yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] shimmishim:
Interesting. I'm trying the 4.0.3 radio and I've found a few interesting things.

I drove from Knoxville, TN to Chicago, IL yesterday and observed the 4G signal.

I found that it took a little bit of time to get into 4G mode from 3G while driving through 4G cities (Louisville, Cincinnati, Indianapolis).

Now the craziest thing was driving on 65 between Indianapolis and Gary, IN... no 3G service for about 1.5 hours of the drive. My wife has an old HTC Incredible and her phone had steady 3G service the entire way.

Then in Chicago, my father in law has a Galaxy SII and his phone would have 4G service when mine would not. Even when the phone was in my pocket I'd lose 4G service very easily.

I'm going to switch back to 4.0.2 radio to see if I observe the same thing or if it's any worse than 4.0.3.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] bradm23:
New radio= success for me!

I just got my Gnex yesterday, and my house is in a weak 3g area that my Incredible always has bad service in. When I brought my Gnex home, I couldn't pick up any 3g, it was just blank (1x im assuming). I flashed the new radio and did a *22899 (dial from a contact) and all of a sudden im getting better 3g signal than ever (faster also), and now I also get 4g on my 2nd floor (which I thought was weird, maybe there is something blocking the lower floor.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] antinorm:
4G speeds on the GN seem to be heavily dependent on signal quality. A few days ago, I was in a fourth-floor hotel room with 4 bars of 4G, and I was consistently getting ~40 mbps down on Speedtest. If I so much as went downstairs, I would get around 15-20 mbps.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] Waitzar:
I just installed this new 4.0.3 radio last night and no problem so far. According to the Signal Strength info, I am getting a little worse signal. -98 dBm (radio from 4.0.2) vs. -102 dBm (with this radio).

Before on 4.0.2 radio, I was having problem with handing off issue from WiFi -> 3G/4G where when I turned of WiFi, phone should switch to 3G/4G but it hang while doing the switching. 4G signal was grayed out. No data connection.

With this new radio, I haven't noticed problem when switching WiFi <-> 3G <-> 4G. Handing off worked smoothly so far.

As for data speed, I am getting just a little slower on both Download and Upload. Keeping this new radio for now.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
I hate to point out the blatantly obvious, but that is how all radio frequencies work. Remember back in the day with old school stereos, if the signal wasn't very clear or you were too far from the station the stereo icon would disappear and you only had a split monaural channel? Just like a wifi router that gets 54mbps sitting on top of the router, but downstairs it gets 11mbps.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] RacingManiac:
I flashed this yesterday after noticing some crazy battery drainage due to the lack of reception(not data, as the phone was on wi-fi, but just call signal). Running on AR HD ROM and just the phone mostly on stand by, in ~3 hours I got the battery to go from 100% when I first got to work down to 65% just through the virtue of the phone hunting for signal. So I gave this a try and sitting in the exact same spot, I went from no bar(literally nothing as it even shows I am not connected to anything network wise) all morning to 2 bars immediately(-98db). Trying out 4G and it was 2 bar and no wait between switching between wifi and 4G. The phone was plugged in for a bit and got back up to ~70% battery and was left unplugged for the rest of the day. By the time I went to bed at home(~2am) I never see signal less than 2 bars when I checked and had battery got down to 27% before I plugged it in again. These new radio seems to do a lot for me...
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] kenjiwing:
How do you flash this radio exactly? Im currently rooted with an unlocked bootloader with cwm.

Will flashing this radio flash my phone or just the radio?

Thanks,
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] RacingManiac:
Download the file(download the stock one too just in case). Put the zip in the "SD card" folder, in this case, just the base directory. Flash CWM Recovery if you are like me without permanent one, reboot into it. Then for safety sake make a backup, then flash from zip on the SD card. It'll just flash the radio.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] kenjiwing:
Thanks very much.. whats the best app to do a full backup. Its not titanium anymore is it?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
Still titanium. Just don't restore system apps between different ROMs.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] rsxtypes72:
Just wanted to say thanks. I just flashed this I have had no issues losing my 4g signal.

