Infuse reception signals

[wagnerslp]

I took the Infuse back although I liked it, because I was only getting 1 to 2 bars on my wifi and on phone signal strength at home, and I had more ones than twos. I was afraid of getting stuck on a 2 year contract with a phone I could not get good reception on at home, where I make a lot of long distance calls. Connected to my home wifi, sometimes I could download apps and stuff and sometimes there was not enough signal strength to do it. I do live on a "mountain" in East Alabama, in the middle of the city, so that could be part of my problem. I am in limbo, not knowing what to do...stick with ATT or change to Verizon...I am afraid of changing providers and still having a weak signal, so I am going to have a friend bring a phone over to see what the signal strength is for Verizon where I live. I get Edge just fine in the house, but my current (old) phone can receive 3G and I get one bar on that when it is trying to find 3G. Sometimes it goes to edge and sometimes it goes to 3G. Calls tend to drop on the 3G on current phone. even changing to Verizon I can't decide what I would go for...I like the biggest screens and have looked at the charge, but that is expensive price to pay for lots of the negative comments. Never been interested in iphone for some reason.
Another issue I noted with my Infuse was the voice reception...people could hear me fine but they sounded blurry and speakerphone was blurry too. at least my current phone has a good speaker.
so right now trying to figure out the best verizon phone and is hard to tell. reading the pros and cons...nobody likes everything and they all seem to have issues. I have been interested in the fascinate but am worried about the Froyo update, that seems to be a tad messed up from what I am reading. So, I am back to my dumb phone and having dreams of smart phone if I can decide what/who to go with. Like the rollover minutes of ATT, dont' like the way they mess up my statement everytime I make a change, and you have to watch them that they dont' put stuff on your bill.... am new to smartphones and trying to figure everything out before I buy again. I did reset the Infuse and ATT re-pinged it or something and after an ATT help person told me to just give it another couple of days I took it back real fast, I had already waited several days. I will be sure to check the db stuff along with the signal strength on the friend's phone. Everyone has been super helpful. so glad I found this forum.

 

[dbesset]

I have sold wireless for over 15 years and heres the bottom line. 1st of all everything you have read about DBs is true and you seem to have a low but fair signal just as I do with ATT. I tell customer that if we work well where you live work and travel and the price is right then you will probably be happy period. which in most cases is very true as signal is #1 requirement. as for my opinion. ATT the best and I dont sell it!!! Why I like Sim card technology as I can switch phones as quick as I wish. 2nd Because of the frequency and bandwidth the sound quality is clearer than Verizon in most cases as phones can cause poor quality too. 3rdly ATT does have about equal signal coverage as all the crap youve heard about Verizon being much better started about 8-10 yrs ago and at that time was true for many yrs but not any more......... again as I said where you live work and travel but it happens to work best for me everywhere but my house good thing Im renting LOL AGAIN my opinion good luck

 

[wagnerslp]

Thanks for your reply. ATT does seem to work okay for me except at home. I am thinking about getting rid of the land phone at some point, so a good signal at home is important in case I do that. You are absolutely right about the sim card. I love how I can just change out the sim card when I want and am not tied to having to pay a reactivation fee if I want to change phones. I also love the roll over minutes which I rarely use, and it is a good feeling to know if I go over my minutes that I am covered. I used to have verizon a few years back when phones were just phones and the only reason I left was for the rollover minutes and the sim cards, and combined billing....you have ATT service but work for another company??? Whatever I do, I am learning a lot about smartphones and db's.

 

[wagnerslp]

since you have ATT, what phone do you use, if you don't mind?

 

[reverendmilo]

If your signal problem is wifi and not carrier, look into upgrading the antennas on your router. For $30-40 you can get some hawking technologies boosted antennas in the +7 to +10dbi range. More money can get you powered antennas up inti the +16dbi range. Fry's carry them

sent from my fancy pants Samsung Infuse

 

[wagnerslp]

Thank you! I think I had a signal AND a carrier problem, but the more troubling is the signal. I just went to Best Buy today and looked around and got talking with a salesperson. When I bought the Infuse, at 4 G, they did not mention needing to change out my sim card from a 3g to a 4 and I didn't even think about sim cards, I would have thought they were all equal. The Infuse was trying to pick up the H+ signal on a 3g sim card. Does anyone think that could have made a difference in my picking up a good signal??? One person at Best Buy thought it would make a difference, one did not. If I thought I could get the Infuse to work here correctly I would go back and get it. also, I wonder if the card would have affected the quality of the voice when I had a call come in. People said they could hear me fine but some of them sounded a little garbled to me.

 

[They Call Me X]

Ok, Im not sure if im just being really picky with my phone lol, but has anyone experienced dropping cell signal when holding the phone? Im not sure if something is wrong with my antenna in the phone. Like I get 3-4 bars of service when I leave my phone on my desk etc, but when I hold my phone, in the same place, it will lose a 1-2 bars of service. I'll even get 5 bars of service, then as soon as I touch the phone it drops to 4 bars. I don't know whether I should take it in for repair or if this is common in other Infuse's. HELP!

 

[wagnerslp]

Hello...I ended up taking the phone back within 3 days and getting my money back. I cancelled AT and T and went with another carrier and now I get a much better, more consistent signal. My infuse only gave me 1 to 2 bars of signal and that was constantly going up and down. It did not seem to matter if I was holding it or not. Sometimes I would get 3 bars for 5 or 10 seconds and once I got 4 bars for a few seconds. It would even go from one to 2 bars down to Edge signal. The first call I made dropped. I needed a dependable signal at home and I just changed carriers since I was not on contract. At the new carrier I chose another samsung phone, the Charge, and it has served me beautifully.
I might mention that I live on a mountain well within city limits and there are some spotty places near me, but my old regular phone had no trouble. From my research, the folks on this site told me that instead of watching the bars you should go in the phone and get the numbers for the actual signal strength. I was running -107 etc. I think the closer you get to 100 the better....a -87 would have been better.
A friend of mine with ATT brought her new phone to my house and it got a much much better signal, but by that time I had already switched carriers. She had a nice HTC that had about the same specs as the infuse. I loved the Infuse and I hated to give it up.
I doubt this helped any, but here it is for what it is worth. I think the infuse has weaker reception signals, just my opinion.