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Carrier Only getting 2 or 3 bars with Verizon on the iPhone 6s?
- Thread starter davelanger
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A lot of things could be affecting your signal quality. What kind of signal dos you get on your previous phone? Are you close to a tower? What is your house made of?
My iPhone 5 has only been getting 1-2 bars in some parts of town, but since I moved I just assume that I'm not as close to a tower as a used to be. It used to be just a few blocks away, so I got a really good signal.
I used to have ATT and would always have full bars in my house and around town. Ill have to see if any of my other friends in the area have Verizon and how many bars they are getting. I guess as long as I am getting good speeds which I am, and the calls are not dropping, two or three bars should be ok.
I was just surprised I was not getting full bars.
My Verizon coverage is exactly as it's always been with my new phone.
I've got the same phone and live in New York. Yes, I'm only getting two bars on Verizon. But two bars of Verizon still means fast enough internet and very few dropped calls. Sometimes I wonder about my decision to go "all in" on Verizon. I thought that since my phone and remote internet connection was important to my job, that I'd pay and buy the "best". I've got the family plan with cell phones and tablets. So a lot of lines. But frankly it hasn't been that great. And T-Mobile keeps doing cool cost cutting changes.
I always keep my phones in test mode so I see dBm numbers instead of bars and my 6s is the same as my 6 on VZW.
If you ever go outside of the city, it's clear where T-Mobile's cost cutting comes from. For instance, here in the Bay Area, I can drive all the way to Yosemite and have Verizon service (mix of LTE and EVDO) the entire way, including in the park. With T-Mobile, the signal very quickly drops to 2G/EDGE, then voice-only, then nothing at all, and stays that way until I'm most of the way back to the East Bay. It's a case of getting what you pay for, frankly.
I've dropped VZW to go to ATT and just recently dropped ATT to go to TMobile and heres why. With T-Mobile rolling out their 700mhz spectrum, they essentially have three frequencies of LTE just like ATT and VZW. The 700 band or what we in the industry refer to as low band, gives more coverage and better structure penetration (that's what she said). 700/1700/1900. Coverage in the North East US is pretty much going to be a tossup between all three carriers. If T-Mobile can break away from douche telecom and hook up with a parent company that isn't afraid to spend money, they would be able to compete on a site to site basis all over the country and not just urban areas. Urban or high use areas, get most of the new builds and upgrade money.
I work for a company that makes the equipment VZW and ATT use and I directly work in a major VZW market and they all say T-Mobile scares them.
I work for a company that makes the equipment VZW and ATT use and I directly work in a major VZW market and they all say T-Mobile scares them.
Ok thanks everyone. Guess its normal for verizon to get 2 or 3 bars. Just surprising since on ATT i always had full bars. I guess ill find out if its an issue if I start dropping calls or not.
It's normal for signals to fluctuate, and it's normal for different providers to have different signals in different areas. There is nothing about Verizon that makes you more or less likely to get five bars. For instance, I'm typing this is my apartment with a nice solid five bars on Verizon, which is typical.
It all depends on where you live.
Here in Northern VA near DC, AT&T has more towers than Verizon.
I use a 6+ on Verizon and only get 2 or 3 bars almost everywhere I go in Northern VA. When I was using the exact same phone on AT&T, I had 4 or 5 bars most places I went.
It's just a question of how many towers are in a given area for your provider.
Also, remember that less signal means you take more a hit on battery life. I got much better battery life when using this phone on AT&T, whereas on Verzion being on 2-3 bars, my battery life suffers and I have to charge more often.
Not to mention the call quality on CDMA is horrible compared to GSM on AT&T.
Here in Northern VA near DC, AT&T has more towers than Verizon.
I use a 6+ on Verizon and only get 2 or 3 bars almost everywhere I go in Northern VA. When I was using the exact same phone on AT&T, I had 4 or 5 bars most places I went.
It's just a question of how many towers are in a given area for your provider.
Also, remember that less signal means you take more a hit on battery life. I got much better battery life when using this phone on AT&T, whereas on Verzion being on 2-3 bars, my battery life suffers and I have to charge more often.
Not to mention the call quality on CDMA is horrible compared to GSM on AT&T.
Now that you said something I have noticed I've only been getting 2-3 bars too.. Space gray 64gb Verizon
My iPhone 6 will generally increase the signal strength display when I'm on a call. Once I end the call, it drops down again. I think this is to preserve the battery by running at lower power unless more power is needed.
Which previous model's reception are you comparing the iPhone 6S to?
iPhone 6S supports LTE on PCS/Band 2 so if you came from a device that was always connecting to 700MHz/Band 13 (like an iPhone 5) the signal might indeed be both slower and weaker now.
Verizon has been refarming EV-DO frequencies (like PCS) to add LTE capacity, supplementing the nationwide upper 700MHz 10x10 network originally launched in 2010. Many user devices don't support Band 2 (and some don't even support Band 4/"XLTE") so the network forces devices that are capable of utilizing them onto higher bands even if the signal quality drops, or speeds slow due to narrower channels. This eases congestion on the long range and congested Band 13, but has the effect of dropping bandwidth in half (to 5x5) depending on the market, subjecting them to inferior RF propagation characteristics - and draining batteries faster.
I wish there was a setting to force band selection... On the bright side iPhone 6S uses the MDM9635M chipset which supports 3GPP Release 11 frequency pairs, so when carrier aggregation is fully enabled these problems should be mitigated.
That's not how it works. The bars indicate the strength of the received signal. The scenario you describe would indicate that the cell tower is increasing power output when you are on a call. The bars at the cell tower would increase during your call if your phone was increasing power output during calls.
The indicator may be showing the 850MHz/cellular signal's strength while on a call and utilizing that network, and the data network (AWS or PCS would be weaker for example) while not on a call.
I'm also in NYC and travel to mostly larger cities in the US + a fair amount of international travel. I LOVE TMO. Honestly, unless you are driving to small towns and such, it's not a problem. I drove up to RI and in a few places went to 3G but nothing below that. WiFi calling is fantastic and works really really well. But I did get a full dot/bar bump with band 12 at home. TMO's service has only gotten better and will continue to improve. If you are thinking of switching, take the Test Drive to be sure it works for your needs.
Which band are you connected to? Was the AT&T phone always connecting to Band 17?
(Paste *3001#12345#* into the phone keypad and press the dial button, then look under "Serving Cell Info" -> "Freq Band Indicator")
If you are on Verizon's AWS/Band 4, the signal should be weaker than AT&T's 700MHz network from the same tower, but have a wider bandwidth. (and of course your phone will still connect to Verizon's nationwide 700MHz spectrum when it can't get a lock on AWS)
Yeah I'd love to have wifi calling in my house for when I work from home and need to do a conference call.
But switching would be touch and expensive. I have six phones and tablets on my Verizon account. Not all of them are new enough to make the switch fairly seamlessly.
I have the verizon iPhone 6 and depending on which part of the city and surrounding area that I'm in I can get 5 bars or circles/dots.
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I have AT&T, I can be right next to a tower or far away. Same reception. If I turn off LTE, my signal is excellent!
Bars aren't real accurate, numerically is. I've been using this tweak. Have a look. http://tidbits.com/article/15856
Bars aren't real accurate, numerically is. I've been using this tweak. Have a look. http://tidbits.com/article/15856