I have tried everything in the world to get my wife's Thunderbolt on par with mine. Out of the box, mine has worked like a champ, while she's on her 2nd phone. (Bad power button and 0-1 bars constantly.) Anyway, after getting home and looking at her replacement phone, I noticed the same issue, 0-1 bars. I thought to myself that there has to be more to this. I put her phone next to mine and I had 3-4 bars, while she had her usual 0-1 bars (74% time without a signal.) I thought to check the phones info under settings and bam, I found my problem. Software and everything was exactly the same, except our PRL's. Mine is 13004 and hers is 15008. So I immediately jumped online and Googled how to updated the PRL on the Thunderbolt. Apparently the PRL files are stored on the 4G sim card, and since *228 no longer works on our phones, the only option to get a different PRL is to get a new sim card. I checked the sim card that came with her phone and the date reads.....102810. I then checked the date on my sim card and it read....020411. So I will be going to Verizon tomorrow morning and requesting a sim that was made on or at least near the date that mine was produced and hopefully this will fix our problem. I will update this thread once I know for sure. So if you did this and it helped, please feel free to post your results. Also, when we swapped the phones out, we didn't get a new sim card since each card is tied to that specific number. The rep just put the old sim and sdcard in the new phone incase anyone was wondering. Hope this helps.
Update: Just left my Verizon store and as of right now, I didn't have to swap out my sim card. The rep checked and he said it showed that my wife's phone was under the regular nationwide network, while my phone was under the hybrid network.(Whatever that is.) So he sent out an network update to my wife's phone that should bring hers on par with mine. He told me not to turn off my phone because it may take a couple of hours to push through, but once it does, our prls or signal strength in our area should be the same. Once the update pushes through, I'll post the results.
Update to the update:
After letting the phone stay on for 8 hours, got home, pulled the sim and battery out for 30 seconds, popped them back in and bam!!!!!! 3-4 bars of constant signal strength. Didn't have to change the sim card, but the PRL number did change from 15008 to 13006. (Which 13xxx means you're on the Hybrid Network.) If you're have a low to bad network signal, I would highly suggest you call Verizon or go into a store and have them make sure you're on the Hybrid network and not the Regular Nationwide Network. Have them send an PRL update/upgrade to your line and see if it helps. Worked like a miracle for my wife's phone.
Update: Just left my Verizon store and as of right now, I didn't have to swap out my sim card. The rep checked and he said it showed that my wife's phone was under the regular nationwide network, while my phone was under the hybrid network.(Whatever that is.) So he sent out an network update to my wife's phone that should bring hers on par with mine. He told me not to turn off my phone because it may take a couple of hours to push through, but once it does, our prls or signal strength in our area should be the same. Once the update pushes through, I'll post the results.
Update to the update:
