[TI_Master]

So I've noticed what appear to be mediocre AT&T signal levels when on LTE in certain areas where my old Z10 would show much better levels (i.e. 2-3 bars on Priv vs 3-5 on the Z10 -- yes I know the theory that it is a software interpretation thing for signal strength but bear with me).

So I did a little testing. In my house, the Z10 universally chooses band 17 for LTE. No surprise there, band 17 has excellent building penetration and such, and I'm pretty sure 17 is the only band nearby that it can lock onto with its limited band selection.

Out of curiosity I loaded a couple of apps to play with the radio and look at the band selection that the Priv was using and to experiment a bit. What I find is that here, for some reason, the Priv will tend to lock on to band 2, instead of band 17. I can reset the radio and it will lock on band 17 (showing -92dbm) and after a bit it seems to want to jump to band 2 again (with -100 or worse dbm). I'm not sure if this is an AT&T thing to push it to band 2 that is probably less crowded, or if this is part of carrier aggregation, etc.

But based on my observations, when band 17 is selected, the signal levels look a lot better (and the device will show at least 3-5 bars) vs 2-3 bars for band 2 inside my house.

FWIW, phone calls and such seem to be fine, so the actual phone performance is good for calls regardless of which band it is on.

Next test was ookla speedtest. With LTE_CA (showing band 2 but LTE_CA means LTE on more than one band perhaps?) I get about 32Mbps in my house download from speedtest on the automatically selected server.

With speedtest still loaded, I forced a disconnect and reconnect onto band 17. The result of that test was faster, sometimes slightly faster (low 30's) and sometimes a lot faster (46-50). I'm still showing a bright 4Glte indicator (which as near as I can tell signifies LTE_CA vs. just LTE where it is a non-bright indicator).

To me, this suggests that the oddball signal strength indicator is a side effect of band selection and/or carrier aggregation. When connected to band 17, the meter is higher and the speeds are higher, but this phone keeps wanting to connect to band 2 at this location. What I can't really see is what LTE_CA is really doing.

Does anyone know of any apps that can read between the lines better than the two I am playing with?

Right now I am using "LTE Discovery" and "Advanced Signal Status".

LTE Discovery is giving me band information, and the other allows going in and turning radio on/off and selecting a big list of modes for how the radio tries to connect.

Anyway, I figured this information might be of interest, I came away feeling that the Priv has better reception capabilities than what the indicator suggests in some locations, it is just a matter of the radio logic selecting a band and such.

[TI_Master]

Did a lot of driving today, and what I observed is that the Priv seems to live on bands 2 and 4 a LOT.

Given that band 17 is usually stronger, I have to wonder why it prefers 2 and 4.

Definitely explains why it gives the appearance of less reception than BB10 phones though, my Z10 lived on band 17 almost exclusively.