10 ms·
Yeah, pretty much all of the carriers cheat, and demand the ability to cheat, e.g.: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/dad385ae29e13a04
by murderfs 8y ago
Yeah, 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.
- gsich 8y agothere are at least 4 values. rsrp, rsrq, sinr, rssi rsrq is probably the important one. You can clearly see usage of the cell tower with that.
- tjoff 8y agoNumber of bars (1-2 vs. 4-5 or whatver max is) seems to give a pretty decent indication of latency and bandwidth to me. I get that it isn't perfect.
- bdamm 8y agoSeems to be a lot of situations where a bar or two is no service, and others where service is great. So as a determination of whether I can use the phone it is pretty meaningless.
- tjoff 8y agoYour experience will vary, but perhaps: 4-5 bars => 98% likelihood that everything is great. 1-2 bars => 20% quite good, 50% pretty decent, 20% quite bad, 7% bad, 3% no service. How is something like that meaningless? That is immensely useful. You can also reason about it depending on the context. Downtown but inside a bar in a cellar? Or out in the country far from civilization? That it isn't perfect doesn't make it meaningless.
- aasasd 8y agoIn my experience, two bars perfectly indicate the threshold of ”there's service, but no service at all might've been better—at least there wouldn't be false hope.”
- zmmmmm 8y agoPlaying devil's advocate: it's purpose could be to help them not lie. Imagine if there are circumstances where you have good signal strength but still poor quality; a carrier could adjust the bars displayed to be more realistic.
- berbec 8y agoAt least you admit you're advocating for the Devil! We could hope a cell phone company would be so honest as to make sure their signal indicators show possibly lower values.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoThey could, sure. They could also give you a free pony with every phone.
- mc32 8y agoThis echoes of the "Antennagate" problems where apparently Apple's algorithm miscalculated signal, there was a big bruhaha and Papermaster was thrown under the bus.
- deytempo 8y ago$$$$$$$$
- murderfs 8y agoBecause the alternative is for every single OEM to reimplement this on their own, probably in a worse way. Everyone (including Apple, who have far more leverage over carriers) is basically forced to comply with the carriers here, so there's really no other option.
- kop316 8y agoThat actually helps explain an issue I had with my Galaxy Nexus. I worked in an area with spotty coverage, and it was extremely common that it would say I have full service coverage, only to have it drop to almost or no signal as soon as I used it to call. That issue was infuriating.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoI noticed this about phones, if you're using GPS and get a call and answer, guess what, no more GPS. So my guess is the phone cuts off the mobile data, and yeah then you'd see the real coverage.
- ajdhsjakafjt 8y agoMobile networks are two-way systems. If you have perfect reception of the mobile network - let's say full bars! - then that doesn't mean the mobile network also has reception of your mobile device. Most of the time, your phone is in RX-only mode to save battery. It listenes for incoming data every millisecond or two, but no more. But as soon as you actively use the network, things change. The basestation must receive your signals as well. This may suddenly and dramatically change the perception of "signal quality". Before it's RX quality only, then it's RX+TX quality. With incoming or outgoing calls, your phone may switch to another technology. While it may be idling in 4G, large parts of the world rely on 2G for voice calls. As soon as the call starts, the phone switched to 2G and naturally shows 2G reception.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoInteresting, yeah I don't know a whole lot about the underlying tech. I figure Google Maps uses my mobile data which explains why it sorta appears to have lost it's own darn mind.
- gsich 8y agoGPS is receive only, no mobile data is used there.
- geofft 8y agoBecause that's what customers want. Sure, they'll say they want accurate data, but at the end of the day they're paying the provider with the most bars and not doing even the most basic of independent testing, so clearly that's what customers want. In a free market, you measure what people want by what they choose to pay for.
- wvenable 8y agoNo, the customers don't want faked information. You don't expect to people to independently test the contents of every item of food just in case the ingredients on the package on faked. They simply don't know they're being lied to. In most other areas of commerce, that would be illegal.
- alasdair_ 8y agoA remarkably large number of US consumers definitely want fake information: as two brief examples, consider the way weather data in the US is reported (customers get angry if it rains on a “90 percent chance if clear skies” day and customers get angry if their car runs out if fuel when the guage hits “empty” Interestingly, German consumers want to inow the exact level of petroleum spirits in a tank and will get irritated if they are lied to.
- perl4ever 8y agoWhen I owned a German car, the speedometer read somewhat too high, compared to Japanese cars that were quite accurate. Also, on German cars I've driven, when they were stopped, the MPG gauge went to the maximum, rather than zero as would be correct. So I infer that German consumers want to be lied to about some things, just perhaps different things.
