Mobile Network Type

[Guest terry.n]

As stupid as this may sound: I restarted my phone, and the Mobile Network Type (in Settings -> About -> Status) is now GRPS:1. It was HSDPA11 before the reboot. (I'm on b934, CWM flashed from b926). I've rebooted again and it stays at GPRS:1

Is this a network (Orange UK?) problem? I didn't even have the mobile data turned on when I did it. Or is it something weirder? TIA

Edit: When I enable mobile data, the little data symbol which is normally H or 3 is now G.

Edited August 30, 2012 by terry.n

[Guest dt_matthews]

As stupid as this may sound: I restarted my phone, and the Mobile Network Type (in Settings -> About -> Status) is now GRPS:1. It was HSDPA11 before the reboot. (I'm on b934, CWM flashed from b926). I've rebooted again and it stays at GPRS:1

Is this a network (Orange UK?) problem? I didn't even have the mobile data turned on when I did it. Or is it something weirder? TIA

Edit: When I enable mobile data, the little data symbol which is normally H or 3 is now G.

Assuming you didnt change / install anything else, then I'd speculate it was simply (poor) signal

Edited August 30, 2012 by dt_matthews

[Guest terry.n]

Assuming you didnt change / install anything else, then I'd speculate it was simply (poor) signal

Thanks mate - about an hour later it went back to '3' and now its 'G' again and settings say HSDPA 11 . Must have been some network disruption. I never realised that value in settings could change - I thought that was fixed by the firmware :blush:

[Guest Hogweed]

You must have a good network in your area if you had only previously seen "H". The phone will automatically switch down to 2g if it doesn't have an available/good enough 3g signal. With Vodafone I pretty much only ever saw "H" on my phone. Since switching to giff-gaff on O2 for cost reasons I now see "G" almost as often as "H" - except in the middle of the night when it's always "H". In other words the O2 3G network is over-loaded at daytime in my area. A very common complaint about O2 based networks.

I notice 3 are now doing unlimited data for £12.90/month and that's very tempting if the £2.90 extra gets something that works when I want it. Anyone on 3 have any opinions?

Edited August 31, 2012 by Hogweed

[Guest bladebuddy]

Hogweed that's identical to my problem. I am also considering moving to the 3 network as that's the only network where I live that gives a good 3g signal. Just need to know the same problem will not happen with 3 as I live in a high tourist area that always has a bad reception during the peek season but gets better in winter.

On giffgaff at the moment but like you said it's not very reliable.

Edited September 1, 2012 by bladebuddy

[Guest Skip Tracer]

Hogweed that's identical to my problem. I am also considering moving to the 3 network as that's the only network where I live that gives a good 3g signal. Just need to know the same problem will not happen with 3 as I live in a high tourist area that always has a bad reception during the peek season but gets better in winter.

On giffgaff at the moment but like you said it's not very reliable.

I have a similar problem with the G300 switching to 2G because I live in the middle of a triangle of 3 masks on my network, two 3G and one 2G.

All the masks are about the same distant away (about quarter to half a mile with various power levels) but while the two 3G masks are at the same level as my home location the 2G mask is about 200 foot above me with a direct view to it.

This has caused me a few problems like the other week down loading an app that was 14 Mb in size, it took about 10 seconds for the first 13 Mb then the G300 switch to 2G and it took 10 minutes to download the last Mb.

I found a solution to this by using the engineering code *#*#4636#*#* plus "Phone Information" which does what the Android menu mode “Network Mode” does but this mode seems to be missing on my G300. Since using the engineering code I found an app in the play store for a short cut to this mode. If required search the store with 4636 and that should find it.

With this app I can order the phone to stick to the 3G network no matter what but if your travelling around you need to put it back to “WCDMA preferred” or you will lose all data and phone connections when you move out to the sticks.

Just one other thing and I am not sure if it’s just my imagination, but the phone switches to 2G after I get the pop up saying “your battery is low do you want to switch to Power Saving Mode” regardless of telling the phone to stay in full power mode, but like I said this might by just me and my imagination.

[Guest Hogweed]

Interesting. I'd wondered if there was a way to force 3g only. I'll try it. The problem of getting bounced down to 2g after a period at 3g happens to me all the time on giffgaff even if I am in a good 3g reception area.. It never happened to me on Vodafone. I've actually stood right next to an O2 3g base station and watched the phone fall back to 2g in the middle of streaming.. I've wondered if O2 are implementing some kind of throttling mechanism that chucks you back to 2g at times after a certain amount of data usage.

