Best Iphone for Rural Coverage

[subterran]

It could be your phone. Which is more or less what this whole thread is about. I had a hard time swallowing that Apple's reception would actually 'downgrade' between a 4S and a 'premium' 5S, but that's what happened. One would think that it would steadily improve, but that was not the case. Seems like they are back on track though, with the 6 series.

To tell the truth, there is one place we go that an ATT phone works where my Verizon will not, but I will happily trade the other hundred or so we go that the opposite is true. As long as I'm paying ANYONE through the nose for cell service, the least it can do is work, you know?

Anyway, hope your calls go through!

 

[mpinco]

......I had a hard time swallowing that Apple's reception would actually 'downgrade' between a 4S and a 'premium' 5S, but that's what happened. One would think that it would steadily improve, but that was not the case. Seems like they are back on track though, with the 6 series.

To tell the truth, there is one place we go that an ATT phone works where my Verizon will not, but I will happily trade the other hundred or so we go that the opposite is true. .......

Location, location. You're East, I'm West.

As for phone reception/reliability, you have witnessed the outcome of design AND test. The theory was good, the outcome not so. Antenna performance is about front-end electrical design, physical placement and surroundings. For Apple they have experienced "all of the above" with inadequate testing that should have found the issues in prototype/pre-prod. Apple is no different than others.

 

[AlbanyTom]

East and west is way too general. It may not be an accident that the user in Colorado and one in upstate NY reports at&t as better. It not flat here or there. Flat land coverage is, other things being equal, way easier and more predictable. Radio coverage in hilly areas is much more difficult.

 

[mpinco]

East and west is way too general. It may not be an accident that the user in Colorado and one in upstate NY reports at&t as better. It not flat here or there. Flat land coverage is, other things being equal, way easier and more predictable. Radio coverage in hilly areas is much more difficult.

Good observation!

Comparison of mobile phone standards

Disadvantages of IS-95 (CDMA one)

- Breathing of base stations, where coverage area shrinks under load. As the number of subscribers using a particular site goes up, the range of that site goes down.
- Because IS-95 towers interfere with each other, they are normally installed on much shorter towers. Because of this, IS-95 may not perform well in hilly terrain.

I'm not saying latest CDMA hasn't addressed interference but I would think later standards (current CDMA) are on the same shorter towers.

Then consider "breathing"

Cell breathing

Cell breathing (or respiration) is a term used to reflect the fact that the coverage area of a base station in a CDMA system will become smaller if there are more subscribers.

While in conventional FDMA and TDMA systems, like GSM, each subscriber has the full transmission power of the base station, in CDMA systems (like UMTS and CDMA2000), the output power of the base station is divided among all active subscribers.

If, for example, a total power of 20 watts is available, the network can feed 10 watts to each of two subscribers, or, 2 watts to each of 10 subscribers. The maximum output power available for an individual subscriber depends on the number of active subscribers in each radio cell. The more subscribers logged on to the cell, the lower the power available for a individual subscriber and hence the lower its range.

CDMA - Shorter towers + reduced power = less coverage for hilly terrain.
GSM - Taller towers + full power = better coverage for hilly terrain.

LTE has apparently reduced breathing, but not eliminated it.


Oh, and from where I stand it looks pretty flat looking East!

 

[subterran]

For my purposes, this thread has served it's purpose. I was asking someone to conform that the iphone 5C has better reception than a 5S. Apparently no one had that information. So I bought one myself, and proved to myself that indeed, the 5C is superior. If that is useful information to anyone, great news. Feel free to continue chatting amongst yourselves.

 

[mpinco]

For my purposes, this thread has served it's purpose. I was asking someone to conform that the iphone 5C has better reception than a 5S. Apparently no one had that information. So I bought one myself, and proved to myself that indeed, the 5C is superior. If that is useful information to anyone, great news. Feel free to continue chatting amongst yourselves.

Both use the Qualcomm WTR1605L LTE transceiver chip.

Found this testing:

Blue Tick testing - how Telstra tests smartphones


Results:

iPhone 5C - Blue Tick rated
iPhone 5S - not Blue Tick rated

iPhone 5C or 5S blue tick?

From discussion at link:

The 5c has a plastic housing which doesn't interfere with the signal, whereas the 5s has an aluminium housing which changes the transmission characteristics (ie intereferes with) to/from the antenna.

The difference may be very slight, but highly noticable in borderline coverage areas.


Edit add:

The BlackBerry Z10 gets Telstra's Blue Tick rating down under

Telstra in Australia have announced that the new BlackBerry Z10 has been awarded their Blue Tick rating. I suspect most of you will think the same as me - what on earth is that?

Well, the Blue Tick identifies handsets recommended for rural coverage and apparently this is most sought after by the rural, utility and mining sectors. ...........

 

[subterran]

Read my first post at the beginning of this thread.

 

[mpinco]

Read my first post at the beginning of this thread.

Thought I would add the links to the Blue Tick testing and the results for the 5S - 5s has an aluminium housing which changes the transmission characteristics (ie intereferes with) to/from the antenna. The difference may be very slight, but highly noticable in borderline coverage areas.

Here we see case design degraded performance in rural areas, not selection of transciever (same transceiver for both 5C and 5S)

Blackberry is using Paratek antenna technology for weak signal performance. A barium strontium titanate, a thin-film dielectric ceramic that changes capacitance as voltage changes, to tune the antenna. Have seen good reviews of their phones equipped with this technology.

 

[AlbanyTom]

Oh, and from where I stand it looks pretty flat looking East!

Yeah, I had a girlfriend from near Boulder, that liked to remind me that her living room was higher than the "high peaks" of the Adirondacks. But as far as an 800+ MHz radio wave goes, 500' is as good as 5000. Line of sight is short here, except through the Hudson and Mohawk river valleys.

Very interesting stuff about the different radio systems in use, thanks for posting that. There is a lot of knowledge on this forum.

Someone mentioned that they're all expensive. Well, the big carriers are. But for my personal smart phone, I use H20, which rides on AT&T, and it's like $30 for 3 months if I don't use many minutes. And I don't, because I mostly use it wi-fi for data, and rarely talk or text. I've heard people say that this will always be slow, because the main carrier takes all the bandwidth, but I've never had any problem. And even better, it's Android, so the unlocked phone only cost me about $50. I can't fathom spending multiple hundreds of dollars on a phone, to me it's like setting fire to money. But if you're using a lot of data, and that gives you a contract where the phone doesn't cost much, then I could see it making sense.

Oh, and if you want to see flat, try Texas. I visited Austin once, fellow there said it must remind me of home (lived in the Appalachians at the time) because of the hills. I thought he was pulling my chain, but he was dead serious. I guess there is a hill there somewhere, but honestly I couldn't see it, maybe just a rise in the ground. Love the people down there, but the flat would drive me nuts.