LTE Bar strength verses AT&T LTE phone strength?

[freds]

I have a classic that was upgraded to LTE and recently took a road trip where I had to use my AT&T LTE phone as a hotspot most of the trip to have connectivity....

I seem to mostly see two less bars when comparing the cars signal strength verses the phones.

Does everyone else either see a one to one strength ratio or some difference?

 

[apacheguy]

Yes. I've noted lower signal gain on the car recently even in areas that I know have good coverage.

 

[garygid]

Is this just a problem with the LTE upgraded unit, or does it also
happen with the factory installed (new manufacture) LTE unit?

Most of my driving has good 3G coverage (Southern California).
Should I delay getting the LTE upgrade at my upcoming
yearly service?

 

[jeffro01]

You know I was just wondering about this in my 90D???? I have an appointment tomorrow at the service center to fix a seatbelt so I'll ask them about why my LTE always seems to have 1 bar. Now granted, my primary audio source is streaming internet radio and I rarely have drop outs but the presumable "lack" of signal strength has gotten my attention...

Jeff

 

[tezzla]

I did the LTE upgrade around 4-5 months ago, at 1st I always got 4-5 bars on LTE, after the 7.0 update, it's usually 2-3 bars. Very rarely do I get 5 bars now.

 

[jerry33]

The big question is, "Do all LTE devices display the same number of bars at the same signal strength"?

 

[Adrian]

The big question is, "Do all LTE devices display the same number of bars at the same signal strength"?

No. What the bars represent are up to the software developer.

 

[Gizmotoy]

No. What the bars represent are up to the software developer.

Indeed. Some may recall awhile back there being a number of complaints about poor signal strength on iPhones. Apple had changed their algorithms to, what they believed, more accurately represented the full spectrum of working signal strengths. They got so many complaints they simply put the old algorithm back in the next update. The complaints stopped.

We might be seeing something similar here, though perhaps in the opposite direction.