Droid Charge 4G/3G signal flip

[DHZoh]

Hello,

I'm slightly concerned with a tendency my new Charge is exhibiting.  It frequently will flip to 3G in areas in which a signal should not be weak at all according to coverage maps.  My work zip is 44131 and actually a Verizon store opens on 5/20 within 100 ft of my building.  My office has windows and faces outside so a building excuse probably has little merit.  Technically I should be fine yet I'm 70/30 on 3G over 4G.  Even if my 4g signal is weak, I'm still getting 7+ Mbps.  But then it swaps me to 3g which doesn't even test at .06 Mbps.  So with the phone's logic a weak 7Mbps 4G signal is worse than an impossibly slow 3G signal.  I pretty much have noticed the same behavior at home which has a 3g only area about 7miles away.  Yet its a serious problem as I require nearly constant remote/VPN access which is not possible with such slow 3g results.

Thank you.

[dakota_96]

I noticed the same issue with the Charge as well. I also have the Thunderbolt  and with the Thunderbolt, you can force LTE, but with the Charge you cannot. I can get 4g in my house 99% by forcing LTE with the Thunderbolt and 50/50 in auto mode. The Charge won't even find 4g in auto mode. So, in addition to the inability to force 4g, the Charge also does not have as good of an antenna as the Thunderbolt. I thought i'd try the Charge because I saw reviews indicating better battery life and reception. They were all wrong. I'm taking the Charge back and sticking with my Thunderbolt. If you are still within your return period, I'd suggest you do the same. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

[Ann154]

Does the LTE OnOff app not work for the Droid Charge?

http://market.android.com/details?id=net.andirc.lteonfoff

[ew20]

LTE OnOff doesn't give the option to choose 4g/LTE only like on the thunderbolt.  I'm guessing this is because the TB has that option in its settings and the charge doesn't.  If anyone finds an app that works it would be wonderful!

My 4g is also toggling to 3g at random times.  It would be nice to be able to force 4g though.  The coverage here  in So. Cal is great, there is really no reason the phone should have to switch to 3g (unless 4g goes down).

[nathang]

I just got the Droid Charge Saturday and I am experiencing the same issue.  I have to go into Settings > Wireless & Network > Mobile Networks and toggle from LTE to CDMA and then back to LTE for it to connect back to the 4G network.

I find this very unacceptable that I have to go through settings and trick the phone into going back to what is supposed to be its priority network.

I'm glad to hear the TB handles this better, however, I have read a bunch of horror stories related to the TB with it shutting off frequently and the battery life lasting only 5 hours.

I'm at a loss as to whether 4G is really worth it.  I have 13 days to exchange and I'm thinking of just getting the Incredible 2 and not even worry about 4G.  

[masulsa]

My droid charge is constantly flipping from 4G to 3G.

I called verizon customer support. They wrote me a ticket, 8 days later they called me back.

For the fourth time, I had to tell someone what the problem was for my phone.

I am constantly losing connection to the 4g network. Keep in mind, I'm stayin in one location, not driving from city to city. In one location, I would move from 4g to 3g, then 1X, not be able to connect to the network, then back to 4g. Then all of this would repeat.

Finally I was sent a new Charge phone. They figured that my antenna must be broken. It still sucked that after they transferred me to customer support to get a new phone, I had to describe to a fifth person what my problem was.

A day later, today, I received my phone. I was so excited! I had 4G for a few hours! Then poof, back to 3g, back to 1X, back to 4g, with very slow 4g speeds using speedtest.net app.

I did what someone else suggested, I powered off, then took out my battery, put battery back in, then turned back on.

Now I'm back to 4G with great results from speedtest.net app.

11:14 PM: Download at 12.42 Mbps, upload at 3.63 Mbps.

At 9:42 PM (not sure what network I was on), Download 0.89 Mbps second, UPLOAD at 1.26 Mbps !!!!!

at 9:31 PM:  Download at 6.03 Mbps, upload at 3.55 Mbps.

at 8:15 PM: Download at 0.48 Mbps, upload at 0.45 Mbps!!!!!

Yes, I was at the same location the whole time!

Oh, my battery life sucks! I can't believe this is better than the Thunderbolt, in terms of battery life. Wow!

[chemicalsid]

I have the same issue. Very unhappy about it. My wife has a thunderbolt and she gets 4G throughout our house. I seem to get mostly 3G. The only reason I switched to Verizon was to be able to get 4G!!!

[AnthonyTa_VZW · Accepted solution]

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chemicalsid wrote:

I have the same issue. Very unhappy about it. My wife has a thunderbolt and she gets 4G throughout our house. I seem to get mostly 3G. The only reason I switched to Verizon was to be able to get 4G!!!

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chemicalsid,

I can definitely understand your frustrations with not receiving a steady 4G connection!  I would be happy to assist you with this issue.  There may be a few things impacting the 4G connection, one in particular was found by another store rep where the customers phone had "Juice Defender" installed and it was disabling some data network settings.  If you have Juice Defender either check those settings or remove the application in its entirety and retest 4G data connections.

Let me know how this works out for you!