Question about signal in relation to 3g/lte.

Nodnerb

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I just got my i5 yesterday, a fido locked phone. I'm noticing that I have pretty poor signal in a lot of areas I had very good signal with my old htc one s also on fido. I ran the field test and I often get -113-ish results. The funny thing is, the results are about 20 better when the phone switches to 3g from lte. Is that normal? It is instant. The signal will be -113 lte and the moment the phone switches to 3g my signal goes up to -90. What's up with that? Thanks.
 

Just_Me_D

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Congratulations on getting you new iPhone 5. It is indeed a heckuva device. In regard to the poor signal, it could be your location. You may have very good 3G reception in your location, whereas LTE may not as good and could explain it fluctuating between 3G and LTE. If Fido has a coverage map online, check it out in relation to your location.
 

Nodnerb

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Thanks for the reply. I'm not worried about the lte to 3g toggling though. I just find it strange that I get significantly better cellular reception with 3g than lte. I would expect them to be totally independent of each other.
 

Just_Me_D

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Thanks for the reply. I'm not worried about the lte to 3g toggling though. I just find it strange that I get significantly better cellular reception with 3g than lte. I would expect them to be totally independent of each other.

They are. You can go to Settings-General-Cellular and disable LTE, if you'd like.
 

Nodnerb

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I might have to. But it makes having lte kind of useless if I have to choose cellular OR data.
Doing some googling, it looks like a lot of people have this problem.
 

Nodnerb

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The lte is fine. Thats not the problem. Yes, sometimes it toggles from lte to 3g, but i expect that and dont care about that. What bothers me is that my actual cellular signal is very low when lte is active. Usually 1 bar. As soon as it switches to 3g i gain 2-3 bars of cell signal. It appears to be a problem with others as well. But apparently not the two of you. Lol.
 

Just_Me_D

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The lte is fine. Thats not the problem. Yes, sometimes it toggles from lte to 3g, but i expect that and dont care about that. What bothers me is that my actual cellular signal is very low when lte is active. Usually 1 bar. As soon as it switches to 3g i gain 2-3 bars of cell signal. It appears to be a problem with others as well. But apparently not the two of you. Lol.

Are the fluctuations in your signal interfering with your actual data speeds? When you surf the net, does it seem slow whether 3G or LTE? Are you dropping calls? The reason I ask is that it is not uncommon for the signal meter to fluctuate, especially if you're in a spotty area in regard to LTE. If, however, your calls are not dropping and your data speeds are sufficient, that is all that matters. If you think you have a bad device, take it to a nearby Apple Store, if available, and swap it out.
 

anon(4698833)

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The lte is fine. Thats not the problem. Yes, sometimes it toggles from lte to 3g, but i expect that and dont care about that. What bothers me is that my actual cellular signal is very low when lte is active. Usually 1 bar. As soon as it switches to 3g i gain 2-3 bars of cell signal. It appears to be a problem with others as well. But apparently not the two of you. Lol.

Inside my precinct office, I usually get about 2 bars of service (but perfect speeds)...I walk outside and get 5 bars of service (and still retain perfect speeds). Could be a few things in your area really...700MHz towers don't play nice with others in that same range, so they spread them out more...you could very well have a 3G tower (prob 1900MHz) closer to your area, which is causing this scenario. There is also cellular network "bright spots" which could be playing into it as well, where you have over saturation of tower signal in a specific area.

And no, I don't experience any performance drops in my LTE service, so I don't even pay attention to my "bars" or the signal strength numbers...if it's working, it's working.