SignalCheck - Android app to monitor your Wi-Fi/2G/3G/4G LTE/5G-NR signal strengths

[mikejeep]

Right, for 99 percent of 3GPP handsets, only one airlink is active at a time.  And to tie this in with our "Breaking Band" thread, T-Mobile and AT&T have always used e/CSFB to fall back from LTE to W-CDMA or GSM.

 

Along those same lines, I am curious why the "GSM" section stays on screen while connected to LTE.  Plus, you offer the option of a "GSM" secondary status bar icon.  But my "GSM" readout, for example, stays fixed at -85 dBm because I am definitely not connected to GSM nor W-CDMA while connected to LTE.

 

Thoughts?

 

Ha, wish I read this earlier.. thank you for confirming CSFB is used by those carriers, had a question about that about a little while ago (Robert quickly saved the day!). I had actually noticed the "stuck" -85 dBm signal in the GSM section myself and included a fix in the beta update I pushed out last night, so now those folks are now curious as to why their signal has "disappeared" while connected to LTE.

 

EDIT: Now that I read your post again, are you saying that nearly all GSM devices will only show one connection at a time, i.e. "GSM" or LTE? Never both? So the secondary GSM icon is essentially pointless? Or is there SVLTE support somewhere?

 

-Mike

[mikejeep]

Now if somehow you could figure out a way to determine what the phone will drop to (800 or 1900) when a call does come in and display that information...

 

Ha.. when I get my magic wand back from Hogwarts, I will be sure to wave it around and get that in the app!   

 

i'd like to go ahead and throw my suggestion into the hat

 

yes its another alert, and yes i know there are a ton of alerts already, but when i'm out hunting for new 1x800 signals i would love it if it would alert me anytime the BID changes while i'm on 1x800. they tend to bring new sites up in clusters so once you are on 1x800 you will stay on there as you are driving going from tower to tower so you won't get alerts for dropping/reconnecting to 1x800. the only way i'll know if i'm on a new tower is to constantly watch the app for the BID to change.

 

thanks again for the amazing app!

 

Hmm.. maybe I shouldn't have said the suggestion box was always open! I will put it on the list for you. I can't really add any more notifications at the moment due to the way they are coded, but I plan on tackling that issue in the future anyway.

 

Hey Mike, when you are tired of pulling your hair out trying to get all these phones and SIM's figured out, why not go back into the code and program in logging so I can keep all that valuable SignalCheck info around to peruse over and over?  

 

I know, I know.. that's coming with a re-design! It's half-done, but is taking a ton of work. I need to make sure all of this other stuff is stable before I throw major new changes into the mix. I should have been an iPhone developer.. one phone, one ROM, man they have it easy!

 

-Mike

[mikejeep]

I saw some talk of this earlier in this thread, but it seemed a bit back and forth...

 

Are current Cyanogen builds allowing signalcheck to populate GCI/PCI info from Samsung handsets?

Good question.. I have not heard much on the developments on the Samsung side of CM things. I know lordsutch was involved with getting things going for HTC devices, but I assume that doesn't easily translate into something useful for a Samsung.

 

Make a nandroid backup, throw CM on your phone, and send us a screenshot!

 

-Mike

[AMejia1976]

Good morning Mike;

 

Not sure if you have seen this already. I upgraded my Note 2 to Stock Android 4.3. Now the shortcut in "System Shortcuts" no longer opens the Samsung Hidden Menu.

 

Your app is one of a few that is not working as it used to. So I am guessing the 4.3 changed some of the interface.

[mikejeep]

Good morning Mike;

 

Not sure if you have seen this already. I upgraded my Note 2 to Stock Android 4.3. Now the shortcut in "System Shortcuts" no longer opens the Samsung Hidden Menu.

 

Your app is one of a few that is not working as it used to. So I am guessing the 4.3 changed some of the interface.

Hmm.. thanks, this is the first report I have had of this. Samsung must have changed something. In the version in testing now, I have completely changed the the system shortcuts anyway. I (finally!) discovered how to directly access the most useful menus on Samsungs, so hopefully that will work better. I will make a note to check with you after its released to see how its working.

