7 ms·

It wouldn't be so bad if phones were better at switching to the best available signal, they they could use the efficient 5G connection when it's available, but

by roxgib 4y ago

It wouldn't be so bad if phones were better at switching to the best available signal, they they could use the efficient 5G connection when it's available, but fall back to 4G when the 5G is blocked by a building or something (which I gather is more common due to the high frequencies used in 5G). But they seem to insist on connecting to a crappy 5G signal even if an excellent 4G signal is available. Same with 3G, which is often fine for many tasks.

hallway_monitor 4y ago
This is inexcusable. I thought my phone was defective for weeks. I would get ZERO data, move 100 yards and have data again. After some Deep Thought™ I disabled 5G and could magically use the Internet from my phone again.
- joecool1029 4y ago
  One of the things that sucks are devices that use standalone 5G but don't support carrier aggregation on those bands. It's possible network will steer towards an over-congested low-band or a weak mid-band signal, but it cannot combine and make the best of both. These devices are better served using non-standalone 5G or sticking to LTE.
- scruple 4y ago
  Same experience here. It was extremely frustrating to realize that I have to play a game of whack-a-mole with my phone's settings to make the damned thing usable.
philliphaydon 4y ago
I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max here in Taiwan. If my 5g goes to 4 bars it switches to 4g. Is that what you mean?
- roxgib 4y ago
  Yes, please share your secrets with us!
bee_rider 4y ago
I wonder if 4G is better now that people who are really enthusiastic about bandwidth usage have moved up to 5G.
- lxgr 4y ago
  For most operators, spectrum is dynamically shared between LTE and 5G, so probably no.
  - joecool1029 4y ago
    Most? Verizon uses it heavily, AT&T uses it slightly in a few of their markets but has been phasing it out, T-Mobile does not use it.
zuron7 4y ago
Phones seem to optimize for the fastest network instead of network quality. At least on Android it's possible to manually override and select a network through the hidden settings menu accessible through the phone dialler. Just hit ##4636## and you're in.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Can you explain more provide a provide a link. This is the bane of my existence. My phone has two towers in range, one with essentially no signal and another one with four bars and it prefers the low signal Tower. It also prefers my home Wi-Fi even if I am taking a walk around the block. It is infuriating that I have a 50/50 chance of resolving a website like Hacker News with a flagship smartphone in the Bay Area
  - vidarh 4y ago
    HN is eating asterisks in the code. See https://www.todoandroid.es/en/android-mobile-code-what-is-it-for/ https://www.todoandroid.es/en/android-mobile-code-what-is-it...
  - roxgib 4y ago
    Yeah I have this issue with WiFi as well, every time I'm leaving my house I pull out my phone as I'm walking down the street to play music but I have to wait for the one bar of WiFi to disconnect
- dizhn 4y ago
  Does not seem to work on Samsung and Huawei.
ozim 4y ago
Unfortunately "switching to best available signal" is a really hard problem. More so for a device in motion and on really short waves like Ghz frequencies. I always get annoyed when people nag around about WIFI - because they cannot understand how many things happen in radio communication even if you sit behind the laptop and you have router in other room and you have 10 neighbors having their laptops/routers also running. They expect stuff should "just work" and reality unfortunately is much more complicated.
- mijoharas 4y ago
  > I always get annoyed when people nag around about WIFI - because they cannot understand how many things happen in radio communication even if you sit behind the laptop and you have router in other room and you have 10 neighbors having their laptops/routers also running. They expect stuff should "just work" and reality unfortunately is much more complicated. Oops, maybe don't have a look at my comment about then then[0]. :) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34569334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34569334
- roxgib 4y ago
  I thought that might be the case, but if higher frequency 5G signals are susceptible to small black spots due to buildings etc what's the solution? Presumably they aren't going to deploy enough 'microcells' to cover every place that the cell towers can't reach, so are we stuck with more dead zones if we use 5G?
mijoharas 4y ago
Side note: I have the same rant for laptops, wifi and 5ghz/2.4Ghz. If a network is on both most clients will just prefer the 5ghz no matter the signal quality/packet loss. As a user I'd rather have a working slightly slower connection than a broken faster* one. *Not actually faster due to packet retransmission time from packet loss
- roxgib 4y ago
  Even on 2.4GHz the internet connection is usually the limiting factor anyway, unless you're on a high speed network with a lot of congestion.
spamtarget 4y ago
So this is basically boils down to false advertising, which is the real problem here

by roxgib 4y ago

hallway_monitor 4y ago

This is inexcusable. I thought my phone was defective for weeks. I would get ZERO data, move 100 yards and have data again. After some Deep Thought™ I disabled 5G and could magically use the Internet from my phone again.

