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

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

#81

Post by Shank »

NotMelNoGuitars wrote: post #66

Poking around the config files, AT&T and two other carriers (both of which are subsidiaries, from a quick Google) seem to display 3G connections as if they were 4G: $ grep -r show_4g_for_3g_data_icon_bool assets/ assets/carrier_config_carrierid_1187_AT&T.xml: assets/carrier_config_carrierid_2119_FirstNet.xml: assets/carrier_config_carrierid_1779_Cricket-Wireless.xml: Android documents[0] this flag, which they don't a…

> seem to display 3G connections as if they were 4G

https://www.theverge.com/2011/05/04/536673/att-t-mobile-dipp...

AT&T has a history of lying about what its network is. They were advertising HSPA+ as 4G and then recently started advertising LTE as "5G E". I can't find a lot of articles about the 4G branding one since the 5G one started.

> show_4g_for_lte_data_icon_bool

Realistically I think this is just a choice that many carriers made. It's quite common to see 4G instead of LTE outside of the US. Technically speaking I think WiMAX counted as 4G when there were competing 4G standards and you could make an argument that LTE is just one of the 4G standards.

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

#82

Post by robot-wrangler »

bitwize wrote: post #53
_carbyau_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better coverage may be claimed. But as you know, Australia is a big place. The few farmers I know have a rough idea of the on-the-ground cell coverage. They say things like "this side of the hill/town" usually. I've seen them deliberately walk to the other side of a silo to make a call. I assume that the coverage maps are assumed cell-tower-coverage-if-shit-is-not-in-the-way. No surprise radios are common.

A Diné (Navajo) slang word for "cellphone" is "bił nijoobałí" which means "the thing you spin around with". Coverage on rez is not great you see, and in some places is so marginal that whether you get a usable signal depends not just on position but orientation...

> Coverage on rez is not great you see

Tangent but this is a pretty interesting topic. I've heard people speculate that local politics deliberately prevents such infrastructure, waiting for some kind of kickbacks to make it worth their while. Others suggest that it happens because federal telecom subsidies aimed at improving rural connectivity don't apply, as a kind of retaliation for tribal sovereignty. Way off-grid, ok, maybe it's simply not worth it to corporate telecom, but whatever the cause coverage even in fairly populated areas around Kayenta/Monument Valley is also quite bad in a way that would be infrequent in comparable communities in say, nowhere Appalachia.

Many a suburban parent of smart-phone addicted children would romanticize the whole thing and actually be kind of jealous of a situation like that. Years back and on the other side of the world, tourists were very scandalized about more roads and towers around Annapurna in Nepal.. but of course the locals usually do not actually like to be cut off from the world.

More telecom is probably good despite the evils, but fuck commercial billboards in particular. Those are still creeping closer to the Grand Canyons and Yosemites, and they suck whether it's for multinationals like McDonalds, or for locally owned gas stations or hotels that put cash into tribal communities. Ban them all like Hawaii, and everyone will be astonished to learn that the world keeps turning..

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

#83

Post by objectcode »

NoPicklez wrote: post #3

There's a part of me that thinks there's perhaps a logical and reasonable explanation, I just can't think of one.

Maybe because the signal strength might not work as users expect?

Signal strength is like the loudness of music being heard. It's possible for music to be quiet but otherwise excellent, or loud but low-quality. However, if it is too quiet, then the "music" becomes almost unintelligible, which the offseted bars should still be able to indicate.

In Wi-Fi, 6GHz and 5GHz are often used instead of 2.4GHz. 2.4GHz would likely win in signal strength. Yet, the others are used anyway, because the others are good for other reasons. However, if range ( ...or compatibility) is critical, then 2.4GHz is used.

Similarly, in cellular, there is a lower frequency e.g. band 8/12/14/17/20/28/71 and a higher frequency e.g. band 1/3/7/30/38/40/41/66/77/78. (Less basically, it can be more granular.)

So this sequence of events is possible: Tower switches the phone to a higher frequency -> speed increases but the signal strength reduces (confusing, but at least doesn't seem bad if there are 3 or 4 bars.) A switch to a lower frequency normally occurs instead if the high frequency signal is weak.

Cellular can be slow due to interference (maybe more common than signal strength issues; the metric to use instead might be SNR/SINR), congestion (maybe more common than signal strength issues; the metric to use instead is confusing, maybe the CFI value (if automatically changed) or RSRQ with a high SNR/SINR might rule it out), the speed of the rest of the network (the metric to use might be RSRQ during a download with a high SNR/SINR), data plan (the metric to use instead might be RSRQ during a download with a high SNR or SINR/QCI (requires interpretation)), and the width of it (the metric to use is BW). So it's confusing, and not exactly that full bars are always better.

For 2G, with each nearby cell (coverage area) basically getting its own channels, signal strength might've been more important, though interference was there somewhat (so there was MAIO planning etc.)

But aside from speed, there's the battery to consider. If the signal strength from the tower to the phone is "satisfactory", it's implied that so is the signal from the phone to the tower, so the phone will have to have an elevated transmit power.

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

#84

Post by saagarjha »

userbinator wrote: post #32
TheDong wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm surprised they even display the name and email of the person responsible for doing it. If I were forced to make such a change that I knew would be publicly displayed, I'd do everything possible to disclaim it (such as mentioning the one who actually requested it.)

This has happened before: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Glob...

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

#85

Post by dmurray »

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?

There are some economics of scale that work best at the country level.

Even with the EU single market, mobile phone operations almost always follow country borders. You'll get a different set of providers in Germany than you'll get one km away on the other side of the Rhine in France. Even though some of them may have the same name or the same ultimate owner or both, and even though you can roam on the other side of the border, you'll have a contract with a different entity, and different people will build and maintain the networking equipment.

Conversely, in the US, the major carriers all have nationwide coverage.

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

#86

Post by dawnerd »

hshdhdhehd wrote: post #55
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…

Thats why I experienced 2 bars equals zero internet today?

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.

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

#87

Post by dawnerd »

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?

I have one right now and internet is working well enough. Even says lte.

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

#89

Post by ashirviskas »

If you use some app such as Network Survey (open source, Android), you can see that providers also lie about the type of connection. I'm on LTE now, but provider makes phone display 5G.

And this is on non-provider phone, this is built in in the whatever communication they do with the phone, possibly works with every device.

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

#90

Post by objectcode »

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…

The phone selects a RAT (radio access technology) and frequency for each SIM slot.

After selecting, each SIM slot is subject to inter freq / inter RAT reselection / handover.

Both are controlled by messages received from the tower (e.g. on 4GLTE, for reselection, System Information messages), though there is an additional constraint: what's supported by/enabled in the phone.

Perhaps one SIM slot was in the connected state and the other was in the idle state at one point. So the reselection logic applied for one and the handover logic applied for the other. There is for example a problem called ping pong handover. Once a phone is switched to a different frequency or RAT, the tower may have the phone be sort of stuck in the new frequency, until the conditions of the previous RAT or frequency improve substantially, in order to prevent the phone being like a ping pong ball between the two. This frees resources that would otherwise be spent on repeated handover-related messages.

Each frequency has its own signal strength (free space path loss, transmit power, one frequency might be on one tower and another might be on another, etc).

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