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They've done this kind of ploy forever. They also require that the strength bars display the highest reception of any type of service it can receive, regardle
by DannyBee 8y ago
They've done this kind of ploy forever.
They also require that the strength bars display the highest reception of any type of service it can receive, regardless if that is what it is using right now.
So it may display 4 bars and LTE but it's really 4 bars for GSM service, despite using LTE atm.
They do this because it works when it comes to reviews and perception.
There was a phone that people complained about reception on that was displaying the current service signal strength using a realistic algorithm.
Review sites, etc, complained about it compared to other phones despite it being better in actuality.
A "fix" was issued. That fix was to use the same signal bar algorithm as everyone else. The same review sites/etc were awash with how much better everyone's reception was and gladness the bug had been fixed.
- AndrewKemendo 8y agoI really wish there was something for iPhone that told me my SNR, CRO, Bands etc... and then let me manually configure if I want. As things are going we're basically going to get the equivalent of stoplights for the reception/connectivity UI.
- russdill 8y agoDon't think there's anything like Signal Spy for iPhone https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.novvia.fispy&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.novvia.fis...
- novvia 8y agoIs there a need for it on iPhone? I am seriously considering making Signal Spy for iPhone. Bryan
- russdill 8y agoGetting true data on connection type/band/strength etc is really useful, especially if you can log it. I personally don't have an iPhone, but Signal Spy is useful to me on Android.
- AndrewKemendo 8y agoI'd buy it
- garblegarble 8y agoYou can get some information on the iPhone using the field test app, you access it by calling *3001#12345#*
- paulddraper 8y agoWhat phone?
- vezycash 8y agoIOS, iPhone 4 https://www.wired.com/2010/07/ios4-update-antenna/ https://www.wired.com/2010/07/ios4-update-antenna/ Edit: This adds more details, explains the "You're holding it wrong" announcement. https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/06/09/inside-ios-11-with-antennagate-a-distant-memory-apple-switches-back-to-signal-bars https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/06/09/inside-ios-11-wit...
- traek 8y ago> There was a phone that people complained about reception on that was displaying the current service signal strength using a realistic algorithm. > Review sites, etc, complained about it compared to other phones despite it being better in actuality. > A "fix" was issued. That fix was to use the same signal bar algorithm as everyone else. The same review sites/etc were awash with how much better everyone's reception was and gladness the bug had been fixed. Source?
- tbrock 8y agoSee: iPhone Antennagate
- Izkata 8y agoThat was an actual design/manufacturing defect, where touching the wrong part of the case would cause a short-circuit and immediately drop the call.
- db48x 8y agoNot a short circuit, if I recall correctly, but it added a lot of capacitance and therefore impedance to the antenna.
- scarface74 8y agoAnd like other Applegates it was overblown. Apple kept selling the same GSM iPhone 4 design for 3 years.
- jakobegger 8y agoAs a former iPhone 4 user who lived in a house with poor reception, I wouldn't say the issue was overblown. I practically couldn't use my phone for phone calls. I don't use the phone part much, so it wasn't a deal breaker for me, but I do remember that all my connection problems went away when I switched to an iPhone 5.
- cjsawyer 8y agoIt’s like that big brand clothing store that tried getting rid of the persistent 60%-off “sales” in favor of just showing the real prices.
- aurailious 8y agoJC Penny I think?
- mbreese 8y agoAnd the strategy failed, CEO fired, and they went back to the old marketing/pricing.
- morganvachon 8y agoOne of the companies I work for (a closeouts/clearance wholesaler) has a standing policy of selling nearly everything at half of the average retail price. There was a time where we would look up retail pricing on, for example, a task chair, and it would average $100 in big box stores. We would mark it $50 and advertise it as "half our competitor's prices". We had tons of customers demanding to get discounts off of our "retail" price or they would no longer shop with us. Eventually we figured out that if we marked it at the full retail price of $100, then put a tag on it that said "take 50% off", it would sell like crazy. We make the same amount of money per sale, but we sell much higher volume due to customer perception of sale prices. Now we price all merchandise that was previously subject to the half-retail rule with the same strategy.
- z3t4 8y agoI remember an article about some guy that bought a TV on "sales", then scraped off the price tag, only to see that the the "Christmas sale" price was higher then the original price.
- kalleboo 8y agoIn EU countries there are often advertising regulations to the effect of sale prices having to be lower than the average price of that item over a certain period leading up to the sale, you can't raise the price right before a sale, etc.
- a11595 8y agoThat's interesting if true. Does the operator have that much control over the phone though? I guess all I care about - does it effect me? I have a pixel2xl, flashed with CarbonOS. Not a trace of carrier or google crap - carrier config/sprintdm/etc all disabled. Does ATT still have some power to control what my signal strength bars or connection label says? I very highly doubt it. I believe my phone decides what to show by itself - not the carrier. If someone is not in the same position as me - a blind sheep who buys his phone from a carrier, then for them, in my opinion, this is a good step. 5g to them simply means "faster that when it said 4g" - and this holds true for this.
