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I've had a good experience with Verizon in rural areas in New England and Virginia/West VA. I used to use T-Mobile, and lose coverage frequently, but now I can

I've had a good experience with Verizon in rural areas in New England and Virginia/West VA. I used to use T-Mobile, and lose coverage frequently, but now I can go days without losing signal, even in the middle of nowhere.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
LeoPanthera 8y ago
I have both a T-Mobile phone and a Verizon phone, and Verizon often provides me with the experience of my phone saying that I have 4 or 5 bars, but being unable to get any data to flow, or sometimes to even make a call. I don't know what causes that, but I have learned to ignore the signal strength display on Verizon.
- snazz 8y ago
  And I’ve used most every major carrier, and they all do that fairly frequently. The strength display is especially inaccurate when you’re moving or when you are in a particularly unpopulated place. That said, the iPhone I used for a while did better than my old Nokia and my current Samsung, so it certainly seems to pertain to the hardware, too. I’m guessing many people change carriers at the same time as they change phones, which might make it hard to figure out which one is to blame.
- jdod 8y ago
  created an account just for this: i spend a lot of time in airports, one of my conversation starters is 'tell me something about your work i can't find on google'. i said this to a person who inspects/installs cell towers. this person told me that a few years ago instead of installing new or upgrading towers for 4G LTE, on a lot of the towers the company had them install a chip that makes it look like users have 4g LTE signal but it's only 4g or 3g and not LTE. i'm sure someone will come along in the comments and tell me this person lied and this is impossible, and that may be true, just throwing my two pennies out there.
  - JustSomeNobody 8y ago
    If AT&T can rebrand LTE as 5GE then I’m sure this could be true.
    - cbhl 8y ago
      During the transition to LTE, T-mobile did something similar -- they updated phones to report HDSPA+ as "4G".
      - joecool1029 8y ago
        AT&T (with HSUPA) spearheaded that, T-Mobile followed but was better able to actually argue it as their HSPA+ implementation was faster due to use of DC-HSPA+ (42mbits). ITU relaxed their definition of 4G to allow for "significant upgrades to 3G technology", so blame them for everyone jumping on the bandwagon: https://fcw.com/blogs/mobileplatform/2011/03/att-hspa-4g-problem.aspx https://fcw.com/blogs/mobileplatform/2011/03/att-hspa-4g-pro...
  - markdown 8y ago
    AT&T will put a fake 5G logo on its 4G LTE phones https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18151764/att-5g-evolution-logo-rollout-fake-network https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18151764/att-5g-evolutio...
  - joecool1029 8y ago
    >the company had them install a chip Yeah no. As the other posts said below, AT&T has had a history of pushing minor changes in early technology as a new generation of that technology. The most recent is their 5Ge nonsense. Back in the early 2010's they pushed an update to iOS to change HSPA+ 3G to display as 4G. It's not, but the behavior carried over to other carriers. T-Mobile was closest to being able to argue it as 4G as they deployed DC-HSPA+ which could provide 42mbit in ideal conditions. It's possible that there was something lost in translation between the installer and you that there was a radio component upgrade on the antenna that allowed HSPA+ to be used over the older UMTS and HSPA. Now most towers have the radios and antennas integrated as one component, but on weak towers and older installs the radios and the antennas were separate. I know a bit more about T-Mobile USA, and one of the things they did a few years back to bring up 2G-only regions was get better backhaul in then plug LTE radios into the 2G antennas, making the sites broadcast 2G and LTE on band 2, 1900mhz. Later on they would add band 12 LTE by hooking in an antenna that could be tuned for 700mhz.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  Maybe Verizon does something similar to Sprint? https://forums.androidcentral.com/sprint/210510-bars-lie-lte-signal-strength-how-determine-your-actual-lte-signal-strength.html https://forums.androidcentral.com/sprint/210510-bars-lie-lte... > Did you know that with Sprint LTE Android devices, the signal strength indicator at the top does not show your LTE signal strength? Even if 4G is displayed next to it? > This signal displayed here is always your 1x (voice signal), and it is not your 3G EVDO signal strength, nor your LTE signal strength. Regardless of whether it says 3G or 4G next to it. This is the cause of a lot of confusion. edit: looks like they might https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1142503 https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1142503
dnhz 8y ago
Anecdotally, I was able to make calls from the summit of Mt. Whitney as well as at Forester Pass. I'm impressed that my cell phone could send a signal for miles.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

