topic Re: Data signal suddenly really weak in Mobile Data

Data signal suddenly really weak

sstanescu — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 15:40:01 GMT

Hello. I am at my wit’s end here… For the past week and a half my data signal has been showing 1 bar, maximum 2 every single day. I have unlimited 4G data and have never had an issue with this before unless I go out to the countryside. I have been in the same flat for 2 years now so again nothing changed. I noticed my wifi router (from Three) signal is also showing red, and our wifi has also been incredibly slow.

I used the coverage checker and it says “excellent coverage”. So I have no clue what to do. I performed a network reset on my iPhone but nothing changed. What can I do now? Please help.

Re: Data signal suddenly really weak

sstanescu — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 15:41:20 GMT

Also worth noting I went out to work outside of my area today and I had full bars again and excellent speed…

Re: Data signal suddenly really weak

bristolian — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 15:58:07 GMT

FYI you have a short time after posting to edit, negating the need for multiple replies.

By means of some background, voice calls & mobile data use the exact same network signal, there's also a popular misunderstanding with regards to on-screen bars & data performance. On-screen bars are a basic guide to the quality of received signal - in other words, RF quality.

This has very little bearing on the attainable data-speeds, which are much more significantly driven by the amount of available capacity/spectrum on your serving site/sector. You could easily have a very strong "all the bars" signal shown, but if the spectrum is limited, the data speeds will be also. In contrast, you could have "only 1 bar" (but still perfectly usable) signal, but if that is a high-capacity radio carrier, then data speeds could be more than you expect.

The coverage checker measures signal quality, and isn't designed to predict or measure data speeds.

Re: Data signal suddenly really weak

sstanescu — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 18:23:34 GMT

Hello,

thank you for your response.

I understand it shouldn’t affect my data speed, however in this case it seems something is clearly very wrong. Both my wifi and my data (which are from 2 different companies) are incredibly slow. The one thing they have in common is the low signal.

It took me a minute to load this page for example. Before it would be instant. So unfortunately this doesn’t answer my question. Again - i have been using both for 2 years with no problem at this location. So what is going on?

Re: Data signal suddenly really weak

Chris_B — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 07:21:31 GMT

@sstanescu On the page where you checked the signal coverage try clicking the check network status, coverage checker is just an indication of what service you can expect. It’s not checking if there is a network issue in your area and the check network status will.