Verizon GS3 signal reception thread

[Ken7]

Good to know, thanks. Comparisons between the 2 would be nice I know I have barely any 4G on Long Island, NY, so it would still fall back to 1x in my case instead of 4g, if not worse I guess

Brichi, VZW tells me that all of Suffolk County should be 4G by the end of the summer. When I see it I'll believe it.

 

[Skeeter125]

Except my wife's IPhone 4S would best my GNex in marginal areas about 90% of the time. I guess that could be a commentary on the GNex as much as anything.

well the gnex we all know how that was. I was just going off of using all 3 phones and my experience. Plus more often than not I would be seeing that o on the iphone4s.

 

[Ken7]

Compared to my galaxy nexus the s3 has marginally better signal. Data speed is great as it is on gnex as well. I'm in NYC.
Switching between 3g and 4g is fast. Holds both signals well.

Glad I switched from gnex. But if I stayed with gnex I would of been just as happy. They are really comparable.

Arche3, given your similar results (I'm in NY too), why do you prefer the S3 over the GNex?

 

[Skeeter125]

[conspiracy theory]

I wonder if Apple owns or is in partnership with Verizon, you know, since they are in legal battles with samsung. Thus, making Verizon cripple the phones and lock them down.

[/conspiracy theory]

yeah samsung phones are the only ones they are worried about that's why they let the others go because apple knows they aren't selling near as well as samsung devices. Case solved, you heard it here first folks, apple is sabotaging samsung devices, they cant win in devices or in the courtroom so they had to resort to this.

 

[EarlyMon]

EarlyMon, your biggest revelation to me was the dispelling of 'facts' in several posts I've seen that claimed that Motorola and Samsung were using the same radios because they both had the S4 chip with integrated radios. Now that we know the S4 chip contains no radio, we know that's not the case and both companies may well be using their own radios, just as they've always done.

So we're back to square one, but it still doesn't explain why some S3 owners are saying the S3 is besting the Razr and others saying exactly the opposite. Weird stuff!

This

Could be easily explained as unit to unit variations or other interesting non-linear differences, meaning that the response characteristics (send/receive) don't have to follow a straight line.

Best example in this thread illustrating that was the SGS3 and RAZR taken into two different rooms with two different winners.

Most people are getting multipath signals - a hodgepodge of apparent signals due to one signal bouncing around before being received - the radio equivalent of hearing your voice echo in a canyon. That can hose the "numbers vs performance picture" a little bit as well.

 

[Ken7]

I will do some more "scientific" testing later, but I just got my GS3 today.

my incredible in the house would range from 1-3 bars on average, and never had an issue with voice calls, or data.

in my basement, my incredible would struggle to get a decent 3G signal. phone would still work though.

Wifes Razr gets considerably better signal in the house than my incredible does.


New GS3: I consistently get 2 bars of 4G service upstairs, downstairs, it sometimes will revert to 3 -4 bars of 3G, and then back to a low 4G signal.

No call issues at all (even though i've only made a few), data is blazing fast, getting 10+ mb down and 2+ mb up.

granted i've had the phone out of the box and activated for all of only 2 hours, i have not noticed anything bad yet. but I will be monitoring the service within the 14 days, and if i notice anything out of the ordinary, it may go back.

but as of now - all systems go!


I will do some dbm numbers at a later time for you guys.

Perch, we'd like to hear how your S3 compares (in practical use such as web page loading etc.) to your wife's Razr. It sounds like you can conduct some marginal signal tests in parts of your house. That's real-world info we'd appreciate.

Good luck!

 

[Ken7]

Could be easily explained as unit to unit variations or other interesting non-linear differences, meaning that the response characteristics (send/receive) don't have to follow a straight line.

Best example in this thread illustrating that was the SGS3 and RAZR taken into two different rooms with two different winners.

Most people are getting multipath signals - a hodgepodge of apparent signals due to one signal bouncing around before being received - the radio equivalent of hearing your voice echo in a canyon. That can hose the "numbers vs performance picture" a little bit as well.

