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Hiya-
So, my trusty old iPhone 5S has two nasty issues going on:

(A) It's old, and the battery is dying quickly. It will go from, say, 47% battery to shutdown mode in a heartbeat. It will shut down because it thinks it has no juice. When I plug it in to charge it, the meter will read 47% again, and continue charging. Oddly, this seems to more problematic when Low Power mode is on.

(B) My phone gets horrible signal in my office. I work in the middle of a decent-sized city (Memphis, TN). My office is in the middle of the facility, and I cannot get a reliable signal in my office. Calls and texts fail. Walk outside in any direction, and the 4G signal goes to two, maybe three bars, and is usually fine.

So, mainly because of the battery issue, I need to upgrade my phone. I know I can slap a new battery in the 5S, but frankly I want the new shiny. Thinking about an iPhone XR.

The reason I'm posting is because I guess I will sign onto some two-year deal with Sprint to pay for the phone over time. So if I were to need to switch providers, now is the time. My main question is, are the radios in new phones better at acquiring and holding signals, so I might get better reception in my office with a new phone but still on Sprint? Or do I need to switch to Verizon or T-mobile or whoever?

I have asked other folks at my shop how their reception is, and they seem to have no problems, but they don't work in the middle of the building, they have newer phones, and few of them are on Sprint.

Any and all thoughts are welcome.
Thanks

EDIT: ugh, I guess I should mention that I'm talking about the cell radio, not AM/FM. Sorry.

The main problem is that the increasingly higher frequency signals like what they use for cell phones are bad at penetrating deeply into solid materials, so at a certain point the signal just won't get through. Interference can also be a problem. In my experience Verizon has a better signal than Sprint, but if you're stuck deep within a building with lots of thick metal, concrete, or noisy (EM-wise) machines, I wouldn't expect a new phone to make things much better.

If there's guest WiFi in your building, using the WiFi calling feature may be an option.

FireGryphon wrote:

The main problem is that the increasingly higher frequency signals like what they use for cell phones are bad at penetrating deeply into solid materials, so at a certain point the signal just won't get through. Interference can also be a problem. In my experience Verizon has a better signal than Sprint, but if you're stuck deep within a building with lots of thick metal, concrete, or noisy (EM-wise) machines, I wouldn't expect a new phone to make things much better.

im guessing that there are no low(ish) frequency providers in USA?
telstra and optus here in aus have a 700mhz spectrum (b28) they use in city areas and are expanding to other areas which as far as phone signals goes its pretty low freq
i have no idea what phone networks there are in USA but wouldnt it be worth seeing if there are some lower frequency towers in the OP's area?
(not an expert i have just always believed that a low frequency like 700mhz would be good for office buildings)

When complaining about cell signal it is best to find out of other people have the same issue.

Assuming you are going to replace the iphone 5 with a 7 or 8 find someone with one of those phones and see how they do in your office.

If it is a large company then often Verizon and/or At&T can offer cell site extenders for the building.
These are a large antenna that plug directly into the corporate internet and extend the cell signal inside the building and the call switches over to them or back to the tower seamlessly depending on signal strength. Typically to get one the company has to sign all of their corporate cell phones over to that single carrier.

just brew it! wrote:

If there's guest WiFi in your building, using the WiFi calling feature may be an option.

Yeap. Replace the battery and turn on Wifi calling. Although.....I think AT&T might arbitrarily require an iPhone 6 to enable WiFi calling on their network (even though the 5s is capable). With Sprint it should work.

Two major issues I see.

1. Sprint - you might think I'm joking but there is a legitimate reason Sprint has less subscribers than any of the other big boys. They just don't have the reach of the others. Plain and simple.
2. Old phone/radio tech. Sure dude. Radios do get better. A 5S is pretty old at this point. I'd bet, regardless of your carrier (which IMO you should still change) you're going to get better signal with an Xr than with that fossil you currently carry around.

edit: FWIW, here are the supported LTE bands on the 5S vs the Xr

5S: LTE bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, and 26
Xr: FDD‑LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, 66, 71)
TD‑LTE (Bands 34, 38, 39, 40, 41)

So, yeah, you might notice a difference. Sprint uses 41 (and 25 and 26 IIRC) but again I still urge you to consider moving to another carrier (cough Verizon cough). edit2: And fwiw, we're not even talking about the technical aspects like power amplifiers, power trackers, antenna tuners, RF switches, diversity receive modules, integrated and discrete filters, multiplexers, and extractors etc etc that have improved over that time. Like I said previously, I'd bet you're gonna get a better signal with the Xr regardless of everything else.

+1 to the frequency. Take a look at the bands, as noted before, that your carrier supports. Then look at phones. I have an S8 Active. I bought it specifically because it supports the 600Mhz band that T-Mobile is rolling out. It's going to be very helpful when we get that deployed in our area.

DancinJack wrote:

Two major issues I see.

1. Sprint - you might think I'm joking but there is a legitimate reason Sprint has less subscribers than any of the other big boys. They just don't have the reach of the others. Plain and simple.

That's true in a general sense but it's worth checking out the service maps (for example http://webcoveragemap.rootmetrics.com/en-US) to see what works in your specific area. Also check with neighbors and coworkers and so forth...

Wife and I were on Verizon for years but recently moved to Sprint based on a deal we got - and frankly I am far happier with Sprint. Call quality is much better, and download speeds are notably faster. To be fair, there are a couple of dead spots in the area that weren't there for Verizon - but they're pretty minimal.

