5 ms·

Wow - infrastructure varies. Here in Eastern Oregon the pattern is pretty reliably that data and signal drop out at the same time, at least on Verizon which is

Wow - infrastructure varies. Here in Eastern Oregon the pattern is pretty reliably that data and signal drop out at the same time, at least on Verizon which is the carrier with the best coverage. I really thought the pattern that you describe, which I've seen plenty of in the past, had just died out over time and tower upgrades.

megaman22 8y ago
I routinely see SMSs fail to deliver, deliver multiple times, deliver weirdly out of order, or deliver at random times, hours or days after they were sent. And this is in a relatively well-served area fifty miles out of Boston.
- sli 8y ago
  I still have the issue where MMS seems to just sometimes not work for days or even weeks on end, then suddenly start working again. No OS updates and no APN settings changes in the meantime. Normally it's not an issue, since I don't really use SMS all that much anymore, but my mother and I tend to send pictures back and forth a lot and she still uses SMS. SMS itself usually works fine, but MMS is particularly bad.
reiichiroh 8y ago
It all depends if there's a 2G network to fall back on if 3G+ data goes down. Most places have shut down their 2G.
- djrogers 8y ago
  >Most places have shut down their 2G. Citation? I haven't seen this to be the case in California - at least on Verizon.
  - yggda 8y ago
    There was a big story about it when ATT shut down their 2G network in SF since MUNI used that to report their locations. http://sfist.com/2017/01/06/nextmuni_glitch_problem.php http://sfist.com/2017/01/06/nextmuni_glitch_problem.php
  - joecool1029 8y ago
    Only AT&T shut down 2G. T-Mobile reiterated recently that their 2G network will probably be shut down after their 3G one, since it hardly uses any spectrum.
    - reiichiroh 8y ago
      With places that have shutdown 2G, there is no "voice only" network anymore since 3G is required for the voice traffic.
      - joecool1029 8y ago
        T-Mobile and AT&T have very different planning. AT&T shut down their 2G because it mostly ran on 850mhz and this was needed for LTE and their legacy band 5 WCDMA (hspa) network. T-Mobile mostly ran its 2G on 1900mhz, but had beefy midband spectrum holdings there and in AWS (and AWS-3) for most markets. Since you can run GSM down in like 200khz or so it's not a huge deal to have a small slice allocated to legacy voice fallback. You can't do that with 3G... you can thin it down but it's still going to need 3.8mhz or so. (T-Mobile has experience thinning HSPA down prior to the MetroPCS CDMA shutdown... which they had legacy CDMA running in guard bands) Verizon and Sprint used to mostly be on CDMA-based technology. So their 3G 'EVDO' can't do calls.. it needs cdma2k layer to go back to, or full voLTE support. VZW has its shit together on voLTE, sprint will probably never launch volte at this rate.
  - reiichiroh 8y ago
    Sorry was thinking up in Canada only Rogers maintains 2G still.
s0rce 8y ago
Same with Eastern WA and CA, you basically just drop behind a big hill/mountain or into a valley and lose all service. I still sometimes use texts since I can turn off data to save power and still send SMS.

megaman22 8y ago

I routinely see SMSs fail to deliver, deliver multiple times, deliver weirdly out of order, or deliver at random times, hours or days after they were sent. And this is in a relatively well-served area fifty miles out of Boston.

sli 8y ago
I still have the issue where MMS seems to just sometimes not work for days or even weeks on end, then suddenly start working again. No OS updates and no APN settings changes in the meantime. Normally it's not an issue, since I don't really use SMS all that much anymore, but my mother and I tend to send pictures back and forth a lot and she still uses SMS. SMS itself usually works fine, but MMS is particularly bad.

reiichiroh 8y ago

It all depends if there's a 2G network to fall back on if 3G+ data goes down. Most places have shut down their 2G.

djrogers 8y ago
>Most places have shut down their 2G. Citation? I haven't seen this to be the case in California - at least on Verizon.
- yggda 8y ago
  There was a big story about it when ATT shut down their 2G network in SF since MUNI used that to report their locations. http://sfist.com/2017/01/06/nextmuni_glitch_problem.php http://sfist.com/2017/01/06/nextmuni_glitch_problem.php
- joecool1029 8y ago
  Only AT&T shut down 2G. T-Mobile reiterated recently that their 2G network will probably be shut down after their 3G one, since it hardly uses any spectrum.
  - reiichiroh 8y ago
    With places that have shutdown 2G, there is no "voice only" network anymore since 3G is required for the voice traffic.
    - joecool1029 8y ago
      T-Mobile and AT&T have very different planning. AT&T shut down their 2G because it mostly ran on 850mhz and this was needed for LTE and their legacy band 5 WCDMA (hspa) network. T-Mobile mostly ran its 2G on 1900mhz, but had beefy midband spectrum holdings there and in AWS (and AWS-3) for most markets. Since you can run GSM down in like 200khz or so it's not a huge deal to have a small slice allocated to legacy voice fallback. You can't do that with 3G... you can thin it down but it's still going to need 3.8mhz or so. (T-Mobile has experience thinning HSPA down prior to the MetroPCS CDMA shutdown... which they had legacy CDMA running in guard bands) Verizon and Sprint used to mostly be on CDMA-based technology. So their 3G 'EVDO' can't do calls.. it needs cdma2k layer to go back to, or full voLTE support. VZW has its shit together on voLTE, sprint will probably never launch volte at this rate.
- reiichiroh 8y ago
  Sorry was thinking up in Canada only Rogers maintains 2G still.

s0rce 8y ago

Same with Eastern WA and CA, you basically just drop behind a big hill/mountain or into a valley and lose all service. I still sometimes use texts since I can turn off data to save power and still send SMS.