The_Chemist

I was talking more about tweaking the signal limits for LTE on each LTE band.  I am not sure without doing a teardown of both the G2 and N5 if they use different antenna components for each LTE band.  If they do use different antenna components for each phone, then the N5 just have better antennas period. If they use the same antenna components then maybe something in the firmware can be tweaked to improve performance.  Might not be as good as N5 still but can at least reduce the gap.  It could also be that the PA and filters are better on the N5 or can produce more power.  Who knows.

That's very interesting.  Now I'm curious as to how the original signal limits are derived.  I would hope through testing and measurement; finding the best performance and thresholds 

That is good information to know.  I wonder if a firmware update can tweak the antenna on the G2 to make some improvements.

So, does the N5 antenna physically have more surface area than the G2 - is that why it is superior in performance?  Or, is the antenna in the N5 just electronically tuned or coupled better to the radio (SWR and all that sort of thing)?  I wouldn't mind an old style pull up aerial, if it meant better performance! 

Your mention of a firmware update to "tweak", kind of hints at electronic tuning...

Far superior antenna. Best in the entire sprint lineup. 

 

 

Source: I have both the LG G2 and Nexus 5 and have been testing them both since Friday. 

WOW, hindsight!

Okay. I'm going to just say this...asked my brother who was sporting a galaxy s2 if I could activate the Nexus 5 on his line so I can track performance across two lines. (G2 on my line, n5 on bros). My other brother had a football practice today and the route I took I always lose LTE on the way. I had my brother play with both phones and inform me anytime LTE went away. ...Nexus 5 hands down wins in the LTE connection category. The N5 did not lose LTE once the entire way. When my G2 dropped LTE at -121, the nexus survived with -108. Highest I've seen on this device so far is -115. LTE has not ever dropped yet. I'll keep you guys updated but the N5 is a monster so far. Edit: Signal here at the park of brothers practice...N5 sitting at -92dBm. G2 at -112. Sent from my Nexus 5

Does the N5 have a better antenna/more sensitive radio?

Its not an issue with the LG G2 per say but rather all LTE phones.  All LTE phones have a "LTE Scan Frequency" timer in seconds in which the phone is programmed to scan for LTE periodically.  Now on the HTC One Max that I played with at the Sprint store, one of the LTE menus in ##DATA# had the "LTE Scan Frequency" timer option set to 300 by default.  This tells me that the value of 300 is in seconds which means every 5 minutes it scans for LTE.  It seems like on the HTC One Max, you should be able to edit the value to say 120 so it scans every 2 minutes.  The reason for the timer is so that the phone doesn't constantly scan for LTE  and drain battery especially if you are in a rural area which won't have LTE for many many miles.

 

So the worse case scenario which you might have experienced is that you were driving in a 3G area and right before you hit a 4G area, your "LTE Scan Frequency" timer just ran through and found zero LTE.  Now your phone has to wait another 5 minutes before it can pick up LTE even though you just entered a strong 4G area.  However you said that by toggling airplane mode it does the trick.  The reason why toggling airplane mode does the trick is because once you exit out of airplane mode, it forces the phone to search for a 3G/4G signal and of course if you are in a strong 4G signal area, your phone will pick up 4G right away.

This site is a wealth of information.  Thank You!  I learn so much here each and every day.

Initial Testing of RF strengths...Using Speedtest.net as the basis, using the Tampa, FL server.

 

LG G2 has a -98dBm signal on average in this spot.  Nexus 5 has -94 dBm on average in the same spot. 

 

I did 3 speed tests in a row on both of them within 2 minutes.

LG G2 scored;

16.57 DL 3.92 UL

18.67 DL 4.61 UL

17.18 DL 3.77 UL

So it averages 17.47 DL, 4.1 UL for the G2.

 

Nexus 5 scored;

13.03 DL 4.45 UL

13.60 DL 5.77 UL

13.86 DL 4.24 UL

So it averages 13.50 DL, 4.82 UL for the Nexus 5.

 

Overall, the G2 is a lot better in LTE performance in terms of speeds, however if the Nexus 5 can hold onto a signal better then it'll likely be better.  I wont be able to test the Nexus 5's reliability until early next week (streaming in the car compared to the G2.)

 

1X signal appears to be stronger on the G2, by roughly 1-2dBm.  Haven't tested 3G.

Very interesting results.  Thanks for posting.

Geek.com can eat shit. 

 

Not only did they steal lilg's spreadsheet, they also completely misunderstood the drawbacks and benefits of CSFB. There are advantages to not using SV-LTE, mainly better reception and battery life, not to mention that TD-LTE and SV-LTE didn't play well together. 

 

My daily driver is an iPhone 5S on Verizon and that device has better battery life than almost anything on Verizon except for the Droid Maxx. It's the only CSFB/eCSFB device on Verizon right now, though I wouldn't be shocked to see CSFB be more common when VoLTE is activated. It also has a much smaller battery than the Maxx. I think at least part of that power advantage is due to Apple's decision to use CSFB in lieu of SV-LTE. If Apple had used SV-LTE it would have had a large power impact on the iPhone's battery life. 

