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

Posted by tsujamin 3 days ago

Simple trick to increase coverage: Lying to users about signal strength(nickvsnetworking.com)

437 points | 179 commentspage 3

explosion-s 2 days ago|

Having no knowledge about this isn't there a possibility that this is innocuous, that is that there is some difference in how each provider, such as T-Mobile or Verizon, etc., send the data about how many bars are available such that it needs to be bumped by one?

ggm 3 days ago||

contrast with RF emissions which are regulated.

if we cared about signal strength, we'd make it part of the telecommunications regulated sphere: you must back your meter with a path which shows signal strength accurate to xDB in some yUnits of zQuality measured at one of A,B conforming labs

modeless 3 days ago||

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.

Shank 3 days 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.

moribvndvs 3 days ago||

Maybe related to 5G? There are a couple spots near me (in particular, a somewhat crowded open mall) where I have solid bars but zero connectivity. Dropping to 4G works in most cases.

lxgr 2 days ago||

Are signal strength indicators even useful anymore these days?

I've long (at least since 3G) considered cell signal to be a binary property (available or not), with the much more important criterion being available data rate.

justahuman74 3 days ago||

I'm surprised that's not against regulation in a bunch of countries

NotMelNoGuitars 3 days ago||

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:    <boolean name="show_4g_for_3g_data_icon_bool" value="true"/>
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_2119_FirstNet.xml:    <boolean name="show_4g_for_3g_data_icon_bool" value="true"/>
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_1779_Cricket-Wireless.xml:    <boolean name="show_4g_for_3g_data_icon_bool" value="true"/>

Android documents[0] this flag, which they don't appear to do for the `inflate_signal_strength_bool` field outside the source code from what I can tell. It seems like there a bunch of odd flags for controlling user-exposed visuals - another flag `show_4g_for_lte_data_icon_bool` is used by 96 carriers, for example.

I wonder if there's some odd telecom history behind these, or if these flags were intended for some kind of edge-case. It seems like carriers have the option to arbitrarily override the thresholds used for determining signal strength[1], but only four carriers actually do. All only elect to customize the `lte_rsrp_thresholds_int_array` field; and all opt to make things harder for themselves, reporting their network connection as lower strength than the default classification[2] would:

    $ grep -r _thresholds_int_array assets/ -A5
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_2556_Xfinity_Mobile.xml:    <int-array name="lte_rsrp_thresholds_int_array" num="4">
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_2556_Xfinity_Mobile.xml-        <item value="-115"/>
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_2556_Xfinity_Mobile.xml-        <item value="-105"/>
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_2556_Xfinity_Mobile.xml-        <item value="-95"/>
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_2556_Xfinity_Mobile.xml-        <item value="-85"/>
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_2556_Xfinity_Mobile.xml-    </int-array>
    --
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_1345_Telstra.xml:    <int-array name="lte_rsrp_thresholds_int_array" num="4">
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_1345_Telstra.xml-        <item value="-120"/>
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_1345_Telstra.xml-        <item value="-115"/>
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_1345_Telstra.xml-        <item value="-100"/>
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_1345_Telstra.xml-        <item value="-90"/>
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_1345_Telstra.xml-    </int-array>
    --
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_1839_Verizon-Wireless.xml:  # omitted, same as Xfinity, above
    ...
    --
    assets/carrier_config_carrierid_2032_Xfinity-Mobile.xml:  # omitted, same as Xfinity, above
    ...

[0]: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/telephony/Ca...

[1]: https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/signal-strength...

[2]: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/...

        sDefaults.putIntArray(KEY_LTE_RSRP_THRESHOLDS_INT_ARRAY,
                // Boundaries: [-140 dBm, -44 dBm]
                new int[] {
                        -128, /* SIGNAL_STRENGTH_POOR */
                        -118, /* SIGNAL_STRENGTH_MODERATE */
                        -108, /* SIGNAL_STRENGTH_GOOD */
                        -98,  /* SIGNAL_STRENGTH_GREAT */
                });

ashirviskas 3 days ago||

The same is done without modifying Android, likely nearly everywhere in the world, but maybe not every provider. Provider sends a config information of "Network Override" and can make your phone display any network type. I see this happening in Network Survey app (open source) with my provider.

Shank 3 days ago||

> 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.

Havoc 3 days ago||

The latest iPhone have pushed this to such extremes that it’s become useless as a signal to users.

It’s showing full or near full bars even in places I can’t load light sites like hn properly.

Psychology tricks like these only work if you don’t overdo it

sharts 3 days ago||

Toggle that off or just remove it entirely.

doctorpangloss 3 days ago||

this is the difference between selling a technology and selling a product

jb1991 3 days ago|

This is the difference between a meaningful comparison and an unmeaningful one.

sammy2255 3 days ago|

Ironically this site is struggling due to traffic from HN

Wayback machine link: https://web.archive.org/web/20251103013626/https://nickvsnet...

jb1991 3 days ago|

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

sammy2255 3 days ago|||

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

ethmarks 3 days ago|||

I assume the irony is that an article about signal strength, which is closely related to data speed, is loading slowly because the site servers have slow data speed.