 2-3 times the radius of anything on 1900mhz. -62db is definently right next to a tower. The lowest I have ever gotten in recording data was -63db and I was next to one at the time as well.



> So I am trying to understand LTE RSRP vs RSSI as it relates to effective range or usable distance from tower. Yarly's app appears to capture both calculations.


RSSI is calculated from the RSRP and RSRQ basically. It's not a built in metric to the Android API, but just something I was able to calculate from looking up formulas. RSSI should be somewhat similar to CDMA RSSI, but I wouldnt go so far to say they will read the same exactly. However, they should be directly related, so if one goes up the other will go up, etc. RSSI has more to do with your interference in your signal while RSRP is more related to how much power and throughput your signal current has. SNR (your signal to noise ratio) is also important as it indicates how much interference you're currently getting (how many dropped/resent packets are likely and how likely it is your connection is going to be eating additional battery when it's actively used). RSRP is more of an indicator of how much battery it's using while idle (the worse the signal, the more it's going to have to boost it with more power from the phone). If your RSRP is in the range of like -110db or worse, then it's basically EvDO quality or worse.

Hopefully that clears it up. Most of that is in my OP, but my OP is kind of huge and parts might not be clear. If they're not just let me know and I can rewrite those areas. Anything else, just let me know and I don't mind explaining


----------



## Vekster

yarly said:


> Thanks for sharing the info. CMDA should be able to get somewhere between 30-45 miles for a single tower (though that may vary since you were on an island where less power is needed). GSM (at least HSPA GSM and such [not LTE]) only goes to like 20 or so miles for its radius. 700mhz LTE on paper at leastshould have 2-3 times the radius of anything on 1900mhz. -62db is definently right next to a tower. The lowest I have ever gotten in recording data was -63db and I was next to one at the time as well.
> 
> RSSI is calculated from the RSRP and RSRQ basically. It's not a built in metric to the Android API, but just something I was able to calculate from looking up formulas. RSSI should be somewhat similar to CDMA RSSI, but I wouldnt go so far to say they will read the same exactly. However, they should be directly related, so if one goes up the other will go up, etc. RSSI has more to do with your interference in your signal while RSRP is more related to how much power and throughput your signal current has. SNR (your signal to noise ratio) is also important as it indicates how much interference you're currently getting (how many dropped/resent packets are likely and how likely it is your connection is going to be eating additional battery when it's actively used). RSRP is more of an indicator of how much battery it's using while idle (the worse the signal, the more it's going to have to boost it with more power from the phone). If your RSRP is in the range of like -110db or worse, then it's basically EvDO quality or worse.
> 
> Hopefully that clears it up. Most of that is in my OP, but my OP is kind of huge and parts might not be clear. If they're not just let me know and I can rewrite those areas. Anything else, just let me know and I don't mind explaining


Actually I think -56 dbm is the best you can get I have seen that number a few times and remember hearing that a few places... I noticed download speeds well into the 40s at that signal... Very impressed.


----------



## yarly

Now -56db is impressive. RSRP can theoritically go lower than that (at least -44db). However, I don't know if we would see that ever on Verizon.

Oddly, your RSRQ and SNR are not quite as optimal as they could be, despite having a really good RSRP. RSRQ can go to at least -3db and SNR can go into at least the 300s (higher being better), not that 190db for SNR is anything to complain about. CQI is maxed out though.


----------



## quickdraw86

i'm glad i found this thread, there's a lot of great information here and it's well-written, thanks yarly!


----------



## yarly

yawdapaah said:


> So now that the Droid Bionic has ICS, is there a legit reason why the GNex has 2 bars of 3G and the Bionic is alternating between 1 bar of LTE and 4 bars of 3G?


When you say it's alternating how often is it doing that? If it's doing it quite often, that seems kind of bad at least in terms of battery life. It should stay on one or the other and if it's not, then the metrics they are using to determine a good/bad signal are set too tightly and will most likely require a radio update in the future to correct (since it's a leak and probably came with a radio, I am guessing that might be part of the issue). The Nexus, which some have complained about it being on 3G in an LTE area does seem to at least stick to one. Whether the signal overall is quite is strong is debatable and the Nexus may be using less power to boost the signal (also not 100% sure on that as of now). The Nexus *might* be able to pick up a weak LTE signal in that area if you forced it onto LTE, but that probably wouldn't be an overly great idea as it can interfere with making calls and such from experimenting myself. However, if you do it, it should switch back to normal just fine on reboot.

Whenever you have a chance shoot those screen shots of what you saw or what you can find in a better area and we'll see if we can come up with some more answers. I have yet to see any readings from a Moto device and I think some others would be interested in seeing it too.


----------



## yarly

That's very interesting. Moto doesn't give any info in the API for LTE at all (at least not in the recommended way). Do Moto phones show any signal under settings? Also if it does, does the signal change when you go from 3g to LTE (it should swap to showing the LTE signal on most ICS phones)? Also not sure if the screen will come up, but if you dial *#*#4636#*#* on a Moto phone does it give you some more information (some will show certain radio info signal wise you wouldn't normally see?

Hopefully something can be found. Kind of disappointed it only gave 3g stats. I'll look over those though. I'd like to figure out something that can be shown on Moto for LTE though if possible by decompiling some of the ROMs. If something shows under settings, that would be a good starting point.


----------



## yarly

Yeah, doesn't look like you have any LTE where you are right now. I'd be curious if anything will show on the Moto phones when they're in an LTE area. I'd like to know if they're conforming to the Android API on ICS for the radio interface layer (RIL) or not. LTE data will all show as rubbish if you're not in an LTE area. I just didnt take into account what it would show on non Nexus devices yet for that, but it should show N/A for all of them.

The RAZR is still on GB, correct? Just looks like it in the screen shot for the version numbering at least. If so, it's still using the cdma (1x) voice signal to calculate the bars and the signal under settings most likely (if you have a chance, double check that for me, since I have never verified on a Moto phone). Never understood why GB phones do that, but they all seem to despite the fact we're mostly worried about our signal on data and not on voice. Perhaps in the early days, not all of them showed EvDO data. The Nexus though will use EvDO to calculate the bars and the signal under settings if you're not on a voice call (or happen to be in an area without EvDO and only 1x).

The RAZR at least the EvDO looks way out of wack in some screens and more accurate in others. The signal to noise ratio though for both looks more believable (higher being better). Nexus at least so far I am seeing seems to have a lower (worse) SNR in general than most devices. It seems to jump around quite a bit, but I have not compared it to how much it varies on other devices offhand.

Appreciate you taking the time to take the pics and upload them though. Let me know if you have some more time to do some more gathering.


----------



## jroc74

With the RAZR and ICS....it shows different decibel and bar readings in the Settings area. I'm sure that translates to the notification area too for bars,

It seems on ICS...the RAZR also shows an accurate or more accurate 4G reading. In the same spot I saw 1x, 3G and 4G all have different readings. FWIW...1x had -78, 3G had -85 and 4G had -95.

There was no worse speed difference from GB to ICS for the RAZR for 4G. It just shows worse now. And I hear there are complaints coming in from testers now about this...lol.

Like right now 1x shows -100 and 3G -109. (they both show at the same time in Settings) And I have no 4G signal right now. 1x shows 2 bars, and 3G shows none. And in the notification area its shows the 3G icon and no bars.

So I am assuming the RAZR with ICS now shows a more accurate signal reading. I assume the Bionic on ICS does too? I cant get 4G unless I'm by a windows or outside. Will run the app and post results soon.


----------



## jroc74

Ok some screenshots while using your app: First...I wanna say thanks for this thread. I am a stickler when it comes to reception. I'm one of the few that uses my phone for phone calls also...lol. I like this app. I plan on comparing all my current and future phones with it.