- rpeden 8y agoDoesn't Android or CarbonOS just get its signal strength information from the Qualcomm baseband OS? It's a second OS always running on your phone that you can't do much about. The baseband OS could be lying about signal strength to your phone OS.
- DannyBee 8y agoAndroid/etc allow carriers to customize the signal bar thresholds, etc. So even if the baseband didn't lie (which is one mechanism), the carriers can control the thresholds used on their network.
- a11595 8y agoGoogle's android does, and there are specific services in the OS for that, such as vz* sprint* tm* and carrier config/services. There are also a bunch of Qualcomm services running that to various things. So my question was - I don't have any of that stuff on my phone, with a custom rooted rom, and those services disabled/removed. Simple test now - if I set my phone to 2G, it connects to 2G with full bars, and says 2G. If I set it to LTE, it says LTE and displays 1 bar. Also, every time I reboot the phone, it pop us "carrier config failed." This makes me believe this likely applies to phones bought from a carrier and not re-flashed. The fact is, if you for some reason buy a phone from a carrier, you are buying into their ecosystem, and for people like that - most people, this 5G icon is what they want, because to them it means faster than the 4G icon on that phone, so I don't see an issue here.
- murderfs 8y agoYeah, pretty much all of the carriers cheat, and demand the ability to cheat, e.g.: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/dad385ae29e13a04500fd698e585f933cd352e53 https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/...
- rjbwork 8y agoWhat the fuck Android? Why are you helping mobile carriers lie to their customers?
- wwright 8y agoBecause mobile carriers and other large businesses have always been their customers, not consumers. Google’s only incentive for helping consumers is that it might give them more data for their large business partners.
- jarfil 8y agoSignal bars are meaningless anyway. Even a raw dB measurement wouldn't tell much about the service quality, so they might as well switch to a "coverage / no coverage" indicator.
- kurthr 8y agoTo go a step further for GSM (I don't know precisely for 4G, but I suspect it is the same) the base station determines both handset dB/SNR/Quality and commands the handset power which usually is limiting performance. It is likely this setting that allows the handset to report its "number of bars"... So if you don't let them lie on the handset... it's likely that the network providers would just start lying to the handsets at an even deeper level than they already do. Just get the marketing silliness out of the way at as high a level as possible so engineers can make our coverage better.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pishpash 8y agoSo the stupidity of the people demands lies.
- muse900 8y agoDon't know much about the matter, I am from EU and traveled to NY a week ago. The carrier I was assigned to was AT&T from my own carrier and it showed like I had 3-4 bars 4g all the time, although everything was so slow, in many cases I couldn't even do a search on google. For a whole week, while being there I felt like I had no actual 4g, heck not even 3g. I don't know if thats AT&T specifically or New York being a very busy city but ye thats a real problem right there tbh, seeking out wifi just because you cant get the service you are supposedly paying for sucks.
- rayiner 8y agoAre you sure your phone has the right bands? I assume NTT DoCoMo is very fast in Tokyo, but my iPhone (even though it seems to connect at 4G) is agonizingly slow. Like sub- 1 mbps.
- wmf 8y agoSometimes roaming is throttled (because carriers charge each other crazy rates) so you may not have been getting the throughput that the AT&T network is capable of.
- felixfbecker 8y agoI was on vacation on Spain with my girlfriend's family, who are from the US. They all had booked international roaming from T-Mobile US. Their speeds were so bad they couldn't even look up restaurants on Yelp. Meanwhile, I am on T-Mobile Germany, which since last year has free (and unthrottled, I think) roaming in the entire EU per EU law. My data worked flawlessly. It was even faster than the hotel WiFi, and I used it to tether to my laptop instead of using the WiFi.
- comex 8y agoNote that when a phone on AT&T shows “4G”, that means HSPA+, i.e. actually 3G. When on LTE, it shows “LTE”. In other words, AT&T did the exact same scam during the 3G->4G transition and the effects still show...
- betaby 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- wongarsu 8y ago>They also require that the strength bars display the highest reception of any type of service it can receive To be fair, for the original purpose of the signal strength bar (indicate ability to receive and make phone calls) this is the better metric. If I am on a 1 bar LTE connection but as soon as I loose it the phone falls back to a 4 bar GSM connection, I effectively do have a 4 bar connection to the phone network, not a shaky 1 bar connection where I should avoid moving the phone too much. Of course now mobile internet is increasingly the thing people are more woried about, but signal bars were never a good approximation of mobile internet speed because contention is a much bigger problem than with phone service.
- dotancohen 8y agoThe fake gauge readings have been going on for a lot longer than that. When Cadillac first put electronic fuel gauges in their vehicles, I think around 1984, customers would complain about the fuel mileage. So for the next model year, the gauges were reprogrammed from a linear scale to a semi-logarithmic scale. All complaints of mileage stopped.