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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

#71

Post by lifestyleguru »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #63
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. > Then again we somehow forgot how to run trains The mobile networks don't have enough dB and the trains have too much DB?

Sir, with this comment you signed up to auto-renewable two years contract.

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

#73

Post by sammy2255 »

jb1991 wrote: post #16
sammy2255 wrote: post #11

Ironically this site is struggling due to traffic from HN Wayback machine link: https://web.archive.org/web/20251103013626/https://nickvsnet...

Why is that ironic? Lots of sites struggle with traffic when they hit the front page here.

Because it's about signal strength, but also the hostname is "nick vs networking". And if your site can't handle a few hundred requests per second (which I seriously doubt the HN traffic is anywhere close to) on a static web page, then you're doing something wrong

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

#74

Post by userbinator »

dataflow wrote: post #42

Is there any reason to believe this mechanism is actually there to help carriers deceive users? To me this looks like it's intended to address some other issue, like perhaps "I have zero bars shown, what do you mean I'm still connected? That that clearly means I'm disconnected..." I feel like anything intended to lie to users would not be implemented in this manner.

Is it more common to complain to the carrier about unexpected reception, or unexpected lack thereof?

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

#75

Post by lukec11 »

dataflow wrote: post #43
userbinator wrote: post #27

A friend recently got a (carrier-supplied) phone and has been complaining about how it would often have no reception despite showing a good signal; taking mine to the same areas on the same carrier and doing a comparison, mine was indeed showing no bars on the signal indicator. The difference is, mine predates this stupidity, and I can also see the details in the MTK Engineer Mode app, which shows the actual signal s…

> taking mine to the same areas on the same carrier and doing a comparison Unfortunately I don't think it's that simple. I've seen one phone simultaneously show significantly different numbers of bars for two SIMs installed in it for the same exact network and operator . After a while they become similar... then differ again... etc. I have no clue how to explain it yet, but what I do know is that it literally makes n…

This is usually for a good reason - dual sim phones are almost always “DSDS”, or “Dual SIM Dual Standby”. The secondary SIM, because it doesn’t need to make a data connection, parks itself on the lowest-frequency (and therefore usually lowest-bandwidth) connection it can find. Meanwhile, your data-connected SIM is busy trying to stream a video or upload your photos, so it’s using a higher-frequency + higher bandwidth connection, resulting in a lower signal strength.

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

#76

Post by microtonal »

eqvinox wrote: post #5
metadat wrote: post #2

You know, I don't recall ever seeing 1 bar of signal strength on a smartphone. And once it's down to 2 bars, it barely works, if at all. Human brains: wow, what a bunch of suckers. Damn. By the way, is it legal to be deceptive in this way?

> 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…

I feel you. We have stellar coverage pretty much everywhere in NL. Heck, I was recently in a work video meeting in the car, not a single drop. The route included part of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afsluitdijk

Yet, when we visit family in Germany, five minutes after crossing the border we are in a cellular dead zone.

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

#77

Post by Shank »

modeless wrote: post #46

I frequently find that my data service is completely broken even when I have full 5G bars. Inflating by one is lame but doesn't explain this behavior. Is this a T-Mobile thing or is it widespread these days? I don't remember it happening so much 3+ years ago.

Signal strength is a measure of how proximate you are to the tower in terms of radio connectivity, but it says nothing about whether or not the tower will respond to you in a timely fashion, the tower backhaul capacity, etc. Usually this happens because you have a great connection to the tower in theory, but in-practice you can't get meaningful bandwidth and everything appears broken. This is really common at sporting events and other large crowd gatherings, which is also why a lot of the promise of 5G was that increased work with OFDMA in trying to service more customers in the same physical space adequately.

It's probably a reasonable pitch to say that phones should instead display something closer to "meaningful available bandwidth" crossed with strength, because a strong signal doesn't mean a good connection.

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

#78

Post by tzs »

metadat wrote: post #2

You know, I don't recall ever seeing 1 bar of signal strength on a smartphone. And once it's down to 2 bars, it barely works, if at all. Human brains: wow, what a bunch of suckers. Damn. By the way, is it legal to be deceptive in this way?

Try going into a Home Depot. I don't think I've ever found one where aside from fairly near the front I've had other than 0 or 1 bars, across a variety of phones and carriers and in neighborhoods where the signal outside the store was strong.

The net is telling me this is because of the aisle after aisle of tall metal shelving and the building itself also has a lot of metal in the construction.

It is quite annoying when you are trying to use the Home Depot app to look up something.

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

#79

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

TheDong wrote: post #15
NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #8

How can one hide from git blame?

You can't hide from the pickaxe $ git log --oneline -SKEY_INFLATE_SIGNAL_STRENGTH_BOOL | tail gets us the commit [0] from 2020 where config_inflateSignalStrength was renamed to KEY_INFLATE_SIGNAL_STRENGTH_BOOL $ git log --oneline -Sconfig_inflateSignalStrength | tail gets us this commit [1] from 2017 where it was originally added: 43c14d198479 Add config to artificially inflate number of bars [0]: https://android.goo…

I applaud your inventiveness

(but I still would love to know how does one hide from git blame)

(file renaming?)

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

#80

Post by dataflow »

lukec11 wrote: post #75
dataflow wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> taking mine to the same areas on the same carrier and doing a comparison Unfortunately I don't think it's that simple. I've seen one phone simultaneously show significantly different numbers of bars for two SIMs installed in it for the same exact network and operator . After a while they become similar... then differ again... etc. I have no clue how to explain it yet, but what I do know is that it literally makes n…

This is usually for a good reason - dual sim phones are almost always “DSDS”, or “Dual SIM Dual Standby”. The secondary SIM, because it doesn’t need to make a data connection, parks itself on the lowest-frequency (and therefore usually lowest-bandwidth) connection it can find. Meanwhile, your data-connected SIM is busy trying to stream a video or upload your photos, so it’s using a higher-frequency + higher bandwidth…

> Meanwhile, your data-connected SIM is busy trying to stream a video or upload your photos

You're making huge and incorrect assumptions here, no? This also happens when your phone is entirely idle... and it randomly changes if you sit still for some time...

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