Decided to clean some stuff up and just post the whole Photobucket link. This is how the readings look in the Settings area and a 3G reading I got and more 4G readings when the values changed. All these pics are in the same spot. I live n a weak reception area. Maybe I will post a speedtest screen shot soon.

http://s57.photobuck...id Signal info/

These are no signal, 1X and 4G. I messed up and the volume bar got in the way one time...lol


----------



## yarly

I had a 105db signal exactly before I took the screen shot and then lost it showing that the bars do switch over at the same point as on your RAZR for LTE at least in comparison to the Nexus. I attached something almost the same though. It looks like Moto is at least implementing all the API for LTE on their phones though (or at least on the Razr).


----------



## jroc74

Yea...and it seems ICS is gonna cause some folks to think their signal has all of a sudden got bad. Interested to see if the Rezound will be like the G nex and RAZR on ICS.

One thing I like that Moto did is show the different readings in the About Phone area. Does it do that on the G Nex with 4.0.4?


----------



## yarly

jroc74 said:


> Yea...and it seems ICS is gonna cause some folks to think their signal has all of a sudden got bad. Interested to see if the Rezound will be like the G nex and RAZR on ICS.
> 
> One thing I like that Moto did is show the different readings in the About Phone area. Does it do that on the G Nex with 4.0.4?


I do some comparison shots of someone using the ICS leak for the Rezound somewhere. Have to look for them again. I'm guessing you mean will the Nexus show the LTE signal under settings when on LTE and the EvDO when on that, correct? If so, it does do that (that's how the Android API was meant to be used since the ICS release). Good to see Moto is following it at least in every area I can see. HTC is kind of iffy on some of it still and I know they use some internal metric to the radio to calculate the bars.


----------



## bryk

Maybe HTC phones with the antenna in the battery door get exceptional service, but I definitely don't get 4G in places I use to get 1 consistent bar of 4g with my thunderbolt.


----------



## Gorilla

This thread was a hella good read..

Now that I have your app, I can see that my signal is not that bad.

LTE RSRP= -77
LTE RSRQ= -7
LTE SNR= -300

Based on these stats... ( I am using an HTC Rezound with the ICS Leak) (4.03)

Why is my LTE service so incosistent? It seems to ramp up during speedtests, then just drop the connection.

Same thing with browsing.. Sometimes its fine. other times the data connection just stops.


----------



## Travisimo

Great reporting to the OP.

My question is this: Is this the best we can expect from Verizon's LTE network?

Elaboration:

I live in a medium sized metro area with LTE, but I am rarely on LTE. Unless I am outside and pretty close to a cell tower, my phone drops down to 3G most of the time. Now I understand that I'd rather be on a good 3G connection than a poor LTE connection. However, my original question stands: is this the best we can expect from Verizon's LTE? I mean, I know they are expanding LTE coverage in many areas, but I get the feeling it's not a "coverage" issue that I am experiencing. It seems to be that the LTE connection just isn't as good or reliable as the 3G connection. Of course, it's faster and probably needs to be a better signal to be a "quality" connection. But if this is the best it gets, then call me very disappointed.

The problem is exhasberated by Verizon's inconsistent and unreliable handoff. There are times when the phone just loses data altogether even in good coverage areas. Or I'll take my phone out of my pocket only to find no data connection, and it sometimes takes a minute or so to connect again.

I switched away from AT&T because I thought Verizon's LTE network was going to rock. But what's better:

Being on Verizon's 3G most of the time and LTE only sometimes, OR
Being on AT&T's HSPA+ most of the time and LTE only sometimes?

In other words, if we're going to be on the slower networks most of the time anyway, it's obviously better being on HSPA+. In my area, for example, AT&T's HSPA+ speeds are typically pretty close to Verizon's LTE (especially download speeds). I am sure that all of these 4G connections will get better over time, but I'm beginning to think I bet on the wrong horse.... because once AT&T gets LTE out there as uniquitous as Verizon, I think AT&T's HSPA+/LTE combo is going to be much better than Verizon's 3G/LTE combo.

THoughts?


----------



## uh-oh

bryk said:


> Maybe HTC phones with the antenna in the battery door get exceptional service, but I definitely don't get 4G in places I use to get 1 consistent bar of 4g with my thunderbolt.


My Incredible got terrible service, I hated that setup.
I have been noticing lately my 3G signal is terrible compared with 4G.


----------



## Gorilla

OP, can u respond to my post 3 posts up?


----------



## yarly

Gorilla said:


> OP, can u respond to my post 3 posts up?


I will when I have some time later this week to give a detailed reply. I don't ignore posts, I just avoid replying to them when I feel it might take me some time to write something up.


----------



## Gorilla

ok thanks.


----------



## yarly

> I live in a medium sized metro area with LTE, but I am rarely on LTE. Unless I am outside and pretty close to a cell tower, my phone drops down to 3G most of the time. Now I understand that I'd rather be on a good 3G connection than a poor LTE connection. However, my original question stands: is this the best we can expect from Verizon's LTE? I mean, I know they are expanding LTE coverage in many areas, but I get the feeling it's not a "coverage" issue that I am experiencing. It seems to be that the LTE connection just isn't as good or reliable as the 3G connection. Of course, it's faster and probably needs to be a better signal to be a "quality" connection. But if this is the best it gets, then call me very disappointed.


I live the same sort of area actually. There's 2-3 towers around me, but I believe only the one closest the the city itself has LTE and the rest do not. If I'm outside, I pick up LTE fairly well (mid 90 db and decent SNR in the low 100s). If i walk towards the vicinity of the city (like say a ¼ mile from my house), signal gets even better up into the mid 80s.

Indoors, my LTE signal is around -105db to -110db or worse. My 1x (cdma in my app) signal though usually stays around -88db to -93db, which is about what I got on my Thunderbolt.



> The problem is exhasberated by Verizon's inconsistent and unreliable handoff. There are times when the phone just loses data altogether even in good coverage areas. Or I'll take my phone out of my pocket only to find no data connection, and it sometimes takes a minute or so to connect again.


I can't really comment on that too much. I have never really had a handoff take more than a second or two unless I happen to be in an area with no signal at all (like say somewhere in the mountains and I am lucky to be roaming.



> I switched away from AT&T because I thought Verizon's LTE network was going to rock.


It's kind of hit or miss based on location I suppose. Around here, I'm in one of the main areas that Verizon targets for their network rollout first, so generally coverage is the best (though LTE still seems limited somewhat if you go too far out). However, I do get signals in areas where my friends do not on AT&T, like this park that's down in a valley where I go running.



> Being on Verizon's 3G most of the time and LTE only sometimes, OR
> Being on AT&T's HSPA+ most of the time and LTE only sometimes?


Depends on what you feel is best mostly. I don't like saying which someone should use. I like Verizon based on where I live and that I am still on unlimited data.


----------



## yarly

Gorilla said:


> This thread was a hella good read..
> 
> Now that I have your app, I can see that my signal is not that bad.
> 
> LTE RSRP= -77
> LTE RSRQ= -7
> LTE SNR= -300
> 
> Based on these stats... ( I am using an HTC Rezound with the ICS Leak) (4.03)
> 
> Why is my LTE service so incosistent? It seems to ramp up during speedtests, then just drop the connection.
> 
> Same thing with browsing.. Sometimes its fine. other times the data connection just stops.


What are you using for speed tests could be the issue. I do not trust the speedtest app that everyone seems to use. Its told me before that my upload speed was something like 60Mbps, lol when I know it's not (this was just the other week as well). Best way to really figure it out is to use something like wget on the command line with a file from somewhere reliable (like microsoft for a service pack, google for the factory images, or some large server hosting center [most have speed test files to download]). You could also just tether and do that easier, though I still recommend doing it on the command line to access to more information.

