persistent radio issues - when will palm and sprint address this?

[fourply]

hi folks

i know this has been talked about in this forum before, but i am still astonished that nothing has changed since launch.

i live in the country. so far out, in fact, that i have no signal at my home. i have an airave, which is essentially useless. i get maybe 30% of my incoming calls and texts, and i would be completely screwed were it not for google voice. we moved here several months after getting our pres, but i have to think that they would have gone back within the first 30 days if we had lived here at launch.

i drive around enough to know where my signal stops and starts, but for the most part, these "dead zones" are limited to the pre. my father's centro works fine in areas where i have absolutely no signal, and even my old and busted mogul had no problems in these spots. even crappier phones owned by other members of my family are completely usable in these areas, while my pre is just a pretty paperweight.

webOS is light-years beyond what the mogul and centro had to offer, but the underlying primary function of the phone (being able to make and maintain calls) is utter crap. from what i understand, the radio in the pre should not have these problems, and a software update should be able to resolve them.

i want to stick with this beautiful piece of tech, the only thing i have ever stood in line for on launch day, but this is getting ridiculous.

so... i ask you, precentralers - why have palm and sprint not come up with a solution? phones that are much older and crappier have no problems making and receiving phone calls. why should the pre be so different? am i crazy for holding out hope, or should i give up and try one of sprint's garbage android offering simply to be able to use the phone?

[malpha]

I'm having the same problem, it's so annoying. Even though Sprint claims to have excellent coverage in the suburbs of my city, I'm getting zero bars in my home. I have to walk out into the street. Even roaming on Verizon only gives me one bar and that's if I stand in a special corner of my house. Meanwhile my mother has excellent coverage when she's here and she has some old Windows Mobile Motorola phone. Unfortunately, the airave isn't even available in my city. I don't know if it's because my area code isn't local to the area or what, but it's so frustrating.

[fourply]

trust me, you're not missing anything with the airave - it is garbage. it is barely functional, and worthless for receiving or making calls. i have to resort to a land line to get anything done at home. what year is it - 1993? come on, sprint!

[xenoph0be]

Have you done a recent PRL update to see if it changes anything?

[Kytton]

Originally Posted by xenoph0be

Have you done a recent PRL update to see if it changes anything?

PRL updates do absolutely nothing on the consumer level - a PRL update will update you to the cheaper roaming partners. Good for sprint, no benefit for you.

To the OP, take it into a repair center, and we can run a PoST test on your device and test your reception. Have you ever had to have your device replaced or is this the only one you have had issues with? We don't normally hear issues with Pre reception.. just going in and out of 'Offline mode' is the most common reception issue we see.

[fourply]

Originally Posted by Kytton

To the OP, take it into a repair center, and we can run a PoST test on your device and test your reception. Have you ever had to have your device replaced or is this the only one you have had issues with? We don't normally hear issues with Pre reception.. just going in and out of 'Offline mode' is the most common reception issue we see.

thanks for your response, but the nearest repair center to me is 29 miles. my wife has a pre as well (her second) and she has the same issues. i appreciate your optimism, but i'm afraid it's unwarranted.

there probably aren't too many people in the sticks like i am trying to use what is supposed to be a "high-end smartphone", so maybe it's not that big of an issue to sprint and palm. i have to believe, however, that the simplest of testing would show a much stronger radio in pretty much any other phone manufactured in the last 20 years....

[cjust]

I actually don't think it is just that you live "in the sticks". I think you are right that there is something wrong with the radio in the Pre. I've thought about starting a thread like this numerous times. I really can't believe nobody else has the problems my wife and I have. Until the Pre, we had been Verizon customers for the past 10 years. Neither of us have ever had any coverage issue. In fact, in the past 5 years, I have never dropped a single call with my Razr on Verizon. I switched to Sprint because I love the Pre. However, in the past 6 months, I have had at least 50 dropped calls. We both live and work in what their maps call the best coverage areas. My wife works in a hospital and has to leave the Pre in a patched roam only mode just to have a chance at making and receiving calls. Even then she drops more calls than not... and most times I try to call her it goes straight to voice mail. This was never a problem with other phones. Since we have experimented with both roaming and sprint towers; and since we've never had this problem with other phones; I'm left to assume the problem is with the Pre. We have both had to replace our phones for other reasons too. So, we have had 4 phones to test and they all behave the same way.

[VCI_Cell]

While my Pre (Sprint) has some minute-long delays in re-acquiring EvDO signal after emerging from a no-coverage area, I haven't encountered many problems with the phone's reception in general. It's not the strongest signal-holder I've ever owned, but it's pretty comparable to my older Sprint devices in the Boston area (Mogul, Renegade).

When I do travel to areas of more skimpy coverage, I do find that the Pre really likes to hop between 1X and Ev modes, and that can be annoying.

That said, OP, I think you're being a little shortsighted in dismissing the notion of taking your Pres into a repair center. The 29 mile drive might be worth it if you find out that your Pres are both somehow defective and they give you a new pair with better-performing radios. Unwarranted optimism is no worse than unfounded pessimism, after all.

[beret9987]

Here's to hoping that Palm does do something about this! My home is in a good signal area, and I have a Hero and Touch Pro 2, and an Overdrive hotspot that have no issues with signal(fantastic signal in fact with the overdrive doing -69 to -79dB and the phones doing -75 to -92 dB typically) but my Pre will go anywhere from -89 to -102dB RSSI which is just sad. Love WebOS, but something like this just needs work.

[netwrkr9]

I live in the hills where reception is not as strong and my Pre actually does quite well, no dropped calls, really impressed with it.

[mass]

I am in an area what sprint consider as excellent coverage. I have 3 towers close by, ranging from 1/3 mile to 1.5miles. The field tech came out to check the signals both inside and outside buildings. He claim there is nothing much he can do and his Pre is aboutt he same. I had tested with 5 phones and they all have the same signal strength fluctuations and problems. my EVDO will drop to 1x even when I am outside or in the car sitting at the red light.

The last few days I had been testing my phone in the roam only mode. I am surprised that I am getting much more stable signal of at least 3 bars instead of 0 bars in the same spot. My data is constantly stuck on 1x. But I am disappointed to find out that I could not receive any incoming calls. It goes straight to voicemail. I tested this myself a few times and my phone never rang. It is like Sprint just think I am off network.

So if you have your phone set to Roaming only, you may not get any calls.

My conclusion, the radio seems to operate fine with roaming towers but not with sprint towers. But Pre definitely has a poorer signal compared to Centro but not by much. It could be how Sprint towers are responding to Pre phones.