Thread: N900 UK Networks
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jaark is offline jaark
2009-11-12 , 09:35
Posts: 316 | Thanked: 150 times | Joined on May 2006
#389
Originally Posted by rash.m2k View Post
Yes, SNR and signal strength are different things. Bu I would think that the signal bar you see on your phone is a combination of SNR and Signal strength.
You would hope so but - anecdotally on most phones at least - it is not. The combined effect of signal strength, snr and available bandwidth (let's call it signal quality) can fluctuate relatively rapidly which could make people uneasy about placing calls.

My reasoning is that since the signal is encrypted (with 3G/UMTS) you must first decrypt the signal before you can determine if it's strong or not.
You don't need to decrypt anything to measure field strength.

On a separate note perhaps jjx was experiencing low data throughput because there were lots of other people using data within his location?
There's lots of other potential factors including network congestion elsewhere, provider issues or even problems at the server he was trying to use. However, IP networks are something I do know about and so is less fun to speculate about on a forum

With RF bandwidth being such a scarce resource, I would assume the contention ratio would be much much higher than say normal broadband.
Quite possibly, but the data rates and individual loads involved are generally much lower. Most traffic would be voice at a few 100 Kb/s for calls of a few minutes. You don't see many people trying to torrent gigabytes of data across 3G and they certainly don't expect the throughput you get from ADSL or cable connections.

A good intellectual debate I'd say , better than some of the mindless posts on here.
Originally Posted by evad View Post
Yes indeed (I am a great fan of techie-side of mobile technology, in fact), however I don't think we're exactly on-topic here.
Bah! Who cares about on-topic? In this thread? This close to (hopefully) receiving our devices?

The moment MPD deliver my phone and connect it to my new T-Mo contract, the better. << - There, I've done some on-topic, can we get back to the interesting conversations now?