The other issue and I have not confirmed Verizon does it or not is speed bursting on the network, where for a short time your speed is super amazing to help load webpages or small things faster and then it starts to level out shortly after. Easiest way to check for that on page load in the browser is to tether and load up something like firebug in firefox and switch to the network tab and watch how fast individual files load. ISPs do speed bursting a lot, especially cable ones.

When you say your data drops/stops, can you elaborate on that?

Also -77db and a 300db SNR are amazingly good, lol. 300db SNR especially.


----------



## exarkun

Folks are starting to get their verizon samsung galaxy s3 devices. Would be interesting if those with them could run this app and post the results here.


----------



## yarly

exarkun said:


> Folks are starting to get their verizon samsung galaxy s3 devices. Would be interesting if those with them could run this app and post the results here.


I'm sure if they don't, I'll be pestering them. S3 has Qualcomm modems in it. Next generation after what the TB and Rezound had.


----------



## Gorilla

yarly said:


> What are you using for speed tests could be the issue. I do not trust the speedtest app that everyone seems to use. Its told me before that my upload speed was something like 60Mbps, lol when I know it's not (this was just the other week as well). Best way to really figure it out is to use something like wget on the command line with a file from somewhere reliable (like microsoft for a service pack, google for the factory images, or some large server hosting center [most have speed test files to download]). You could also just tether and do that easier, though I still recommend doing it on the command line to access to more information.
> 
> The other issue and I have not confirmed Verizon does it or not is speed bursting on the network, where for a short time your speed is super amazing to help load webpages or small things faster and then it starts to level out shortly after. Easiest way to check for that on page load in the browser is to tether and load up something like firebug in firefox and switch to the network tab and watch how fast individual files load. ISPs do speed bursting a lot, especially cable ones.
> 
> When you say your data drops/stops, can you elaborate on that?
> 
> Also -77db and a 300db SNR are amazingly good, lol. 300db SNR especially.


Ok, its good to know that my phone is not a dud, and Im receiving a good strong signal....

I mean when im browsing the website loads, but sometimes I can visibly see the LTE signal dissapear, then it seems to comeback within a few seconds and reconnect, and then page loading resumes..

Its like the radio drops, then reconnects and finishes.


----------



## Gorilla

Do you think I should fork out the extra 120.00 and get the gs3, or stick with my rezound since im in my 14 day trial.


----------



## yarly

Gorilla said:


> I mean when im browsing the website loads, but sometimes I can visibly see the LTE signal dissapear, then it seems to comeback within a few seconds and reconnect, and then page loading resumes..
> 
> Its like the radio drops, then reconnects and finishes.


Sounds like it does have an issue if it does that. Maybe sim card related or something else. Hard to say as there's too many variables. Are you running stock? Custom firmware could be an issue as well or the radio you use.


----------



## Gorilla

Hmm, I wish I had 120.00 right now I want that gs3!


----------



## Gorilla

Im running Slim Rom, which is based on the latest leak 4.03 RUU from Verizon.

I had the same data issues prior to this flash tho.


----------



## yarly

Probably an issue with the sim card or the phone then.


----------



## Gorilla

It could never be the network? I think its the network.


----------



## yarly

Gorilla said:


> It could never be the network? I think its the network.


I don't have that issue on the Nexus and never had it on the Thunderbolt (good or bad area), so just saying it's abnormal, whatever it might be. Thunderbolt also has the same modems as the Rezound.


----------



## Gorilla

I returned my Rezound, it was hardware problem.


----------



## jkc120

Would REALLY love to see some side-by-side testing of the Razr and SGS3 with the Nexus with your app. I believe it will truly expose the Nexus radio for how poor it really is.









*edit* @SteveSpearTweet ran the OP's app on the SGS3 and Nexus. Interesting the RSRP and RSSI are close, but the SNR is night and day better on the SGS3. Looks like there might be some kind of issue with the app on the SGS3 though, some weird numbers there.

SGS3:
http://lockerz.com/s/223634211

Nexus:
http://lockerz.com/s/223634221


----------



## yarly

jkc120 said:


> Would REALLY love to see some side-by-side testing of the Razr and SGS3 with the Nexus with your app. I believe it will truly expose the Nexus radio for how poor it really is.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *edit* @SteveSpearTweet ran the OP's app on the SGS3 and Nexus. Interesting the RSRP and RSSI are close, but the SNR is night and day better on the SGS3. Looks like there might be some kind of issue with the app on the SGS3 though, some weird numbers there.
> 
> SGS3:
> http://lockerz.com/s/223634211
> 
> Nexus:
> http://lockerz.com/s/223634221


I've always thought the Signal to Noise ratio on the Nexus was less than average. It's starting to look that way the more data I collect. RSRP signal for LTE and RSSI for CDMA/EvDO seems pretty consistent with other phones, it's just the SNR (which is also used to compute bars besides the RSRP) that tends to be worse. Worse SNR could be for a number of reasons. Wish I knew the locations/surrounding area that the comparisons were made (inside/outside, metal roof, how many stories, lots of trees, elevation, etc).

Android 4.0 takes the better of the two (SNR or RSRP) and that's what is used to calculate the bars. That makes the bars kind of deceiving as you can have a crap RSRP and a good SNR and your bandwidth/throughput will still be great. They should probably do a better metric, like taking the average of both.

Weird numbers you can ignore. Those are just from the S3 not supporting some of the metrics in the API and I have to update it in the next version


----------



## uh-oh

What are classified as "weird"? I have similar CDMA / EVDO readings at my house, but 4G readings are always much better.
I think there were some tower upgrades at home and work (they are very far apart geographically), the 4G signals have gotten much better. I will post later readings at work and at home. Work is in an industrial park near a window, fairly wooded area for an industrial park, metal roof building.
Home is near a CIA installation (no kidding), wooded. Both are on plains with rolling hills.


----------



## I Am Marino

I find it interesting how my 3G on the Nexus is better than any other Verizon phone I've had, which is quite a few, my 4G is average.
Yet people say the Nexus' signal is terrible.


----------



## jroc74

I Am Marino said:


> I find it interesting how my 3G on the Nexus is better than any other Verizon phone I've had, which is quite a few, my 4G is average.
> Yet people say the Nexus' signal is terrible.


With me...I look at 3G, 4G and phone reception on these phones. Dont really care about Wifi. I try to take an overall look at it. b

Before updates my RAZR was probably last with 3G and 4G reception compared to the Rezound and 3G with the G Nex. Updates to the RAZR made it more even with the Rezound. Phone reception is probably my biggest thing to look at tho.


----------



## GaryGapinski

What app did you use to obtain the history shown?


----------



## uh-oh

There is a link in the op to dl the app.

Work is in an industrial park near a window, fairly wooded area for an industrial park, metal roof building, there is a tower nearby in the park (within a mile).
Home is near a CIA installation (no kidding), wooded, nearest tower about 1.5 mi. away.
Both are on coastal plains with rolling hills.

werk home
















hom


----------



## barski

I get this yet I'm still browsing the web. It's there a mod that can be done to adjust how many bars to db levels? Every other phone I'm around shows a fair amount more service than this phone. For example the incredible 2 has all bars. This thing will bounce back and forth from 0-1 bar. Literally 4 feet from the network extender and 3 bars.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


----------



## yarly

That says you have little to no signal when you are at -120db. It can't go any lower than that in the API readings. I understand you're next to a signal repeater/extender and it should show more though, but there's probably some underlying reason it isn't.

