Forum Discussion
Recently, Ive been getting only 2 bars
Before, the signal was great, always staying at 4 bars. I don't know what happened within the last couple of months. The maximum amount I can get is 2 bars, connected to my wifi or on LTE. Sometimes I even get no service. Ive tested my internet connection online and it always says that there's nothing wrong. What can I do to get the 4 bars again?
It’s possible that you’re connecting on a different band.
From ‘1’ site, you can be connecting to the following bands - listed from ‘strongest to weakest’ as typically displayed on your device:
B71 LTE (600MHz)
B12 LTE (700MHz)
B2 LTE (1900MHz)
B4 LTE (1700/2100MHz)
B41 LTE (2500MHz)
Similarly on 5G …
n71 (600MHz)
n41 (2500MHz).
Eg. At home, on n71, I'll have 3 bars of signal, from a distant tower, and very slow service. On n41, its 1 bar at best. 1 bar on n41 will give me ~50Mbps, 3 bars on n71 will give me 5 Mbps.
Nobody wants to see 2 bars for their cell signal. I hate having this problem too. I went to:
Settings > Cellular > Network Selection >
Uncheck “Automatic” and guess what? T-Mobile *AND* Verizon cellular networks are in the options… ummm, WHY?? when I chose T-Mobile as the default, my bars increased to full bars and then down to 3 instead of 2. I found this very strange. Data roaming is probably playing a role as well although I don't know how much of a role. T-Mobile needs to sort it out and give us the strong signals we paid for when we signed up!
Just as a note on the ‘roaming’ … unless you’re in an area that T-Mobile actually allows roaming, you’ll end up on ‘Emergency Service Only’.
You will know when you are roaming, as T-Mobile has a cap on data (200MB?)
I have roamed in Maine on US Cellular
Similarly, in California (SoCal / SLO Cal) if my device loses service for ~1 min, my phone will connect to AT&T / Verizon, and data + calls are disabled.
T-Mobile claims 4G LTE + 5G service in those areas, but none exists for miles.
Attempting to get T-Mobile to even acknowledge the issue is basically an act of congress.
You can escalate through T-Mobile , but from experience, unless it is a ‘big’ traffic area, or has some external funding (gov’t or commercial push), you’ll probably not have much luck.
