My Letter to Samsung President Re Note and S Issues

[steve181]

January 13, 2014

Mr. Gregory Lee
President and CEO
Samsung Electronics North America
Samsung Telecommunications America
85 Challenger Road
Ridgefield Park, NJ. 07660

Dear Mr. Lee:

You are surely aware by now of the many WIFI and instability problems reported on the web regarding the Samsung Galaxy S and Note Smartphones. These appear to be independent of carrier, but may be related to Android 4.3.

I myself have spent about 20 hours tracing WIFI instability problems on my Verizon Note 3 including all the cookbook suggestions on the web, as well as installation of a new router and modem. None worked for me until I turned off the Bluetooth function – a temporary solution at best.

As an electrical engineer I understand the complexities of hardware and software interactions, as well as the potential interactions of RF devices sharing the 2.4 GHz band. However, the problems with your devices are now likely consuming tens of thousands of user plus customer service hours, on what may be futile trails. This wasted time and frustration could be avoided.

I think the honorable thing to do would be for Samsung to broadly acknowledge that they are having these problems, announce that they have a top team working on it, forecast a time frame when they may have a repair, and suggest temporary fixes for those who can’t wait and need them immediately. For many people this would suffice, since your strong reputation would be enough to give them confidence that help is on the way. In effect, this makes Samsung a hero rather than a villain.

Unless you do this, you will face a growing backlash from increasingly frustrated users who feel their time is being wasted by a company that wants to hide the issue.

Sincerely,

Steven M. Baer MSEE

 

[lchupacabras]

January 13, 2014

Mr. Gregory Lee
President and CEO
Samsung Electronics North America
Samsung Telecommunications America
85 Challenger Road
Ridgefield Park, NJ. 07660

Dear Mr. Lee:

You are surely aware by now of the many WIFI and instability problems reported on the web regarding the Samsung Galaxy S and Note Smartphones. These appear to be independent of carrier, but may be related to Android 4.3.

I myself have spent about 20 hours tracing WIFI instability problems on my Verizon Note 3 including all the cookbook suggestions on the web, as well as installation of a new router and modem. None worked for me until I turned off the Bluetooth function – a temporary solution at best.

As an electrical engineer I understand the complexities of hardware and software interactions, as well as the potential interactions of RF devices sharing the 2.4 GHz band. However, the problems with your devices are now likely consuming tens of thousands of user plus customer service hours, on what may be futile trails. This wasted time and frustration could be avoided.

I think the honorable thing to do would be for Samsung to broadly acknowledge that they are having these problems, announce that they have a top team working on it, forecast a time frame when they may have a repair, and suggest temporary fixes for those who can’t wait and need them immediately. For many people this would suffice, since your strong reputation would be enough to give them confidence that help is on the way. In effect, this makes Samsung a hero rather than a villain.

Unless you do this, you will face a growing backlash from increasingly frustrated users who feel their time is being wasted by a company that wants to hide the issue.

Sincerely,

Steven M. Baer MSEE

Dear Mr. Baer:

Sounds good buddy, keep it to your blog posts though.

Sincerely,
Mr. Cabra

 

[sonkameja]

getting this off the top of my head but I think you want to take you letter and send them out executive email carpet bombing where u email all the head honchos at that monster company samsung

United states division will probably get you something if you contact a director or something
who knows

would be interesting if everyone who signed the petition emailed n' carpet bombed em

can you imagine their inboxes getting flooded

I'D LOVE IT

 

[lmike6453]

After fixing my own and helping others in threads with WiFi instability issues, a solid fix is to adjust the channel of the frequency within your router settings to match your device/phone/laptop
Also if you go barely out of range/back in/flutter the WiFi connection you will get this message
Thanks for sending a letter to Samsung for us though, not many ppl put in the effort

 

[recDNA]

After fixing my own and helping others in threads with WiFi instability issues, a solid fix is to adjust the channel of the frequency within your router settings to match your device/phone/laptop
Also if you go barely out of range/back in/flutter the WiFi connection you will get this message
Thanks for sending a letter to Samsung for us though, not many ppl put in the effort

Have you got a how to thread about this? I know how to change channels on router but how do I know which match the note 3?