Have you compared what you see there with what you see on ICS or other JB ROMs? It could be an issue with who made it.

Just for example, I'm still running the near stock JB ROM I compiled on my own (haven't had time to compile cm10 yet or I would try that). Anyways, I live in an average 3g area and a mediocre LTE area and even where I am, I still show 1 bar or 2 on 3g for Jellybean and my signal is around -93db to -105db.



GaryGapinski said:


> What are classified as "weird"? I have similar CDMA / EVDO readings at my house, but 4G readings are always much better.
> I think there were some tower upgrades at home and work (they are very far apart geographically), the 4G signals have gotten much better. I will post later readings at work and at home. Work is in an industrial park near a window, fairly wooded area for an industrial park, metal roof building.
> Home is near a CIA installation (no kidding), wooded. Both are on plains with rolling hills.


Weird was referring to the numbers that are ridiculous looking on phones that don't support all the signal readings that are included in the Android API. The Rezound, S3 and some others left out a few that should read as N/A (when I update my app, I'll fix it). Those ones are the way out of wack numbers like in the thousands.


----------



## Davest

Just fyi, the radio on both of my GNexi is far weaker than the one on the Bionic that I had for a couple months before I upgraded to the GNex. This is NOT based on numbers reported, it's based on actual reception of a 4G data signal. I'm on the ragged edge of the 4G range here, which I'm sure has something to do with it. I suspect that if one is in an area that has a strong 4G signal it's not a problem, but when the signal is weak the reception is just not as good. I could get a reliable 4G signal in many areas of my house with the Bionic, and a rock-solid connection outside. With both GNexi I have, there was no spot in my house where I could get a 4G connection, and I had to go to particular areas outside to get any connection at all. In the end, I had to install a signal booster in my house to make use of the 4G signal here (there's no cable or DSL available at my house, so my GNex provides all my internet connectivity).


----------



## barski

Surprisingly I can watch YouTube vids flawlessly with the above reception. On jakedays Rom. 3.8. All we have to do is make it appear that were getting reception and people will be happy.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


----------



## yarly

I don't mean to knock that particular developer (because I respect anyone on this forum that puts out something for everyone to use), but his ROM has been known to have quite a few bugs in previous history. I would sincerely try something else and verify it's not a bug in his ROM after doing a nandroid backup. I can point you to where you can modify such things in the code, but if the problem can be solved, then no need to put duct tape over it 

I just advocate for solving problems first over covering them up and sweeping under the rug. If it really is an issue with that particular ROM, logcats or reporting to the developer can hopefully fix it.

Again, no hostile intent here or anything (I know how things can get misconstrued over the net). I just like to be sure it's an issue with the particular ROM or not since we're all here to learn and fix things.


----------



## barski

Trying XenonHD v4.0 and now I have a consistent 1 of 4 bars. Yarly I see your pretty good with the Android SDK and programming, any chance you could create a 5 or 6 bar signal indicator? Or maybe set the values for the db to signal bars a little higher. Like make more db to equal more bars?

I'm all for trying it myself if your willing to teach


----------



## yarly

Isn't there already mods out that show more than 4 bars?

I don't really recommend fudging the metrics that determine the bars. Currently it's using the main signal indicator (RSRP) for LTE or the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). Whichever is better, is the one that is used for displaying the bars. Google already padded the tolerance levels for the bars on LTE with ICS v4.0.4. They generally seem pretty consistent with the location I am in versus what is show for the signal data. The signal levels needed for each bar are listed in my original posting on the first page (and more info with links).

Maybe the RSRQ could be worked into determining how many bars are shown on the phone, but it would take more consideration as to how it should be worked in or what it should replace.


----------



## uh-oh

You can see in two of my previous postings the difference between displayed bars in ICS vs. JB. Both screenshots taken at the same place, no bars on ICS, four-five on JB. JB must have some radio tweaks because when I flashed 4.1 roms, battery life doubled with LTE on all the time. On ICS, I left only 3G on to get the same life.

ICS.










JB


----------



## jkc120

uh-oh said:


> You can see in two of my previous postings the difference between displayed bars in ICS vs. JB. Both screenshots taken at the same place, no bars on ICS, four-five on JB. JB must have some radio tweaks because when I flashed 4.1 roms, battery life doubled with LTE on all the time. On ICS, I left only 3G on to get the same life.


The radio is separate from the ROM (normally). It's possible they did something in the binary blobs or RIL, etc to help, but the radio firmware itself should be identical between ICS and JB unless you flashed a JB ROM that included the radio (which imho is a no-no).


----------



## uh-oh

jkc120 said:


> The radio is separate from the ROM (normally). It's possible they did something in the binary blobs or RIL, etc to help, but the radio firmware itself should be identical between ICS and JB unless you flashed a JB ROM that included the radio (which imho is a no-no).


I didn't mean the radios were tweaked, i think how the rom interprets radio signals got tweaked. I am using the same radios as with ICS and you can see the difference in _displayed_ signal strength. Wouldn't the rom also interact with the radios, telling the processors what to do? The radios are the same and when I was on the same developers' ROMs/ kernels/ gov's, I got _significantly_ lengthened battery life while 4G was activated on 4.1.1 than on 4.0.4.
Those are just my observations, ymmv.


----------



## yarly

> I am using the same radios as with ICS and you can see the difference in displayed signal strength.


On the nexus at least, the bars are calculated on the OS side, not within the radio OS/firmware (a la what HTC likes to do). On that note, the way they are calculated is the same as it was on 4.0.4. They changed in 4.0.2 → 4.0.4, but not since (typically showing one more bar than on 4.0.2 for anyone with LTE).

The LTE/CDMA binary driver blobs may have updated though, but didn't compare them.


----------



## Gorilla

I just got my Verizon Galaxy Nexus, and wanted someone to analyze my stats.


----------



## terryrook

I just got my 1st replacement gnex yesterday, it was horrible to root and unlock but I didn't have 1 data drop all day! So happy I could pee.


----------



## yarly

Gorilla said:


> I just got my Verizon Galaxy Nexus, and wanted someone to analyze my stats.


Better than mine when I'm at home, heh.


----------



## whozamazinka

yarly,

Thank you so much for this information. So great. I must admit, I haven't read through every page of this thread yet. It's a lot of info to take in. So I will be asking my question without being fully researched, and I hope I don't get flamed for that. I already know that my question looks very similar to another fellow who posted a few pages back.
Also, I hope I'm not too late to the party. The last post was a few days ago so I'm hopeful that this thread hasn't been abandoned.

Anyway, I just got my gnex about 6 days ago. I could care less about bars, dB, all that stuff. All I care is that my phone works. I noticed on my second day of owning the device that I would drop my connection as soon as I picked up my device and put a 'load' on it. (Started pulling data) It would drop connection for about 30-45 seconds. The blue bars would go empty, then to grey, then back to blue and I'd have my connection back. It was happening any time that I'd start using my phone. So I started reading about 'bad connections on the gnex', etc, etc. I loaded an app call 'no signal alert' to tell me when I lost connection, even if the phone was in my pocket. In the past 24 hours, I've lost connection 58 times! Now granted, I only work 2.5 miles from home, and most of day is spent between these two places, so I started thinking that maybe I just have crap LTE reception in this area. But I live in Seattle. And although I'm 10 miles out of downtown, Verizon shows full LTE coverage on their maps. Also, I was downtown for part of Saturday, and it was still losing connection.
I'm starting to think that I got a lemon. Are all those drops normal? And how long does it take to resume connection

Anyway, I was wondering, does that seem normal to you? I went in to Verizon and they told me "yeah, everyone is complaining about that with the gnex. It is a software issue that Samsung is looking into." I don't believe that guy for a second.
I loaded your signal info application onto my phone and took a screen shot of the output. Would you mind letting me know if you can tell from the numbers if I just get crap LTE reception and should expect to lose my connection all the time at home, or if I've got a dud device.

