Anyone have brutal 3 coverage in Crumlin?

SachaJ

Signed up to an 18 month contract with 3 on Saturday but I seem to be getting terrible signal at home. Got the HTC Desire HD if that's significant.

I was hoping it was the phone on Saturday evening and yesterday but today in work I was getting a good few bars so it must be the reception.

Downloaded a signal strength widget and right now I have -113db which more or less means I have no signal. Seems to come in waves but I reckon 80% of the time I have very little or no signal whatsoever.

forza_milan

Can you try that sim card on another handset in the same spot and see if that makes any difference? Maybe this is handset fault not a carrier? Can you do speedtest.net test on the phone while getting poor reception and to the same test while somewhere in city centre and compare results? This way you'll know what is going on there. How are voice calls, bad, dropping? Or is it just internet data afected?

SachaJ

forza_milan wrote: »

Can you try that sim card on another handset in the same spot and see if that makes any difference? Maybe this is handset fault not a carrier? Can you do speedtest.net test on the phone while getting poor reception and to the same test while somewhere in city centre and compare results? This way you'll know what is going on there. How are voice calls, bad, dropping? Or is it just internet data afected?

Voice calls not great tbh. Have to get people to repeat themselves sometimes and yesterday I had a call but I was only getting digital noise. Might have an unlocked handset somewhere in the house.

theteal

It sounds like there's poor coverage at the home address - as you said, it worked fine at work.

Afaik you have 14 days to cancel the a new contract, you may have to avail of that option

SachaJ

Someone mentioned on another thread that as 3 do not have a 2G network it could be causing me some issues - I.E. The Vodafone 2G network which 3 are piggybacking on should be stronger.

Is there any way I could set my phone to jump onto Vodafones 2G network if the 3 3G network is below a certain signal strength?

theteal

it should be set to switch between the 2 frequencies by default

have a look in the settings, wireless & networks> mobile networks> network mode

the settings are there, GSM is 2g, wcdma is 3g+

(apolgies if my directions arent exactly accurate, i'm looking at an original desire, not HD)

drunkmonkey

SachaJ wrote: »

Is there any way I could set my phone to jump onto Vodafones 2G network if the 3 3G network is below a certain signal strength?

Your phone should do this automatically, if it's not there's a fault with the handover in your area and you should let 3 know.
You want to be on 3 as much as possible and not vodafone as your internet it slower and the call quality is not as good.

SachaJ

theteal wrote: »

it should be set to switch between the 2 frequencies by default

have a look in the settings, wireless & networks> mobile networks> network mode

the settings are there, GSM is 2g, wcdma is 3g+

(apolgies if my directions arent exactly accurate, i'm looking at an original desire, not HD)

Mine only has:

WCDMA Only
GSM / WCDMA auto

Maybe 3 has disabled it

srsly78

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Your phone should do this automatically, if it's not there's a fault with the handover in your area and you should let 3 know.
You want to be on 3 as much as possible and not vodafone as your internet it slower and the call quality is not as good.

The problem with 3 I found was that it would not switch BACK to 3 from vodafone. Thus requiring airplane mode reset to get data working again. This was all in Dublin city center, in feb-apr 2010. If they have fixed this I would go back to 3 (cheapest), but if they haven't then it's pointless using a smartphone on their network imo.

SachaJ

srsly78 wrote: »

The problem with 3 I found was that it would not switch BACK to 3 from vodafone. Thus requiring airplane mode reset to get data working again. This was all in Dublin city center, in feb-apr 2010. If they have fixed this I would go back to 3 (cheapest), but if they haven't then it's pointless using a smartphone on their network imo.

Now in work I'm getting great reception -63db's. The problem seems to be that when I loose network it doesn't switch over to Vodafone (last night anyway or over the weekend). Most of last night I had -113db's and a big "X" on top of the network signal indicator.

When I was transferring data I have noticed occasionally a G rather than a H in the top bar so it must have switched over to Vodafone at one stage.

drunkmonkey

3 have 2 3G signals you have the normal one which gives you the 3G indicator and the H which is the higher speed network, for quicker downloads you want to be on H, if you do a network search you'll notice the 3 networks, 3G, 3G(H) and just 3(0) which is vodafone.

Your going to get fluxes in coverage constantly that's perfectly normal, if you were using a sony you might get a notice on the screen emergency calls only, if you were using a nokia you'd never know as it nearly gives you full bars and never shows no network, this isn't correct as the nokia is not giving you a true reading.

I wouldn't get to concerned about it but if your constantly getting no coverage there's something wrong and you should try another 3 phone just to make sure it's not the phone you have is poor for signal.

SachaJ

drunkmonkey wrote: »

3 have 2 3G signals you have the normal one which gives you the 3G indicator and the H which is the higher speed network, for quicker downloads you want to be on H, if you do a network search you'll notice the 3 networks, 3G, 3G(H) and just 3(0) which is vodafone.

Your going to get fluxes in coverage constantly that's perfectly normal, if you were using a sony you might get a notice on the screen emergency calls only, if you were using a nokia you'd never know as it nearly gives you full bars and never shows no network, this isn't correct as the nokia is not giving you a true reading.

I wouldn't get to concerned about it but if your constantly getting no coverage there's something wrong and you should try another 3 phone just to make sure it's not the phone you have is poor for signal.

Yeah just charging up a SIM free phone to test the signal tonight. Just checked on the Desire HD there and I'm only getting three networks: 3Ireland, O2 - IRL, and METEOR. No Vodafone. I presume they have their own software on the phone hiding Vodafone or something nor 3G, 3G(H) and just 3(0).

drunkmonkey

Your never going to see vodafone it will always show up as 3. Where did you get the phone, it should be showing you 3 x 3 Networks not just 3ireland

theteal

So OP, any joy in the area with the other phone?

SachaJ

theteal wrote: »

So OP, any joy in the area with the other phone?

I sent an email into 3 yesterday basically saying I wanted to try and fix the issue before my 14 day cooling off period expired.

A technical guy rang me back. All he said to do was when I got home, do a search for networks and select 3. I got home and all of a sudden I have full signal. Just like magic as I didn't do the network select.

Now maybe I'm being a sceptic but I'm wondering did they boost the signal of their local base station which magically will get "unboosted" once my 14 day cooling off period is over. They'd hardly do that just to win one contract, would they?

theteal

Ha ha, I love the scepticism! Ehh, I'd assume and hope they can't do what you've described. You really have confidence in a service that you're signing up to for a decent length of time!

I don't think it really matters on the 14 day thing if the coverage just disappears again. If you've no coverage at your contracted home address, they can't keep you in that contract - there can be a fair bit of hassle involved though. It's just a lot simpler to cancel within the 14 days