How To Check Signal Strength On Android and iPhone

Yes, there are various apps which provide free calling to any person in the world via the internet. There’s WhatsApp, Facebook, Skype, etc. But the existence of these apps hasn’t necessarily eradicated the need for the good old way of making calls which require a SIM Card.

Now if you were to know the Signal Strength or quality of your network, you’d look at those bars on the top, right? More bars means better is the quality?

how to check signal strength on Android and iPhones

Not really. Those bars don’t show the real picture most of the time.

But there is a workaround.

While there are tons of apps to check the speed of the internet connection, there isn’t one to check the signal strength. Well, actually, you don’t need one. There is a way by which you can check your signal strength from the ‘Settings” menu of your device. And this is what we’ll be focusing on in this article.

How To Check Signal Strength On An Android Device?

To check cellular signal strength on your Android device, you need to follow these steps:

Step 1: Head into the “Settings” menu of your device. Scroll to the bottom of the menu and tap on “About Phone”.

Step 2: On the next menu, tap on Status”. On some phones, like OnePlus 6, instead of Status you might see something like “Phone number, Signal, etc.” or “Phone Signal”. If that’s the case, tap on it.

Step 3: Tap on SIM 1 Status or SIM 2 Status as the case may be. This will reveal a whole lot of information about that SIM’s network.

how to check signal strength

There, in that menu, you can see Signal Strength. 

Now to interpret the quality of your signal strength you need to know a couple of things. Number 1, a signal is measured in dBm. Number 2, it normally ranges from -30 dBm to -110 dBm.

Closer the dBm value is to 0, better is the signal strength. A dBm value of -70 is better than -100 dBm. That means signal strength is better at -70 dBm than at -100 dBm.

In the above screenshot, the dBm value is -90. This implies that Signal Strength is fair.

Read: How TO Find The IP Address Of Your Smartphone

Now that you know how to interpret the dBm value, go ahead and follow the above methods on your Android phone to check the signal strength.

How To Check Signal Strength On an iPhone?

Before beginning, you need to know that this method only works on iPhone models with Intel wireless modem, not on iPhones with Qualcomm wireless modem. That means if you have iPhone 7/7 Plus or later iPhone models, this method will work for you.

In case you have an iPhone 6S or previous models that means your iPhone has Qualcomm wireless modem and thus making this method non-functioning.

Step 1: Launch the Phone app and dial *3001#12345#* and hit the call button.

how to check signal strength

Step 2: Hitting the Call button will take you to a menu. On that menu, tap on LTE.

Step 3: On the next menu, tap on Serving Cell Meas.

how to check signal strength

The number adjacent to rsrp0 is the current dBm value.

Now you know the dBm value and you also know how to interpret a dBm value (above). Go ahead, apply the logic and you’ll know your signal’s quality.

In the above screenshot, the dBm value is -110 which means the reception is not good.

Read: How To Clear Cookies on iPhone Entirely as well as Individually

Sorry, dear old iPhone users. As of now, there is no way to check your actual signal strength except via jailbreaking.

Let me know in the comments if you are facing any kind of trouble while going through the above process. Also, let me know whether you want me to write an article on How to Check Signal Strength on a Jailbroken iPhone.

And don’t forget to share this article with your family and friends on your favorite social networking website.

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