Also, should the handoff from LTE to 3G take 30-45 seconds of no connection?

(Shoot. Turns out I don't know how to upload an image here. Aparently I suck at this.)
LTE RSRP : -96db
LTE RSSI -72 db
LTE RSRQ: -7db

(Hopefully that helps. I know that you said you'll drop to 3G if you are +12db or greater, so I'm assuming I should be ok at -7? Lower is better, right?)


----------



## whozamazinka

Ok. Looks like I had to do an 'advanced' post to post an image.


----------



## yarly

Those are average to slightly above average readings on your device so yeah, it shouldn't have a problem. Was that a reading in the same area you're experiencing the drop outs (i.e. indoors if it's mostly indoors). Is it a fairly consistent reading no matter where you go around your area? Do you experience dropouts during calls and on 3g as well?

Assuming you're on stock still and your answer to the above, it's most likely a faulty sim card or phone. It really shouldn't get dropouts in a signal area like that. Your SNR is above average and RSRQ is decent. Signal is only average for LTE, but SNR tends to matter more for the overall quality and how well your phone is connected to the tower.

You can ask for a new sim card or take the phone back to Verizon. Other alternative if you wish is to send it back directly to Samsung in an effort to decrease your chances of getting a lemon in exchange.


----------



## kaosis

uh-oh said:


> You can see in two of my previous postings the difference between displayed bars in ICS vs. JB. Both screenshots taken at the same place, no bars on ICS, four-five on JB. JB must have some radio tweaks because when I flashed 4.1 roms, battery life doubled with LTE on all the time. On ICS, I left only 3G on to get the same life.
> 
> ICS.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> JB


How is your battery lasting so long? Do you rarely use your phone with most of the settings disabled? I'm assuming you're using a 3850 mAH rated extended battery.


----------



## uh-oh

I had a 3 800 mAh battery, the first picture had data on/ syncing, 3G only unless on Youtube or dl'ng something. I had it undervolted on slimics, the second one was on NexusBean with GLaDOS kernel on stock settings with 4G on all the time. 
On a "heavy" use day, I get maybe 16 hours with 3-3.5 hours screen-on time.


----------



## whozamazinka

Yarly,

Thanks so much for your response. I really appreciate it. For a day or so I was just wondering if the gnex was crap hardware all the way around! (That thought made me sad...I love this phone aside from the drops!) Glad to hear that it is probably just my device....and maybe bad QC on the part of Samsung. 

Yea, that reading was from the exact same place as I've had three dropped calls just this morning...sitting at my desk in the living room.
I'm not sure about 3g calls, since I haven't forced this phone into CDMA except for a few hours a few days ago. (Not one drop during that time, by the way.) But my old Dinc was 3g only, and I have never had a dropped call on it. So I'd assume that 3g signal isn't an issue.

Is it more likely to be a sim card, or a phone (hardware) issue, do you think?

Thanks again for your help!
Jim



yarly said:


> Those are average to slightly above average readings on your device so yeah, it shouldn't have a problem. Was that a reading in the same area you're experiencing the drop outs (i.e. indoors if it's mostly indoors). Is it a fairly consistent reading no matter where you go around your area? Do you experience dropouts during calls and on 3g as well?
> 
> Assuming you're on stock still and your answer to the above, it's most likely a faulty sim card or phone. It really shouldn't get dropouts in a signal area like that. Your SNR is above average and RSRQ is decent. Signal is only average for LTE, but SNR tends to matter more for the overall quality and how well your phone is connected to the tower.
> 
> You can ask for a new sim card or take the phone back to Verizon. Other alternative if you wish is to send it back directly to Samsung in an effort to decrease your chances of getting a lemon in exchange.


----------



## yarly

whozamazinka said:


> Yarly,
> 
> Thanks so much for your response. I really appreciate it. For a day or so I was just wondering if the gnex was crap hardware all the way around! (That thought made me sad...I love this phone aside from the drops!) Glad to hear that it is probably just my device....and maybe bad QC on the part of Samsung.
> 
> Yea, that reading was from the exact same place as I've had three dropped calls just this morning...sitting at my desk in the living room.
> I'm not sure about 3g calls, since I haven't forced this phone into CDMA except for a few hours a few days ago. (Not one drop during that time, by the way.) But my old Dinc was 3g only, and I have never had a dropped call on it. So I'd assume that 3g signal isn't an issue.
> 
> Is it more likely to be a sim card, or a phone (hardware) issue, do you think?
> 
> Thanks again for your help!
> Jim


Won't know until you eliminate a variable. I'd say the device, but I'd rather swap sim cards before losing the phone to sending it back for a few days or more.


----------



## Philosophre

I currently have the same issues. I would lose my 4g/signal throughtout the day. I swapped sim cards and it still occurs. Starting to think it is the phone.


----------



## jkc120

Philosophre said:


> I currently have the same issues. I would lose my 4g/signal throughtout the day. I swapped sim cards and it still occurs. Starting to think it is the phone.


I am fairly sure you have bad hardware. You should swap the device.


----------



## Philosophre

attempting to test a few radios/basebands to see then i'll attemtp to get another gnex

Edit: looks like there is no current software that can remedy this issue, so it is hardware. Supposedly there is a software fixing coming out soon. Fingers crossed. I bought mine via ebay new.


----------



## yarly

Any sort of software fix would have to be in the radio firmware if it's possible. Since it's pretty hard to tell what goes on inside the radio firmware while the phone runs due to being a "blackbox" and Sammy not being as open as Qualcomm is with offering SDK solutions to work with their modem chipsets, it's hard to say if there's anything to fix at all. I'd say as it has been a problem for some since the phone came out and it not affecting most devices overall, a possible software solution is unlikely and that some phones are just "born" as lemons.


----------



## Philosophre

thanks, sound like it is time to send it in for a replacement. they send back refurbs or recerts rite? not a completely new phone.


----------



## kaosis

Philosophre said:


> thanks, sound like it is time to send it in for a replacement. they send back refurbs or recerts rite? not a completely new phone.


That's correct. I'm on my second certified like new device with still the same issue. I'll try a few more times I guess. I've heard some people were able to get the S3 as their comparable replacement..


----------



## Philosophre

but i dont want an S3... if anything I would buy the S3 from samsung to get the developers edition...
3g works fine plus it saves ALOT of battery, but I want my webpages NOW with 4g.
hoping for a 4g capable gnex.


----------



## I Am Marino

Philosophre said:


> but i dont want an S3... if anything I would buy the S3 from samsung to get the developers edition...
> 3g works fine plus it saves ALOT of battery, but I want my webpages NOW with 4g.
> hoping for a 4g capable gnex.


Really? You can't load your websites a 1/100 of a second faster?
3G is more than fast enough.


----------



## yarly

I Am Marino said:


> Really? You can't load your websites a 1/100 of a second faster?
> 3G is more than fast enough.


Maybe he loads a lot of wordpress created sites and other various blog sites created by people that have no realization that scaling a 1-3mb picture down 50% in width & height does not decrease the size of the image on load. I especially love it when people do that with thumbnails and there's like 50 of them on the page


----------



## Philosophre

funny thing is that the 3g isn't stable either. i lose 3g signal about once every two hours while I drop sporatically 10 times in an hour with 4g.
I don't mind the 3g, it does save batteries. The only issue is that I use the hotspot and I would like to pull things somewhat fast on my tethered N7 plus I am paying for 4g even though it is the same price of when I was paying 3g back in the day. d/ling is what I feel 4g is really used for instead of 3g for webpages. damn lemon phone. Supposed a fix is coming since the binary came out.