Update. Switching was fast initially. Now same as before. 4g still drops. Might a while before its completly fixed
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] dansto82:
I keep a steady 4g connection but im getting dropped calls like crazy seems to be any call over 10 mins. I can still here the person i have called but they can hear me. this does it in a full bars 4g area.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] crumbs09:
I've had a similar experience after flashing these radios last week. Initially the switching between wifi and 3g/4g was faster, but now I'm occasionally forced to restart the phone to get cellular data back up after being on wifi.

These radios did fix a compatibility issue I was having with my bluetooth phone system.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] gaming09:
you did *22899? i cant get that to work says call failed everytime
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
From what I read, *22899 does nothing. Normally you would see programming dialogue, but the Nexus just plays music and reboots. The PRL is updated automatically upon every reboot.

To *22899 for yourself just create a contact with that as their phone number and dial the contact.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] pakxelaos:
As he mentions, put it on contact, then dial from there ;)
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] skaman9876:
better strength

I flashed and squirrels jumped out of my phone!!!!! jk I noticed about a 10dm increase in signal from -111 to -91 at my house.. Now consistently have 2 bars 4g instead of one. Like a lot of others noticed slower speeds on speedtest apk. Hopefully it smooths itself out, browser seems to load nice and snappy. My bionic has always seemed to get faster speeds than my gnex which is sad...
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] End0fLine:
just flashed mine. rooted on ARHD 2.1.2. Here are my speedtest results. Bottom is one I ran right before flashing, above is immediately after:
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] sucker4pa1n:
LTE PRL discussion..

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1396360#
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] ieisha:
Can't we do a backup in CWM before installing zip?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
Yes, but there is no need to. If you have issues, you can just reflash the 4.0.2 radio. As the old adage goes, it is better to be safe than sorry.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] ieisha:
Flashing this wont affect any of my settings right, or remove any data?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] shoman24v:
Does the newer radio fix the issue where I'm constantly getting grey signal bars?

I swear I can drive all the way from my house to the gym and not connect to data on the whole drive there.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
It only touches the radio.

---------- Post added at 06:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:53 PM ----------

Read the thread, YMMV.

Flash it a try it and post your results. Physical location, where you keep your phone and LTE availability are the biggest factors above and beyond new radio firmware.

Remember, if it doesn't have the desired affect you are looking for you can always just flash back. I have bounced around, but I am staying on 4.0.2, because it gives me the best call reception and 3G reliability. The 4.0.3 allows my phone to see the almost non-existent 4G where I live, constantly causes me to drop calls because the -120 of LTE is unstable for a voice call.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] shoman24v:
Thanks. Only reason I'm asking is I'd rather not read 35 pages of this to find it on the 34th page lol.

I'm also lazy to root cause it wipes the phone :rolleyes:
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
Ya gotta cut the cord and do it. I was annoyed to find out I had to wipe it to root, but after the first wipe, titanium back will backup all of your apps and homescreen so that going forward, wiping is no longer an issue. The longer you wait, there harder it becomes to let go.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] Aerocaptain:
Just flashed 4.03 leaked radios. Lost all service. Flashed back to 4.02 radios. Back in business. Anyone attempting should either make sure they are in wifi range or predownload 4.02 radios JIC.

Sent from:

Galaxy Nexus Rootzboat

using XDA Premium
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] mild7intl:
I had been on the new radio since leak date and due to connection issues had screwed with the settings via apps such as elixir (which let's you choose what type of network to connect to ie wcdma. gsm/ cdma(prl) etc. I even dialed *228XX to update my radio. All this crap did nothing but waste my time.

I re_f lashed old radio today and found little improvement. Crazily.when I finally decided to stick with 4.03 upon reflash& reboot my connectivity improved dramatically. Speed test yielded 5mb in my house which normally gets little if any 4g connection.

