3G / 4G switching

[linebusy]

Early in my Thunderbolt ownership, Verizon customer service told me to turn off 4G if I wanted to maintain steady, reliable service. The problem we were having was that traveling in and out of 4G areas would cause you to basically have no data at all. Go from 4g to 3g, try to look up the address of your next stop and what do you get? Nothing. Go into airplane mode, come out of airplane mode and voila, data works and you can move on to the next location. Locking it into 3G solved the problem (except for the few areas that are 4g only). My question to Verizon customer service today was this: Was that a Verizon issue or a Thunderbolt issue? Their response was that it's the Thunderbolt. I asked if my next device will need to be set to CDMA only and they stated absolutely not.

Question for you guys... Are they telling the truth? Have your other devices traveled better than the Thunderbolt? Can you drive through different areas and maintain a steady connection?

 

[natehoy]

Mine can be very iffy. The thunderbolt was Verizon's first LTE phone and it shows. It is nice to have simultaneous voice and days over 3g, but that means the thunderbolt is using an oddball radio, even for standards-rejecting Verizon.

I have LTE at work but not at home, and it's rare for me to lock in LTE at all unless I toggle airplane mode on and off, and the drop back to 3g frequently involves a brief data drop and occasionally a reboot.

Good times, good times...

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[linebusy]

good times, huh? That made me chuckle. I can't tell you the things I've hollered at my phone while trying to get a map/route of my next stop while on the road. Reboots, 4g on/off, airplane on/off... brutal. I guess it's safe to say this kind of data performance is unique to the Thunderbolt and not a Verizon network issue?

 

[natehoy]

good times, huh? That made me chuckle. I can't tell you the things I've hollered at my phone while trying to get a map/route of my next stop while on the road. Reboots, 4g on/off, airplane on/off... brutal. I guess it's safe to say this kind of data performance is unique to the Thunderbolt and not a Verizon network issue?

Reasonably safe, I guess. Leaving it on 3G only makes it somewhat more stable, as well, though sometimes transitioning between WiFi and 3G and back can be problematic. Heck, I've had the damned thing reboot when switching from 1X to 3G.

But I live out in the sticks, where the gap between a 4G/LTE service area and a 2G/1XRTT service area can be measured in single-digit miles. I have two large LTE footprints (Portland, ME and Augusta/Waterville, ME) on either side of where I live, but I'm stuck in the middle of a 10-mile no-man's land with 2G and 3G. So I switch protocols back and forth a lot, and I long for the HSPA+ stability and speed my wife's AT&T phone has.

 

[linebusy]

Your rural setting sort of pigeon-holes you in the same way I am. Kinda makes radios the #1 consideration when selecting a phone (and being able to maintain simultaneous voice/data, even in 3g). That sort of narrows the field for replacement phones.

Given my sons ability to maintain a 4g signal in the same building I frequently have no signal at all in with his Droid 4, I think I'm going to make the jump to Motorola. I already know I'll miss the Thunderbolt's camera, but it's time for an upgrade and I'm anxious to travel without worry of the phone puking.

 

[natehoy]

Given my sons ability to maintain a 4g signal in the same building I frequently have no signal at all in with his Droid 4, I think I'm going to make the jump to Motorola. I already know I'll miss the Thunderbolt's camera, but it's time for an upgrade and I'm anxious to travel without worry of the phone puking.

So load the "Camera ICS" app from Mobilynx to your Thunderbolt. This will backport the Ice Cream Sandwich phone library (which enables panoramic mode, if not Photosphere, in the camera app) with no root required. Enable WiFi on the T-Bolt. Get a DropBox account and attach the T-Bolt to it and enable automatic uploads.

Use your Thunderbolt as a point-and-shoot camera with geolocation and automatic WiFi uploads to DropBox whenever you get in WiFi range.

You can also use it for Facebook and other things you'd rather not use your primary phone for.