----------



## slimpirudude

so is there any hacks or mods that you can do to make it display the signal as all other phones do?


----------



## Mustang302LX

slimpirudude said:


> so is there any hacks or mods that you can do to make it display the signal as all other phones do?


All that would do is make the signal look better but what good is that? I'd rather see 1 bar and have it be accurate than to see 3-4 bars of false signal.


----------



## opensourceordie

i get same or better reception than HTC Incredible so I don't think there is really much of a problem


----------



## Mustang302LX

opensourceordie said:


> i get same or better reception than HTC Incredible so I don't think there is really much of a problem


I've been saying the same since basically day 1. My wife's Rezound has the same signal as I do everywhere. No drops or issues at all.


----------



## jrock204657

Learned a lot from reading this. Thanks a lot for the effort into making this thread.


----------



## Wade_0

poontab said:


> This a million times this. Now maybe the number of "Samsung don't havers 1337 waydee-0s" posts will decrease.


Took me a bit to figure out you weren't talking about me


----------



## msu

Mine seems to be better now since the updated radios! Thank goodnes.


----------



## wickets

thanks a lot for all the info


----------



## uh-oh

From the same spot on my desk.


----------



## ben7337

Okay, I haven't read the entirety of this thread yet, but I've gone through the OP post quite a few times just skipping the math portions. I've also read Sprint's take on RSRP and RSRQ. This combined with what other people said, I was under the assumption that RSRP can generally be seen as -20 to -23 dbm weaker than RSSI signal. However after rereading this thread and looking at signal strength data, I'm getting the feeling that this is not really accurate.

What I guess I'm trying to figure out or wondering, is if being in a rural area where 3g and 1x signal is consistently between -85dbm and -100dbm, am I basically supposed to expect to get crap to no LTE signal, or drop it constantly? Right now there is only 3g on the tower that reaches my house, but my Galaxy Nexus displays signal as between -83dbm and -100dbm. I am in NJ however and have been told 3g is on PCS spectrum here, and not CLR spectrum, however my signal strength for 3g and 1x at home seems to contradict this. Either way I am getting the feeling I will get -110 to -120 dbm on 4g when it comes, which would be 1-2 bars the way my Gnex currently converts dbm to bars, and so signal would look fine but would likely drop out. Similar to how it does at my work where I get good downloads, but crap uploads well under 1mbps, and see -111dbm to -118 dbm. 4g drops out constantly there. Though in verizon's defense, last week they did something to the tower I was on which made signal drop dramatically. It used to be -83dbm for 3g on a coworker's droid razr, now it is -110 to -112dbm on 3g.

Anyway long story short, I guess I'm just trying to figure out if LTE will always suck where I live and travel because it seems to mostly be weaker than -100dbm which would according to this thread be symptomatic of a bad signal. If I only get -93dbm at home on RSSI values for 3g, then I can't imagine getting better than -105dbm on 4g which might mean useless signal or my phone draining itself super fast and it just depresses and worries me to now be figuring out that LTE could be borderline useless outside of cities where signal is often stronger.


----------



## yarly

uh-oh said:


> From the same spot on my desk.


Thanks for the readings. When you took those, did you let them sit for 20-30 seconds? I know sometimes the readings don't always update quickly on phones.



> I was under the assumption that RSRP can generally be seen as -20 to -23 dbm weaker than RSSI signal. However after rereading this thread and looking at signal strength data, I'm getting the feeling that this is not really accurate.


RSRP is a totally different measurement (and measured on a different scale for LTE). Both are measured in decibels (but so is SNR as well and other readings), but each measures diferent aspects of your current connection to the cell tower. If you grab the app I made and try it, you can see the differences if you like or manually calculate it using the math formula I provided. RSSI always shows as being better though if you do a direct comparison.



> What I guess I'm trying to figure out or wondering, is if being in a rural area where 3g and 1x signal is consistently between -85dbm and -100dbm, am I basically supposed to expect to get crap to no LTE signal, or drop it constantly?


One really can't use 3g as a metric to predict how good your LTE signal will be. Not every tower may have LTE and the differences between range for LTE and CDMA vary (LTE potentially has a farther range from the tower and things like lots of nearby trees can affect signal). The 3g signal is also measured by RSSI. You do have 14 days to switch to a different phone though if it's bad for you (for Verizon at least).



> Either way I am getting the feeling I will get -110 to -120 dbm on 4g when it comes, which would be 1-2 bars the way my Gnex currently converts dbm to bars, and so signal would look fine but would likely drop out.


Ohh, you're on Sprint? Well that throws a monkey wrench into things. RSSI may also be calculated differently for sprint, since it factors in the number of channels on the carrier (not sure if sprint has the same number as Verizon or not). Sprint's LTE is a different frequency as well (800mhz), so that will probably affect things well as far as reception and readings. I honestly don't know how great Sprint's network is now or will be when it has LTE in the future. I had Sprint from like 2001 to 2004.



> If I only get -93dbm at home on RSSI values for 3g, then I can't imagine getting better than -105dbm on 4g which might mean useless signal or my phone draining itself super fast and it just depresses and worries me to now be figuring out that LTE could be borderline useless outside of cities where signal is often stronger.


On verizon at least, I get around -93gb or so at home on 3g. My LTE is around -100db to -110db. Basically it sucks and I use 3g if I'm in my house (or wifi [mostly wifi as I hate the slower latency times for webpages on cell networks]) as my SNR is crap and so it can't send data worth a damn (a signal in the low 100s is not totally horrible while idle IF you have a decent SNR as a crappy SNR is an indication it's going to eat battery more often when idle than RSRP in many cases). Outside, the signal is basically the same (closer to -100db or a little less), but the SNR is much better and it works quite well out there.


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## ben7337

yarly said:


> Thanks for the readings. When you took those, did you let them sit for 20-30 seconds? I know sometimes the readings don't always update quickly on phones.
> 
> RSRP is a totally different measurement (and measured on a different scale for LTE). Both are measured in decibels (but so is SNR as well and other readings), but each measures diferent aspects of your current connection to the cell tower. If you grab the app I made and try it, you can see the differences if you like or manually calculate it using the math formula I provided. RSSI always shows as being better though if you do a direct comparison.
> 
> One really can't use 3g as a metric to predict how good your LTE signal will be. Not every tower may have LTE and the differences between range for LTE and CDMA vary (LTE potentially has a farther range from the tower and things like lots of nearby trees can affect signal). The 3g signal is also measured by RSSI. You do have 14 days to switch to a different phone though if it's bad for you (for Verizon at least).
> 
> Ohh, you're on Sprint? Well that throws a monkey wrench into things. RSSI may also be calculated differently for sprint, since it factors in the number of channels on the carrier (not sure if sprint has the same number as Verizon or not). Sprint's LTE is a different frequency as well (800mhz), so that will probably affect things well as far as reception and readings. I honestly don't know how great Sprint's network is now or will be when it has LTE in the future. I had Sprint from like 2001 to 2004.
> 
> On verizon at least, I get around -93gb or so at home on 3g. My LTE is around -100db to -110db. Basically it sucks and I use 3g if I'm in my house (or wifi [mostly wifi as I hate the slower latency times for webpages on cell networks]) as my SNR is crap and so it can't send data worth a damn (a signal in the low 100s is not totally horrible while idle IF you have a decent SNR as a crappy SNR is an indication it's going to eat battery more often when idle than RSRP in many cases). Outside, the signal is basically the same (closer to -100db or a little less), but the SNR is much better and it works quite well out there.


