Signal strength

[Kovaelin]

I live in the Ottawa/Gatineau area and travel all over the city pretty regularly. It is quite rare that I will see that I have full bars. When on the Gatineau side, I often have zero bars. However, I always still seem to have a signal. The strangest thing is that when I sometimes receive a call, I see my bars instantly jump from zero to full. When data is enabled, I also see the "LTE" symbol changes to read "4G" (are they not supposed to be the same?). Should my phone be seemingly switching between bands like this? I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't such a drain on my battery sometimes, but I can't seem to find a straight enswer from my searches so far. Thanks.

[CatCanyon]

Thanks for your references.i checked them out.

I think the article addresses my question about why I see 2 references in my wifi icon on my Samsung 10+... both the typical arcs ad well as LTE.

[sheytoon]

@Kovaelin, I think you got a good explanation from @mik101 already, but here's more info if you're interested:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Discussions/LTE-network-fundamentals/td-p/130581/page...

[mik101 · Accepted solution]

@Kovaelin 

Glad you got that figured out. I tend to switch back and forth between LTE/WCDMA/GSM and WCDMA/GSM depedning on where I am because of different towers providing different signal strength. For example, the LTE coverage near my house is particularly poor so I will turn that off (which also conserves battery -- and my 3G plan throttles LTE connections anyway) but some places in the city I will find the LTE coverage better than the 3g coverage. You milage will vary depending on location.

Just as an added note -- a lot of phones say 4G when what they really mean is Public Mobiles 3G speeds. 4G in reality is LTE, but because many carriers were late to the LTE party and didn't want customers to realize they weren't running the latest network tech, they had the phone manufacters call it 4G/4G+. 

You will start seeing true 5G phones coming later this year and next year that will provide performance faster than current LTE (true 4G) networks provide as carriers roll out new hardware.

Cheers

[mh1983]

Thanks for the info. Great that you were able to solve it! I had to do this a few times on my BlackBerry 10 phone. Glad this got you sorted. Enjoy the service!

[Kovaelin]

Okay, I switched it to WCDMA only, and it jumped up to full bars, and now when I use mobile it reads 4G instead of LTE. I kept seeing LTE mentioned so much, that I never considered trying to swap the network type. Thanks all.

[Tony8]

Hi, My phone normally shows 2 bars but works great.

From what i have read , the signal "bars" can be very different from phone to phone.

The dbi measurement is more accurate. See this link for more info: https://support.weboost.com/hc/en-us/articles/206521937-Finding-Your-Phone-s-Signal-Strength-Reading...

I found this link that explains what LTE and 4G networks are : https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/feature/mobile-phone/4g-vs-lte-whats-the-difference-3605656/

I hope that helps.

[Kovaelin]

My phone is an unlocked Xperia Z3, which I've used on Rogers before, and I never had problems with - though I used regular GSM for the majority of the time.

In my settings, I have "Preferred network type"

- WCDMA only

- GSM only

- WCDMA (preferred)/GSM

- LTE (preferred)/WCDMA/GSM (currently selected)

[mh1983]

What kind of phone do you have? Has it always worked ok on PM? Was it ever on another network where it worked fine? 

As the previous poster said, there may be settings that we can help you fine tune.

[Alex888]

@Kovaelin That is probably an issue with your phone. You can look at the settings and lower how often it tries to find a connection when not in use.