Let us solve this Verizon Service Quality debate for good

[Iceshag]

   Motorola Droid here.

     I don't frequent this forum too often, I probably glance at it once a week or so, but it doesn't take a regular visitor to take notice that this forum is always peppered with 3G complaints, some more or less valid than others.  However, after reading through a couple different threads tonight I'm afraid I'm going to have to hop on the bandwagon and question my 3G speeds.

     First off, I saw somebody say that 90-100 dBM isn't very good.  I am always stuck at around 98 dBm in my home though, and when I'm out and about I find it never gets below the high 80s.  Is this normal?  Also in my Settings>About Phone>Status menu, it constantly  says I am on an "Network Unknown."  This occurs and remains constant despite any combination of settings, including  roaming being on or off, and whether or not I am on 3G, 1X, or WiFi.

     Speaking of WiFi...when I am at home I use my home router as opposed to 3G for obvious reasons, which is a NETGEAR N router, yet I still only average about 2.5 mbps when connected to it or any wifi elsewhere.  Yes, I have tried turning my routers security off, and yes, I do have it in b/g mode.  I have also done the 228 number thing, the disabling of voice privacy suggestion, turning roaming on/off, several factory resets, etc. 

    Basically I'm just curious to know if anybody else is having similar issues, and what your average speeds are.  Infact, I'm going to make a little form below this paragraph for anyone who is interested, and rename the title of this post.  Perhaps we can congregate enough responses to come up with an average and then determine whether we are receiving acceptable service or not:

Phone model:________

What is your...

     Average 3G download speed? _____dBm

     Average WiFi download speed? _____dBm

    Any other comments that are pertinent___________

[demmo86rt]

I haven't been tracking my speeds so I can't really comment on that, though I do know that you will always get worse reception inside than you will out. I think that you have started a great thread and will check on it often to see what kind of numbers you come up with.

[reallyniceguy]

I used the speed test app. 675 kbps (not consistant, sometimes more and sometimes less)trough 3g done in the middle of the night and one bar of service. wifi I got 3.5 megs dowload. I never notice my phone being slow even at 500 kbps. I notice my bars of service go up when i connect wifi, not sure if its because the phone is just picking up digital and 3g gets turned off. I never had service issues tho, even at 1 bar, everything works fine.(i live in a rural area of texas)

[DucksDroid]

I think that you are confusing two different things.

1.  dBm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBm which is strength of the wireless signal

2.  Bandwidth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_(computing) which is the amount of data that you are moving

The two are mutualy exclusive.  It like saying that you radio in your car gets the data from the station faster if you have a better signal.  As you know this is not true.  With a better signal there is a greater chance that the data will get through (less retries) but not that the data is moving faster.

[AZSALUKI]

first...how do i check my signal and speed? do i NEED an app or is there somewhere on the phone to do this? (i've seen others talk about 85-95 dBM, but never knew how to check). let me know and i'll post the results.

also, one other thing you can try....and i MUST stress that i know little about this, except that it seemed to have improved my quality (voice/sound....my phone sounded "muffled" on both ends) on both ends, but i'm not sure if it actually increased my signal strength?

call ##778

select "edit mode"

enter the password: 000000

go into the "cdma settings"

change home page,"  "home orig," and  "roam orig"  from evrc to evrc-b

hit menu and "commit modifications."

from what i gather, evrc-b is better technology, but is not supported everywhere. so if you try this and your signal is worse (or gone) then you'll need to follow the steps to switch it back. you will also want to save these instructions to your phone in case you find yourself somewhere that appears to be getting poor or no signal, so you can switch it back.

[budone]

Incredible

Wifi speeds 11/1

3G speed 384k/140k

Signal strength -99

[budone]

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AZSALUKI wrote:

first...how do i check my signal and speed? do i NEED an app or is there somewhere on the phone to do this? (i've seen others talk about 85-95 dBM, but never knew how to check). let me know and i'll post the results.

Menu>Settings>About Phone>Network

Signal strength is listed there.

[AZSALUKI]

incredible

signal strength -65

3g download 2.15 mbps

3g upload .95 mbps

wifi download .57 mbps

wifi upload .44 mbps

am i to understand that my wifi is actually slower than my 3g connection? if so....why would i ever turn on wifi??? please understand i know VERY little about this, but i tested everything twice to be sure i got similar results. the wifi was from my router at my office (which is dsl and i've always felt was a bit slow). i also noticed that i can change the measurement it reads (mbps is what i selected).

[budone]

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AZSALUKI wrote:

incredible

signal strength -65

3g download 2.15 mbps

3g upload .95 mbps

wifi download .57 mbps

wifi upload .44 mbps

am i to understand that my wifi is actually slower than my 3g connection? if so....why would i ever turn on wifi??? please understand i know VERY little about this, but i tested everything twice to be sure i got similar results. the wifi was from my router at my office (which is dsl and i've always felt was a bit slow). i also noticed that i can change the measurement it reads (mbps is what i selected).

---

Make sure your phone is locking on that router. When I went to post my numbers, the connection was extremely slow. I found out my phone chose a connection 3 houses away.

[AZSALUKI]

yeah...it was on my network. a few others pop up but it was on mine. i tested again to be sure...same results.