Anyone here on public live near the Detroit river?

[Pawprints1986]

Just wondered how you have found coverage to be longer term. I'm going to be moving there once covid is over. Short term I seem to have 1 bar on LTE, but  if I switch to wcdma I can get at least 3 to 4 bars, but texting can lag on wcdma. Also I know it's one technology now, how long are they going to keep it running?

Just wondered how you've all found it when staying there for more than an hour or so at a time. Does it fluctuate? Which connection keeps your battery stronger for longer?

[gpixel]

@Pawprints1986 that's actually pretty fast! I average 8mb download 1.5mb upload from home. PM should atleast throttle the LTE speed to the same speed as HSDPA.

yes when you use LTE you should use less data with the 3mb Capp. especially when watching videos. websites still load faster on LTE

[Pawprints1986]

@gpixel wow, you weren't kidding! Note that these were taken at my current home, not the new place, but still... First is LTE, second is WCDMA. Holy frig

But now I wonder, would LTE use less data than wcdma? 🤔🤔 have to balance between the 2... Think I'm gonna keep it on wcdma even at home for a bit, just to see how it goes, try to monitor usage that way. At home here I have WiFi backup but not there, at least not till after covid when I can get hooked up and actually moved

 

 

[Pawprints1986]

@sheytoon I think you can though. I got those signal type variations from going through that *#2263# menu, and tried to see what different ones worked at all, then went into regular settings after each selection to look at my Sim status and noticed changes under "mobile network type" depending which I chose... 

That doesn't mean there's a need to get that specific or not, but I do think you can if you wanted to

[sheytoon]

@Pawprints1986 I think you're mixing up frequency bands and features a little bit.

You can selectively choose bands on some phones like Samsung. Just dial *#2263# to get to the menu. You can also do this per technology (3G or LTE). You cannot selectively disable some 3G enhancements like HSPA+ or HSUPA. That was my point.

CDMA (no "W"), comes from a different technology family entirely. It has its own 2G 1xRTT and 3G Ev-DO/Rev.A. It's not compatible with 2G GSM and 3G UMTS.

[computergeek541]

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@Pawprints1986 wrote:

 if I remember right, CDMA (no w) is like 2g technology, right? Back for the days of flip phones and very basic text only internet browsing? The "dial up internet" of the cell phone world, if you will?

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On the CDMA network, the carriers considered 1x to be 2g and EVDO to be 3g. EVDO was true to that definition in the sense that data and calls could both be occurring at the same time.

[Pawprints1986]

@sheytoon  There's an advanced menu that let's you pick 1 band only, if you wanted to. There's a special dial code, it's not in the standard settings or even the developer options, maybe it's a Samsung thing? Not sure... My old device I used to always go through and pick a single band, but that was because it got such better reception. But that was such a basic model, I'm not sure it even used any band variations. I just picked the best signal. Especially to go to work, also closer to the river, the auto signal would drop. So I'd go in and manually pick wcdma on that one too. That's why I worried about how much longer wcdma would stick around, that was an s2 variation, they've released like 9 flagships since that one was made with wcdma capacit

I'll have to play with it more when I'm out that way next. Test outside vs in the building, see if it gets better if I'm closer to a window, things like that. 

 if I remember right, CDMA (no w) is like 2g technology, right? Back for the days of flip phones and very basic text only internet browsing? The "dial up internet" of the cell phone world, if you will?

[sheytoon]

@Pawprints1986 in terms of Telus 3G frequencies, there's only 850 MHz (band 5) and 1900 MHz (band 2).

I've never heard of a phone being able to selectively disable HSPA enhancements, and there's no reason to do so.

A single radio transceiver is used to transmit the cell over the air. This one cell will have all the enhancements enabled.

B5 has better coverage, but is always 5 MHz single carrier. B2 can be 5 or 10 MHz depending on the market. Not sure what Windsor is, but if it's 10 MHz, it would be configured as DC-HSPA, which has double the speed and capacity.

[Pawprints1986]

@sheytoon so, I'm a bit of a nerd, and I do know how do go in and select specific bands within frequency type, I just don't know what they mean 

So, if you could pick, would you want hsdpa, hsupa, or hspa+? I can single out each type of signal within my wcdma advanced menu.... May play with this more next time I bring some things over... As long as they'll all work for calls too lol

Eta odd... To see what would happen I called 611 on hspa+ and instead of the standard robot guy, I got a robot woman saying "please note, due to covid we are working with reduced staff"... Interesting indeed !!Lol

[darlicious]

@Pawprints1986 

   It never hurts to check out mint mobile but I do believe you need a US address but their prices are cheap with intro 3 month plans/12 month plans starting at  $15/3gb p/m, $20/8gb p/m, $25/12gb p/m including calling to Canada and Mexico. Data is 4G LTE and reduced speed unlimited. 7 day money back guarantee. I looked at the device plans too....new iphone + 3gb plan $30 p/m (24 mos)

[computergeek541]

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@will13am wrote:

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@Pawprints1986 wrote:

I'm actually not even moving far lol. But home now it's just that bit more central to the city so LTE gets a good 4 bars at least. 

