I'm in the Milwaukee area where Sprint FINALLY did the 4G LTE upgrade starting maybe a year ago (everyone else had it here already) and after several months we had 4G LTE in most areas around the metro area from what I saw. I spend most of my time in the city of Milwaukee or close by, I'm not out on the edges of the 4G area much, so I should be getting a nice, strong signal usually right? Well, when they seemed to have the upgrade pretty well done, maybe 9 months ago I was getting at least a decent signal in most places, like 3 to 4 bars and sometimes a full signal. I ran a few speed tests and at least once I saw over 10 mbps, but usually it was more like 4 to 7 mbps, which is actually fine with me for what I'm using it for on the data side. I do need to use my phone as a hotspot fairly often for my business (and I do pay the little Sprint wifi hotspot "extortion fee", I'm pretty tech savvy but not into phones enough to want to root my phone and do some of the exciting things that some of you guys do with them, so I just pay the $20 a month for their hotspot) but I do really need to get on the net pretty often around town and I REALLY try to avoid using public wifis for security concerns as it sounds like one of the main ways hackers looking to hack for bad reasons get into people's pc's now is through public wifis. I'm just busy as hell 7 days a week right now with work and I just want to be able to get on the net with my tablet or laptop away from home and get decent data speeds AND not worry about security worries, so having my own password protected wifi spot where I can limit it to JUST me logging on is exactly what I want.
Problem is that after the 4G upgrade came through here, it seemed fine for several months and then I started having trouble with getting a really weak signal again, usually I ONLY get ONE BAR and that's it! At home, that's usually always the case, every so often I might get two or rarely up to three, but that's it and 98% of the time, its just one bar. That's how it is in most places I end up at around the city too, every so often it will jump up to maybe 3 to 5 bars and occasionally six, but its rare and usually then it will kind of bounce around, where it goes up to four or five bars and then back to one or two and back and forth like that. So, for data speeds if I run a internet speed test on my phone or on the tablet when connected to my phone's hotspot, I'll usually see under 1 mbps, occasionally it will get up to 2 mbps, but usually always its between 1/2 mbps and 1 mbps.
So, this has been going on for maybe 6 months now and about 3 or 4 months ago, some *** clown smashed my car window and snatched my original S5, which I'd forgotten on the passenger seat when I ran into a Walgreens for 3 minutes. So, the ripoff insurance company sent me a new S5 (or a refurbished S5 actually) and I'm having the exact same issues with this one too! I've posted all of this on the Sprint Community forum and someone from Sprint answered me and asked for some account info and the addresses I'd been having the problems at (which really could be ANY address around here, it seems like its anywhere I go in the Milwaukee area) and they apparently looked into my info (as this problem also includes with using the phone as a phone, I get a lot of dropped calls, calls sometimes take a LONG time to connect or sometimes won't go through on first try and other times I suddenly can't hear the other party and vice versa) and they came back and said its a problem with my phone and I should take it into one of the local Sprint locations that have tech guys there who would take a look at the phone. Well, I've had to do that once before with another phone and I know a bunch of other local Sprint customers and we all had the same results when taking a phone in like that, the techs ALWAYS want to do a factory reset (which I've tried already myself) and then assuming that does nothing to improve things, they'll want to swap the phone or send it away for repair. I honestly don't have even the time easily available to do that, when you add up the time I'd spend making sure I have every last thing backed up that I might need on the phone, driving there, waiting while they work on it, etc. and there's no way in hell I can go without a phone for a week or whatever if they want to send it to be "fixed", even if they are able to set up a loaner phone, which it sounds like they probably won't do.
So, I did some searching around on here and a few other forums, articles, etc and I'm wondering what anyone here thinks, is there some issue that I could have with MY phone that causes these super weak signal problems? Don't forget, this has happened on TWO of them now, so I'd think its got to be a network issue, but Sprint claims its not and everyone else I know here with Sprint has either an Iphone or some other Android phone, no one else has a Sprint S5 that I know here. I did drop the new one a couple times, but nothing bad, just a few feet and the phone is still in nearly new shape cosmetically. I had a case for the first one that was stolen, so that was in real good shape when that *** stole it. Can anyone think of anything I might try or just ANY suggestions??? This would really slow me up during a really important time for me and my biz, I'm working my **** off as it is to keep things going here with my business and just can't go without a phone or waste much time right now. Thanks for your help!
Problem is that after the 4G upgrade came through here, it seemed fine for several months and then I started having trouble with getting a really weak signal again, usually I ONLY get ONE BAR and that's it! At home, that's usually always the case, every so often I might get two or rarely up to three, but that's it and 98% of the time, its just one bar. That's how it is in most places I end up at around the city too, every so often it will jump up to maybe 3 to 5 bars and occasionally six, but its rare and usually then it will kind of bounce around, where it goes up to four or five bars and then back to one or two and back and forth like that. So, for data speeds if I run a internet speed test on my phone or on the tablet when connected to my phone's hotspot, I'll usually see under 1 mbps, occasionally it will get up to 2 mbps, but usually always its between 1/2 mbps and 1 mbps.
So, this has been going on for maybe 6 months now and about 3 or 4 months ago, some *** clown smashed my car window and snatched my original S5, which I'd forgotten on the passenger seat when I ran into a Walgreens for 3 minutes. So, the ripoff insurance company sent me a new S5 (or a refurbished S5 actually) and I'm having the exact same issues with this one too! I've posted all of this on the Sprint Community forum and someone from Sprint answered me and asked for some account info and the addresses I'd been having the problems at (which really could be ANY address around here, it seems like its anywhere I go in the Milwaukee area) and they apparently looked into my info (as this problem also includes with using the phone as a phone, I get a lot of dropped calls, calls sometimes take a LONG time to connect or sometimes won't go through on first try and other times I suddenly can't hear the other party and vice versa) and they came back and said its a problem with my phone and I should take it into one of the local Sprint locations that have tech guys there who would take a look at the phone. Well, I've had to do that once before with another phone and I know a bunch of other local Sprint customers and we all had the same results when taking a phone in like that, the techs ALWAYS want to do a factory reset (which I've tried already myself) and then assuming that does nothing to improve things, they'll want to swap the phone or send it away for repair. I honestly don't have even the time easily available to do that, when you add up the time I'd spend making sure I have every last thing backed up that I might need on the phone, driving there, waiting while they work on it, etc. and there's no way in hell I can go without a phone for a week or whatever if they want to send it to be "fixed", even if they are able to set up a loaner phone, which it sounds like they probably won't do.
So, I did some searching around on here and a few other forums, articles, etc and I'm wondering what anyone here thinks, is there some issue that I could have with MY phone that causes these super weak signal problems? Don't forget, this has happened on TWO of them now, so I'd think its got to be a network issue, but Sprint claims its not and everyone else I know here with Sprint has either an Iphone or some other Android phone, no one else has a Sprint S5 that I know here. I did drop the new one a couple times, but nothing bad, just a few feet and the phone is still in nearly new shape cosmetically. I had a case for the first one that was stolen, so that was in real good shape when that *** stole it. Can anyone think of anything I might try or just ANY suggestions??? This would really slow me up during a really important time for me and my biz, I'm working my **** off as it is to keep things going here with my business and just can't go without a phone or waste much time right now. Thanks for your help!
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram