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Check The Signal Strength of Android and Apple Phones: What Do RSRP, RSSI, and SINR Mean?

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We often encounter situations where mobile phone signals are weak. Generally speaking, we will judge the current signal strength through the signal status in our phones’ upper right or left corner.
 But this judgment method is too crude. Not only is the accuracy not high, it is largely inaccurate.  In this topic, I will explain how to check the signal strength of Android and Apple phones accurately.
accurately check the signal strength of android and apple Phones
 Let me introduce some more professional methods for judging mobile phone signals. At the same time, I also give you some basic knowledge about mobile phone network signals.

Check the Signal Strength of Android and Apple Phones Accurately

What Are The Default Signal Checking Methods? 
First, let me tell you some signal-checking methods that come with your mobile phone. You can check the signal strength without using a third-party app.
 
Read Also: Why Haven’t Mobile Phone Manufacturers Been Promoting Wi-Fi 7 Vigorously?

How to View Your Network Signal Strength on Apple Phones

  • Open the iPhone’s dialing interface/keypad, enter *3001#12345#* in the dialing key, and click the dialing button to view the phone’s signal-related data.

View Your Network Signal Strength on Apple Phone

Notice! The menu content here will be different for different mobile phone versions. And, wait, it will take some time for the system to query the data. After a while, more menus will appear.
 Click [NR Rach Attempt ] under [ 5G ] to view the value of 5G signal strength (cell_rsrp, the picture below is -98):
how to view view the value of 5G signal strength on iphone
  • Click [Rach Attempt] under [4G] to view the 4G signal strength value (rsrp, -87 in the picture below):

LTE Rach Attempt iPhone

 The units of these values ​​are dBm. dBm is calculated using logarithms, so it is generally a negative value. 
 
Note that the smaller the absolute value of dBm, the better the signal quality.
 In [Serving Cell Info] of [RAT], you can also see the following information:
RAT Serving Cell Info
  • PLMN: Operator’s public land mobile network code. Every carrier is different. PLMN consists of MCC (Mobile Country Code, 3 digits) and MNC (Mobile Network Code, 2-3 digits). 46011 is the Telecom’s 4G/5G value in my image.

    KCTCellMonitorBWPSupport carrier bandwidth adaptation
    KCTCellMonitorBWPSupport: Support type for carrier bandwidth adaptation.

 

  • Band Info: Frequency band number 78 in the picture below refers to n78.5G frequency band number (Sub-6 frequency band)
  • Bandwidth: Frequency bandwidth, the picture is 20MHz.
  • CellID: cell number.
  • Radio Access: Wireless access type. NR is 5G and LTE is 4G.
  • NRARFCN: 5G frequency point number. A total of 3279165 grids are drawn in the frequency band range 0-100GHz. These rasters are numbered starting from 0 and going up to 3279165. Each number represents an absolute frequency domain position, and these numbers are called NR-ARFCN. This frequency number has its calculation formula, which can be checked online.
  • PCI: Physical Cell Identifier, physical cell identifier. They are used to distinguish wireless signals from different cells.
  • TAC: Tracking Area Code, tracking area code. The operator allocates it and serves as a unique identifier for mobile user positioning.

How to view The Signal strength on An Android phone

Different brands of Android phones have different ways of checking signal strength. The Samsung Galaxy S series and Xiaomi (MIUI 14) are examples.
 For Samsung, Open the phone’s [Settings] >> About phone>> [Status Information] – [SIM Card Status (SIM Card Slot 1)] ( or Slot 2 ), and you can view real-time signal strength. As shown below:
real-time signal strength on android

Analysis of Android Phone Signal Strength Metrics

Signal strength is -93dBm. ASU is an Arbitrary Strength Unit, a subjective strength unit, which can be regarded as the relative value of signal strength. DBm can obtain ASU; the calculation formula is as follows:
  • LTE and 5G: asu=dBm+140
  • WCDMA sum GSM: asu=(dBm+113)/2
  • The network type is 5G_SA, which means 5G independent networking (Standalone). Regarding SA and NSA, you can read here.