Yes, rejection of mutipath interference could explain varying results. Somehow I'd expect the Razr to do a better job handling mutipath interference than Samsung and it might explain the history of the two companies and their radios.

But yes, some areas might just have weak signals and no real mutipath issues and others may have moderately strong signals with bad mutipath. It's the old 'quantity vs quality'. This may well explain the wildly different results we're seeing.

 

[Travisimo]

I just switched from a Galaxy Nexus to the Galaxy S3. I'm not sure how accurate the signal reading is on my GNex since there is no sim card in there, but it's still giving my a reading.

In my home right now, I'm getting the following:

Galaxy Nexus: -120
Galaxy S3: -104

While neither would be considered a great signal, the S3 is noticeably better. The -120 is pretty typical of what I got in my home with the GNex and would be considered "marginal". I would normally get about 3-5 mbps downloads, and I'm getting about that now with the S3. I have yet to be able to take the S3 out to some locations where I am familiar with the signal readings, but I will definitely report back.

My guess is that the S3 is going to be slighter better than the GNex, but still not up to par with the LTE leaders.

I have to say that I really like some of the features on the S3. On the other hand, I was running Jellybean on my GNex and I really miss Google Now and the outstanding new version of Voice Search. That will come in time, I know.

 

[arche3]

Arche3, given your similar results (I'm in NY too), why do you prefer the S3 over the GNex?

Because it's newer.

Maybe when I get in a marginal signal area I will see it perform better than the gnex. But NYC is blanketed in 4g goodness.

Oh and the bigger screen without the S3 looking bigger.

 

[Ken7]

Because it's newer.

Maybe when I get in a marginal signal area I will see it perform better than the gnex. But NYC is blanketed in 4g goodness.

Oh and the bigger screen without the S3 looking bigger.

Yeah, new is almost always more fun.

Do you really notice the bigger screen? Isn't it only something like 1/10" bigger?

 

[arche3]

Yeah, new is almost always more fun.

Do you really notice the bigger screen? Isn't it only something like 1/10" bigger?

I notice it on the keyboard the most. Just a hair bigger. Better.

 

[Trent Reznor]

There's a little confusion in this thread that we can clear up easily. I just found this and read the whole thing.

The Qualcomm S4 SoC contains zero radios. It does feature a world modem block capable of dealing directly with any mobile radio transceivers made. (Other phones need additional LTE modem chips at minimum.)

Separate radio transceivers are required for each band, GPS, Bluetooth, wifi, CDMA and LTE. It's not uncommon for a single radio chip to house multiple radio transceivers.

Hi Early... Nice to see you here Could you please provide a reference supporting this?

Everything I have read is that the the GPS, Bluetooth, wifi...etc radios are all contained on die on the SoC.

"The S4 will support on-die LTE, HSPA+, and CDMA radios

 

[Sandroidfan]

EarlyMon, your biggest revelation to me was the dispelling of 'facts' in several posts I've seen that claimed that Motorola and Samsung were using the same radios because they both had the S4 chip with integrated radios. Now that we know the S4 chip contains no radio, we know that's not the case and both companies may well be using their own radios, just as they've always done.

The S4 chip contains various radio chips (GSM, CDMA, LTE, etc) and ARM processor in one SoC. It's actually the first one that contains LTE radio chip. Previously all LTE phones had LTE radio chip separately from processor.

But the entire RF chain consists of antenna, transceiver, amplifier in addition to the radio chip. And there is the radio driving software. Sometimes people call that entire system as radio, so that causes confusion.

 

[EarlyMon]

The S4 chip contains various radio chips (GSM, CDMA, LTE, etc) and ARM processor in one SoC. It's actually the first one that contains LTE radio chip. Previously all LTE phones had LTE radio chip separately from processor.

No.

The S4 contains no radios whatsoever - none, zip, nada - sorry, but it contains a world modem block ONLY.

