As the Ars team convenes for two days of meetings in Chicago, we're reaching back into the past to bring you some of our favorite articles from years gone by. This article originally appeared in September 2008.
Count to five
"More bars in more places," reads the latest slogan from one of the largest mobile carriers in the US. It's plastered everywhere, from print ads to billboards to TV commercials. At least here in the US, it's pounded into our heads early on that bars = signal level = fewer problems overall. And it's kind of true. Generally speaking, the number of bars being displayed on your cell phone gives a general idea of whether you have a good chance of making a call.
However, there are a number of variables that the phone takes into account when figuring out exactly how many bars to show you in the first place, and in fact, those variables can be (and often are) different among cell carriers, manufacturers, or even different devices from the same manufacturer. Put simply, the number of bars displayed on your phone does not necessarily equal signal level; rather, it would be more accurate to say that the bars are "correlated" with signal level.
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