[Q] G2 High Cell Standby - Radio Issue?

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So far I'm really happy with my G2!

I'm in Milwaukee where we have H+ coverage. I'm getting around 12hrs from the battery with moderate use. I don't think this is terrible, but the "cell standby" uses 40-60% of the battery!

I did some research and found the "WCDMA Only" setting. That brought the "time without signal" down to around 30% from around 60% but I don't like the idea that if I leave WCDMA coverage I'll miss calls etc...

So, my questions is - Is it possible that this is an issue with the radio firmware? It seems to be unnecessarily switching from EDGE to 3G/H+ since if I force WCDMA only, it maintains connection.

Any ideas?

I suggest you change your setting to WCDMA Preferred.

That, obviously, will cause the phone to connect to the faster network if it's available, and if it's not, will connect to the slower EDGE networks.

Having -50dB HSPA at school, and marginal HSPA at home, this works great for me.

Sometimes there will be a handover to 2G even if a 3G signal is reachable. Possible causes are sudden increases in utilization of the 3G by other users or attenuation for other reasons. Setting WCDMA-only prevents the radio from performing battery-draining tower searches, but like you said there is the problem of occasionally not having any coverage at all.

This is a problem with T-Mo US's network. You can see symptoms of it on other devices (particularly so with the Nexus One).

How do I find this setting and set it?

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

Originally Posted by SuperDave81

How do I find this setting and set it?

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

Open dialer and enter *#*#4636#*#*. It's in the first list item.

Edit: I see your location is Bay Area. I find that T-Mo 3.xG coverage is pretty lacking out on the edges of suburbia (think the hilly areas east of 680).

I have high Cell Standby as well. I checked it's details out and it claims that 50% of the time, my phone is without signal. Check this by going to:

Settings > About Phone > Battery Use > Cell Standby

It will tell me that 50% of the time, I do not have cell signal. I compared this to my brother's Vibrant and his is at 0% signal loss. Definitely something wrong here because my cell standby usage is twice as much as my brother's (we live in the same household so location shouldn't matter).

Originally Posted by jashsu

Open dialer and enter *#*#4636#*#*. It's in the first list item.

Edit: I see your location is Bay Area. I find that T-Mo 3.xG coverage is pretty lacking out on the edges of suburbia (think the hilly areas east of 680).

And how do you un-do this if it does not work out?

NM! I figured it out~!

Edit: figured out how to change this setting. But when I set it to WCDMA at my office I get 1 to no bars And the internet is slow. I do have a H and it is using HSPA.

If I set it to GSM only I get 3 to 4 bars, mostly 4 bars max. And then I am on Edge, and the internet is a bit faster.

I am just wondering why the coverage sucks so bad for 3g? When the maps I can find seem to show good coverage. When I am out and about I get good bars on HSPA, but inside it just sucks.

I am in Houston, area code 77009 :/

Originally Posted by jashsu

Open dialer and enter *#*#4636#*#*. It's in the first list item.

Edit: I see your location is Bay Area. I find that T-Mo 3.xG coverage is pretty lacking out on the edges of suburbia (think the hilly areas east of 680).

Thanks for this info

Weird, I just checked my G2 and I have 0% time w/o signal.

I live in Houston, TX and this is a combo of downtown and my house.

Botched setting in the phone?

i got 14+ hours the other day, but did notice that my cell standby has been very high.. when i checked... 44% of the time is without a signal (not sure how that's calculated) as I rarely ever see signal loss.. except for an hour out of the day I go into airplane mode at the gym because i have 0 cell coverage there. But I just changed to GSM Auto (PRL), i'll see if anything changes tommorow.