My question is this do radio flashes change some inaccessible setting relating to communication between phone and base station? I've concluded to not mess with the settings.. For those desperate enough maybe flashing to 02 then back to 03 can also yield results. I am in the bay area fyi.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] ryanstfl:
*228 is disabled for 4G phones because it can fry your sim. Is there documentation that proves anything positive.

sent from HTC Mecha running Thundershed CM7
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] dp92180:
Check out wugfresh's new root toolkit on the galaxy nexus forums...he built a process to backup before unlocking and rooting.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
Thanks for that. You might want to consider posting that information up on the root thread so other users won't be afraid or not as hesitant to root.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] dp92180:
I'm getting mixed results with the new radio. In some cases I get 4g where I couldn't before and vice versa. Anyone else have any tricks? I tried the prl but no results. My 3g is always pretty good...just that elusive 4g.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] gaming09:
this seems to have broke my bluetooth wireless audio connection to my car, takes like 3 on/off's on the bluetooth to connect now, gonna have to revert :( boo
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TCommander:
What is your symptom at the first turn on of the Bluetooth? I am having an issue where I turn BT on sometimes and it just sits saying it is Turning BT on and 10 min later says the same thing. I've just rebooted to solve the issue and had attributed it to the ROM I am running.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] gaming09:
Im running stock /rooted, the bluetooth just wont connect, or when it does; doesnt transfer the audio so its just muted, very frustrating, takes a few tries, i checked ti with my tbolt, and no issues connecting with that lead me to believe its the gnex on the 403 radios, flashing back now ill check on my lunch break if theres improvement, with teh radios as far as speed i saw a nice jump, but service coverage is just as bad (las vegas area) it took htc a while to get hte radio perfect for the tbolt, i assume ill have to be patient w/ samsung this go around.

---------- Post added at 02:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:41 PM ----------

anyone know of any way to update just the 4g radio and not the bluetooth stuff?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] dp92180:
You know, I might be going crazy, but twice now I have flashed the 403 and it immediately gets me better and longer 4g connections. However it seems to wear off after a couple of hours or so.

Additionally I seem to get better 4g lock when I'm plugged in to a wall charger. I wonder if there is anything in the kernel driving this in terms of improved battery life.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
I know what you mean!

I just flashed franco's kernel and now my phone has gone from 33% of the time without service to 13%, sitting in the same place with me at work. I used to see -120 dbm of 4g, now I am seeing regularly -103~.

I am still on the 4.0.2 radios, but thought I would share this, anyway.

I do notice a lot more greyed out signal, but something in the kernel is affecting signal.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] RestlessDroid:
The *22899 from contacts changed my prl and I hit my network extender way better than before. I'm not sure why it works unlike *288. After reading all the posts about the new radios it seems like a mixed bag. I came from the thunderbolt where radios were flashed in fastboot. Why can these be flashed in recovery?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
Your PRL is updated every reboot, how do you know that *22899 actually made the change? I made note over at RootzWiki that when you force the phone to call it, you get music for too brief of a time without any programming dialogue. In essence, it is confirming activation of the phone. I don't think anyone has confirmed that *22899 does anything.

I don't mean to be a downer, but I really don't think it does anything.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] RestlessDroid:
Well maybe you're right but my prl was 14008 before calling and has been 46023 ever since. My thunderbolt prl was always 1400x too. For the longest time I could not hit our network extender. I was told it was a prl issue since I am a former alltel customer. A couple of months ago I started hitting it some but when I got the Gn I had to reboot to hit it most of the time. Since calling the number and my prl changing I hit the extender as soon as I'm in range. So I don't really know what dialing *22899 from contacts does but it has definitely helped me.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] dp92180:
My PRL changed as well, but I haven't noticed a difference in performance.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] leo5111:
will this play nicely with this custom rom?? http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1400775 thanks
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] mikeacela:
I wouldn't have the newest radio and boot loader with an older firmware rom, I think it will do more harm than good just because i don't know if their compatible.

[edit] Sorry they should work fine with each other as they are compatible.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] kSkwaired:
Anyone have any issues with 4.0.3 and baseband in ICS saying unknown?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] dodgersrgood:
Do nandroid backups and restores include the radios or no?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
I flashed 4.0.2 radios with 4.0.3 roms and visa versa without issues.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jerrycycle:
+1, only difference for me I didn't flash the new bootloader just radios.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] Aridon:
SE Florida.

