The Meaning of Cell Phone Signal Bars [depressing, enlightening]


	The Meaning of Cell Phone Signal Bars [depressing, enlightening]

flipper1378

1-22-2008 10:51 PM

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/93922c2e-f6ad-4c3d-8b4d-c120cf542bd6/3A80E9A5-1688-4CF9-B38E-1283D5F56E6D/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://ask.metafilter.com/60227/What-do-cell-phone-reception-bars-mean" href="http://ask.metafilter.com/60227/What-do-cell-phone-reception-bars-mean" style="font-size: 11px;">ask.metafilter.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://ask.metafilter.com/60227/What-do-cell-phone-reception-bars-mean"><DIV>
I seem to have great cell phone reception (Cingular) everywhere but my home.  Yet often while I'm getting terrible reception and dropped calls, the phone tells me it has three bars of reception.  What's THAT all about?  Is my provider telling my phone to intentionally inflate the reporting of my reception or is something about my home causing my problem even though I nominally have good reception?
	</DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://ask.metafilter.com/60227/What-do-cell-phone-reception-bars-mean"><DIV>They don't mean much of anything, it turns out.</DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://ask.metafilter.com/60227/What-do-cell-phone-reception-bars-mean"><DIV>
I don't know what they're displaying for GSM, but probably what they're displaying is the signal strength. For CDMA (which is what I know about) that's what they display, but in CDMA the signal strength is highly deceptive because it doesn't inform you of what the noise floor is.</DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://ask.metafilter.com/60227/What-do-cell-phone-reception-bars-mean"><DIV>
Even worse... there is no industry standard for what "one bar" or "two bars" means. None. Everyone just sort of sets some thresholds, and even from the same manufacturer it can change from phone model to phone model.</DIV></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/3A80E9A5-1688-4CF9-B38E-1283D5F56E6D/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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