wifi interferes with cell signal?

[droidnoid]

Has anyone noticed that when wifi is on, the cell signal deteriorates, but turning wifi off causes the cell signal to boost again?

[dsxdroider]

May I ask how you know that the cell signal is going down and up when you turn wifi on and off?

Could it be that when wifi is off, your phone is displaying your 3G signal (and not your voice signal, which seems to be how the Droid X is set up), and that when wifi is on, your phone is displaying your voice signal? If this is the case, then the wifi status may not be causing any signal deterioration or improvement. Rather, turning wifi on or off may be causing your Droid X to display your actual voice signal, which could be remaining the same (other things being equal, such as remaining in the same place, etc.) Could this be a more accurate description of what is going on? Please post back with more details.

[droidnoid]

the wifi signal indicator is separate from the 3g/2g indicator. When wifi is turned off the wifi indicator disappears and the cell signal goes up.

[dsxdroider]

Please pardon me if I am mistaken and being slow here. I believe that there are no separate 3G and voice signal indicators. The phone only displays the 3G status (if there is one) until you try to place a voice call, in which case the phone switches the point of the signal indicator from representing 3G signal strength to representing voice signal strength. If wifi is completely independent of this, then I apologize for a mistaken hypothesis. However, my conjecture asked whether it could be that when you turn wifi on, the signal indicator stops representing 3G signal and starts represents voice signal, and that when wifi is turned off, the signal indicator stops representing voice signal and starts representing 3G signal?

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In any case, things would be much more clear if the phone accurately depicted whether the signal strength indicator is representing 3G or voice signal (ideally it would have a repesentation for both, which is provided by many relevant apps). With the current firmware, the phone does not do this, as described above.

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Where my house is, I get a strong 3G signal but a very weak voice signal (though I get a strong voice and 3G signal when I drive into town/more populated/suburban areas).

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Did any of that apply to your situation?

[Wildman]

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dsxdroider wrote:

Please pardon me if I am mistaken and being slow here. I believe that there are no separate 3G and voice signal indicators. The phone only displays the 3G status (if there is one) until you try to place a voice call, in which case the phone switches the point of the signal indicator from representing 3G signal strength to representing voice signal strength. If wifi is completely independent of this, then I apologize for a mistaken hypothesis. However, my conjecture asked whether it could be that when you turn wifi on, the signal indicator stops representing 3G signal and starts represents voice signal, and that when wifi is turned off, the signal indicator stops representing voice signal and starts representing 3G signal?

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In any case, things would be much more clear if the phone accurately depicted whether the signal strength indicator is representing 3G or voice signal (ideally it would have a repesentation for both, which is provided by many relevant apps). With the current firmware, the phone does not do this, as described above.

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Where my house is, I get a strong 3G signal but a very weak voice signal (though I get a strong voice and 3G signal when I drive into town/more populated/suburban areas).

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Did any of that apply to your situation?

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Actually there is a seperate indicator for 3g and voice, the  original signal meter actually represent your reception for voice calls where the 3g / 1x icon indicates the data connection, both of these should be transmitting on two different radios, so it is possible to have one without the other. 

And as for the reception being effected by activating wifi, this has been a common response because the phone usually tries to disable 3G connection when wifi has been activated to avoid possible connection issues and battery power drain due to the system scanning both radio simultaneously.. I have never ran into issues with the phone doing this, I regularly use my phone and browse web while holding conversation. It may look like it effects the units reception but it doesnt impact the device and keep in mind I have poor reception at my house.

[dsxdroider]

Many thanks for the correction to the always helpful and wise Wildman!

If my phone behaves and displays as I described it, do you think there could be a problem with my phone, a bad bunch of settings on my phone, or that I am just incorrectly reading the display? Perhaps it is the latter - that I am incorrectly reading the display. However, remember I am not running any apps related to this matter. Without any apps, it seems to display as I described. Can you speculate about where I am going wrong in reading the display (if that is indeed what I am doing)?

[Wildman]

No I do not believe you are misreading icons but I have notice that at time the phone doesnt disable 3g data and you will see both connections icon, I feel this may be a small software hickup that happens that I hope is partt of the network fix in 2.2 update.

[droidnoid]

Sorry, I guess I should have been clearer.  Here are the icons I have:

wifi, looks like a series of half circles:  )))

3G/1x indicator

Signal strength:  series of bars increasing in height.

I have a network extender, so I am locked in at 1x.

When wifi is enabled and connected to my home wireless network, the signal strength drops.  When I disable wifi, the signal strength increases.

[dsxdroider]

In my ignorance and for whatever it might be worth, I stand by my first two posts in this thread above.

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Also, you might want to read the related replies in the thread llinked below, especially the one posted by "vicw926a4" on 7/27 (post #8 in the thread) and the final one posted by "TheInsider" (post # 10 in the thread):

http://community.vzw.com/t5/DROID-X-by-Motorola/3G-high-signal-drops-as-soon-as-my-phone-dials-a-num...