Damn you coverage maps!

[Racket_Man]

It's fun for me, for some reason my house is in a dead spot. I walk down a house, great signal, in either direction...But at my house, in the front yard, inside, on the roof (yes, I actually checked that), shitty signal for both V 'n T, 'tis annoying. Short of them building another tower, or getting rid of whatever is causing the 'shadow', not much they can do, but still annoying :P

THIS ^^^^^^^ except mine is really limited to a 5 or 10 foot radius in my living room. unfortuneately just the area I keep my cell phone when it is not on my person.

I can go just outside that area say out the front door or go back to the bedroom OR go upstairs in the same place as the 1st floor and get 5 bars and good reception.

[Sliceanddice]

I get a lot of people in my store who are angry that we don't post coverage maps. When I try to explain to them that they're useless

And to add insult to injury on those coverage maps, they don't always show the actual "coverage' but areas they partner with another company to offer service, and bare minimum service at that.

Take the posted T-Mobile map. See how Montana is pretty dang pink? Lies. T-Mobile actually has no service in Montana but they have a partnership with a low tier service that make you feel lucky to have 3 bars and forget data. Also your lucky to get one bar in one of the old mining towns.

[mjr]

And of course the employees in the ads aren't even real employees. They're just actors from some talent agency your company is working with.

Like Lily, the "Deathstar" girl...

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Like Lily, the "Deathstar" girl...

Yep. She's actually been in some funny videos for collegehumor.

[Evandril]

Evandril - Do you live in a brick home, or is there similar material nearby? That could explain it.

Our house is brick, any way around the signal loss? It sounds like you're saying brick being nearby is enough to cause problems, any idea why that happens? (Not doubting you, just curious )

[NorthernZel]

It sounds like you're saying brick being nearby is enough to cause problems, any idea why that happens?

I think bricks have a way of impeding the signal - my apartment is in a building made mainly from bricks, but since we live in a big city and the nearest cell tower is literally across the street, our cell coverage is fairly good, a bit spotty when the system is congested.

The wi-fi, on the other hand... oy oy.
We solved the problem by buying a broadband expander, I don't know if something similar exists for cellphone signals?

[EricKei]

For brick or thick stone/concrete:

Wi-fi signals are basically glorified radio waves. Anything that will impede AM radio will impede wi-fi (Ever been listening to AM (e.g. NPR) and found that the signal flutters when you are under an overpass? This is why). This is why the recommendations on positioning the wireless router basically boil down to a) high up on the wall and b) line of sight (or as close as possible) to the receiver. Standard/unboosted wi-fi should get you maybe 200ft of range in an open field, 50-100 indoors.

Cell signals -- it may depend on the type; I'm sure Clerk and others in here can provide more details They're much stronger than wi-fi, of course, but they're still subject to interference, especially from brick/concrete walls, reflectivity of the area (signals are waves -- they bounce), etc. You could quite literally just be in a small dead zone within a circle of transmitters, where they don't *quite* all meet.

When I used to work for a small local paper, everyone's cell phone reception (except for one with a tower half a block away) was spotty at best inside, even when we could literally walk to the mini-park across the street and get 4-5 bars consistently. Our building was constructed of old-school heavy brick with walls better than two feet thick (former downtown warehouse -- the structure now safely supports a newly-built apartment complex; they didn't need to add any extra support structures to do so, that I know of)

[wolfie]

I spend a good chunk of my days at work dealing with people who are complaining about their coverage. Cell phone customers seem to be under this highly unrealistic assumption they should be able to get 5 bar LTE signal just about anywhere we have coverage. (snip) So looking at this map, you can see the state of North Dakota for example is almost completely magenta.

Have you ever had someone who lives in West Virginia complain that not only does their phone not work anywhere near their home, but that they had to drive for HOURS to even get to a place they could buy a phone? Someone so ignorant that they didn't realize they were living in the Wireless Free Zone (legislated no radio communications in order to avoid interference with a big radio telescope)?