I'm not on sprint, but in reading about RSRP I read a page sprint has giving facts on how the signal is weaker. That was also where I got the -20 dbm weaker information.

http://s4gru.com/ind...trength-primer/

"Since the logarithmic ratio of 100 subcarriers to one subcarrier is 20 dB (e.g. 10 × log₁₀ 100 = 20), RSSI tends to measure about 20 dB higher than does RSRP. Or, to put it another way, RSRP measures about 20 dB lower than what we are accustomed to observing for a given signal level. Thus, that superficially weak -102 dBm RSRP signal level that we saw previously would actually be roughly -82 dBm if it were converted to RSSI."

That's what I read at one point.

Why would Sprint's signal take into account the number of channels for signal strength but verizon wouldn't? Doesn't verizon also have multiple channels? Now of course the numbers of channels may vary even market to market, but the logic behind it should be important.

Also it has been my experience that in a rural area there's probably only 1-2 towers I can connect to with my phone, however I can't be 100% sure I suppose. Is there an app that can accurately show me the different towers I connect to, to know how many even get signal out to me?

I'd also like to point out that the galaxy nexus 3g rssi measurements were crippled by verizon when people didn't like the accuracy from what I gather, as my phone with your app in my house only reports 3 things.

1) CDMA RSSI -93 db
EVDO RSSI -90 db
CDMA?EVDO ECIO: -120
EVDO SNR 3

2) CDMA RSSI -83 db
EVDO RSSI -75 db
CDMA?EVDO ECIO: -100
EVDO SNR 5

3)CDMA RSSI -100 db
EVDO RSSI -105 db
CDMA?EVDO ECIO: -150
EVDO SNR 1

The values never vary because it has no accuracy in measuring, it is just seeing signal somewhere between these points and rounding to one of those numbers which directly means a certain number of bars. I can't test lte here since it isn't close enough to me, but I can go to the local walmart later, it's on a hill and gets 4g from some far away tower just barely. like -114 to -118 dbm.

My biggest issue with weak signal doesn't appear to be the download so much as the upload. Do you find this to be the case quite commonly? Or is it just my phones? I am on an unlimited plan on verizon so have been buying used phones. I had a thunderbolt, a stratosphere, 3 galaxy nexii, a droid razr, and am getting a pair of pantech marauders because they are mad cheap and I want to see how the qualcomm solution for radios and modems and such works.


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## yarly

> Why would Sprint's signal take into account the number of channels for signal strength but verizon wouldn't? Doesn't verizon also have multiple channels? Now of course the numbers of channels may vary even market to market, but the logic behind it should be important.


It does, I just simpified the equation for the Math to factor them in already for Verizon as I was able to find out how many Verizon uses and I didn't write up or make my app exactly to be intended for LTE on other networks.


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## uh-oh

yarly said:


> Thanks for the readings. When you took those, did you let them sit for 20-30 seconds? I know sometimes the readings don't always update quickly on phones.


When I took the screenshots, I just pulled the app open while the devices had been sitting on my desk for a couple of hours. LTE readings aren't all that much different, but the 3G/ CDMA were substantially stronger with the spyder than with the toro. Oh, but how I miss the toro...


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## yarly

uh-oh said:


> When I took the screenshots, I just pulled the app open while the devices had been sitting on my desk for a couple of hours. LTE readings aren't all that much different, but the 3G/ CDMA were substantially stronger with the spyder than with the toro. Oh, but how I miss the toro...


I'm sure it was okay then and stuff, just had to ask from my own gathering of readings and seeing the signal update from the system being slow to change (nothing I can do about it, it's the system/radios not notifying quicker unfortunately).


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## Sicklysuite

Thanks for this awesome explanation yarly! Very informative!


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## Elvis_Marmaduke

I've never had signal issues or dropped calls with Verizon :-/

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## exarkun

GS3 and GNexus at the same location on my desk.


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## c0ns0le

Just thought I'd share



















Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## mcp770

Please let this thread go peacefully into the night.


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## yarly

I just released an updated version of the app and also released it finally to the market. You can find it in the new topic I created in the application forum.

Questions or support related to the app should be directed to the new topic instead of here if possible.

Also unpinned the topic since it's not an issue that people keep bringing up anymore like it was earlier this year.


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## warner

This is most useful information. Thanks.

I loaded the application on my galaxy 7.7 tablet (verizon). It is very useful to see CDMA and LTE signal strengths on the same screen. It is most interesting to see the difference in building envelope penetration between 700 MHz (LTE) and 1900 MHz (CDMA).

I did find a situation where the signal strengths are confusing. If you measure signals in an area where you get signal reports from both CDMA and LTE, then your device goes to sleep and you wake it up in an area that is CDMA-only, the LTE results are frozen on the screen. It appears that they are waiting for the next update from the LTE radio, but since the LTE isn't connected, there will be no updates and you're left to look at readings that indicate a perhaps respectable signal when, in fact, there is none. Completely powering off the tablet and turning it back on causes a sensible indication of "N/A" in all the LTE categories.


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## yarly

warner said:


> This is most useful information. Thanks.
> 
> I loaded the application on my galaxy 7.7 tablet (verizon). It is very useful to see CDMA and LTE signal strengths on the same screen. It is most interesting to see the difference in building envelope penetration between 700 MHz (LTE) and 1900 MHz (CDMA).
> 
> I did find a situation where the signal strengths are confusing. If you measure signals in an area where you get signal reports from both CDMA and LTE, then your device goes to sleep and you wake it up in an area that is CDMA-only, the LTE results are frozen on the screen. It appears that they are waiting for the next update from the LTE radio, but since the LTE isn't connected, there will be no updates and you're left to look at readings that indicate a perhaps respectable signal when, in fact, there is none. Completely powering off the tablet and turning it back on causes a sensible indication of "N/A" in all the LTE categories.


Yeah, guess that's kind of a bug in a way (or a feature depending on how you look at it). I should probably add an option to remove the signal readings if they're no longer being updating instead of letting them stay.


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## rajan

Nice applicatiion
I have tried myself using my own app code with my Sony Experia V(LTE/UMTS/GSM) to readout the signal strength values.I get other LTE measurements and also networkstate=LTE.
I only get -1 for the lteCqi.Has this been seen before? I get other LTE measurements and also networkstate=LTE.
Another question is there any way to get the neighbouring cell information measurements for LTE?


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## yarly

Huh? Your own app code? I can't guess issues you might have in your own code (not that I am saying you have any, but your code is not open source for me to see, while mine is). I understand if you're using your own code for the sake of learning, but you're kind of "reinventing the wheel" and sounds like you're dealing with issues I already solved if not.

Neighboring cell locations are supported as part of the Android SDK if you haven't referenced it yet.

As for -1, you can find the detailed answer for that in the Android source file related to signal strength. If you're not sure which file that is, I quote it somewhere in the OP and give a link I think.

The short answer is that it means one (or more) of the following:

-you have no reading for that

-the RIL Sony (or whomever makes your ROM if not stock) implemented for your device does not support that reading

-the radio firmware itself does not support it.

I've seen all 3 cases before. Cyanogen Samsung RIL for the Verizon Galaxy S3 was recently fixed to show CQI properly for Cyanogen after not for some time. ROM developers really should be looking at all the readings for the radio interface before and after they mod the RIL to make sure nothing was changed really. If the readings don't match what they do on stock, it's probably a good indication the RIL was messed up a bit while porting.


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## rajan

Thanks for the answer
The reason for doing an own app is that I want to use the information coming from the radio for other purposes not displaying it as your excellent app is doing
I will be happy to share it when have come a little bit further.