Roughly the same Signal, it does appear to update a bit faster after flashing. I am getting significantly higher download and upload speeds over 3g. No 4g in my area yet but its close.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] holmes6:
Installed the updated radio on aokp 15 and franco 11

switching between wifi and 3g seems and vice versa seems to happen faster now

cannot test 4g in this location
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] tim k:
I'm running stock, rooted ROM on my GN. I'm seeing the same kind of service issues as TEK112. I also live in the suburbs of philly. I typically get a mediocre 3G signal (-90 to -105) and poor 4G reception at home. I've seen "time without signal" range from 4%-20% on my GN. My Moto Droid never had anything but 0% time without signal. For the first week or so with the GN I had some poor battery life. For the last few days I have been disabling LTE while at home and that seems to have drastically improved battery life. I can only assume that there is some issue with the phone either trying to boost the 4G connection burning through battery, or a problem with the 4G to 3G handoff that eats battery.

Whatever it is, I'm hoping Google gets it fixed in the next release. I haven't tried these radios or any custom ROMs or kernels.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] PuckMercury:
fault

Verizon has widely known 3g/4g handoff issues due to the way they've cobbled their network and 4g radios burn through batteries by virtue of being 4g radios primarily. The weaker either signal the harder the phone seeks a better option.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] canyoufindben:
4G/LTE radios don't necessarily eat battery life just because they are 4G, but has to do with the way carriers, VZW included, force the phone to be dual mode (CDMA2000-3G/LTE-4G) all the time to handle their network. In an LTE area, with data being handled by LTE, VZW currently still passes voice and sms through CDMA. This is why you do see battery improvement when you set your phone to CDMA only. By only running CDMA-3G, you only have to connect to a single network, instead of both concurrently.

In the future, when carriers shut down their legacy networks and go with LTE only phones, you should see a huge improvement in battery life (since LTE is "supposed" to be a more efficient radio).
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] DonJuan692006:
No.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] razzbaronz:
Flashed, so far so good. Thank you for this.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] mild7intl:
according to my cousin; who works with antennas daily; 4g signals when weak will cause a quicker drain on the battery. This is because the phone has to amplify the signal and lots of power is consumed in the process.

I run on cdma only because 3g is sufficient for all my needs. Honestly who needs 30mps...

4.0.3 has been working good for me so far in the San Jose.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] kspeaksster:
Doesn't seem to be working for me
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] HeathCliffR:
yesterday, jan 10 - verizon told me i should have 1515.10 baseband

Verizon told me yesterday, Jan 10 - that the baseband should be 1515.10. I had called to complain about bad reception, and I was told the new baseband was meant to fix that. He told me to go into a local Verizon store to force the update. My phone was rooted, so that wasn't an option. Where do I get 1515.10?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] sheepforwheat:
I was experiencing the same bluetooth issue on Stock. I would try to connect manually, and it would just sit there saying it was trying. A reboot, allowed it to connect. So the issue may not be with your ROM, might be with stock 4.0.2
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] WillEat4F00d:
If I've already flashed this on a stock gnex and were to change roms, would I need to reflash it?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] zachberger:
This updates your PRL (Preferred Roaming List). I don't believe you need to do this on 4G phones. I'm under the impression this happens automatically.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] mrZoSo:
Yeah, that's not needed on 4G phones, OTA updates apparently take care of it.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] P-bot:
Don't do that on this phone.

Flashed and things look good so far.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] Syn Ack:
Sorry I forgot to say HOW to do the *22899. And yes it helped my case.

Make a contact and set the phone number to *22899 and then call the contact. Wait a minute for it to update and profit.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] zachberger:
This did go through the activation process. Magic!
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] nomisunrider:
Don't tell us bars difference. Tell us dbm difference. The bars are meaningless.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] paOol:
after flashing, and in the same spot i got the same exact signal strength.

however, I did notice when I got a 4g signal, it stayed on longer.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] rayfin:
Let's hope this is not an Apple fix.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] mrZoSo:
Apparently the correct way to update your PRL on a 4G phone.

