The ability of a mobile to use a signal should be its job #1, not its ability to take amazing photos or make movies.
For the next test I would be happy for Choice to send the entire set of phones and I’ll report back how many bars or usable service each has in my most challenging spaces. Sans lab equipment my review would have to be subjective or based on the displayed bars, and the way bars are presented are likely not comparable from model to model, BUT if a phone cannot make a call or loses it in my ‘shady areas’ those are binary experiences that could go into the good or bad feature comments.
To increase the sample of sites to two I’ll volunteer to join the queue. We can always use ADSL for data but nearly everyone calling in uses our mobile numbers. Finding the right spot to answer is a lottery, otherwise the call is lost, or worse connects to the sounds of silence.
O refuse to pay a high amount of money for either brand wjen 2 major companies rule. And I will never buy Samsung sonce reading articles about poor customer service and products. Thanks nk god for other members good information. I suppose ot depends on opinion and what you need.
We had some reception testing at one point, from memory I think it was based on how long the phone performed as we travelled further away from the communications towers used on the test. While generally it would seem reception has improved for many of us, I still hear anecdotally about unusual ‘black spots’ that seem to perform differently depending on carrier. There’s also now 5g to consider and an increased dependency on wifi.
Our current advice is that major carriers like Vodafone, Optus and Telstra, will deliver stronger performance over a wider area over the next few years. You should make sure the phone supports 850MHz if you’re with Telstra or 900MHz if you’re with Optus or Vodafone.
It would be a decent undertaking to signal test the phones in this way, so I appreciate the offers @PhilT / @mark_m. We are always discussing different ways we could test or invite people to become involved, so I’ll make sure the suggestions are heard and considered.
I propose this is a related but different problem. The coverage maps would have one believe we are inundated with good signals from all the carriers. Our house is about 1km from the local tower but reception where I am sitting varies from unusable to marginal. If I put the mobile by the window I can make a call 90% of the time but not always.
The signal quality is variable. Our mobiles are dual SIM with a Telstra and an Optus. One of the mobiles is noticeably more able to reliably make and receive calls in certain parts of the house than the other. One might even show 2 bars but the moment a call is attempted it goes to zero bars and fails the call.
Where we live Optus and Voda are marginal at best, and that’s being kind. Telstra here is 3 of 4 bars when best and drops to 3G and 3 bars on that at worst. We use ALDI so we know this is Telstra’s wholesale network not their premium one. We are within the Ipswich City area and this particular locale is one which according to all the maps should be a prime location for full bar reception no matter which provider.
Different phones produce different outcomes when looking at the amount of signal strength at our home, some much more marginal than Apple or Samsung breeds. We found Oppo to be very marginal in dealing with signal strength here, but it was a very old Oppo and a very cheap one of that stable. The ability to receive and make calls and SMS must be of a very high importance in testing, if you can’t make a call or receive one then you can very easily extrapolate that internet connectivity and speed will also be savaged.
They’ve been saying it forever. But with each “improvement” in performance (2G->3G->4G->5G) my signal has become progressively worse, on Telstra or its MVNOs. I’d prefer to stay with Woolies. But I can’t. I’ve got an Optus GOMO SIM incoming and it should fix my comms woes. I hope. If not, theres always Boost and VoWiFi
Keep in mind that depends on one or both of a good mobile signal or the NBN being up. The latter dependable if you have a fully charged mobile (and a usable signal)?
Not everybody has the same experience, in my area the old copper wire goes across paddocks, down gravel roadsides with incautious graders and over rivers that flood. Some lines go for kilometres and only serve only a handful of phones. The service was very unreliable and with so much to be done for so few the old corroding wires were never going to be replaced. It was out more often than the NBN VOIP and the breakdowns went for days instead of hours. Being on fixed wireless I believe I could keep the copper connection if I wanted to - no chance.
We still have ours. And ADSL2.
Our experience of using mobiles and mobile data away from home varies. Generally it has been very good. At least compared to the olden days when Telstra was the only carrier and calls were charged by the second.
I’ll go so far as to suggest-
Mobile phone performance and other product reviews whether by Choice or others service firstly the needs of the standardised majority. It’s simple economics.
We tend to see the same in the greater community as to who will or does have access to better communications, be it mobile coverage, 5G services or broadband that delivers equal speeds at a fair cost.
