AT&T in Phoenix
I just wanted to get some feedback about quality in the Phoenix area. I had a couple of AT&T phones and I had some issues with the signal strength. I work in RF and IC design, but I have never seen this issue with T-Mobile or Verizon.
Another individual approached me and said the same thing.
Basically, I can be sitting somewhere (stationary) and the signal strength will go from 2 bars to 5 bars in the space of about a minute. It slowly fluctuates. T-Mobile and Verizon show a certain number of bars and it stays that way for a significant amount of time, not go up and down in a matter of minutes.
Anyone else have that same problem? I really like AT&T but this is too stranges. On both phones as well and on my friends iPhone. Thanks!
Another individual approached me and said the same thing.
Basically, I can be sitting somewhere (stationary) and the signal strength will go from 2 bars to 5 bars in the space of about a minute. It slowly fluctuates. T-Mobile and Verizon show a certain number of bars and it stays that way for a significant amount of time, not go up and down in a matter of minutes.
Anyone else have that same problem? I really like AT&T but this is too stranges. On both phones as well and on my friends iPhone. Thanks!
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I am Mexia, TX (near Waco) and experience the same thing with AT&T on my RAZR. Kind of entertaining in a frustrating sort of way. I am wondering if they are starting to cut in use of Cellular One towers around here. Maybe that is what's going on there?
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I do not know what you are talking about, most cell phones do that, I had verizon, and I had lg phones with them, but they kept dropping calls, I had 440, 6100, 8100. Then I switched to alltel, and bought a razor, so far it has dropped one maybe two calls. But I still get that echo that cdma gets sometimes.
You say you are standing still but, you did not say if you are moving your hand, holding the phone near your head, have your hand by the antenna, inside or outside, some phones have the antenna in the bottom near your hand, duh that blocks the signal. you also did not say what kind of phone you had, just that your friend had an I phone.
To me the thing that matters most is can you make calls? Do they drop allot? And the clarity of the ...
(continues)
You say you are standing still but, you did not say if you are moving your hand, holding the phone near your head, have your hand by the antenna, inside or outside, some phones have the antenna in the bottom near your hand, duh that blocks the signal. you also did not say what kind of phone you had, just that your friend had an I phone.
To me the thing that matters most is can you make calls? Do they drop allot? And the clarity of the ...
(continues)
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I have the same problem here in Honolulu. The phone can be sitting on my table and I can watch it go from 2 bars to 5 bars two to three times a minute. It drives me crazy. đ
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more bars in more places. And sometimes less bars in the same place you had more bars!!
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well...
i work for one of the big 4, but i have had T-mo for literally 5 years.
Dropped calls and poor service happen in a variety of areas. Brick buildings, lots of trees, and bodies of water are all major culprits. Also, Cingular/ATT is relatively new to Phoenix, they are constantly beefing up their coverage.
But if you are concerned about the fluctuations in bars, try setting your network to slow. You might take longer to find a signal when your driving, but you wont be annoyed by a fluctuation.
---seacrest out
i work for one of the big 4, but i have had T-mo for literally 5 years.
Dropped calls and poor service happen in a variety of areas. Brick buildings, lots of trees, and bodies of water are all major culprits. Also, Cingular/ATT is relatively new to Phoenix, they are constantly beefing up their coverage.
But if you are concerned about the fluctuations in bars, try setting your network to slow. You might take longer to find a signal when your driving, but you wont be annoyed by a fluctuation.
---seacrest out
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Thanks! I'm not sure what you mean though. Do you mean set it to 2G service only?
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Good question. I should have stated that I wasn't even moving the phone around. I understand that moving the antenna can causing matching issues into the receiver, but that still does not explain the bar variance. I know that Verizon and T-Mobile do not do that. I have T-Mobile and my wife has Verizon. Once you are on the cell, especially with CDMA, the average user power is calculated for TX, but for RX you should not see much of a difference over a short period of time. I just think that AT&T is doing something to handle the 2G and 3G service versus users versus bandwidth. That's OK, but it's not fun watching your bars go from none (no service) to 3 or 4 bars when you are absolutely still.
