Pattern of 4G Disconnects

[bluebliss7]

Hello all. I'm curious to see if anyone else has this same problem. I've looked around but can't find anyone that can replicate it.

My HOX is running 4.0.4 with ATT's 2.20.502.7 710RD. Ever since I bought the phone, 4G connectivity has repeatedly been cut-off every ten to fifteen minutes; all bars drop, service is gone, and it doesn't return for at least 30 seconds, if not a few minutes. I've been running the phone on a non-LTE sim card, so I assumed something in the network was causing a bug.

Behold, LTE. I purchased an LTE AT&T sim card, installed it, but still noticed the same pattern. If you look at the photo I've attached, it seems like the 4G connection gets disconnected every 15 minutes or so (red bars under "Mobile network signal"). It literally looks like there is a perfectly measured interval of time between the 4G disconnects. BUT, interesting thing you can see is that, during the time my HOX was connected to LTE, there wasn't a single hiccup. The entire green sector in the middle of the same line, "Mobile network signal," is from LTE. The left and right sides of the line, though, mark the 4G service area (my home), plagued with red marks of disappearing service.

AT&T says it has nothing to do with them; for once, I believe them. Does anyone have any advice or observations? The phone doesn't have insurance on it, so I may send it back to HTC and *hopefully* have them figure it out.

If I haven't explained something clearly, I can definitely elaborate! I just didn't want to paragraph the hell out of you all here. Many thanks.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[icebike]

Are you sure you aren't roaming while at home?
Dial *#*#4636#*#
In the screen that shows up, tap Phone Information and check
Current Network, Roaming, Network Type. (Don't mess with anything, just look).

It might show you that you are actually roaming when it drops you. It might be dropping you because you are on the absolute fringe of reception.

The perfectly regular pattern of the drops suggests there is may be some scheduled activity on your phone (mail checks or some such) that cause a huge burst of network activity that might cause it to think its not connected or some such.

The other possibility is some electronic noise in the house that is knocking you off the air. Radio equipped power comany meters (Smart Meters) are one such source. However that AT&T does not use the most likely band (900mhz) in very many places, and they only use it for GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz). In a fringe area, you might be falling back to GSM.

 

[loraque]

Turn GPS off and try the 15 minute test.

 

[icebike]

Turn GPS off and try the 15 minute test.

What does GPS have to do with Cellular reception?

 

[loraque]

GPS kills mine at certain times in certain places. With GPS off, the radio never loses connection. Not sure what is up there, but I see it happen. I can't use the Traffic widgets because of it. End up seeing the GPS icon pulsing, and no bars and no connection.

 

[icebike]

GPS kills mine at certain times in certain places. With GPS off, the radio never loses connection. Not sure what is up there, but I see it happen. I can't use the Traffic widgets because of it. End up seeing the GPS icon pulsing, and no bars and no connection.

You are confusing cause and effect.

Because you have no bars, and no connection:

1. Maps can't figure out where you are. It cant get a coarse position from towers.
2. So Maps asks the GPS to get a position from satellites.
3. The GPS is trying to download the AGPS info from the towers, but it can't connect, so it keeps trying, but without AGPS info it can take 5 minutes to get a satellite fix).

(Maps is used by weather apps, and many other things that track your location, even if you didn't manually tap the maps icon).

So your root problem was that you lost cellular, not that your GPS interfered with cell reception.

GPS is a receiver, it transmits nothing. So its not going to interfere with anything.

 

[bluebliss7]

Interesting observations, thank you. As soon as I get home, I'll try the Roaming test and see what happens. I had a lengthy chat session with AT&T, and they "re-registered" my phone on their network, hoping that it will reset all of my connections to their towers. I'll see what happens when I get home.

FYI, I believe that, before getting the LTE sim card, I was still having these 4G dropoff issues at school. Unless the phone thinks that I'm "roaming" both at home AND at school (Los Angeles), I don't think that may be the problem. Nonetheless, I'll check and let you guys know.

Also, how likely is it that this is a hardware problem? Has anyone seen anything like this before? I'd hate to send the phone to HTC, wait two to three weeks, and then have them return the phone unfixed.

Cheers.

 

[bluebliss7]

Are you sure you aren't roaming while at home?
Dial *#*#4636#*#
In the screen that shows up, tap Phone Information and check
Current Network, Roaming, Network Type. (Don't mess with anything, just look).

It might show you that you are actually roaming when it drops you. It might be dropping you because you are on the absolute fringe of reception.

The perfectly regular pattern of the drops suggests there is may be some scheduled activity on your phone (mail checks or some such) that cause a huge burst of network activity that might cause it to think its not connected or some such.

The other possibility is some electronic noise in the house that is knocking you off the air. Radio equipped power comany meters (Smart Meters) are one such source. However that AT&T does not use the most likely band (900mhz) in very many places, and they only use it for GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz). In a fringe area, you might be falling back to GSM.

IceBike, that code doesn't work. I get the message "Connection problem or invalid MMI code." Any ideas?

 

[icebike]

IceBike, that code doesn't work. I get the message "Connection problem or invalid MMI code." Any ideas?

I forgot a trailing asterisk.

*#*#4636#*#*
No send/dial key is needed. It should trigger as soon as you the last asterisk.

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

 

[bluebliss7]

I forgot a training asterisk.

*#*#4636#*#*
No send/dial key is needed. It should trigger as soon as you the last asterisk.

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

Perfect, thanks. I had an entire reply typed up for you guys but it seems like moderators are "reviewing it." Nonetheless, icebike, I will try this once I get home, and once service disconnects again.

 

[bluebliss7]

Update:

Problem hasn't been fixed yet. I turned off fast boot, restarted the phone, restored the phone, and also looked at the phone radio settings during my blackouts; I'm not showing "Roaming," so I assume that this isn't the problem, either. Here's a screen shot of the information during the signal cut-off.

Any ideas? Time for an HTC repair? :-\

 

[bluebliss7]

Just wanted to revive the thread with some new info.

It appears that the above-mentioned problem is somewhat confined to my house. So, I'm exploring the possibility of something interfering with the phone at home. Any ideas how I can look into this further?

 

[bluebliss7]

Hate to revive this old thread, but just wanted to give an update to anyone who still has an HTC One X from AT&T and may have these problems in the future.

After months of troubleshooting with both AT&T and HTC, I was finally given some information: that HTC themselves have seen this problem before with their phones on the AT&T network. Further, they stated that the problem was not large enough to affect a great deal of customers, and, as such, they would not be addressing the problem or offering any fixes for it.

Needless to say, that sealed the deal for me. I switched to a GS3 and haven't looked back since.