Beamed from my Galaxy Note 3

 

[lmike6453]

Have you got a how to thread about this? I know how to change channels on router but how do I know which match the note 3?

Beamed from my Galaxy Note 3

Every router we'll be different so the web console interface will be unique per router model.

You want to login to your router via Google chrome or IE, and navigate to something along the lines of Wi-Fi channel frequency.

There should be a range from 1-11 "channels" and you want to try one at a time. Yours could be different than mine depending on interference around you.

I hope this kinda makes sense. This also applies to general networking if your laptop Wi-Fi signal is weak sauce

Sent from my SM-N900V using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

 

[recDNA]

Thanks. I'm aware of the process. I thought there might be 1 or 2 specific channels that work best with Note 3. Through trial and error I do have a good connection. I just wondered if there was a better method than I used because it took quite a while.

Beamed from my Galaxy Note 3

 

[platinumrims]

What kind of routers are people using when they get this message? I've only gotten it once since having the phone on some random wifi network and the signal was dropping in and out

 

[Jackseric]

Thanks. I'm aware of the process. I thought there might be 1 or 2 specific channels that work best with Note 3. Through trial and error I do have a good connection. I just wondered if there was a better method than I used because it took quite a while.

There should be a range from 1-11 "channels" and you want to try one at a time. Yours could be different than mine depending on interference around you.

Wifi Analyzer will look at all the wifi networks in earshot of your phone and tell you what channel they're on. You just pick one with the least chance of bumping into another network. No try and see method... just do it once. Test from the spot you're having the most trouble, typically the farthest spot from your router that you'll be using the wifi. (I tried to post direct link to the app in Google Play, but I'm too new of a user and the forum wouldn't let me)

recDNA you are not alone, I too thought lmike6453's post made it sound like he had some secret info about the Note 3 working best on a certain channel or something like that. No worries!

 

[chrisrotolo]

Thanks for this. Hope to see the response. Anyone ever buy a Samsung device from Asia, etc. and try to connect to your USA home Wi-Fi, only to find out your device doesn't recognize the region code? Yeah, lame. Almost as lame as releasing the international note 3 region locked, and LTE version not compatible with AT&T LTE bands. OK, I will stop veering off topic, here. Please post any response to this great letter.

 

[airmaxx23]

What kind of routers are people using when they get this message? I've only gotten it once since having the phone on some random wifi network and the signal was dropping in and out

I've never had the message pop-up and I've had my Note 3 since the release day.

 

[bftb0]

Wifi Analyzer will look at all the wifi networks in earshot of your phone and tell you what channel they're on. You just pick one with the least chance of bumping into another network. No try and see method... just do it once. Test from the spot you're having the most trouble, typically the farthest spot from your router that you'll be using the wifi. (I tried to post direct link to the app in Google Play, but I'm too new of a user and the forum wouldn't let me)

Here's the play store app link for the Wifi Analyzer app (farproc).

Doing an occupied channel assessment like this is definitely a good practice for avoiding interference from other WiFi APs; but keep in mind that due to channel overlap a three-channel separation is best. Because of the pervasiveness of WiFi, it may be impossible to find such a "quiet channel" arrangements, though. In such cases though it is useful to at least avoid the same channels that the strongest nearby APs are using. A lot of consumer WiFi routers use default channels assignments of 3, 6, or 9 (so that folks that leave their APs with default settings always end up 3 channels apart from other "defaulters"... two-thirds of the time ). That suggests that if you are in an area with lots of WiFi (maybe an apartment building or something) try to get 2 channels away (1, 4 or 5, 7 or 8, 11) - at least the interference will be diminished a little bit.

