hmm.. well now I am not able to recreate the issue. Both the Rogers SIM and the Speakout SIM is giving me equally crappy results (-90 to -100dB). Maybe Rogers reception is just bad in my area?

On an unrelated note, I'm a bit disappointed to see how comparitively bad Rogers reception is compared to Bell in many parts of Southern Ontario. Seems Bell has many more towers around?

Of course they do. They built their base infrastructure long ago with taxpayer dollars and now have a licence to screw the customer. Robbers and the rest did not have that head start advantage. Best thing that could happen to this country is Bhell gets broken up like the Yanks wisely did years ago. But that won't happen in this country with the politicians we have now. Refuse to use Bell, life is just better.

On an unrelated note, I'm a bit disappointed to see how comparitively bad Rogers reception is compared to Bell in many parts of Southern Ontario. Seems Bell has many more towers around?

No rogers to test to confirm the theory

Going a quick google search, there are people out there (on other carriers) that have had "bad" SIMs and their situations improve after switching SIMs.

I'll say give your SIM contacts a good cleaning with alcohol or contact cleaner first. If that doesn't improve, you should try a different SIM.

cleared with alcohol wipe, same issue. will try getting a Rogers microSIM and testing with that.

iamdrumming said:

Signal strength can vary greatly between phones as well. Some phones lock on a signal with no problems, while others never get a signal at all.

I agree. I had tested it on two phones though, with the same result (Samsung Galaxy SII and LG Optimus G)

I'll say give your SIM contacts a good cleaning with alcohol or contact cleaner first. If that doesn't improve, you should try a different SIM.

I've noticed over the last couple of months that I have been getting fairly bad reception at my home location as well as various parts of the GTA (I travel around for work). As a reference, my home (2nd floor near a window) gives me between -89dB to -104dB of strength (between 4/5 to 1/5 bars) on two different phones (LG Optimus G and Samsung Galaxy SII) with a Speakout SIM. The amount fluctuates significantly even if the phone isn't moved. On the other hand, when I put a Rogers SIM into these phones, I get a more stable -79dB to -89dB fluctuation which essentially gives me full bars. I contacted Speakout but the rep tells me there is no technical support department there. I doubt Rogers will be of much help because I am a Speakout customer and not theirs. I don't believe it is a SIM card issue because from what I understand, SIM cards do not affect signal strength -- this is also a fairly new (1 yr) SIM.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do?