[PLUG-TALK] Cellular phone signal loss/gain

[Tomas Kuchta]

I was also thinking that your other cell operator might have been using
Verizon's infrastructure.

So, that way your two operator experience would fail orthogonality test, as
they would share infrastructure.

-Tomas

On Thu, May 2, 2019, 6:59 PM wes <plug at the-wes.com> wrote:

> 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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