[PLUG-TALK] Cellular phone signal loss/gain

[wes]

Who was your other provider, when it wasn't Verizon?

I don't have a whole lot of answers to your questions, but what I can say
in the general case is that if your other provider was CDMA, as Verizon is,
then you really only have 1 data point. I would suggest that you seriously
consider trying out a GSM provider to see if it works better.

I seem to recall that you do a fair bit of traveling, so you'd want to test
it out in the most common places you need to use it, but I think there's a
high probability AT&T would work better for you than Verizon.

Signal strength can be affected by all the factors you named and more. This
applies to all radio signals. I wish there were better tools available to
measure these things.

All of the major carriers offer an additional service where you can place a
device in your house, which connects to your internet service, and allows
your phone to connect to it. They each have a different name for it, I
believe Verizon's is "Network Extender" or similar.

-wes

On Thu, May 2, 2019 at 3:32 PM Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com>
wrote:

> I have an irritating cellular phone behavior here that has occurred for
> several years with different phones and now two different carriers. A while
> ago I spent a long time on the phone with a Verizon Wireless tech who could
> not explain this behavior. I'm hoping that someone here can explain it.
>
> The phone will loose contact with a cellular tower and regain it while not
> moving. It can be sitting on my desk or, as was the case a few minutes ago,
> while I'm holding it. The signal strength varies from full to partial to
> none seemingly independent of any factor but time.
>
> What I don't know about cellular telephone systems would overfill
> Wikipedia,
> but I wonder if the nearest tower (which might be on the Troutdale water
> tower about 0.5 km south of here as the radio waves fly) might become
> overwhelmed with phones trying to connect to it so it shoves mine away and
> the phone looks for another tower or just has to wait for the nearest one
> to
> make room for me again. Is this reasonable?
>
> Sometimes the voice call continues when the signal strength disappears,
> but a
> text message won't go out until there's at least some signal strength. I've
> no idea how common this behavior is nor whether there's anything I can do
> about it. This signal loss/return also happens now and then when I'm in the
> Gresham library. It probably happens in other places without my being aware
> of it happening.
>
> Rich
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