Galaxy S6 Cell Reception Problems?

[gobluetwo]

So forgive me for bringing an old-ish thread back to life, but just have to comment here. My VZW GS6 has markedly worse reception than my wife's VZW iPhone 6s. We'll be in Home Depot and I'll barely have one 3G bar and unable to pull up even google.com on my mobile browse, and she'll have 2-3 4G bars with no mobile data or voice reception issues whatsoever. Now, by brother-in-law on TMO gets 2-3 4G bars in my house, where it used to be a complete dead zone. I get 1 bar of 4G if lucky, usually 1-2 bars of 3G, sometimes down to 1x. If it weren't for wifi calling, I'd be dead in the water half the time. My wife has no issues.

This one issue is totally killing me. I've changed the settings mentioned in this thread (Global to LTE/CDMA), but at a loss at what else to do. I've heard of changing the sim card, but other report no changes. Factory reset did nothing. This has been going on since before the latest software update. Battery life is decent and it runs swimmingly otherwise. Any thoughts?

 

[doug brown5]

I am on Verizon also. Had reception problems with galaxy s6, upgraded to s7. Had same reception issues. Saw somewhere in a forum to disable volte. Once I figured out what volte meant,problem solved. Volte= voice over lte= HD voice. Go into settings, advanced calling and make sure hd voice is off. That should fix it. If not,then I don't know what the next step would be.
Doug

 

[Jessica Justus]

I just got my cell signal fixed with sprint. It was mentioned earlier, but there is a important step for sprint users. Goto mobile networks ..turn off intelligent connection optimizer. Then goto preferred network mode and change to CDMA / LTE. It has helped me, hopefully it will help you to.

Where in the settings did you find the intelligent connection optimizer? Thanks in advance.

 

[Terrijs]

I have a Verizon Galaxy S6, 64gig. I get terrible cell reception. I was standing right next to my husband's S5 and he had 4G with 3 bars. I had 2 bars and a the 4G symbol had a line through it. I couldn't post to facebook because "no network connection". All the places I normally get great 4G, I can't do any data transfers because "no network. I can make calls and text only. It doesn't say I have 3G or 1X it just shows the 4G with the line through it.

I am not sure if I got a defective phone or if they are all doing this? About ready to take it back and get an S5 I love the S6 but bottom line, cell reception is my #1 priority. I wonder if the metal case is interfering? And yes, I did check my settings and mobile data is turned on - not my first Android phone . I do occasionally get 4G but it is rare. Battery drains fast too. I wonder if it is thrashing for a signal and draining the battery.

Curious if anyone else has had problems with reception?

 

[cbreze]

You could try turning off Volte as the poster above did and seemed to help. When I had my S6 I found I needed to restart it fairly regular to keep it from bogging down and stay fresh. Ended up just doing it each morning. Do you reboot much? Cache cleaning can also help overall operating ability and smoothness. Do you have WiFi calling enabled? If your signal is low you can call and text over WiFi. This can help battery as well. Also, check call settings and set to CDMA/LTE. It is set defaulted to Global and that setting is only needed when out of the country. The 4G with a line thru it is puzzling and may indicate a faulty sim card, might try a new one of those if the rest of the above is no help.
One more thing, try it with no case just as a test. This has helped others with various issues. Don't ask. Lol. weird I know.

 

[CaptainSquareyez]

So when I got my S6 at BestBuy, on the day it released, the Verizon/Samsung expert was understandably swamped. I didn't want to wait and I thought I could "do it myself" so the salesman set me up and let me go home to poke around and try to figure it out alone. When I finally called BestBuy they put me through to the "expert" and he gave me a lot of info that I had been unable to find on my own. Eating Humble Pie now.

First, the phone was using Global Network mode instead of LTE/CDMA. This makes it thrash looking for multiple types of signals to connect with and you don't need Global inside the USA. Changing this was a HUGE help and I checked my husband's fairly new S5 and he had that setting wrong too.

There should be a piece of paper sitting on the very top of the phone when you first unpack it from the box STATING that you may have to change the network mode settings to get normal reception in your area.
I was ready to send my phone back as i was only JUST barely getting one bar signal strength. I had looked on multiple forums to see MANY others having this same issue. But i wanted to keep looking for the problem in hopes to try to solve it.
So many people have sent their phones back saying they are broken or have bad reception.
Then, i saw this thread and started reading and thought, well, i can only try it. So, i went to Settings > Mobile Networks > Network Mode.....This is where it got a little different to TrekScout's settings, but same principles.....In Network Mode, i had the choice of "LTE/3G/2G (Auto Connect)", "3G/2G (Auto Connect)", "3G Only", "2G Only".
The default setting, which it was already on, was "LTE/3G/2G" (Auto Connect).
I changed it to "3G/2G (Auto Connect)", and instantly saw the signal strength jump from 0 or 1 bar to 3 to 5 bars.
Going by my carriers coverage map, i do get 4G here. But when i have LTE set on my phone i seem to get really bad signal strength unless i make a call. When i do make a call it seems to jump up to 3 to 5 bars. So,im thinking that the phone is switching to 3G/2G from LTE mode when i make a call, if i have "LTE/3G/2G (Auto Connect)" selected.
But because of the 0 to 1 bar signal strength when in "LTE/3G/2G (Auto Connect)", i have opted to leave it in "3G/2G (Auto Connect)". I get good signal all the time then. But, thanks TrekScout for posting your fix for this, it has helped me