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I am in Phoenix and receive excellent coverage. The only place I get terrible service is in Wal*Mart. But everyone I talk to has that trouble. No matter what city you live in. Do you turn your phone off every couple of days? That seems to help my phone, but I have a cheap Nokia 6102i. I hope everything works out for you. đ
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I think when you do that the phone updates it self, when I had verizon they always said to do that *226 or what ever # thing to update it, but from what I was told that only updates the roaming list, then when I had alltel they told me to do what you said turn the phone off and then on every once in a while and that updates it, I have had a couple LG's and a few moto's and 2 nokia's , I had 4 lg phones and they had the worst, reception as far as how many bars, they always showed a good signal, but they always dropped calls like crazy. A lot of people do not like motos, but they seem to work the best of all the phones I have had so far.
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That brings up an interesting issue. With Verizon Wireless I would periodically use *228 to update the roaming codes. I have never heard how that works with GSM/UMTS services. Maybe when the SIM registers on the network it is recognized because the system (towers) are updated. Come to think of it, why can't CDMA be programmed to recognize the ESN of the phone and allow the call instead of hoping all the users remember to *228 frequently?
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I do not know why they can not automatically do that, Anyway the sales people at alltel say you do not have to do that, just turn the phone off and on every once in a while, maybe once a week.
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This used to happen to me everytime I would visit my dad in Clearwater (back in 2004 early 2005). This was way before network intergration was complete. Now, I when I go to his house the signal is very strong.
When signal fluctuates like that (at least in my case) The phone was on Cingular (orange) whenever I had very poor signal (1 or 2 bars) but then it'd switch to Cingular (blue) when I had full signal. Since the networks were not integrated my phone would pick up the blue tower as a last resort. Kinda hard to explain, but anyway, this should not be your problems cuz network integration is "complete" đ
How old is your phone.? It could be that you have a pre-merger SIM. IDK đ
When signal fluctuates like that (at least in my case) The phone was on Cingular (orange) whenever I had very poor signal (1 or 2 bars) but then it'd switch to Cingular (blue) when I had full signal. Since the networks were not integrated my phone would pick up the blue tower as a last resort. Kinda hard to explain, but anyway, this should not be your problems cuz network integration is "complete" đ
How old is your phone.? It could be that you have a pre-merger SIM. IDK đ
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You might ask. How did I know which network I was on? Well, I would just dial a bizarre number like 54784 and then I would listen to the recording. While I was on Cingular (orange) I would listen to the regular voice (like when you CS) But while I was on a blue tower the voice (even though it said the same thing) the voice was different and had a higher pitch
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That's a good idea, although I think the Phoenix area has been completely changed over to the new AT&T Mobility. I could be wrong.
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maybe see if you need a new simcard. signal will fluctuate, but usually not that. maybe if you are covering up the antenna or something(which im sure you're not) it could cause a problem like that. i live up in flagstaff/tucson and never really had that problem unless i had no signal. it would go from no signal to a couple bars and back, but its like the phone is trying really hard to get a signal but just failing. All i know is that if i get one solid bar, the calls sound just as good as they do when i have 5 bars... so im starting to think bars really mean nothing anymore âšī¸
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bars don't with digital. When we used amps they ment everything. Digital you either have a signal or you don't plain and simple!
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The energy per bit is determined by the signal strength. This in turn affects the data rate due to the BER (bit error rate). A very slight voice degradation can be observed, but it can make the difference between EDGE and UMTS service.
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It works fine for me in Mesa (a suburb), but I got many dropped calls in Phoenix.
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Works great in Mesa, Phoenix and Chandler. Most of AZ is fine for At&t service.
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Yeah, I think overall I noticed that the coverage is very good in general. The past couple of years I saw a lot of Cingular trucks driving around all of a sudden. I'm sure they were getting the Phoenix area ready for Cingular's big entrance. They started off small and then really boomed. This was before the AT&T Mobility takeover.
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Hey Yep - that happens to me as well. When I first started using cell phones I had t-mob and that very same thing happened. Not so much as when I was on VZW, but it happens. May be a GSM thing (oh all in the Bay Area, mostly San Francisco).
My question for you is that if you're in RF how do you not know the answer to your own question??? Not trying to be a smartas*, but I would think you're the type of person we need on these forums to answer questions like this! Thanks!
My question for you is that if you're in RF how do you not know the answer to your own question??? Not trying to be a smartas*, but I would think you're the type of person we need on these forums to answer questions like this! Thanks!
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Well, I know a lot about the radio side of things and how phones are designed, but I don't know how the base station side of things works. I have heard that people have noticed a difference in AT&T's performance depending on whether they are using 2G or 3G service. I was hoping that someone on this forum knew more about what AT&T is doing in terms of Quality of Service, but I doubt that kind of information would be made public.
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