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Signal Switching...

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slibbidy Member Level: Analog

slibbidy

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Hello,

 

Lately, I've noticed that my OG Evo running CM 7.2 is dropping into 1x in areas that were previously 3G. Going into Airplane mode (or waiting for what I assume is a tower switch will put it back into 3G. I've read some posts here that seem to indicate (at least to me) that it is the phone that determines what signal to use. What are the conditions that must be met for the signal change to be made? What would be causing my phone to drop into 1x more than it used to? To be honest, I've been meaning to learn more about this for a while, so having this issue seems like a great time to start.

 

Thanks for all your hard work here, and I love the site.

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Mercurial1 Member Level: 3G EVDO

Mercurial1

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Hello,

 

Lately, I've noticed that my OG Evo running CM 7.2 is dropping into 1x in areas that were previously 3G. Going into Airplane mode (or waiting for what I assume is a tower switch will put it back into 3G. I've read some posts here that seem to indicate (at least to me) that it is the phone that determines what signal to use. What are the conditions that must be met for the signal change to be made? What would be causing my phone to drop into 1x more than it used to? To be honest, I've been meaning to learn more about this for a while, so having this issue seems like a great time to start.

 

Thanks for all your hard work here, and I love the site.

You are not alone. My evo lte and my gs3 are doing the same thing ib Massachusetts. Not sure what the cause is but so far ni tickets are open. You can call care and have them open one.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

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slibbidy Member Level: Analog

slibbidy

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Thanks, Mercurial. I'll do that, but I'm willing to put up with it since I know the current network is oversubscribed and there's not much they can do about it until NV gets rolled out.

 

Really, I'm just curious about how the phone determines the signal it will use, and when to drop to 1x in the presence of a 3G signal. Is it signal strength, some calculation of throughput, etc? Could anyone point me to more detail about this? It's pretty interesting stuff, and I'm just getting into it because of this site.

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billyjoejimbob Member Level: Digital

billyjoejimbob

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The likely cause of going from 1x to 3G more often is a weaker signal on the 3G network. Why all of a sudden? Cell Breathing. Here's a link to a decent article that explains it pretty well. Basically as the tower gets more and more overloaded with users, it's coverage shrinks.

 

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/01/giz-explains-why-your-call-dropped/

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slibbidy Member Level: Analog

slibbidy

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The likely cause of going from 1x to 3G more often is a weaker signal on the 3G network. Why all of a sudden? Cell Breathing. Here's a link to a decent article that explains it pretty well. Basically as the tower gets more and more overloaded with users, it's coverage shrinks.

 

http://www.gizmodo.c...r-call-dropped/

 

Interesting stuff! The article stated

Likewise, the more people that are using a cell tower, the more power each phone needs to be “heard” by the tower. This actually results in a contraction of the cell’s coverage area.

 

Does this mean that in a literal sense, the more overloaded a tower is, the shorter the battery life will be on my phone?

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billyjoejimbob Member Level: Digital

billyjoejimbob

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Does this mean that in a literal sense, the more overloaded a tower is, the shorter the battery life will be on my phone?

 

I'd say in general that would be the case. The weaker the signal from the tower, the more power your phone has to use to maintain the connection. The more overloaded the tower, the weaker the signal gets.

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JohnHovah Member Level: 4G WiMax

JohnHovah

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well I've certainly noticed a similar problem in respect to 3g/1x here in San Diego (all devices, wimax, prewimax and lte). I am certainly hoping this has more to do with the NV towers that should've starting going live over the last several weeks but aren't squawking any LTE signals... Perhaps they are upgrading backhaul routes to the regional MSC which is cutting down the effective bandwidth and reducing the signal footprint.

 

The signal strength and range has plummeted abysmally in an escalating downspiral since mid September. MUST MEAN LTE IS ALMOST HERE!! (sorry, had to quote that post)

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