Even worse, once I am back on 2g I can't even reliably listen to the BBC World Service 32k stream. Something I was able to do on Orange 2g 10 years ago. Sometimes the 2g throughput is only a few hundred bits per sec against a possible 48k on 2g supported by the G300.

I'll report back if forcing 3g improves things

Every week I find Giff-gaff data service seems to get poorer.

Edited September 2, 2012 by Hogweed

[Guest Davidoff59]

The code you want to get to engineer mode is actually

Dial

*#*#2846579#*#*

[Guest bladebuddy]

I think a lot of this is down to the massive advertising campaign from giffgaff sponsoring "The big bang theory" and everything else. They must of had a huge rise in customers, hence the network being over run.

I also think the phone itself is to blame a little.

At work I always get the "H" signal which I think is 3g+ but may be wrong. My blade stuck on H only , this phone jumps between H and 3g very often , maybe a mast thing.

At home I only get a 2g signal and somedays I can't even load Tapatalk up and Google play isn't possible until late at night.

Roll on next year when 4g gets rolled out will upgrade then for sure.

Thanks also Skip Tracer for the app it will come in very useful and is quicker then the secret menu number cheers.

[Guest Skip Tracer]

The code you want to get to engineer mode is actually

Dial

*#*#2846579#*#*

Sorry for that I just miss interpreted that these *# codes were all called engineering codes as I have seen the “engineering code” mentioned many times but never realised it referred to a particular code.

[Guest Hogweed]

Davidoff59,

The 4636 code given by skip tracer worked for me. It took me in to a "Testing" menu where I could change the network settings.

Bladebuddy,

I switched the phone to "WCDMA only" over 2 hours ago. I've been continually streaming 5 Live Sports Extra since then both in my house and travelling around. Not a single glitch in the streaming. I have never been able to do this on giff-gaff reliably before except at say 3am. So it seems, as I suspected, the O2 network is physically handing me off to 2g for reasons other than insufficient signal strength (which has generally averaged about 3 bars). If the phone doesn't support 2g then the O2 network can't pass me down.

Edited September 2, 2012 by Hogweed

[Guest Skip Tracer]

Davidoff59,

The 4636 code given by skip tracer worked for me. It took me in to a "Testing" menu where I could change the network settings.

Bladebuddy,

I switched the phone to "WCDMA only" over 2 hours ago. I've been continually streaming 5 Live Sports Extra since then both in my house and travelling around. Not a single glitch in the streaming. I have never been able to do this on giff-gaff before except at say 3am. So it seems, as I suspected, the O2 network is physically handing me off to 2g for reasons other than insufficient signal strength (which has generally averaged about 3 bars). If the phone doesn't support 2g then the O2 network can't pass me down.

That’s good news :) , BTW same here on GG.

What I don’t understand with my G300 still being the same as it came out of the box with OTA updates accepted, why is the Android “Network Mode” menu missing from this phone in the first place. :(

[Guest bladebuddy]

I have been using it at work today and have also seen an improvement when downloading as it quite often fails, On average I use around 20gb a month with my £10 goodybag when receiveing my monthly review.

I have noticed the network has become a lot worse recently and have always put it down to high traffic as its more noticeable over bank holidays e.t.c.

But if you are right about them throwing you back to 2g for some reason you need to find out why,

Thinking about it I suppose there keeping there contract by allowing unlimited data be it on 2g or 3g.

So if they can't throw you back to 2g then the jobs all good.

[Guest Hogweed]

I have great difficulty to be honest using much more than 1gb per month with day time usage - simply because it doesn't work well enough.. In fact it has annoyed me to the point I sometimes switch off wi-fi late at night at home (when 3g does work at home and I don't get bumped down to 2g) just to use up some of the "unlimited" data I am supposed to have.

I used to also see the phone rock back and forwards between 2g and 3g, once or twice per second on giffgaff (others also reported this and you get no data at all when this is happening) but have not seen that recently - touch wood..

Everything was just about perfect with the Vodafone SIM I bought with the phone until I used the 500M allowance and switched to giffgaff. Everything also seems fine with the limited testing I've done with an Orange SIM. It's just on giff-gaff I seem to see the problem. I know people directly on O2 who also seem to be getting a terrible data service so I don't think it is restricted to giff-gaff.

Now at 3 hours of streaming (now on 6 Music 128K stream) . Still not a single glitch. Showing 3/4 bars currently. The difference is like night and day. Will have to see how it behaves during the week on WCDMA only.

Edited September 2, 2012 by Hogweed