Full Strength indicator Cingular vs. Verizon

No, it is simply how different manufacturers do things. There are lots of discussions here about "bars" but the true measure is decibels, but that reading is generally only accessible if you mod the phone to enable field test mode.

-Jay

 

Wirelessly posted (Q's Mobile Device: Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/3.0.6306/1528; en; U; ssr))

My Verizon Samsung phone has only 4 bars to indicate signal strength... I'm not sure why is that... Maybe it's a product of the UI but when I had sprint, my samsungs had 4 bars also. Maybe Jay has a point here; perhaps samsung implements technologies differently between GSM and CDMA.

 

Some phones have 4 some have 5 and some have 6 and there may be others..... Just depends on the phone not the carrier.

 

To put a littler closure on this, the bars only signify a percentage of service, ie. with 5 bars, each bar equals 20 % of service, 4 25% of service, 6 is roughly 17%, these are all based on the optimal signal strength for the phone to function without interference/interruption.

 

I have noticed with Verizon even with 1 bar, I can make and complete a call without a concern. When I had Nextel, I knew the call would drop during the course of the call. I also notice little flucuation with Verizon with the signal strength bars, where Nextel consistently flucuated.

 

Using verizon and a V3m I have yet to drop a call and most of the time I have NO bars.....I live in the wooded hills of Tennessee, when are all those towers going up????

 

I live in Northern Coastal California where putting in cell towers is a problem. When any carrier wants to put in a tower or upgrade what towers they have, there are any number of outside forces brought into the process. Depending on how close to the shore they are, the California Coastal Commission comes into play, the NIMBY crowd comes out, the Luddites come out in force. Of course all the naysayers have a cellphone. Go figure.

Verizon has (for me) the best coverage and I have yet to have a dropped call even when I have literally no bars. On the whole I am very pleased with Verizon's coverage.

 

Where I live, Cingular and Verizon are the two big carriers. I have Cingular, and I have only good things to say about them. I've never dropped a call, text messages arrive when you send them (unlike Verizon) and wireless internet is VERY fast. On the other hand, Verizon has major problems. My friend gets 4 bars on his RAZR and it fails to complete a call. Text messages can sometimes arrive days after they're sent. The call quality sucks and is static often. Verizon's UI lies. The reason all of their phones have the same Verizon UI isn't just to simplify customer support. It shows false levels of service and cripples features like Bluetooth.

 

Maybe you can tell us the area you are talking about so others can relate their stories. By the way, the exact opposite of your claim is true for my friend who has Cingular. The only difference is he has to run out of the building and then drop his call. I don't.

 

Nice to see a couple of posts in this thread pertaining to low or no bars with Verizon.

On my Nokia 2128i, the only times I will get full bars (7) is if the phone is within one mile of a Verizon cell site or up in Canada on the 1900 MHz networks up there (Bell and Telus). Otherwise, it's 2 or 3 bars (out of the 7) everywhere else.

I'm sure there is a logical explanation for this interesting phenomenon... :headscrat

 

I'm retracting the above message.

Today, I updated a PRL on a friend's Motorola RAZR on Verizon. The signal meter had NO BARS displayed, yet the PRL downloaded fine. After the call completed, no bars...

If I had not seen this for myself, I would not have believed it.

 

No bars doesn't always mean no service. If Verizon phones have no service, the "Verizon Wireless" banner will disappear.

 

Based on my own experience, with GSM phones (more than one carrier), if it had no bars, it had no service, no banner. This happened very frequently inside supermarkets that were not close to any cell sites of the carrier I had at the time.

That Verizon RAZR had no bars on the signal indicator, it still displayed the Verizon Wireless banner and downloaded/installed the PRL perfectly. So even with no bars showing, that phone physically was still able to retrieve a signal from Verizon.

I plan on upgrading my Nokia 3589i to something more modern.

The carrier that had no service when the phone had no bars in the supermarkets: Cingular.

 

The area I am talking about is the Baltimore/DC Metro Area

 

Very interesting. Must be a small area (which every carrier has) since I have not heard many complaints from this region with Verizon.