Behaviour of 3g signal

Forums › One NZ (including Farmside) › Behaviour of 3g signal

peejayw

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#25926 7-Sep-2008 07:09

I have just recently been receiving 3G and think its 900 but not sure.

Outside my door the signal is 5 bars, full strength, however stepping inside the signal thru a glass door drops 1 bar. 2 m inside the house it drops to 2 bars and 4 m away it has vanished. There are no interveaning walls between the exterior glass door and the centre of the room where the signal dies.

If this is 900, is this drop in signal strength normal?

I'm supposed to respect my elders, but it's getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

coffeebaron

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#162704 7-Sep-2008 07:28

Where do you live, what model of phone do you have?
If you are far away from the signal, but have good line of site; you will usually get "full strength", but as soon as there is anything little in the way, it dies very quickly. This could be it, or it is 2100 with poor building penetration. Also, there could be other indoor electronics that interfere with the signal.

So several reasons, and not uncommon for either 2g or 3g.

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peejayw

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#162705 7-Sep-2008 07:32

Whangarei

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Dont know for sure how far away but if the site is where they had it previously, I am about 500m away from a 900MHz site.

I'm supposed to respect my elders, but it's getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

johnr

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#162709 7-Sep-2008 08:25

Its 2100mhz you are getting outside not from your local cell.

peejayw

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#162716 7-Sep-2008 08:41

Oh, so the 900 site could still happen? How come I can pick up 2100 now, it used to cut out about half a K away from home :-)

I'm supposed to respect my elders, but it's getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

NZtechfreak

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#162725 7-Sep-2008 09:35

Vodafone's 3G coverage is very patchy at times, I'm hardly surprised that you can take a few steps indoors and suddenly drop to two bars - I find the same thing on my N82.

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alasta

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#162729 7-Sep-2008 10:06

NZtechfreak: Vodafone's 3G coverage is very patchy at times, I'm hardly surprised that you can take a few steps indoors and suddenly drop to two bars - I find the same thing on my N82.

I get a good 3G signal on one side of my house but I lose it altogether and go back to 2G on the other side of the house, although I am on steep topography here so it's probably not all that surprising.

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NZtechfreak

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#162730 7-Sep-2008 10:16

I find similar things lots of places. If you were just making calls/sending SMS you'd probably never take that much notice, but it really shows up when you browse the net on your phone. The other area where it makes itself felt is battery life - the continuous searching for service really hammers battery life. I tend to keep my phone in GSM mode, and use a task manager shortcut to Settings and flick it over to 3G when browsing.

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DjShadow

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#162734 7-Sep-2008 10:39

3g does act a bit weird, a good example is there is a 3g site at Nawton Mall in Hamilton, yet if I goto dominos pizza at the mall which wouldn't be more than 50m from the 3g transmitter I can only get GSM from Dinsdale. The building is facing away from the transmitter.

peejayw

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#162740 7-Sep-2008 11:27

It was the drastic change in battery life that i really noticed last week, I guess from the phone switching backwards and forwards all the time as it lost 3g.

I'm supposed to respect my elders, but it's getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

NZtechfreak

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#162749 7-Sep-2008 13:16

Yeah, no kidding. I can go two days on my N82 using 3G only to surf (or make the occasional SIP call), remaining in GSM the remainder of the time - including continous push email. Thats pretty good, considering how much I use the device. If I leave it on 3G I can never get beyond a day, often not even one day.

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peejayw

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#162971 8-Sep-2008 06:43

Yes, using the phone as modem is not ideal but i dont like the idea of a USB device either, too easy to damage it. Ideal would be a 900/2100 Express card, wonder if they are on the horizon?

I'm supposed to respect my elders, but it's getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

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bbman

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#164195 13-Sep-2008 12:32

peejayw: Yes, using the phone as modem is not ideal but i dont like the idea of a USB device either, too easy to damage it. Ideal would be a 900/2100 Express card, wonder if they are on the horizon?

Have been looking for those options, so far very little available. Sierra wireless only do 850/1900/2100 so perfect for Telecoms new network, no better for Vodafone.

Most seem to 850/1900/2100 or 850/2100 and now a few are coming out 900/2100. At the moment due to the 900mhz being very new it will take time to see data cards and handsets support it.

I would suggest that in the next 12 months tri band and quad band UMTS handsets that support both 850/900 in particular will become available. These will be for the next few years the key growth frequencies. Then maybe the 700mhz freq for LTE 4g etc will enter the fray??

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