Understanding VZW's Coverage
I have been told that the number of service bars on CDMA phones does not directly correlate to whether or not there is good coverage where you are. What exactly do these bars mean, I can be sitting in my house with all 5 bars then I will only have 2 bars for awhile then back to 5. What do the bars signify if not the quality of coverage?
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According to my own experience, the amount of bars (some full strengh is 4 and others 5), is the signal strength alone...not the call/voice quality of the call itself. Some phones may show full strength yet the call quality isn't necessarily as good as one with 2 bars with good call quality. So, in my opinion, the bars indicate signal strength and not necessarily call quality. I know this didn't exactly answer your question about coverage, but hope it helps some.
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In reality the call quality should be the same no matter what. Digital is digital. As long as there is a signal it should be the same. 1's an 0's are always 1's and 0's as long as they are getting through.
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Assuming, of course, that you have the same channel assignment and there is sufficient power in that channel to maintain a strong enough Ec/Io with little FER.
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Ooooh, do you too have a XXX-XXX-0000 number? 🙂 The local test engineers/tower techs have 0000 numbers in one of the 4 local exchanges. ;-)
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Caiman,
The real value of "bars" depends on the phone model. There is no standard. If the carriers had their way, all phones would show full bars all the time.
If your "bars" vary from 5 to 2 to 5, then your phone is measuring the ratio of signal strength to interference, which varies as the number of users enter/leave your nearby cell site, which does affect your ability to make a call.
But, as before, having 1 bar does not mean a bad signal, and having 5 bars does not guarantee call completion. You should judge only by your ability to make/receive calls.
The real value of "bars" depends on the phone model. There is no standard. If the carriers had their way, all phones would show full bars all the time.
If your "bars" vary from 5 to 2 to 5, then your phone is measuring the ratio of signal strength to interference, which varies as the number of users enter/leave your nearby cell site, which does affect your ability to make a call.
But, as before, having 1 bar does not mean a bad signal, and having 5 bars does not guarantee call completion. You should judge only by your ability to make/receive calls.
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Very much the most accurate response in this thread. There is no standard that says "5 bars must be between -75 and -80dBm. 4 bars between -80 and -85 dBm, etc...." And there is also no standard to how quickly the phone's UI must poll the receiver to see what to update the display. Given how quickly the RF environment can change, the RSSI is not much more useful than a Fisher Price toy.
HOWEVER!!! And key to the original point, why can you sometimes send/receive text messages in areas you can't get a call? Because, in an IS-95 CDMA system (simplified here), there are six channels the handset uses, Pilot, Synch, Paging, Fwd Traffic, Rvrse Access, and Rvrse Traffic. The power setpoints are not the same on all those channels, and will vary d...
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HOWEVER!!! And key to the original point, why can you sometimes send/receive text messages in areas you can't get a call? Because, in an IS-95 CDMA system (simplified here), there are six channels the handset uses, Pilot, Synch, Paging, Fwd Traffic, Rvrse Access, and Rvrse Traffic. The power setpoints are not the same on all those channels, and will vary d...
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1 bar means you'll get text messages and possibly call out... anything > 1 bar is usually good... what they really should do is put a square there... off == no sig... blink == coin-toss and solid == should be fine to call...
It's a leftover from the analog days... since you can "hear" a tower up to 30 miles away, but your phone can't speak to it that far, AFAIK on cdma the closed loop power control is where they derive the bars from... the less power the tower tells the phone to use the more "bars" it displays...
It's a leftover from the analog days... since you can "hear" a tower up to 30 miles away, but your phone can't speak to it that far, AFAIK on cdma the closed loop power control is where they derive the bars from... the less power the tower tells the phone to use the more "bars" it displays...
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I noticed that the other day. I was messing around with the settings on my phone and found the power output. When the output was really low the signal bars where high. When the power went up the bars went down. It does make sense though.
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Is the power output to bars correlation going to be the same on gsm phones or is it a CDMA thing?
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The bar that I work in is in a building where VZW has no coverage, but people can still send and receive text messages.
Funny thing is, when you step outside you get full coverage again. 🙄
Funny thing is, when you step outside you get full coverage again. 🙄
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Thats just interference...for some reason, due to whatever the building is made of, it just won't allow the RF to get through
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