Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

? for those in the cell phone biz

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • ? for those in the cell phone biz

    When a cell phone provider decides to upgrade an area from 3G to 4G, generally how long does it take them to fiddlefuck around with the towers until this is completed?

    I have a Virgin Mobile phone on the Sprint network. For the past month I've had problems with sporadic signals and calls being dropped. I now have no service whatsoever.

    Called the local Sprint store, they said the towers are being worked on, but cannot tell me when the work will be done and when I can expect to have service again, and tried to pass me off the Virgin Mobile. Since I'm not really a Sprint customer I can understand they don't really want to deal with me, but this isn't acceptable.
    Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

    "I never said I wasn't a horrible person."--Me, almost daily

  • #2
    I'm a manager for another cellular provider, and I can actually give you an educated answer on this one (not often THAT happens, haha).

    My company also uses Sprint towers when they are off of our native network, and believe me-you'd think that we purposely did this to all of our customers who have been on vacation for the past few months.

    Sprint's technical department gave us a completion date of Sept. 1st for when we should expect work to be done in ALL of their markets. Some have already been finished, others are just being started.

    Good luck-I'm just glad that our OWN nationwide 4G network is almost finished, and we can cut ties with Sprint's crappy towers once and for all.
    "She didn't observe the cardinal rule: Don't F**K with people who handle your food"
    -Ryan Reynolds in 'Waiting'

    Comment


    • #3
      FWIW, I haven't had that sort of trouble with the towers in Helsinki - and I'm reasonably sure that they have been upgraded at least once in that time.

      Upgrading a given tower should be a relatively quick operation as far as outages go - once the backhaul is in place, they might have to put up a different type of antenna, then they just have to plug in the new electronics. I can't see it taking more than a day, ever, between the old tower being fully functional and the new tower being fully functional.

      Comment


      • #4
        When they test a new system, often they shut down several towers at once, then use them to test each other. This causes the cell traffic to be rerouted, and can often result in lower signal strength, dropped calls, and sometimes the inability to place or receive texts and calls.

        While it sounds rather straightforward, I've seen one tower cluster take a few weeks to get the software and hardware working properly. If it's a system-wide update, then multiply that by as many towers as they are retrofitting.
        "She didn't observe the cardinal rule: Don't F**K with people who handle your food"
        -Ryan Reynolds in 'Waiting'

        Comment


        • #5
          You can try resetting the phone's tower database; I don't see any easy way to do it specifically for Virgin Mobile, but I just read that switching the phone to Airplane mode and back forces an update.

          Comment


          • #6
            You'll really have to go to VM for help, its possible they're still working, its also possible that there's a problem now communicating with the towers. Although its technically the same system, there can be individual tweaks made by VM along with limitations on their access to Sprint's network.
            Seph
            Taur10
            "You're supposed to be the head of covert intelligence. Right now, I'm not seeing a hell of a lot of intelligence. Covert, overt, or otherwise!"-Lochley, B5, A View from the Gallery

            Comment


            • #7
              Quoth TheSHAD0W View Post
              You can try resetting the phone's tower database; I don't see any easy way to do it specifically for Virgin Mobile, but I just read that switching the phone to Airplane mode and back forces an update.
              If it works like the UK providers, somewhere in the phone settings, you can re-register on the network, by looking for the choice of carrier, toggling the automatic setting off/on and back as appropriate. It can take quite a while though. Samsung Galaxy S2 takes about 10 minutes.

              Also, apps like OpenSignal have a facility to re-register, so you get the nearest tower. That may help?

              Comment

              Working...
              X