i was walking mrpnut through this last night, if you go to about phone > status youll see a number usually -##DB that is your signal. LTE is quriky and doesnt really work out well enough i know it, but if you turn off 4g here is how it all breaks down.
-65DB you are standing within a hundred feet of the tower cuz damn your signal is great
-100DB you will suffer battery drain due to poor signal
on cm/aokp/bb the db is converted into how many bars you should have. touchwiz they like to spread a bit of a white lie and say youve got much better signal than you really do, partitally so your phone doesnt search for better signal and cause big battery drainage. if you wish to confirm this read what your 3G db is and how many bars you have, then go back to stock and see what your db is (should be around the same since you arent moving the tower
) and look at how many bars you have