There is one big problem with WiFi scanners though - they don't give a single clue about RF interference by non-WiFi devices in the ISM band(s). Microwave ovens, portable phones, baby monitors, bluetooth devices, yada yada yada. Perhaps there is a way to infer from re-transmission statistics whether or not one channel is better than another, but I'm not sure if such apps even exist, and due to the burst-like nature of many forms of interference (who runs their Microwave oven all day long?), you might have to observe a lot of data to figure something like that out.

Some of the statistics in this Cisco article ("Top 20 Myths of WiFi Interference") are rather startling; worth a look.
@steve181

Good luck getting any response from Samsung or Verizon. Not because I'm a cynic or anything, but because WiFi operates in a uncontrolled, free-for-all radio space which is basically a giant experiment started by the FCC. The fact that it operates at all - or even most of the time - is hardly some kind of guarantee that it will work in all scenarios.

They (Samsung/Verizon) are not going to come over to your house to find out what is wrong.

And the fact that you can find isolated reports of problems scattered across the internet is not a reliable metric of the incidence rate of problems. That's an "availability bias" problem with the data you have to work with. People with trouble go looking for solutions and people that don't have problems... don't. There might be widespread problems or only rare ones - neither you nor I have the data to support either of those hypotheses with any credibility, though.

The 802.11 protocols are extremely complicated and sophisticated - and complex, sophisticated protocols are good breeding grounds for interop problems (software bugs due to differences in protocol interpretation). It takes at least two to tango (the STA and the AP), and a bug could be on either side. Throw in uncontrolled interference from other random electronic devices, and who is to say that "this is Vendor A's fault" without any due diligence. ("Well, my other devices don't do this" is hardly proof of much - it's just a suspicion or hypothesis at best)

Don't like the results you are getting? Get a different phone, router, or neighborhood. Or fiddle with some settings on them until they work. Yeah it sucks and is a huge drain of time; but practically speaking those are the only alternatives when you run into a WiFi problem.

I once encountered an IT infrastructure bug that was a three-vendor bug: it only occurred with a specific client OS, a specific AntiVirus software release, and a specific vendor's multi-protocol (SMB/NFS) file server. Imagine what that was like trying to get any of the involved vendors to engage. Every WiFi issue has exactly the same 3-fold problem resolution tree: is the problem (a) the STA, (b) the AP, or (c) uncontrolled crap in the area?

good luck

 

[recDNA]

Wifi Analyzer will look at all the wifi networks in earshot of your phone and tell you what channel they're on. You just pick one with the least chance of bumping into another network. No try and see method... just do it once. Test from the spot you're having the most trouble, typically the farthest spot from your router that you'll be using the wifi. (I tried to post direct link to the app in Google Play, but I'm too new of a user and the forum wouldn't let me)

recDNA you are not alone, I too thought lmike6453's post made it sound like he had some secret info about the Note 3 working best on a certain channel or something like that. No worries!

Funny, I had wifi analyzer but there was no congestion on any channel so I just used trial and error. I have very secure and fast wifi now. I do think I have an excellent router though. Fairly new with lots of options.

Beamed from my Galaxy Note 3

 

[toddnbrown]

Changing router settings is not okay... As a temporary fix, maybe. But to act like it's not a problem with the phone because you were able to change router channels, or have the latest greatest router, misses the point completely. If everything else you have has no issues with wifi connectivity to your router, why should you have to change anything at all to get the Note 3 to have a stable connection? Not everyone is a computer whiz or has the time to mess with all that. Wifi is a basic function of a phone that should work out of the box. Just my 2 cents. Not trying to start a debate.

 

[macdroid01]

Changing router settings is not okay... As a temporary fix, maybe. But to act like it's not a problem with the phone because you were able to change router channels, or have the latest greatest router, misses the point completely. If everything else you have has no issues with wifi connectivity to your router, why should you have to change anything at all to get the Note 3 to have a stable connection? Not everyone is a computer whiz or has the time to mess with all that. Wifi is a basic function of a phone that should work out of the box. Just my 2 cents. Not trying to start a debate.

This makes me wonder whether indeed I should get a Dev edition Note 3... until this is resolved...