My source is Qualcomm -

Integrated LTE World/Multimode Modem

Snapdragon S4 Processors include a brand new modem designed for speed, battery performance and worldwide network compatibility. The first Snapdragon S4 processor, the MSM8960TM chipset, includes:

• Industry’s first fully integrated 3G/4G world/multimode LTE Modem: Supports all of the world’s leading 2G, 3G and 4G LTE standards. It also includes integrated sup- port for multiple satellite position networks (GPS and GLONASS) as well as short range radios via Bluetooth, WiFi, FM and NFC.

• Designed for speed, compatibility and power savings:
Snapdragon S4 Processor MSM8960 chipset includes the industry’s only complete platform that integrates all of the world’s leading 2G, 3G and 4G mobile broadband modem technologies on a single chip. This new integrated multi- mode modem is based on an advanced, programmable architecture that is performance, size and power optimized for the fastest combination of modems available for:

- LTE FDD/TDD (Cat3)
- 3G (DC-HSPA+ Cat 24)
- EV-DO Rev. B
- 1x Advanced
- TD-SCDMA
- GSM/GPRS/EDGE

Some Qualcomm reading, go with the white paper -

View attachment QU_SnapdragonS4_White_Paper_FNL_Rev6.pdf

View attachment snapdragon-s4-product-overview.pdf

View attachment snapdragon-specs.pdf

The challenge of maintaining buss speeds within any system on a chip (SoC) is such that processor SoCs exist, and radio SoCs exist - but the S4 is a processor with an embedded modem - and zero radios.

The radio chips are separate, and when there's finally a decent teardown for this phone, if anyone maintained any doubt it will disappear then.

The blogs continue to get this hilariously wrong. Modem does not equal radio. Support for wifi, BT, etc does not equal radio - it equals support for those radios.

 

[cedjunior]

I would suggest that you try to be as scientific as you can. Use Open Signal Maps app.

Record your findings in -dBm. Saying "I have 3 of 6 bars" is subjective to the device.

If people have both the GS3 and another of these phones available, it would be even better to put them in the same spot and run OSM for 5 minutes, then put the other in the same spot and run again for 5 minutes. Then a side-by-side test (then flip them around) to eliminate as much speculation as possible.

Otherwise you'll have too much anecdotal evidence and, ultimately, you'll prove nothing.

Using this app I'm getting dBm readings that are ~10 dBm greater using Open Signal Maps vs Settings-About Device-Status. For example I was sitting in my truck outside my apartment and Open Signal Maps was reading -89 dBm and Settings-About Device-Status was reading 101 dBm. I'm not sure if Open Signal Maps is reading the strength of the signal from the tower the phone is actually connecting to, or just the nearest tower.

Also, on the ride home from work driving up 35 I was getting readings as high as -69 dBm.

 

[Sandroidfan]

Well, it's just matter of using different terminology. I didn't say the whole radio is in S4. I actually meant multi mode modem integrated in it, which is important part of radio system. Maybe I should avoid the word "radio chip" which is confusing.

 

[EarlyMon]

Well, it's just matter of using different terminology. I didn't say the whole radio is in S4. I actually meant multi mode modem integrated in it, which is important part of radio system. Maybe I should avoid the word "radio chip" which is confusing.

Indeed, please avoid that with respect to the S4 because a modem isn't a radio at all.

Just as an orange isn't a different term for pancakes.

Do use the word radio chip to refer any packaged part included by Broadcom, Infineon, Sequans et al (as yet to be determined) to provide the radio transceivers and other needed radio circuitry.

Simplified diagram:

Processor <--> Modem <--> Radio <--> Antenna
|----Firmware and Software----|

Hope this helps!

 

[EarlyMon]

Also, on the ride home from work driving up 35 I was getting readings as high as -69 dBm.

ftfy

-69 dBm is greater than -89 dBm.

