Poor dBm signal strength

[garren_edwards]

For over a month I have noticed voice call quality has been patchy eg people struggle to hear me and there is a delay from calling to getting connected. I checked the dBm signal strength on the OnePlus Nord smartphone I was using and it was -100, which is really poor.

I spoke with representative from Virgin mobile who suggested a replacement SIM. New SIM received, same problem. I decided to contact OnePlus who asked me to send the phone back for repair. In the meantime I bought a Xiaomi M11 Lite. 

Tried the SIM and signal strength is still -100, occasionally it gets to -95 which is still very poor. Tried it different locations and its no different.

My conclusion is something has happened with the Virgin network, anyone else having similar problems?

PS - Got the handset back from OnePlus, signal strength remains the same.

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @garren_edwards,

Welcome back to our Community Forums! Thank you for your post, and I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing some signal strength issues on your SIM card. 

Thank you for clarifying that you already had a replacement SIM card from us and that this issue is happening on different handsets.

Please take a look at our website for more information about What Is a Good WiFi Strength to see if this can help.

You can also take a look at our Coverage Checker to see if there are any issues in your area, that could be impacting you.

Please keep us updated on how you get on, so we can help further.

Thank you,

[enlli]

Not sure what you are using to measure dB Mine is -104 at the moment and giving me 2 bars on Vodafone which is about right.  EE shows -116 and 1 bar. This is inside but both are usable

-100 to -95 should give 3 or 4 bars.

[paulchambers061]

Yep, Enlli is right,  nothing amiss with -95 to -100. Worse than -120 is a poor signal and risks being switched down from 4g to 3g or even 2g (if you have auto select  4g3g2g).

Do you have WiFi calling and/or volte enabled? Either of those should improve call quality and reliability.

Maybe you can test dropping down to 3g and 2g, and try calling out while those are active. 

The only other thought is that you may  have recently been switched from EE to Vodafone, and your signal might not be as good now.