We appear to be a majority content with least cost at the expense of lesser service to the minority. It’s a different topic. The government is funding black spot mobile upgrades. It depends on the extent of political involvement of those disadvantaged. Based on the additional towers installed locally most recently and paid for by that majority. As for the NBN, we were never asked as a community until after the event if we’d like to consider an upgrade to fibre. We can now, but only after approx $1M has gone to installing a Fixed Wireless tower down the end of the road. The 3 of my 22 near neighbours who are connected still rely on their mobile service. Hopefully Choice can find a solution to stress test reception ability of any new mobiles the subject of reviews.
When it comes to fibre, it is in all probability the best service at the economic least cost. What made it a bad choice from the LNP mindset was it was a Labor program and one they could knock because the rollout was going to be a slow start due to the background work, ie the fibre backbone, that had to be laid. That preliminary and necessary work left an opportunity for the then opposition to attack. They did so successfully for them, not really was it a successful outcome for us all, as it has left us arguing what was the better service.
All of this while a large portion of the World have known for quite some time that they have had to move to a far better system than an ancient copper network that has always been subject to damage from natural events eg fire, flood, degraded in quality rather rapidly so always required relaying and replacement and required large amounts of power and space to provide that service. To say Australians have short changed themselves is being kind to us, but it was the kinder way of saying we as people and as a nation have completely stuffed it up.
In the meantime there has been here a rapid uptake of mobile tech, but because we have such a hodgepodge of tech that the mobile tech relies on to create a communication network, we need to have the mobile tech that takes best advantage of varying signal quality. A phone that has great reception while near a tower/base/antenna may be the pits of a choice when anything less than perfect signal is available. The more marginal the signal quality the more importance the quality of the phone’s ability to use that signal becomes.
Another important point is that when the fixed network for internet is down, the listed fix is to have a mobile means to communicate on hand. All great if reception is good enough to carry out that communication, if the phone is poor in regards to using available reception then the backup is a failure in that sense of providing communication reliability. So we are in strong agreement that the ability to connect in marginal reception and to be able to do so with a good deal of confidence without having to act like a mountain goat and climb to some ‘mountain’ peak, is a very important metric to measure.
5G because it needs many more ‘antennas’ to provide it’s premium outcome, is probably not the bandwidth that we will in areas of marginal reception rely on. Perhaps we start needing to provide some future accommodation in our homes for outside antennas and inside transceivers to bolster our mobile reception needs.
I’ve often wondered why both Telstra and Optus have the option but avoid it as a solution. Is it that there are limitations with the technology available. I’m aware of other systems which use a local owner licensed network for onsite coverage. The handheld devices are locked to their network, but can call out or receive calls or call handset to handset. A bit like a wireless connected - office automated PABX (old school) or VOIP based (modern) office solution.
We tried an Optus mobile service that connected using our local internet service using WiFi. It was far from reliable. Possibly due to our internet being ADSL-1 at 2Mbps and not with Optus. The AI that controlled the switching between using Wifi or mobile network may have also contributed to the poor outcome.
If there is a solution through technology it may be that a mobile needs to connect through a dedicated in home link that is designed just for that purpose. It also needs to be secure and private.
Choice may need to rethink this considering the end of 3G in/from 2024. Telstra and Optus currently heavily promote their own versions of 4G in rural and regional areas in preference to 3G. Both are also adding 5G services in the 850MHz and 900MHz bands (2024).
To be truely meaningful future mobile testing will need to assess each phone for performance across multiple bands. In particular 4G and 5G services in the lower frequency bands (700-900MHz). Assessing performance of phones in urban areas based on the higher frequency bands will not be sufficient to assure users the products will be useful outside urban areas. For regional consumers buying a mobile based on 4G and 5G performance based on an urban setting is unlikely to be reassuring.
It’s not just about whether a mobile is 3G, 4G or 5G. The future is increasing use of a range of frequency bands with very different performance outcomes. Without band differentiation will consumers be mislead thinking all 4G or 5G offers equal outcomes?
I think we can consider 3G to be effectively dead right now, not in 2024.
3G only devices should not be considered for testing, or even talked about.
The minimum has to be 4G bands these days with capability in low and medium 5G bands.
You might like to call me on my mobile for a current assessment. It’s 3G or nothing for a voice call. Assumes I’m near a certain window. And before you ask, the mobile is 4GLTE capable.
Both Optus and Telstra promote 4G coverage for our location. In jest both work fine if sitting on the roof.
Continuing in the same vein, perhaps you could install a box on your roof to protect it from the elements, keep the phone up there and connected to your power, then have a Bluetooth speaker always on in the actual living area.
Another problem solved by the CHOICE Community.
/sarcasm
/advice is to be taken with one or more grains of salt, to taste, and is not to be considered trustworthy. If pain persists, see your doctor.
