How much does mobile coverage/signal strength vary?

humfer

Just changed from o2 to Orange and generally coverage seems ok. However at my office, coverage is zero (o2 used to be fine). My wife took out a contract with Orange at same time and has same phone. When comparing the signal strengths hers seems to be 1 or 2 bands better than mine. Is this something to worry about? What causes the problems?

indesisiv

Signal strength is one of those random entities. It varys phone to phone - network to network.
However if you both have the same phone on the same network you should have roughly the same signals as each other (+/- a bar or so)

However you may have the smae phone but have different firmware on the phone. This can cause big changes in the signal pickup.

1 inch to the left of your phone could pick up 2 bars while one inch to the right could pick up four. It all depends on what is inbetween you and the transmitter in that location.

Jon_01

And even if you’re standing side by side with your phones it doesn’t mean you’re both logged on to the same cell site.

japitts

This is "one of those things". In very crude terms, the frequency range used by O2 is (in theory) better at distances and in-buildings. On the other hand, Orange's frequency will get through certain windows better.

Having said that... because of the lie of the land, it's pretty rare that the extra distance afforded by a GSM900 network will actually make much difference, and much of this can come down to where your nearest BTS site is.

In practice, and this is a very crude and general brush... Orange & Voda generally have the most reliable coverage in terms of depth and reliabilty (i.e. if you have coverage, it'll be good coverage), O2 has the breadth but seems to get a few more complaints about voice quality than others, T-Mobile is a lot better than it used to be (and if you're in an urban area would generally be ok), but still has a long way to go "off the beaten track".

It does all depend on where you're comparing - the centre of London or the remote highlands of Scotland... Having said all that, I would be expecting slight coverage improvements on Orange than O2, but certainly better quality calls.

But... YMMV!!

pigeonpie

does it not depend on the mobile phone too? My friend in France's house is in a dip. My 2 (UK and FR) mobiles both divert to Orange in her house but generally the cheaper (french, on Orange) SE mobile loses reception while the more expensive SE doesn't. However the radiation reading from the cheaper phone is far lower if that makes any difference to my tired old brain

japitts

pigeonpie wrote:

does it not depend on the mobile phone too? My friend in France's house is in a dip. My 2 (UK and FR) mobiles both divert to Orange in her house but generally the cheaper (french, on Orange) SE mobile loses reception while the more expensive SE doesn't. However the radiation reading from the cheaper phone is far lower if that makes any difference to my tired old brain

Yeah - absolutely. Some phones do have better RF performance than others. Take the "ancient" and "obsolete" Nokia 6310i 2G phone as a perfect example - several years old, but in terms of radio performance you won't better it. It'll always be the last to lose coverage in fringe radio areas long after other models have given up. I can often have a bar or two of coverage in fringe areas when my wife's Nokia 6111 shows nothing.

crackberry

japitts wrote:

In practice, and this is a very crude and general brush... Orange & Voda generally have the most reliable coverage in terms of depth and reliabilty (i.e. if you have coverage, it'll be good coverage), O2 has the breadth but seems to get a few more complaints about voice quality than others, T-Mobile is a lot better than it used to be (and if you're in an urban area would generally be ok), but still has a long way to go "off the beaten track".

I can second that.