[Evandril]

I'd have blamed the house, if it wasn't for the fact I have no signal in the front yard, or on the roof

[Ironclad Alibi]

For those not getting a strong cell signal in your house, you might consider investing in a cell phone signal booster. Mu brother did this for his house.

[Jay 2K Winger]

For those not getting a strong cell signal in your house, you might consider investing in a cell phone signal booster. Mu brother did this for his house.

Dad is getting one of these from Red Checkmark. He's only capable of getting two bars in our house on his shiny new overpriced iFruit phone, and after struggling to stay connected to Red Checkmark tech support so they could troubleshoot it, after they were done trying to fix it, they agreed to send him a "network extender" or "mini-cell" that would boost his signal for him.

[ladyjaneinmd]

My last cell phone carrier did not work in my current apartment complex. The whole complex was a giant black hole. The cell phone carrier Did. Not. Care., which is why you see all of those commercials around where people are saying, 'I'm done with you.'. 'You've let me down for the last time.' My friend had been with them for over 25 years, and they made no effort whatsoever to keep her as a customer, so we moved to another carrier, and have been much happier ever since. We now have 4 people on a family plan, and the coverage is amazing, and the prices are even better. For the record, we are now with the Pink People. (their stores are all pink).

[CaptainDeadpool]

Ugh I hate when the customer complains about coverage when they live in a house in a forest on the top of a mountain. Seriously, what do they expect?

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

My last cell phone carrier did not work in my current apartment complex. The whole complex was a giant black hole. The cell phone carrier Did. Not. Care., which is why you see all of those commercials around where people are saying, 'I'm done with you.'. 'You've let me down for the last time.' My friend had been with them for over 25 years, and they made no effort whatsoever to keep her as a customer, so we moved to another carrier, and have been much happier ever since. We now have 4 people on a family plan, and the coverage is amazing, and the prices are even better. For the record, we are now with the Pink People. (their stores are all pink).

I am sorry about your terrible experiences. I can't speak for all carriers, but at <Red Checkmark> us phone jockeys, no matter HOW high you go up the chain, have no power to really to anything to fix coverage problems.

Sure I can fill out a trouble ticket and send it to our network guys, but I have absolutely zero control over what they do or don't do to address the issue. A lot of times the problems are caused by something out of our control as mentioned in the original post (terrain, building materials, interference from outside sources). We can compensate for that to a point, but sometimes even then it's not enough to get reliable coverage in an area.

It can take up to three weeks to repair a tower and up to a year to build one. And they aren't cheap to build either so you better believe coroporate does its homework before putting them up. We are not going to spend $250 000 plus monthly land lease costs just to fill a gap that only impacts 27 people. I know it really sucks for those 27 people but that's reality of business.

What really bothers me is that we have pretty much a blanket policy at <Red Checkmark> of absolutely NOT giving the customer any breaks on their cancellation costs if they decide to bail because their coverage stinks. Part of the problem is that, as far as our policy goes, if our coverage maps show you have coverage (there's those damn things again!), you have coverage. Regardless of what your actual experience is. You have to literally be in an area on the map that shows ABSOLUTELY ZERO coverage at all to get out of your services without paying.

I've always believed it's not proper to demand full price of people for a service that's not being fully delivered. And also considering our competition are running promos where they'll buy out your services if you change.

This warped corporate mentality of new subscribers being the only thing that matters is really harmful to the business long term.

[Seshat]

The reason coverage sucks in elevators - and some steel-framed buildings - is that they're essentially 'faraday cages'.

Radio - and other forms of electrical action - caaaaaannnnnn get through a faraday cage. Sort of. Sometimes. Having an antenna penetrate the faraday cage helps.

Basically, a faraday cage is any metal cage which has an earth connection. So long as the electrical current doesn't actually melt the cage, an electrical current runs along the bars of the cage and down through the earth connection. If a person is inside the cage and not in direct contact with the metal, they're perfectly safe.

I've seen a video of a scientist putting his daughter inside a faraday cage, and then running enough charge through it that the static electricity made her hair float.
Before she stepped out, she earthed herself slowly by using a wooden ruler and touching it against the cage.

Google phrase for more info is 'faraday cage'.