(per VZ Tech Support, so take it with a grain of salt)

Power off the phone.

Pull the sim card, wait a few seconds, then re-install it.

Power up the phone.

This is essentially the same thing as updating your roaming capabilities.

I'm going to look in to this more, I'm seeing to many reports on if you do the *22899 on 4G phones, it can lead to problems.

Oh yeah, with the new radio's I went from -89 dBm 4 asu to -75 dBm 16 asu
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] Syn Ack:
That's what a lot of people were doing with the Bionic.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] mrZoSo:
OK, what I've gathered so far.

Doing the *22899 is only needed to activate the SIM card. After that, PRL updates are checked automatically and/or checked upon a reboot.

And remember it's only used to update the roaming capabilities on the 3G side of things, it has no effect or use on the 4G side.

So I'm assuming that it's pretty safe to say, that re-activating the SIM over and over isn't going to have a happy outcome.

I'm still going to look in to this more until I find something that is 100% official and positively correct though ;)
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] wideopn11:
*228 will likely fry your sim card. Just saying.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] tx3kgtman:
Well don't let me scare anyone off but before the new radio I had a constant 1 bar of 4g at 93 dbm and now I can't pick 4g up for nothing. Tried restarting, toggling airplane mode and no luck.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] GermanGuy:
No change in signal strength here after updating to the latest radio. -105 dbm before and after at my house.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] tx3kgtman:
Got 4g to come back up with two bars. Went up to 104 dbm though and getting slower speeds. With one bar I was getting 5 down 1.2 up in the same place.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] michaelg1030:
You do have LTE/CDMA enabled and not just CDMA, right? Just want to make sure.

I flashed the new radio and haven't noticed any change, but I am not in a 4g area right now. I'll be in a 4g area tomorrow , so I'll see if I can pull a 4g signal.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] tx3kgtman:
Yeh I got 4g to pull up but experiencing worse results. Maybe just me. Wish I had the stock radio to flash back to so I could do some more testing.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] tfkennady:
will i have to reflash clockwork if i flash this? i ask because the recovery is included in the .zip
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] selooselm:
So Far

I haven't noticed much improvement, just he way that it's handing over to other networks mostly. Signal is switching from 3G and 4G more often, it's also displaying 1x occasionally, which it hadn't done previously. Other than that, my signal is still horrible the second I walk inside.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
No, ROMs are just ROMs, the radio/bootloader is persistent.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] Ma5heen:
And approximately how long does it take to boot once flashed. Its been about 20 minutes and my phone is at the screen that says "Android is upgrading..." "starting applications" I wiped cache and dalvik cache. Do i need to reflash ROM/Kernel as well? I'm about to pull the battery and hope it restarts with the new radio.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
Flashing the radios takes about 5 min. Upon a reboot the system will say android is upgrading and then it will list and the total number of applications that you have. It should immediately start counting up from zero to the total number of applications that you have. ie. 1/175
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] Ma5heen:
Yup. It went through all the apps then it said "Starting applications" for 25 minutes. I just pulled the battery. It started back up fine with the new radios. Im gonna watch it the next few days, hopefully its better. Im gonna upgrade the PRL now.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] innov8ion:
I installed the new radio on my VZW Galaxy Nexus and now I can't make or receive calls. It's like my phone is now inactivated. Hmm, what to do? Get a new SIM card from VZW? This is a total buzzkill...
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
Download the radios again and try flashing them again. You may have encountered a bad flash.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] Aridon:
Flash the older radio or go back to stock with odin.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] innov8ion:
I did but no go. Backed up my system and then did a factory reset. Still no activation. I'll head to Verizon later today. We'll see how helpful they are... :)

I don't advise screwing with your radio unless absolutely necessary.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] luckylui:
I'm running fine over here.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] innov8ion:
Please disregard. I went to Verizon today and they told me that the Galaxy Nexus I purchased on eBay was stolen and they had blacklisted it. I imagine when I installed the new radio and it tried to activate, it simply wouldn't. Oh well, time to contact my credit card and dispute the charge!
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] TEK112:
Best of luck getting a refund.