LeoPanthera 8y ago

I have both a T-Mobile phone and a Verizon phone, and Verizon often provides me with the experience of my phone saying that I have 4 or 5 bars, but being unable to get any data to flow, or sometimes to even make a call. I don't know what causes that, but I have learned to ignore the signal strength display on Verizon.

snazz 8y ago
And I’ve used most every major carrier, and they all do that fairly frequently. The strength display is especially inaccurate when you’re moving or when you are in a particularly unpopulated place. That said, the iPhone I used for a while did better than my old Nokia and my current Samsung, so it certainly seems to pertain to the hardware, too. I’m guessing many people change carriers at the same time as they change phones, which might make it hard to figure out which one is to blame.
jdod 8y ago
created an account just for this: i spend a lot of time in airports, one of my conversation starters is 'tell me something about your work i can't find on google'. i said this to a person who inspects/installs cell towers. this person told me that a few years ago instead of installing new or upgrading towers for 4G LTE, on a lot of the towers the company had them install a chip that makes it look like users have 4g LTE signal but it's only 4g or 3g and not LTE. i'm sure someone will come along in the comments and tell me this person lied and this is impossible, and that may be true, just throwing my two pennies out there.
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  If AT&T can rebrand LTE as 5GE then I’m sure this could be true.
  - cbhl 8y ago
    During the transition to LTE, T-mobile did something similar -- they updated phones to report HDSPA+ as "4G".
    - joecool1029 8y ago
      AT&T (with HSUPA) spearheaded that, T-Mobile followed but was better able to actually argue it as their HSPA+ implementation was faster due to use of DC-HSPA+ (42mbits). ITU relaxed their definition of 4G to allow for "significant upgrades to 3G technology", so blame them for everyone jumping on the bandwagon: https://fcw.com/blogs/mobileplatform/2011/03/att-hspa-4g-problem.aspx https://fcw.com/blogs/mobileplatform/2011/03/att-hspa-4g-pro...
- markdown 8y ago
  AT&T will put a fake 5G logo on its 4G LTE phones https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18151764/att-5g-evolution-logo-rollout-fake-network https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18151764/att-5g-evolutio...
- joecool1029 8y ago
  >the company had them install a chip Yeah no. As the other posts said below, AT&T has had a history of pushing minor changes in early technology as a new generation of that technology. The most recent is their 5Ge nonsense. Back in the early 2010's they pushed an update to iOS to change HSPA+ 3G to display as 4G. It's not, but the behavior carried over to other carriers. T-Mobile was closest to being able to argue it as 4G as they deployed DC-HSPA+ which could provide 42mbit in ideal conditions. It's possible that there was something lost in translation between the installer and you that there was a radio component upgrade on the antenna that allowed HSPA+ to be used over the older UMTS and HSPA. Now most towers have the radios and antennas integrated as one component, but on weak towers and older installs the radios and the antennas were separate. I know a bit more about T-Mobile USA, and one of the things they did a few years back to bring up 2G-only regions was get better backhaul in then plug LTE radios into the 2G antennas, making the sites broadcast 2G and LTE on band 2, 1900mhz. Later on they would add band 12 LTE by hooking in an antenna that could be tuned for 700mhz.
kalleboo 8y ago
Maybe Verizon does something similar to Sprint? https://forums.androidcentral.com/sprint/210510-bars-lie-lte-signal-strength-how-determine-your-actual-lte-signal-strength.html https://forums.androidcentral.com/sprint/210510-bars-lie-lte... > Did you know that with Sprint LTE Android devices, the signal strength indicator at the top does not show your LTE signal strength? Even if 4G is displayed next to it? > This signal displayed here is always your 1x (voice signal), and it is not your 3G EVDO signal strength, nor your LTE signal strength. Regardless of whether it says 3G or 4G next to it. This is the cause of a lot of confusion. edit: looks like they might https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1142503 https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1142503

dnhz 8y ago

Anecdotally, I was able to make calls from the summit of Mt. Whitney as well as at Forester Pass. I'm impressed that my cell phone could send a signal for miles.