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Simple trick to increase coverage: Lying to users about signal strength

nickvsnetworking.com

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Re: Simple trick to increase coverage: Lying to users about signal strength

#101

Post by dawnerd »

toast0 wrote: post #92
dawnerd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bars really don’t matter. You can have full bars and slow to no internet. You can have one bar but relatively decent internet. Honestly kind of wish the signal display would go away and instead show me when I lose internet.

When you lose internet, you get a ! next to the bars (at least I have on my last few androids). Usually I also have no bars when I lose internet, but sometimes I've got coverage without data flow.

Wish Apple would do that. It’s kind of a guessing game.

Re: Simple trick to increase coverage: Lying to users about signal strength

#103

Post by kouteiheika »

alexanderjchun wrote: post #40
kouteiheika wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a logical and reasonable explanation There is a logical and reasonable explanation. These companies are run by a bunch of sociopathic, unethical people who won't hesitate to lie and cheat if it gets them more money. It's as simple as that.

Sure, but what was the seemingly plausible reason those sociopaths came up with to get people onboard?

If my boss asks me to do something, and I refuse, what do you imagine will happen? I will get fired for insubordination. It's pretty easy to get people onboard if their paycheck depends on it.

Re: Simple trick to increase coverage: Lying to users about signal strength

#104

Post by wongarsu »

eru wrote: post #57
eqvinox wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know, I don't recall ever seeing 1 bar of signal strength on a smartphone. I do. I'm from Germany, land of perpetual EDGEing. Highest total GDP in the EU but can't build a mobile network for the life of it. Then again we somehow forgot how to run trains and build cars without cheating, so I guess it fits. Want to see a single bar? Come visit, our carriers aren't on the list with that inflate flag enabled. I gue…

> Highest total GDP in the EU but can't build a mobile network for the life of it. GDP per capita (or GDP per square metre) would be a more useful indication here. Otherwise, you could throw a bunch of poor countries together--just for purposes of statistics, and expect a better mobile network?

GDP per square metre is probably the best metric, even though it's the more rarely used one. [1] has a neat map of Europe by GDP density.

However Germany is still very high in both GDP per capita and GDP per land area. Roughly on par with the UK, and far higher than France which has a much better mobile network

1: https://ssz.fr/gdp/

Re: Simple trick to increase coverage: Lying to users about signal strength

#105

Post by sunrunner »

jayd16 wrote: post #69
JoshTriplett wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We tried to implement something that matched the most recent iPhone version. So, game-theoretic evil?

Don't be evil but also morality is relative.

Just like signal strength.

Re: Simple trick to increase coverage: Lying to users about signal strength

#106

Post by mschuster91 »

zabumafu wrote: post #39

I implemented the same behavior in a different Google product. I remember the PM working on this feature showing us their research on how iPhones rendered bars across different versions. They had different spectrum ranges, one for each of maybe the last 3 iPhone versions at the time. And overlayed were lines that indicated the "breakpoints" where iPhones would show more bars. And you could clearly see that on every r…

> And you could clearly see that on every release, iPhones were shifting the all the breakpoints more and more into the left, rendering more bars with less signal strength.

One thing explaining this might be that advancements in antenna design, RF component selection including the actual circuit board and especially (digital) signal processing allow a baseband to get an useful signal out of signal strengths that would have been just noise for older technology.

In ham radio in particular, the progress is amazing. You can do FT8 worldwide (!) communication on less than 5 watts of power, that's absolutely insane.

Re: Simple trick to increase coverage: Lying to users about signal strength

#107

Post by 2dvisio »

With Three UK I used gathered evidence over the course of 4 months to wiggle myself out of a £46/month 28-month 5G contract (had to pay £200 remaining on my iPhone 16 Pro) when I demonstrated that my phone was basically useless whenever in the postcode are where I live, even if I always had 1 bar 5G signal.

Not even phone calls would go through, let alone calls on Whatsapp et al, or loading websites using something heavier than just text.

Have raised a _formal_ complaint (they must report it to Ofcom), and after that it was just a matter of ensuring I lost enough phone calls to demonstrate how many ended up in my answering machine.

The fact that Wifi calling is also super buggy and almost never work, played also a big role.

My problem is, all other mobile providers in my area are even worse, showing LTE or 4G. So I just need to wait for them to strengthen signal, or move!

Re: Simple trick to increase coverage: Lying to users about signal strength

#108

Post by Towaway69 »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #99
Towaway69 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In todays world, it advisable to be always wearing nice looking underwear - you just never know when you are being filmed! /s

If the lady in your holiday rental wears matching panties and bra it's not you watching her, she is watching you!

Definitely a clear indication that somethings up in the matrix ;)

Here kitty kitty ...

Re: Simple trick to increase coverage: Lying to users about signal strength

#109

Post by willis936 »

toast0 wrote: post #92
dawnerd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bars really don’t matter. You can have full bars and slow to no internet. You can have one bar but relatively decent internet. Honestly kind of wish the signal display would go away and instead show me when I lose internet.

When you lose internet, you get a ! next to the bars (at least I have on my last few androids). Usually I also have no bars when I lose internet, but sometimes I've got coverage without data flow.

You can have full bars and no internet when jammed in a crowded space with full pipes. Just because the PHY is linked doesn't mean you have internet.

Re: Simple trick to increase coverage: Lying to users about signal strength

#110

Post by fainpul »

kybernetyk wrote: post #25
alberth wrote: post #7

I wonder if it’s more intuitive that way. Like what Apple does with stopwatch. https://lukashermann.dev/writing/why-the-iphone-timer-displa...

Heh, funny. I recently implemented a countdown for a teleprompting app and that's exactly what I ended up doing to make the countdown "feel right". The countdown in question doesn't display fractions of a second so it would immediately switch from "5 seconds left" to "4 seconds left" which just doesn't feel right. Adding 0.5s solved the issue.

Just round up. The countdown is done as soon as 0 appears (0 doesn't linger for 1 second).
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