Mobile Signal Strength and Coverage
FAQ

Accessing the dBm signal strength value on your phone can be easily done. How depends on the type of phone you are using. On Android you can access the information via the Settings Menu ->Status (or SIM Card Status). On IOS the procedure is a bit more complicated and you need to access the Field Test Application. This video tells you how (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_r-yk07T9U).

There is also a variety of apps which you can download to get more detailed information. Of course, all this will only enable you to ascertain the signal strength at your current location. If you want to know what signal you can expect at a location without actually going there, you can always use our Teragence Signal Checker and verify the signal strength without leaving your desk.

Operators worldwide have announced they will sunset their 2G and 3G networks. Usually the timescales for 3G shutdown are much more aggressive then those for 2G, but in most countries these networks will have disappeared by the end of the decade latest. More information about specific timescales for specific operators and countries can be found here: https://velosiot.com/2g-3g-sunset-overview

A celltower is ID’d through its CGI (“Cell Global Identifier”), a code which consists of a number of elements. The most important ones are:

• RAT: Radio Access Technology – for example “LTE” for 4G and “NR” for 5G.
• MCC: Mobile Country code – identifies the country in which the tower is located. For example, 234 is the MCC for the UK.
• NC: Mobile Network code – identifies the network operator. For example, in the UK EE is identified by MNC 30.
• LAC or TAC: Location Are Code to Tracking Area code: identifies the region where the celltower is located.
• CID or ECI: this is the code which actually identified the celltower.

The above is a somewhat simplified definition of things. For more detail we refer to detailed technical literature.

Teragence does not provide information about the location of a celltower. However, we very precise information about the coverage area of any given celltower- which is arguably the more relevant bit of information.

Signal strength is a measure of the strength of the radio signal your phone (or other device) is receiving. It is expressed in dBm (“DeciBels at 1 Milliwatt”). Most consumers understand it as the “the number of bars on my phone”. A useful (but not entirely accurate – every analogy breaks down somewhere) is to think of it as the number of lanes on a highway.
Throughpput or bandwidth is the other measure understood by most people, it refers to the amount of data that can be pushed (or more typically downloaded) through a connection. It is expressed in Mbps (megabit per second). Consumers typically relate it to how long it takes to download a file and the “smoothness” and resolution of an online video. There are other factors outside of bandwidth which influence this, but for our purposes those shorthand definitions are good enough.
If we build on the road analogy we set up earlier, the throughput or capacity is the time it takes to get your “payload”, distributed over a number of trucks from A to B. A few things become immediately clear: if you have many lanes and no-one is using the road, your payload will be shipped very quickly (or put differently, if you have a strong signal and not many people are using it, you should have a ton of throughput). Inversely, if you only have a few lanes (i.e. weak signal), even when not many people are using the road, it will take significant time to get your load from A to B. And if lots of people use it, very little will get through on time. So bad signal will always mean bad to very bad throughput.
The relationship between signal and thoughput is dependent on the utilisation, but good throughput is only possible when there is good signal.