 

-Mike

[COZisBack]

Sooooo uhhhhhh

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk

 

 

[digiblur]

Sooooo uhhhhhh

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk

5945 is actually Cricket. Just one of those things about keeping up with the database.

[COZisBack]

5945 is actually Cricket. Just one of those things about keeping up with the database.

Here's one that will make you laugh. Attention to any peeps that jump to conclusions, this is a split second cache issue that fixed itself:

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Bob Newhart]

Well, AT&T is buying Cricket.

[gnoj]

Well, AT&T is buying Cricket.

 

Yes, but the sale hasn't closed yet. AT&T will likely have to keep Cricket's CDMA network running until 2015, just like the FCC mandated for their recent acquisition of ATN's Alltel markets. It should remain labeled as "Cricket" to avoid confusion, or at least have a parenthetical, like "Cricket (AT&T)."

[WiWavelength]

Yes, but the sale hasn't closed yet. AT&T will likely have to keep Cricket's CDMA network running until 2015, just like the FCC mandated for their recent acquisition of ATN's Alltel markets. It should remain labeled as "Cricket" to avoid confusion, or at least have a parenthetical, like "Cricket (AT&T)."

 

If the acquisition is approved, I would relabel it "That Damn Annoying Cricket."

 

AJ

[kg4icg]

Here is the funny part. AT&T would owe sprint what is left on the contact of the leap wireless roaming agreement which is at least $25 million dollars.

[mikejeep]

5945 is actually Cricket. Just one of those things about keeping up with the database.

Thanks for the heads up Coz, and the reply digi.. I will take a look at the database tomorrow. It has over 4,200 entries gathered from many different sources, so I'm sure there are plenty of similar errors in small clusters here and there. It's very easy for me to fix, the hard part is confirming what the correct provider is.

 

-Mike

[JossMan]

Mike, I've attempted to take a screenshot of the "null" where "Sprint" should be when you use the pull down notification.  It displays null for a second or two then doesn't show anything, sometimes it even displays "(-)."  Also I've gone into the the LTE engineering screen and on the engineering screen it shows my MCC-MNC as 310120 but when looking at your app it still shows 311490?? 

[LoveDroid]

Hi,

   I am trying to develop an app to get the CID in a LTE Network. I got the information. But being begginer of JAVA, finding it difficult to instatiate "android.telephony.CellIdentityLte" object. Can you help me in this ?

R,

LoveDroid

 

John,

Your screen shot has inadvertantly helped confirm a bug I have started to hear reports of. The latest CM10.1 builds (those with Android 4.2.x) are reporting incorrect LTE values. Many people are seeing false readings (usually with values identical to what you had showing, so that's probably what you were experiencing), and when you do have a "legitimate" LTE connection, the asu values are out of whack. Do you see LTE appear in SignalCheck often, and when you do (but are still showing eHRPD or EV-DO connection), do the LTE values stay steady?

I'm going to get in touch with the CM devs to see what might have changed in the latest builds. Until then, any LTE values that seem odd on CM10 (especially when your device is not reporting an LTE connection) are probably incorrect.

-Mike

[bosox801]

Mike, I've attempted to take a screenshot of the "null" where "Sprint" should be when you use the pull down notification. It displays null for a second or two then doesn't show anything, sometimes it even displays "(-)." Also I've gone into the the LTE engineering screen and on the engineering screen it shows my MCC-MNC as 310120 but when looking at your app it still shows 311490??

running digiblur ROM and prl 512

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Virtualbot]

Good morning Mike;

 

Not sure if you have seen this already. I upgraded my Note 2 to Stock Android 4.3. Now the shortcut in "System Shortcuts" no longer opens the Samsung Hidden Menu.

 

Your app is one of a few that is not working as it used to. So I am guessing the 4.3 changed some of the interface.

 

I have this problem too Mike.

[mikejeep]

Yes, but the sale hasn't closed yet. AT&T will likely have to keep Cricket's CDMA network running until 2015, just like the FCC mandated for their recent acquisition of ATN's Alltel markets. It should remain labeled as "Cricket" to avoid confusion, or at least have a parenthetical, like "Cricket (AT&T)."

