Cellular signal strength

[IsaacKronenFaust]

Why is it that I can load Internet pages and send/receive messages with even just one bar of LTE, but can't loving connect to anything with full bars of 4G? I'm on a road trip and this stuff is pissing me off. Isn't 4G only one step below LTE in terms of bitrate and such?

[Ad Bot]

[Pastrey Crust]

Depends on the coverage. The signal strength is independant on how good the coverage is.

Say you have 100% signal strength on a network with excellent 4G coverage but bullstuff Edge coverage.

Any cellular phone using Edge will take ages to load if at all.

I'm posting right now with 1 dot of signal strength and can load YouTube via 3G.


When I'm on the outskirts of the city with 100% signal strength, 3G has a very stuff coverage and even loading the BLF takes ages while my sister on LTE can load Snapcrap quickly.

[IsaacKronenFaust]

Weird. Pretty consistently with my phone, LTE is great and anything else is nothing.

[Pastrey Crust]

Then you're probably in an area where they give everything to get a good LTE coverage and shove the rest up their asses. My country doesn't have a 4G network. It goes from GPRS to EDGE, 3G with all of its variants and then to LTE.

[carolcat]

my phone doesn't even show if i've got a 4G connection, it just goes from 3G to LTE

[Pastrey Crust]

Then you probably don't have 4G in your area. I went to Miami a few months back and my phone showed 4G for the first time since I got it.

[McJob]

Never use the bars as a guide of anything. There's no standards set out for what the "signal strength" bars should represent, so it's entirely possible that you could get a good or crap connect with any amount of bars.

[Trogtor]

i didn't realize there was a difference between 4G and LTE

[Pastrey Crust]

I think 4G is HSPA or something faster. The difference is small so some companies don't bother maintaining a 4G network.

[portify]

HSPA+ (<= 84 Mbps) is an implementation of 3G
LTE (<= 100 Mbps) and LTE-A (<= 1,000 Mbps) are implementations of 4G

[Pastrey Crust]

But then what would be the difference between 4G and LTE as shown on my phone and my sister's phone? Mine can't handle LTE, that's for sure but in the US it showed 4G instead of 3G. These ambiguous nomenclatures are bad. :(

[portify]

But then what would be the difference between 4G and LTE as shown on my phone and my sister's phone? Mine can't handle LTE, that's for sure but in the US it showed 4G instead of 3G. These ambiguous nomenclatures are bad. :(

On Android, "LTE" means LTE and "4G" means LTE-A (LTE Advanced). I think.