Another reason this is unacceptable is many people do not have access to router settings in corporate environments. This should be embarrassing to Samsung. Imagine their reputation when in a meeting someone says oh sorry, I can't connect to WiFi I have a crappy Samsung. Then another guy says oh, that sucks. I have an iPhone it works just fine. Hm. They need to get their crap straight on this and not ignore it like Apple and go all "you're holding it wrong" on us. This thread should be enough for the engineering team to start from and fix this issue permanently.

 

[platinumrims]

So do you guys notice a difference in performance or is it just words telling you something is wrong while it's working fine? What if Samsung is the only one trying to help and others just mute the warnings

 

[oktrav]

+1000000
I thought I was going crazy when I couldn't get my vzw retail note 3 to play nice with my chromecast. HTC one, no problem. IPhones 5 and 5s, no problem. Nexus 7 (2013), iPad air, no problem. I too have wondered in frustration how it could be possible that a flagship device from a company as high profile as Samsung (only the #1 android device maker in the world) could put out products with such major problems. I'd say that inability to maintain a stable WiFi connection is a pretty significant shortcoming in a device that is essentially a vehicle to access the internet. It's things like this that allow fanboys to say "apple stuff just works." Because it does. Apple has trained to consumers to expect that things will 'just work'. And why shouldn't they?

And while you're at it Samsung, fix the audio stuttering with the screen off. Jeez!

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

 

[sonkameja]

+1000000
I thought I was going crazy when I couldn't get my vzw retail note 3 to play nice with my chromecast. HTC one, no problem. IPhones 5 and 5s, no problem. Nexus 7 (2013), iPad air, no problem. I too have wondered in frustration how it could be possible that a flagship device from a company as high profile as Samsung (only the #1 android device maker in the world) could put out products with such major problems. I'd say that inability to maintain a stable WiFi connection is a pretty significant shortcoming in a device that is essentially a vehicle to access the internet. It's things like this that allow fanboys to say "apple stuff just works." Because it does. Apple has trained to consumers to expect that things will 'just work'. And why shouldn't they?

And while you're at it Samsung, fix the audio stuttering with the screen off. Jeez!

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Seriously my galaxy note one was hella stable compared to this locked down piece of garbage

Sent from my SM-N900V using XDA Premium HD app

 

[oneandroidnut]

throw in about no stock files for developer edition too please lol

 

[lmike6453]

Changing router settings is not okay... As a temporary fix, maybe. But to act like it's not a problem with the phone because you were able to change router channels, or have the latest greatest router, misses the point completely. If everything else you have has no issues with wifi connectivity to your router, why should you have to change anything at all to get the Note 3 to have a stable connection? Not everyone is a computer whiz or has the time to mess with all that. Wifi is a basic function of a phone that should work out of the box. Just my 2 cents. Not trying to start a debate.

This makes me wonder whether indeed I should get a Dev edition Note 3... until this is resolved...

Another reason this is unacceptable is many people do not have access to router settings in corporate environments. This should be embarrassing to Samsung. Imagine their reputation when in a meeting someone says oh sorry, I can't connect to WiFi I have a crappy Samsung. Then another guy says oh, that sucks. I have an iPhone it works just fine. Hm. They need to get their crap straight on this and not ignore it like Apple and go all "you're holding it wrong" on us. This thread should be enough for the engineering team to start from and fix this issue permanently.

I agree that the technology should be automated in the sense of pairing frequencies after scanning for the best one. Until then, all ya can do is be grateful that wireless even exists compared to a decade ago's technology, it's still in overall infancy stage.

So do you guys notice a difference in performance or is it just words telling you something is wrong while it's working fine? What if Samsung is the only one trying to help and others just mute the warnings

It's just a notification that remains stickied in the notification drawer if at ANY point in your connection it is recognized as unstable. Really, the whole "issue" is blown out of proportion to me since it works as normal and you wouldn't know of any difference if it just didn't report anything like other Android phones.