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Nexus S Reception

A

Aria807

Newbie
I'm just wondering what most ppl here are getting on their reception.

I never seem to get full bars and my friend on AT&T gets full bars. When I stream music radio (DI.FM) while driving, sometimes the music would drop out then it'll reconnect after like 30 seconds. I live in a good T-mobile area (Dallas) and my old phone, which was a Nokia E65, generally gets near full bars all the time; which I am using as a comparison. Also I dunno if it's just me or not, but my Wifi signal seems pretty weak too especially for N band when the router is like outside my room. My laptop gets full bars and connects at 270mbps but on the Nexus S, I only get like 2-3 out of 4?
 
I'm with you my signal has never gone to full bars. Although my old mt3g never did here in salt lake city. My wifi tends to randomly drop the signal and it can be very annoying. I'll be playing live holdem and it will ask me to reconnect every few minutes. It's really frustrating.
 
its tmobiles network as much as the tmobile zealots say its great, there 3G frequencies 1700, 2100mhz are high, which is weaker and has a shorter reach. So therefore the frequency fluctuates frequently and doesnt penetrate as far from the cell site or as deep in buildings. On AT&T the frequency has pretty much all been shifted from 1900mhz to 850 mhz which is a deeper and farther reaching frequency, so the proximity to the towers is not as vital so the signal stays longer and deeper
 
I'm giving the Nexus a try and while I 'm supposedly in a "Great" coverage area where I live here in Vegas, I'm always on EDGE. I get full bars, but they are EDGE bars. The AT&T phone I have (iPhone) gets 3-4 bars on 3G at the same spot. The TMobile signal does seem to fluctuate a lot more. Not sure that I like it.

Last summer I tried out the Vibrant and ended up returning and cancelling for weak signal/no 3G service so it appears to be TMobile more than the phone.
 
I'm mostly concerned about the general phone reception. Because I've been with Tmobile for like 3-4 yrs and 2-4 yrs several years back. I've always seen full bars on my other phones, but the Nexus S always is at 2-3? It MAYBE occasionally hits 4 bars when I'm out in the open, but once I step inside a building, it's back down to 2-3.

At the moment, I'm at work, on a 23rd floor building downtown and my reception is -97 dBm 9asu.
 
I get full bars everywhere I go in SoCal. I guess I must be a zealot. I'm sure glad I don't hate my phone and everything about any service as a few here do.
 
And the fact is, the higher the frequency the farther it will transmit at lower power. How do you think satellite dishes work?
 
Netconn said:
And the fact is, the higher the frequency the farther it will transmit at lower power. How do you think satellite dishes work?
Click to expand...

Sorry to disappoint, but lower frequencies travel further and have better penetration through obstacles. Look up the term "Skin Depth."

Alternatively, higher frequencies have better data throughput.
 
Don't trust the bars. Go into your menu and check the phone status. Look at the dBm you get. It will be something like -85 dBm. You want to be closer to zero (because this is a signal to noise ratio). So -60 dBm is almost perfect signal, and -114 dBm is basically no service.

The phone converts this into the arbitrary "bars" in the status bar. If you really want to check your signal performance, use the raw numbers. The bars are sometimes too generous in measuring your signal strength. This is a few months old, but should give you more info.
 
My Nexus wasn't getting the greatest reception after I first got it and seemed to get worse in So Cal where there is suppose to be a lot of 4G coverage. When my Xoom had good 4G reception, I was getting one or two bars of 3G coverage. Then yesterday, my Nexus lost all 3G coverage. Just 4 gray bars. Then I would come into good 4G coverage and all of a sudded I'd have 4G coverage. Everytime I drop into 3G coverage, I'd lose all internet. I did the usual stuff...battery pull, hard reset, etc and still no connection. I called tech support and they couldn't figure it out either. As a last resort, I exchanged my SIM card and now my coverage is a lot better. I'm getting better 3G and 4G reception. Probably a fluke, but just thought I'd share.
 
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