 

The only drawback to CSFB on CDMA is no text and surf, which is a capability I can live without. I could have switched to AT&T which has HSPA+ here but it's not worth not being on LTE just to get talk and surf. There's no Sprint native service in Chester so VZ/ATT are my options. 

The battery life statement that you made has got to be TRUE.  I firmly believe this technology does indeed promote much better battery life. 

I have the G2.  Yesterday I took it off of the charger at 1 AM.  I used it hard all day yesterday (like a little kid in a candy store after I am now able to receive LTE in Harrisburg), doing many speed tests.  This morning at 5:20 AM I still had 45% battery life left!  That's almost 28 hours with many periods of hard use, phone calls and Internet surfing and still 45% battery left.  I'm amazed!

A nice consistent LTE signal the entire time!  No drops or anything. 

I have not had the opportunity to try pulling any "extra" data out of an LG device yet.. I have a Nexus 5 on order, hopefully there will be enough behind-the-scenes similarities so that anything I figure out will work on the G2 (and maybe older phones as well). We will see..

 

-Mike

Thanks for all the time and work you put into SignalCheck.  It's absolutely invaluable!  I just loved hearing that chime sound yesterday when LTE started to light up here in Harrisburg for us Tri-Banders...

!

To view the Engineering menus, you don't need your MSL.  You just need to dial ##DEBUG# (##33284#) and go to LTE Engineering menu and it will tell you the LTE band you are connected to.  In terms of not even typing DEBUG dialer code, it seems like only HTC phones have a built in function that Mike was able to extract for his SignalCheck app that can read the DL and UL frequencies you are connected to for LTE that can hint you at the LTE Band.  Unfortunately, my efforts to make shortcuts to the ##DEBUG# and ##DATA# menus have failed since it tells me that I do not have the appropriate user rights to make the shortcut.  Lame because I can access them via the dialer code.  It would be much simpler if I could have shortcuts on my home screen instead of having to type it out each time.

 

You only need your MSL if you want to enable/disable LTE bands in the dialer code ##DATA# (##3282#).

My gratitude for sharing this information. Very much appreciated. 

I wouldn't stress too much on the actual signal level LTE drops off at that you read on SignalCheck.  Signal varies so much in real time that for a split second it could have read -120+ dBm and that was what was enough to drop the LTE connection.  Who knows what the hard number Sprint has configured on the NV towers to drop the LTE connection and force it back to 3G.

Thanks for the words of wisdom and encouragement.  I'm really happy just to have working LTE again.  I'm impressed by what Sprint does with the 1900 MHz signal.  I'm hoping for a much stronger connection to the tower once they roll out 800 MHz near me.  It's supposed to be coming soon... 

Please excuse my ignorance here, and lack of knowledge, but how do I know what LTE band my phone is connecting to when they become live in my area without going into the "dialer' menus with my MSL?

The Dave, on 18 Nov 2013 - 6:28 PM, said:

Okay, for anyone with issues holding on to LTE... I was playing with it today. I had turned on band 26 and band 41 last night and noticed I would drop LTE around -116 to -120 dBm. I turned those bands back off and I held the LTE signal at the same tower up to -126 dBm. I think when you enable the other bands, it sets a different threshold thinking you'd be able to fall back to band 26 instead of dropping to eHRPD.

That explanation seems plausible to me.  Its not like -126 dBm is a good signal anyways.  I think the reason to set the threshold lower is to make it appear as if you have 4G LTE for a much wider coverage than expected if restricted to one LTE band.  In reality you LTE signal has probably dropped off from a usable point by -120 dBm. 

 

Btw, did you find any B26 LTE?  Right now I just left B25 LTE enabled since I am done with my B41 LTE testing and haven't seen any confirmation of where B26 LTE is appearing.  We definitely need the Sprint Spark OTA for more stability when testing the B26 and B41 LTE bands.

I have bands 26 and 41 off.  The only band I have enabled is 25, yet my LTE drops off right around -118 dBm.  There was another person on here that said his dropped off at -118 dBm as well.  In my area, only band 25 is active.  Shentel is adding 800 MHz, but not on towers near me yet. 

Yesterday morning mine said 288 hours and 58 minutes of expected usage. But so far im on my 3rd day with the phone. So far it seems to have better battery than my note 2.One thing i have noticed is the auto brightness seems to not work properly no matter what you set it too. I like mine to crank it to 100% when outside but when im inside it seems to not want to got to a lower setting. I have read that putting thr slide down from 100% to 99% and its sapose to work a little better but i csnt really tell. Anyone else have this issue?