I am rather new to Android and I am not sure that I always looking at the correct libraries .
But regarding the neighbouring cell
It doesn't mention LTE only GSM and WCDMA.
NeighboringCellInfo(int rssi, String location, int radioType)
Initialize the object from rssi, location string, and radioType radioType is one of following TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_GPRS, TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_EDGE, TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_UMTS, TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_HSDPA, TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_HSUPA, and TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_HSPA.

This is the signal strength values coming from the UE when the UE is attached to LTE
256 is the SINR(25,6 dB) and 2147483647 is the CQI if I understand it correctly.I have never seen any good values in the CQI field
99 0 -120 -160 -120 -1 -1 31 -68 -6 256 2147483647


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## yarly

I'm actually going to make the core part of my app a separate library available on github eventually. It's already decoupled from the UI layer of my app, just have to move around some classes to different packages and put it in a jar. Everything is quite documented as well (within the code) because I believe in documenting everything for sanity reasons . Currently, you can run it though a decorator and it will dump back out a filtered array of the data that the system provides already, but with values that are valid (or if they're not valid, it shows n/a or whatever you define for invalid). There's also a more complex decorator to dump it back with a hashtable instead, but that might be more than you need.

I haven't messed with neighboring cell locations much, but where you are and the fact there is no CDMA there, the towers providing you HSPA are also going to be the same towers providing you with LTE I'm sure. Did you try calling it with another NetworkType though than those? Also, see http://developer.and...boringCellInfo()


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## rajan

That would be really nice if you code was in a library
"Did you try calling it with another NetworkType though than those"
No I didn't but by looking at the different fields that exist in the neighboringcell it doesn't look like LTE parameters. If it should be usable for LTE it should exist RSRP,RSRQ and physical cell id which doesn't exist. in neighboringcellinfo


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## yarly

rajan said:


> That would be really nice if you code was in a library
> "Did you try calling it with another NetworkType though than those"
> No I didn't but by looking at the different fields that exist in the neighboringcell it doesn't look like LTE parameters. If it should be usable for LTE it should exist RSRP,RSRQ and physical cell id which doesn't exist. in neighboringcellinfo


Idk if I would assume that. Things like RSRQ aren't actually exposed directly in the Android API and LTE does not have first class support for pulling out information really as of even Android 4.2. I would try it anyways.


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## AuroEdge

In all the time I've owned this handset I didn't see it firsthand this badly until this weekend. Long story short, vzw Galaxy S3s were having relatively stable data connections (2 bars), whereas Galaxy Nexus had no bars at all and had extremely spotty service. Somebody with a Fascinate had better service than me!

There were multiple handsets of the 2 types all exhibiting the same trends. Just making sure everybody knows what they already knew


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## poontab

Mr yarly here's a note 2 in the terrible coverage that is my house. Strict & adjusted. Fix it.


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## yarly

poontab said:


> Mr yarly here's a note 2 in the terrible coverage that is my house. Strict & adjusted. Fix it.


Weird how your CDMA reception is so much better, heh. Were you inside at the time? I never looked at it much, but LTE being about 1/2 the frequency of most of the CDMA bands could lead to a slightly worse signal indoors for LTE. That's only a very rough guess though.


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## poontab

yarly said:


> Weird how your CDMA reception is so much better, heh. Were you inside at the time? I never looked at it much, but LTE being about 1/2 the frequency of most of the CDMA bands could lead to a slightly worse signal indoors for LTE. That's only a very rough guess though.


Yeah inside at my house where there's barely any 4g coverage & sketchy 3g. I'm gonna blame Samsung for the Qualcomm radios that everyone uses though.


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## yawdapaah

I've sold off my GNex and am waiting for a Dev Ed Moto X to be delivered. In the interim, I've been using my manager's old Thunderbolt and I'm blown away by how much better the signal strength and battery are compared to GNex. Consistent, usable LTE at my desk where as the GNex would flip back and forth between LTE/3G. @yarly does your app work on Mecha ICS? I'm hoping to use it to measure the signal strength of the Moto X vs the TBolt.


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## yarly

yawdapaah said:


> I've sold off my GNex and am waiting for a Dev Ed Moto X to be delivered. In the interim, I've been using my manager's old Thunderbolt and I'm blown away by how much better the signal strength and battery are compared to GNex. Consistent, usable LTE at my desk where as the GNex would flip back and forth between LTE/3G. @yarly does your app work on Mecha ICS? I'm hoping to use it to measure the signal strength of the Moto X vs the TBolt.


Lte never shows for it unless something changed. Rezound would show, even on gingerbread. You can try and see though. My thunderbolt is broke so haven't tried myself.


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## poontab

Mr yarly do you know of a way to present the available bands of hw or if this can be incorporated into your app?


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## yarly

poontab said:


> Mr yarly do you know of a way to present the available bands of hw or if this can be incorporated into your app?


There's no real automated way I could give them with the metrics I have to work with unless I have missed something. There's some lower level stuff beyond the Android API that starts to delve into being device specific that may be able to retrieve them, but it would require root on top of it, so I haven't bothered to go that route. However, if anyone finds something I missed, I'm open to ideas, but I rather avoid going the route of custom code for every device + root, since that's a huge mess and I could only test for a couple devices myself. I'd have to think about it, but I am personally sort of curious to try it.

This is the only way as far as I know to get that info though and requires root and hoping a device formats things in that particular way. Much of the approach to actually do what they say would no longer work in that particular way due to changes in making the RIL layer and system id switching more secure as well.

Alternative to that, I could tell users the likely bands they are on for their carrier, by building some sort of list of them and displaying the likely ones. It wouldn't give the exact band and frequency though.


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## poontab

yarly said:


> There's no real automated way I could give them with the metrics I have to work with unless I have missed something. There's some lower level stuff beyond the Android API that starts to delve into being device specific that may be able to retrieve them, but it would require root on top of it, so I haven't bothered to go that route. However, if anyone finds something I missed, I'm open to ideas, but I rather avoid going the route of custom code for every device + root, since that's a huge mess and I could only test for a couple devices myself. I'd have to think about it, but I am personally sort of curious to try it.
> 
> This is the only way as far as I know to get that info though and requires root and hoping a device formats things in that particular way. Much of the approach to actually do what they say would no longer work in that particular way due to changes in making the RIL layer and system id switching more secure as well.
> 
> Alternative to that, I could tell users the likely bands they are on for their carrier, by building some sort of list of them and displaying the likely ones. It wouldn't give the exact band and frequency though.


Damn I've already goofed around with the known field test solutions with no luck.


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## yarly

poontab said:


> Damn I've already goofed around with the known field test solutions with no luck.


You're on a Qualcomm chipset now right? Something like that should work for you if so.


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## poontab

yarly said:


> You're on a Qualcomm chipset now right? Something like that should work for you if so.


No exynos :-/


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## yarly

poontab said:


> No exynos :-/


Oh, sorry to hear that.


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## poontab

yarly said:


> Oh, sorry to hear that.


Poor ears/eyes


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## poontab

Guess I'd need something like this http://www.anritsu.com/en-US/Products-Solutions/Products/MD8475A.aspx


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## DR3W5K1

poontab said:


> Guess I'd need something like this http://www.anritsu.com/en-US/Products-Solutions/Products/MD8475A.aspx


That is a really neat device. Hurry up and get it yarley said he would throw in on it. ;-)


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## yarly

poontab said:


> Guess I'd need something like this http://www.anritsu.com/en-US/Products-Solutions/Products/MD8475A.aspx


Oh wow, get me one too, lol.


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## poontab

yarly said:


> Oh wow, get me one too, lol.


Pretty neat piece of gear. I knew there was something out there like this but I forgot what it was called until the other day.


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