 

There are over 100 entries for Cricket in my database.. this one was just incorrect. I looked at the original sources and some were Cricket, but more were AT&T, so I had listed it as AT&T. It has been changed to Cricket for the next app update. Unless they change the name to specifically include AT&T, I have no plans to change it.

 

-Mike

[mikejeep]

Mike, I've attempted to take a screenshot of the "null" where "Sprint" should be when you use the pull down notification.  It displays null for a second or two then doesn't show anything, sometimes it even displays "(-)."  Also I've gone into the the LTE engineering screen and on the engineering screen it shows my MCC-MNC as 310120 but when looking at your app it still shows 311490?? 

 

I think I know why "null" is appearing on eHRPD/EV-DO connections and am working on a fix. I'm now seeing it on my Nexus 5 as well, so that gives me a convenient testbed.

 

My hunch on the engineering screen is that it's not actually showing you the true MCC-MNC of the connection, but the MCC-MNC which is programmed as the "home" ID. I always used to regard engineering screens as the holy grail, but between spelling errors and known incorrect data (both of which persist through multiple updates and device releases), they don't seem to be any more or less reliable than any third-party app. I'm comfortable saying that SignalCheck is completely accurate because I know the source of the data is the Android system itself. And as I see errors, I implement methods to filter them out instead of displaying something I know is not correct. SignalCheck accesses three different Android routines to check the MCC-MNC, and in your case, all three reflect 311-490. Also, in your example, 311-490 is just some random number.. it happens to be another MCC-MNC assigned to Sprint. So it is very plausible that the site is broadcasting that data, whether it is a programming mistake or intentional. Still trying to get Sprint to answer that one for me.. 

 

-Mike

[mikejeep]

Hi,

   I am trying to develop an app to get the CID in a LTE Network. I got the information. But being begginer of JAVA, finding it difficult to instatiate "android.telephony.CellIdentityLte" object. Can you help me in this ?

R,

LoveDroid

 

Competition, eh? Welcome to S4GRU, and I accept your challenge.. PM sent!

 

-Mike

[kalev76]

I had the theory that 311-490 was somehow the network code for Sprint's LTE network on B41 (2.5GHz) ..that was just a

not- thought-out hunch I had.

 

SignalCheck accesses three different Android routines to check the MCC-MNC, and in your case, all three reflect 311-490. Also, in your example, 311-490 is just some random number.. it happens to be another MCC-MNC assigned to Sprint. So it is very plausible that the site is broadcasting that data, whether it is a programming mistake or intentional. Still trying to get Sprint to answer that one for me.. 

 

-Mike

[mikejeep]

I had the theory that 311-490 was somehow the network code for Sprint's LTE network on B41 (2.5GHz) ..that was just a

not- thought-out hunch I had.

 

No, that's a very good hunch. Other than JossMan's oddity, 311-490 has only been seen on Band 41 connections. That's why I'm trying to figure out if the sites in his area are just configured wrong, or if 311-490 isn't going to be exclusive to B41. Sprint seems to want to keep it a secret though!

 

-Mike

[JossMan]

I don't know what's going on if its the network or SignalCheck app, starting today app shows me on and off of eHRPD and back on EVDO Rev. A here at the house I'm always on eHRPD with the occasionally rouge LTE signal, now I'm back on EVDO.  it erratically keeps showing "null" on and off in the notification bar and displays N/A for the signal.  No matter what I do I can't get back on eHRPD. Now my phone takes hard handoffs going from 3G to 4G LTE coverage.  Also there seems to be a tower down where LTE has been completed shows I'm on LTE but will never pull up webpages I can't get data coverage on any of the sectors of the site.  Anyone else experienced the disappearance of eHRPD and back to EVDO?  

[gnoj]

Anyone else experienced the disappearance of eHRPD and back to EVDO?  

 

A likely indication that a site(s) is being actively worked on in your area. Iowa City experienced frequent disappearance of eHRPD right before they had their big 3G acceptance sweep a few days ago.

[JossMan]

Received the OTA 4.3 update for the Galaxy S3 Mike, looks like more LTE goodies in the info "CQI" wasn't there prior to the 4.3 update.  And as you can see Mike LTE 311490 is alive and well still