Part may be the actual building too? I'm on the ground floor there... Are there any affordable signal boosters I could look into?

To buy a US plan even if it did reach across the river, after exchange may as well keep it here. A 40usd plan would be like 60 here anyway

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Signal boosters are not recommended.  They are not that popular and consequently very expensive.  

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If someone feels the need to use such a booster, I would argue that it's likely only ampifying an already weak signal. That's not realy going to help with data speeds unless there's otherwise no signal at that location. Such a signal booster could act as a relay and possibly make it so that there is now a signal where there wasn't one before are help to solidify the consistency of such signal.  However, if there is no dead spot for signal where you're trying to use it, I wouldn't bother.

[sheytoon]

@computergeek541 here's the way I look at it.

UMTS is the umbrella term for 3G technology. W-CDMA is the FDD version of it that was deployed by pretty much every operator except China Mobile. China Mobile used TD-SCDMA, which is the TDD version of UMTS.

HSPA is the enhancement to the data speeds of UMTS. HSUPA is the uplink enhancement. HSDPA is the downlink enhancement. The next enhancement is called HSPA+ which has peak speeds of 42 Mbps for dual carriers (DC-HSPA).

If you want to make it simple for Canadian phone compatibility, you can consider all these terms to be equivalent on the spec sheets: UMTS, W-CDMA, HSPA, HSPA+.

As you know, all these technologies are completely different from the CDMA family (CDMA2000, 1xRTT, Ev-DO, Rev A), which is no longer available in Canada.

[will13am]

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@Pawprints1986 wrote:

I'm actually not even moving far lol. But home now it's just that bit more central to the city so LTE gets a good 4 bars at least. 

Part may be the actual building too? I'm on the ground floor there... Are there any affordable signal boosters I could look into?

To buy a US plan even if it did reach across the river, after exchange may as well keep it here. A 40usd plan would be like 60 here anyway

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Signal boosters are not recommended.  They are not that popular and consequently very expensive.  

[Pawprints1986]

I'm actually not even moving far lol. But home now it's just that bit more central to the city so LTE gets a good 4 bars at least. 

Part may be the actual building too? I'm on the ground floor there... Are there any affordable signal boosters I could look into?

To buy a US plan even if it did reach across the river, after exchange may as well keep it here. A 40usd plan would be like 60 here anyway

[will13am]

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@mpcdesign wrote:

@Pawprints1986, if you live near Detroit River, wouldn't it make sense for you to get an American cell phone with one of their providers. I am assuming, American cell plans are much cheaper than Canadian cell providers. 

Unless, Detroit River runs into Canada, and I wasn't aware of this then....

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Lol, Detroit River runs along the Canada/US border.  It drains Lake St. Clair into Lake Erie.  

[mpcdesign]

@Pawprints1986, if you live near Detroit River, wouldn't it make sense for you to get an American cell phone with one of their providers. I am assuming, American cell plans are much cheaper than Canadian cell providers. 

Unless, Detroit River runs into Canada, and I wasn't aware of this then....

[Luddite]

@Pawprints1986 wcdma will around a looooong time yet; all, except VoLTE and voip, phone calls are carried on the 3G network.

PM's networks:

• 4G LTE/LTE Advanced: 700 MHz, 850 MHz, 1900 MHz; 2100 MHz downlink with 1700 MHz uplink (AWS).

• HSPA (3G): 850 MHz, 1900 MHz (UMTS).

[will13am]

@Pawprints1986 , you can do some research using this cell tower site map.  Click on a "flag" and you will get detailed information on frequency, cell tower elevation.  If your phone is relatively new, the cell radio battery consumption should be pretty good and 3G vs LTE should not matter much.  

https://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/cancellsites.html

When you are out and about scouting your new home town, use this app to track which cell tower you are connecting to and at what frequency.  Note that you do not necessary connect to the closest tower.  Load balancing and other network considerations will determine the connection.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wilysis.cellinfolite&hl=en

[computergeek541]

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@Pawprints1986 wrote:

So, I would guess that wcdma is hspa ? In my case?

 

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WCDMA and HSPA aren't exactly the same but most people would consider them to be. These days, I believe that they usually mean HSPA and I understand that HSPA is only one type of WCDMA.  @sheytoon , can you clarify that better than I can?

[Pawprints1986]

So, I would guess that wcdma is hspa ? In my case?

 

[gpixel]

@Pawprints1986 why don't you try hspa(3g), if the LTE radio is struggling it's better to just stay on 3g. your battery wouldn't be stressed with having to run the LTE radio, also phone calls on public only use HSPA. effectively, you'll be saving more battery.

HSPA actually has faster download speeds than throttled LTE. 

[Triguy]

Here is a link for a coverage map.

https://www.publicmobile.ca/en/on/coverage