How  to View Signal Strength Using Third-Party Apps

Okay, the above is the viewing method that comes with the mobile phone. As you can see, the information viewed is relatively minimalistic.
 What should I do if I want to see more detailed information? Then, you have to use third-party App software.
 There are many such software; the one I often use is Cellular-Z/Pro. You should be able to download it from the app store that comes with your phone.
 It is not recommended that you go online to find the installation package, as malware is easy to download.
5g cellular-pro app
view LTE signal strength using cellular pro on android
view network signal using cellular-z android app
 As you can see, it has relatively complete functions – in addition to the signal status of the two sim card slots of the mobile phone, it can also view Wi-Fi and GNSS (satellite positioning) and complete information about the mobile phone itself.

Signal Status Info Using Cellular Z App

There is NR-FREQ, which is the mobile phone’s current specific 5G frequency. Signal strength numerical values ​​are displayed, and dynamic graphs are also displayed. As mentioned before, the lower the value’s absolute value, the better the signal.

Definition Of  Terms Of The Signal Parameters

  • RSRP: Reference Signal Receiving Power, reference signal receiving power. What we mainly look at is this parameter. It is the average signal power received on all REs (resource elements) carrying the reference signal within a certain Symbol (symbol). The range is between -44 and -140. Bigger is better.
  • RSRQ: Reference Signal Receiving Quality, reference signal receiving quality. It is the ratio of RSRP and RSSI, ranging from -3 to -19.5. The bigger, the better. It mainly sorts different LTE candidate cells based on signal quality. This measurement is used as input for handover and cell reselection decisions.
  • RSSI: Received Signal Strength Indication, received signal strength indication. It attenuates with distance and is usually a negative value. The closer the value is to zero, the higher the signal strength. If the RSSI continues to be too low, the uplink signal received by the base station is too weak, which may lead to demodulation failure. If the RSSI continues to be too high, the received uplink signal is too strong and interferes with each other too frequently, which also affects signal demodulation.
  • SINR: Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio, signal to interference plus noise ratio. It represents the ratio of the strength of the desired signal received to the strength of the interfering signal (noise and interference) received.

Let’s Talk Briefly About Wi-Fi  Frequency Bands

Wi-Fi is divided into a 2.4GHz frequency band and a 5GHz frequency band (there is also a 6GHz frequency band, which is not currently open in China). Channels in both frequency bands include the following:
2.4GHz frequency band
Wi-Fi 5GHz band
 The 2.4GHz band is already very overused. Mobile phones should try not to use the 2.4G frequency band and should use the 5GHz frequency band. Smart home products generally only support the 2.4G frequency band, suitable for makeshift use.
 This tool lets you check which channel in your home is relatively idle.
 Then, on your own Wi-Fi router, you can set it to use this free channel (for example, channel 48 in the picture above, which belongs to the 5GHz band). The Wi-Fi signal experience will be much better.

    About Speed Testing

Let’s talk about speed testing.
 Sometimes, high signal strength does not necessarily mean fast network speed.
The speed may be slow When too many users are accessing the network or the transmission resources of the base station are congested.
In this case, the signal is full, but the network speed is very slow.
 
We usually use a third-party app, such as Speedtest, when measuring speed.
 Turn on location authorization to select a nearby speed measurement point and start speed measurement.
 Normally, the 5G speed test will not exceed 1000Mbps. A rate of several hundred bps is already excellent. With dozens of Mbps, watching videos and chatting is no problem. If it’s only a few Mbps, the network experience is a bit choked. 

What To Do When You Experience Network Signal Issues

If poor network signal quality often occurs, you can call the operator’s customer service number to complain. 
Cell phone signal problems often occur near some facilities or the R&D buildings of equipment manufacturers such as ZTE and Huawei, possibly due to interference. You can also complain about this.
 Let me remind you again that if the base station signal is poor, there is nothing an individual, property, or company can do. Only the operator can solve the problem.
 In addition, apart from operators, no person or unit is allowed to build their own public network communication base stations.
 If the base station signal is poor, you can deploy Wi-Fi through cables to meet your Internet needs, but Wi-Fi does not allow you to make calls or send text messages (except for Internet phone services such as WhatsApp). 

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