- adrianN 8y agoAre you sure they displayed mpg and not l/100km?
- dirkgently 8y agoReally? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple/apple-says-iphones-overstate-signal-strength-idUSTRE6612ND20100702 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple/apple-says-iphones-... It wasn't Android. Apple did this deliberately, and only apologized when they got caught. It's a ritual to bash Android and Google on HN, and Apple gets a pass every time.
- izacus 8y agoApple also released a patch which showed "4G" symbol in status bar for AT&T when on HSxPA signal. In europe and everywhere else, the phone kept showing 3G as other phones.
- thatfrenchguy 8y agoIt’s a per-SIM carrier configuration, when you’re abroad with a US SIM you’ll also see 4G/LTE.
- izacus 8y agoAhh, good to know.
- a-dub 8y agoWhat's the motivation to lie? If service is claimed to be better than it is, then all that does is set expectations higher at times when service is weak thus increasing dissatisfaction and likelihood to jump ship. Signal/network quality is what it is, signal bars are just there to set expectations for the user. Lying with them seems like a fool's errand.
- giobox 8y agoI regularly hear friends/family/colleagues/strangers complain or switch service provider on the basis of “I get like no bars at home” or “I only get 1 bar reception in the office on <carrier name>”. This stuff is relatively meaningless in a technical sense given even a full set of bars still tells you nothing about contention, backhaul etc, but it probably matters in marketing/customer perception terms for the carriers.
- gowld 8y agoPeople only care about the bars after they notice calls dropping, and we assume the phone isn't lying. Then we get extra mad when we have 4 bars while calls drop.
- DannyBee 8y agoAs someone said, in practice what happens is that people like at the bars, not actual performance. Heck, I hear people who think the phone is messed up when their are full bars but no data working (because the bars are showing analog signal or other things). They rarely blame the carrier. So why should the carrier care?
- btown 8y agoDoes anyone know if this cheating is permitted on iOS?
- shaklee3 8y agoThis seems like Apple was borderline admitting the bars are a joke: https://www.wired.com/2010/07/apple-claims-iphone-signal-loss-is-software-mirage/ https://www.wired.com/2010/07/apple-claims-iphone-signal-los...
- ksec 8y ago>Yeah, pretty much all of the carriers cheat Given that HN has an international audience, 1. Is this US only? I have never seen anything similar in EU or East Asia. I.e The Bar is an actual indication of the receiving signal, while it is no guarantee of speed which depends on contention, you will at least know you are in good signal area. 2. Is this Google Android only?
- miluge 8y agoMy bars are for the signal, there is 4 bars but the 4G/LTE/3G etc...is right above it. I'm on Android.
- Sharlin 8y agoYeah. While European companies are by no means saints, there simply doesn’t seem to be this sort of constant screwing over paying customers around here.
- ksec 8y agoBecause there is certain line that shouldn't be cross in the old world. And this is called principle and value. In the New world they are all for Marketing and Margins.
- cm2187 8y agoYou want us to go into European, Indian, Chinese and African corporate scandals?
- bnt 8y agoI have my popcorn out, do it! Just don’t start with VW.
- Sharlin 8y agoTo be fair, VW didn't try to screw over their customers per se; indeed the whole point was to increase fuel efficiency (direct benefit to customer) at the expense of increased NO2 emissions (a negative externality). Of course what they did was deplorable in any case.
- eecc 8y agoUgh, I dared look at the code and stepped back in horror...https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/dad385ae29e13a04500fd698e585f933cd352e53/telephony/java/android/telephony/SignalStrength.java https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/...
- LeonM 8y agoI've scrolled through that code, though I'm not a java dev, I don't really see much 'horror'. Can you explain?
- orf 8y agoWell, there is about 600 lines of boilerplate before you get to anything remotely interesting.
- whoopdedo 8y agoIf the boilerplate is the horrific part, well that's just Java isn't it? The meaningful functions are straightforward and do what you expect. Describe the level of the first radio that returns non-zero starting with the most advanced technology. Or in the case of CDMA/EVDO, the lowest level.
- eecc 8y agoWell no, Java isn’t the best of languages but my criticism stems from other issues, such as weak type system, certain inscrutably bad decisions about the runtime libraries and other, but this code is bad also according to any self respecting java developer. An untyped (that is, it cops out to int) bunch of public static’s that should’ve been an enum. Daft combination of builders and constructors. Magic numbers. Adapter methods that should go into their own class. Validators that should also go into their own class (and even there, implemented differently, not as a parameterless method). Transformers that could be modeled as their own class (all these “in their own class” are for testabilty.) some of the names in these adapters suggest some other domain concerns (UI) are leaking into this model class. IOW, it’s a mess by any standard