In short, Verizon might be better in terms of overall coverage - but the gap is much smaller than a lot of folks think, and if you happen to be in a sweet spot for Sprint or t-Mobile, they're worth at least looking into.

2. Old phone/radio tech. Sure dude. Radios do get better. A 5S is pretty old at this point. I'd bet, regardless of your carrier (which IMO you should still change) you're going to get better signal with an Xr than with that fossil you currently carry around.

Yup. New phone can make a world of difference if you're using one that's more than a few years old.

cphite wrote:

That's true in a general sense but it's worth checking out the service maps (for example http://webcoveragemap.rootmetrics.com/en-US) to see what works in your specific area. Also check with neighbors and coworkers and so forth...

Wife and I were on Verizon for years but recently moved to Sprint based on a deal we got - and frankly I am far happier with Sprint. Call quality is much better, and download speeds are notably faster. To be fair, there are a couple of dead spots in the area that weren't there for Verizon - but they're pretty minimal.

In short, Verizon might be better in terms of overall coverage - but the gap is much smaller than a lot of folks think, and if you happen to be in a sweet spot for Sprint or t-Mobile, they're worth at least looking into.

Sure, I didn't mean to say that Sprint doesn't have its upsides. IME, and anecdotal evidence from others, leads me to believe it's worse than Verizon in all but few edge cases. Esppppppppecially when it comes to building/medium penetration and rural coverage. Those two things Verizon just dominates most others except for 600MHz T-Mo spectrum that has recently been rolled out.

I just think it's worth looking into it, especially if you're definitely getting a new phone.

cphite wrote:

DancinJack wrote:

Two major issues I see.

1. Sprint - you might think I'm joking but there is a legitimate reason Sprint has less subscribers than any of the other big boys. They just don't have the reach of the others. Plain and simple.

That's true in a general sense but it's worth checking out the service maps (for example http://webcoveragemap.rootmetrics.com/en-US) to see what works in your specific area. Also check with neighbors and coworkers and so forth...

Wife and I were on Verizon for years but recently moved to Sprint based on a deal we got - and frankly I am far happier with Sprint. Call quality is much better, and download speeds are notably faster. To be fair, there are a couple of dead spots in the area that weren't there for Verizon - but they're pretty minimal.

In short, Verizon might be better in terms of overall coverage - but the gap is much smaller than a lot of folks think, and if you happen to be in a sweet spot for Sprint or t-Mobile, they're worth at least looking into.

2. Old phone/radio tech. Sure dude. Radios do get better. A 5S is pretty old at this point. I'd bet, regardless of your carrier (which IMO you should still change) you're going to get better signal with an Xr than with that fossil you currently carry around.

Yup. New phone can make a world of difference if you're using one that's more than a few years old.

I have Sprint and agree with this... Verizon wins on coverage, Sprint on most everything else.

If you are in a large building (especially one with steel structure or walls), you need cell repeaters inside the building to get a signal, otherwise WiFi is the only option. Won't matter what phone you have, the signal likely won't penetrate the building. It's like a giant Faraday cage.

In general, smart phone radio reception has terrible antenna patterns as they typically use ceramic chip antennas to condense their size. In addition, they are usually compromised by the case, a hand, and a display. This means that orientation of you phone in your hand matters with reception.

Frankly I am amazed they work as well as they do!

I miss the days of flip phones and REAL antennas. They were lower frequency so line of sight wasn't as important, and they would penetrate most buildings well enough. In addition, the antennas had GAIN because they were so good. The power negotiation to form a link usually resulted in minimal power needed to make a connection, and your battery life was excellent due to this.

Now we blow RF power to push through all of the compromises so we can have a computer in our hands. In some cases, 3-4W of RF energy is expended to make a connection when conditions are poor, which of course chews into your battery. Old flip phones could barely pull off a single watt, and were typically substantially less.

Hiya-
Thanks to you all for your helpful insights.

Wi-Fi calling is indeed an option, and I've used it in the past. It's actually what I sometimes use at home, because Sprint's signal is iffy there as well (another good reason to look into another carrier). Unfortunately, the Wi-Fi at our facility, uh, sucks. Long story, maybe even another thread. And we're not likely to procure any sort of cell repeater.

I finally talked to a guy that works out on the shop floor. He has an iPhone XR and Sprint. He gets the same lousy signal in the exact same areas of the building as I do, including my office. There's another guy that has a newer iPhone (not sure what model), but he has AT&T. He apparently has no issues at all anywhere in the facility... he had already left today, I'm getting this info from the XR Sprint guy. Apparently they've had this very conversation recently. Gonna talk to him tomorrow. I'm leaning towards ditching Sprint for AT&T... but I'm also gonna try to see if anybody has T-Mobile/Verizon, and see how their phones work in my problem areas.

Thanks again for all of your help.

Although I have little firsthand experience (moms phone on Verizon has a poor signal and never uses wifi) I've heard Sprint is much better about using wifi calling when it's available.

I'm on AT&T and they have a good signal here so...I want to switch to Sprint, yet I don't want to o.o

Hiya-
Just to follow up, I ended up getting an iPhone XR, and switching to Verizon. The phone is pretty sweet, if a little large for my preference, but the news relevant to this thread is that I now have good-to-great signal throughout my shop. My iPhone 5s on Sprint had -ZERO- signal in my office... the XR on Verizon usually has three bars out of four, and no problems calling or surfing sitting at my desk. Also, I have reliable phone/data service at home, which I didn't before. I dunno if it's the newer phone or the carrier, it's just pretty damn nice being able to do what my phone is supposed to be able to do.

Thanks all