Cell phone question

[Warthog1]

I hope this is posted in the right forum. I am a Verizon customer, and have been since 2007. I switched to Verizon because of their coverage (there is a tower less than 8 tenths of a mile from my house. In the past year my coverage has dwindled from full coverage to 1 bar and no 3G at all. After two months worth of calls to Verizon, numerous trouble tickets, and MANY "technicians", I keep getting the same canned answer. "The engineers say that that you are in a limited coverage area, and that there are no alarms on the tower, it's functioning perfectly......why don't you BUY an extender ? Now I have driven to the access road for the tower, with the same 1-bar of service. This tower, if functioning properly, should give me full coverage n my basement. I just finished another call to customer services, and they are still reading the same canned answers to my questions, and trying to sell me an extender.
Somebody help me understand why my service went from full-scale to 1 bar over the last 6 months, when I can almost see the tower site from home ? You can't even find a good phone number for Verizon corporate headquarters that doesn't take you right to the call centers with the canned answers.

Thanks for any insight into this.

 

[fineshot1]

I can't answer your question here with any degree of accuracy but i can tell you
that after working in the cellular network industry for over 10 years and for 2 different
carriers that they tailor the coverage of each cell site to the areas needed.

The tower sites ( or building tops ) have directional panel antennas usually pointing
in three 120 degree sectors directions(if they are covering a 360 degree area) or they
some sites that do not cover all directions. It all depends on the geographic area, the
surrounding terrain, the needed coverage area that are trying to cover and many many
other factors that I cant get into in this thread.

Does the tower have panel antenna's pointing in 3 different directions?

 

[Warthog1]

I can't get right to the tower, it's on a gated road. If they pointed any of the arrays towards the population, it would be aimed directly at me. The 0.8 mile distance is measured driving, not line-of-sight, and I have actually driven to the entrance of the access road to the tower, still with 1 bar of service. We even bought 2 new phones and signed for two more years, because they said I "needed a new device" now they say I "need an extender". They get no more money from me until this is fixed. I used to have full scale signal, and even used the cellphone from my cellar.

 

[fineshot1]

I can't get right to the tower, it's on a gated road. If they pointed any of the arrays towards the population, it would be aimed directly at me. The 0.8 mile distance is measured driving, not line-of-sight, and I have actually driven to the entrance of the access road to the tower, still with 1 bar of service. We even bought 2 new phones and signed for two more years, because they said I "needed a new device" now they say I "need an extender". They get no more money from me until this is fixed. I used to have full scale signal, and even used the cellphone from my cellar.

ok - it sounds like you need to speak with one of their technical specialists
and not a customer service rep. Ask to speak with the tech spec and don't
take no for answer. When speaking to the tech spec tell him/her that you had
excellent coverage before and now almost none. I don't want to get your hopes
up but they may (if they believe you are credible) send out the local cell site
manager(that's another name for the cell site tech).

Oh and try and maintain your cool - i know it can be frustrating but if you give
them attitude it won't help out your credibility.

Hope that helps you out.....

 

[OCO]

1 bar sitting almost under the tower?? Are you sure that's a Verizon tower? (I wouldn't trust the sales types on that). Has coverage been checked out with more than 1 phone.... I know how frustrating it can be, my house is in the center of three towers all about 6-8 miles away and am on the fringe of all of them, probably as fineshot1 suggests because none of the arrays point directly my way. I can go a 1/4 mile in any direction and get better coverage. I was promised improvement when they bought Alltel - no luck. Ended up w/ zBoost and a yagi up the tower about 15 feet, pointed at the nearest Verizon site.

 

[Warthog1]

LOL....that's one of the first canned questions I get, about being a Verizon tower. There is only one tower in the area. The first one on it was Nextel, the second was Verizon. Now the stupid phone says I'm roaming.
If I were on the tower, I could see my house, or at least my block. This sucks.

 

[OCO]

At least there's an explanation for my situation. Makes me think, too - I need to get up the tower and point the yagi at one of the other two towers and see if the reception is better - I get about 3 bars in the house, with the setup as it is. 3G has always much better (and I don't use it...)

 

[Citywide173]

My guess, and the Cell Site Manager for your area will probably confirm it, is that coverage for your area is sufficient (by their standards) with other towers, and they didn't renew their lease for the tower near your home.

If there are other service providers on the tower, it's quite possible that they are causing enough RFI to force you into roaming.....probably onto their network if you're right under the tower when it occurs.

 

[Warthog1]

Now my phone is displaying the roaming icon, with the same signal strength. I wish these guys would lose their list of canned answers, so maybe I could get some facts. Verizon used to be the top of the list of carriers around here. They were awesome...great coverage, excellent customer service, now they are almost as bad as Sprint.

 

[Warthog1]

Just got off the phone with one of those 'elevated level' technicians. Actually, this was the second time I talked with him today. I told him that now my phone says I'm roaming, but I haven't gone anywhere. NAM-1 says 1 bar, roaming.....NAM-2 says 1 bar, not roaming. I switch the phone to home system, and it says it can't find service....on auto system, there's service. All he did was ask me if I wanted to buy one of their extenders.

These phone calls to Verizon go nowhere except in circles, and there appears to be no way to contact upper management. Where the H#%%# do you go from here ?

 

[freqs]

A T & T tried to sell me a extender not going to do .I dont use mine but for emergencies I bet i dont use it more than 10 min's a month at most I only keep it because we are on a family plan and if I shut it off early it will cost me and the girlfriend says I need a cell phone ? .People act like they will die without a cell phone .These extender's look like the new gimmick to make money by the Cell phne companies.
Keep calling keep bi****** tell them you want your money back and they can stick the phone .But there is too many Cell phone pervider's so they just dont care if you move on

 

[krokus]

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.973 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Under the KISS principle, have you done a *228 and updated your phone? (I am hoping that even if you forgot, the VZW peeps asked you to try it.)

I have some friends that are in a similar situation as you. This couple had service with Alltel, and strong signal at their house, but lost that signal, after the merger.

 

[Warthog1]

Done the *228 many times as well as a hard reset of the phone. They are now sending me a new phone. Just for the heck of it, I drove from my house to the tower site road (gated), anain. I had 1 bar of service until I got within approximately 0.2 miles from the tower, then the signal went to 4 bars. I drove the same distance in every direction possible, and the signal drops off dramatically after 0.2 miles. I think their antenna is pointed at the ground.