Yeah, the auto brightness leaves a lot to be desired on the G2.  Hopefully they'll reprogram it at the next update.  At first, I thought the slider set the minimum brightness level, but that didn't pan out.  I use YAAB (Yet Another Auto Brightness).  It works really well.  Tested it while I was out walking in the noon-day sun today.  I could see the screen perfectly.  Just remember to set the YAAB manual brightness control to the max, then set the app to auto and it will dim down when you go into a building.  The app also lets you set night modes and minimum and maximum thresholds. 

Here is a link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=biz.gyrus.yaab&hl=en

I just received my Quickwindow case from my LG G2 preorder from Sprint.  Anyone else receive theirs?

Got my QuickWindo case today as well.  Yesterday I got LTE in Harrisburg PA.  Woo Hoo!

I will have to wait until the next time I'm on the highway to take a screen shot of a fringe signal. I am literally walking around the most interior part of a metal building and can't for the life of me get a signal lower than -108 dBm. Curse this powerful LTE signal here in Florida!

I'm in a metal building right now as well.  It's just amazing how well this 1900 MHz signal propagates.  I can't wait until Shwntel turns on the 800 MHZ on the towers near me.  If 1900 does this well, I can only imagine what 800 will do.  I wonder if it is logarithmic or linear?

That's odd that you can't hold onto a weaker signal. I routinely hold all the way to -126 before it drops off a few moments later to eHRPD. I get very useable service at that level, too. I do agree that the scan time needs improvement. It takes too long before deciding to try searching out an LTE signal.

I wonder if this is quality control differences between our devices?  It would be interesting to see what one of the experts here think about this.

That's odd that you can't hold onto a weaker signal. I routinely hold all the way to -126 before it drops off a few moments later to eHRPD. I get very useable service at that level, too. I do agree that the scan time needs improvement. It takes too long before deciding to try searching out an LTE signal.

transitwatch889 also said his drops off at -118 dBm.  Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Its on in Altoona also. I was worried for awhile

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

Yea Shentel!!!

Tri Band LTE (Band 25) started working in Harrisburg PA.  I noticed it late afternoon, early evening.  Geez, I feel like celebrating!

no in my apartment it will drop off when swtching between towers and won't pick back up, unless you force it in a certain spot. Like it gives priority to 3g in that instance.

Mine has been holding for about an hour now.  Hopefully they'll reprogram that transitional phase.

I actually noticed that drop off myself when it hits 118 dbm it will go back down to the 3G and not hold LTE.... mmmmmm

Do you have the LG G2?  Sorry, I just saw you had the N5.  I could have sworn that I read on one of these threads; The_Dave was holding on to LTE the whole way down to -126 dBm...

Just wanted to let everybody know that LTE is on in Harrisburg PA.  Apparently, the eCSFB update went through late this afternoon early evening.  But now the closest tower to me (UPS Drive) is down.  The two southern facing arrays are out.  Hopefully this will be fixed soon.  (I'm to the south of the tower).  Speeds are ok about 9 down and 4 up.  Hopefully that will improve soon. 

Signal fluctuates in my house.  I get anywhere from -98 dBm to -107 dBm.

I forced the phone into 3G by going into the basement.  When I hit about -118 dBm, the G2 switched from LTE to 3G (I don't know if I'm impressed with that or not yet).  The G2 didn't want to switch back to 4G by itself though.  When the signal was about -101 dBm, it stayed in 3G until, I manually switched network mode to force it back.

The G2 has been working when phone calls come in.  "falls back" to 3G then, back to LTE at the call end.  I never thought the "chime" sound from "Signal Check Pro" would sound so good! 

Seen someone with the issue when the employees got the phone before the release. Its toward the beginning of this thread.Koiulpoi

Koiulpoi (who started this thread) had that problem.  He sent his back.  I saw some reviews on the Verizon version that had that issue as well. 

Comcast business class Internet. Up to 50 times faster...at delivering the next connection timeout error.

 

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Geez, With my Verizon FIOS Internet, I have been getting 87 down and 39 up with the G2 on WiFi.

My plan is actually 75/35 so the G2 is as good as my desktop PC. 

Any body k ow if they will upgrade the sprint towers so that triband phones can receive LTE not just 3g. My nexus 5 is stuck in 3g and I can put the phone in LTE only mode but can't make calles nor text.

I saw that your location is "Scranton".  Is that Scranton, PA?  If so, I don't think that 4G is deployed there yet.  If I am correct, it is still a 3G only area.  I also saw that your device was listed as a GS4.  Is that a Sprint GS4?  Did you receive LTE before?

Today at lunch, I had Signal Check Pro up.  All of a sudden, I heard the jingle sound it makes when it detects a connection.  I looked down at my phone (LG G2) and I had LTE for about 10 seconds.  Either my phone completely dropped the 3G signal from the Shentel tower, which is highly unlikely since I am 0.25 miles from the tower, or they are starting to mess around with the fallback issue.  I'm in Harrisburg PA.

Nothing has happened again all afternoon, still 3G.