joecool1029 4y ago
One of the things that sucks are devices that use standalone 5G but don't support carrier aggregation on those bands. It's possible network will steer towards an over-congested low-band or a weak mid-band signal, but it cannot combine and make the best of both. These devices are better served using non-standalone 5G or sticking to LTE.
scruple 4y ago
Same experience here. It was extremely frustrating to realize that I have to play a game of whack-a-mole with my phone's settings to make the damned thing usable.

philliphaydon 4y ago

I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max here in Taiwan. If my 5g goes to 4 bars it switches to 4g. Is that what you mean?

roxgib 4y ago
Yes, please share your secrets with us!

bee_rider 4y ago

I wonder if 4G is better now that people who are really enthusiastic about bandwidth usage have moved up to 5G.

lxgr 4y ago
For most operators, spectrum is dynamically shared between LTE and 5G, so probably no.
- joecool1029 4y ago
  Most? Verizon uses it heavily, AT&T uses it slightly in a few of their markets but has been phasing it out, T-Mobile does not use it.

zuron7 4y ago

Phones seem to optimize for the fastest network instead of network quality. At least on Android it's possible to manually override and select a network through the hidden settings menu accessible through the phone dialler. Just hit ##4636## and you're in.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
Can you explain more provide a provide a link. This is the bane of my existence. My phone has two towers in range, one with essentially no signal and another one with four bars and it prefers the low signal Tower. It also prefers my home Wi-Fi even if I am taking a walk around the block. It is infuriating that I have a 50/50 chance of resolving a website like Hacker News with a flagship smartphone in the Bay Area
- vidarh 4y ago
  HN is eating asterisks in the code. See https://www.todoandroid.es/en/android-mobile-code-what-is-it-for/ https://www.todoandroid.es/en/android-mobile-code-what-is-it...
- roxgib 4y ago
  Yeah I have this issue with WiFi as well, every time I'm leaving my house I pull out my phone as I'm walking down the street to play music but I have to wait for the one bar of WiFi to disconnect
dizhn 4y ago
Does not seem to work on Samsung and Huawei.

ozim 4y ago

Unfortunately "switching to best available signal" is a really hard problem. More so for a device in motion and on really short waves like Ghz frequencies. I always get annoyed when people nag around about WIFI - because they cannot understand how many things happen in radio communication even if you sit behind the laptop and you have router in other room and you have 10 neighbors having their laptops/routers also running. They expect stuff should "just work" and reality unfortunately is much more complicated.

mijoharas 4y ago
> I always get annoyed when people nag around about WIFI - because they cannot understand how many things happen in radio communication even if you sit behind the laptop and you have router in other room and you have 10 neighbors having their laptops/routers also running. They expect stuff should "just work" and reality unfortunately is much more complicated. Oops, maybe don't have a look at my comment about then then[0]. :) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34569334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34569334
roxgib 4y ago
I thought that might be the case, but if higher frequency 5G signals are susceptible to small black spots due to buildings etc what's the solution? Presumably they aren't going to deploy enough 'microcells' to cover every place that the cell towers can't reach, so are we stuck with more dead zones if we use 5G?

mijoharas 4y ago

Side note: I have the same rant for laptops, wifi and 5ghz/2.4Ghz. If a network is on both most clients will just prefer the 5ghz no matter the signal quality/packet loss. As a user I'd rather have a working slightly slower connection than a broken faster* one. *Not actually faster due to packet retransmission time from packet loss

roxgib 4y ago
Even on 2.4GHz the internet connection is usually the limiting factor anyway, unless you're on a high speed network with a lot of congestion.

spamtarget 4y ago

So this is basically boils down to false advertising, which is the real problem here