Not sure why OSM was reading differently than your phone's firmware - unless OSM was showing a raw value and the phone was showing a value after noise rejection...

 

[cedjunior]

ftfy

Yeah, that's what I meant. Hard to keep track of all these negative numbers.:smokingsomb:

 

[sorka]

LG Spectrum 4G: -83/-85 (70%)
SGSIII: -77/-79 (79-83%)

Using opensignal app. Phone set in same location on desk, in leather phone holder/prop.

While the Spectrum may not be great, the SGSIII is at least a little better...

Holy smokes! Were you standing next to a tower?

 

[Deleted User]

Just started playing. Columbia, SC. Wifes ICS MAXX is at 2-3 bars 4g, S3 at 2 bars of 3G. I've restarted the phone with no success. Even lost 3g for about 10 minutes while trying to download an alarm clock app before bed. Gave up, no signal. Never had that with my DX or my wife's MAXX. Not looking good. I'll give it the full 14 days before it goes back. I'm not one to "hope" a fix comes out. If one does, so be it, I'll pay retail to keep ULD.

 

[DROID_SCOTSMAN]

I will do some more "scientific" testing later, but I just got my GS3 today.

previous phone - OG Incredible
wife's phone - Razr w/ICS

I live approximately 30 miles from the metro area, so a smaller suburb. we have decent service in town.

my incredible in the house would range from 1-3 bars on average, and never had an issue with voice calls, or data.

in my basement, my incredible would struggle to get a decent 3G signal. phone would still work though.

Wifes Razr gets considerably better signal in the house than my incredible does.


New GS3: I consistently get 2 bars of 4G service upstairs, downstairs, it sometimes will revert to 3 -4 bars of 3G, and then back to a low 4G signal.

No call issues at all (even though i've only made a few), data is blazing fast, getting 10+ mb down and 2+ mb up.

granted i've had the phone out of the box and activated for all of only 2 hours, i have not noticed anything bad yet. but I will be monitoring the service within the 14 days, and if i notice anything out of the ordinary, it may go back.

but as of now - all systems go!


I will do some dbm numbers at a later time for you guys.

I too came from the OG Incredible (pre-order, amoled screen) and while I too haven't been able to run the phone through all its paces, I was able to call someone on the west coast (night worker) on my way to work and in spots where the call would drop, it held fast, she didnt even know I was driving! How bout that? The real kicker? I couldnt make a call or get service at my desk... I'm able to rock pandora and play words with friends... bet work is gonna love me! (At least I'll be more productive with Pandora!).

I was freaking out I was going to have to return the phone. Although I can only grab on a 3g signal at my desk, I am in a notorious dead zone behind a couple of servers and several walls. My friend with a rezound has no signal (cant even get phone calls). So, win for the SG3 in this scenario anyways.

 

[jerofld]

Simplified diagram:

Processor <--> Modem <--> Radio <--> Antenna
|----Firmware and Software----|

Hope this helps!

Ahh...the days of BEE are flooding back

 

[rushmore]

It also makes you wonder if there are significant differences in the way towers handle signals differently in different areas. When you see some say their Mot blows away the S3 and others say almost the opposite, it just makes you search for some logical explanation other than defective phones.

Is it possible that some equipment on towers are newer or different and certain phones handle the signals better? I just don't know.

VZW bought up Cellular One towers several years ago, so there is a mix of old & new. The key is comparing to what you have and the SG3, since the variables are wide. That is a reason for this thread, since taking the "average" view of the data will help to filter out the outliers.

I think the trend so far is we can eliminate that the reception is bad like the Charge or Gnex, so at least we can assume that within reason. That is progress at least

 

[huffbanger]

My S3 consistently seems to be 5-10dB less (worse) than my Incredible. So far I haven't had any issues with dropped calls, the call clarity actually seems better. While measuring -97dbm, I still managed a 21mb download and 2mb upload. Other than the physical appearance of the phone (overly rounded corners), the phone is great!