Cellular Experts, I Need Your Help..............

[Ductape]

I'd talk to Sprint again and tell them I'm not happy with the service, and that I am looking for another provider.


Are you phones modern? The reason I ask is some just work on certain frequencies while others work on the newer ones also.

Both our phones are current 4G smart phones. Mine is a Samsung, my wife's a Motorola.

Last I talked to Sprint before Christmas they (once again) told me they had a service ticket out for my area and it would be completed by the 27th, so my service would be back to normal by the 28th..... which it isn't. I'll have to drive to where I can pick up another tower and call to complain again, since I can't do it from home.

 

[k0ua]

Cell towers are owned by wireless carriers, but they buy their service connection from or thru the ILEC (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier) in the area. Towers now a days are usually fiber fed from the ILEC, due to the bandwidth needed but a tower out in the country could be fed by by something as small as a single T-1 or several bonded T-1's. In your case Fairpoint is the ILEC, and has nothing to do with the tower, or the radio's or antennas on the tower.. They are responsible for getting the bandwidth to the towers equipment. Thru their equipment and either copper lines or fiber lines. Most people think that when they are making a Cell call they are bypassing the "phone company". NOT so, you are contributing to the local phone company's revenue. not in the form of analog voice communication. But in the form of Digital Data bandwidth, which almost all of the local phone company's (ILECS) are losing voice lines and gaining data connections and constantly increasing bandwidth to cell towers.


here is some info on Fairpoint

FairPoint Communications - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James K0UA

 

[PhilY]

After I saw that you said you have had your phone for 8 years, it got me thinking about software updates, too. If you don't have the latest, you could have troubles. If you pull the battery out, wait 10 secs for the capacitors to discharge, and when you power it up, it will check for updates and do its thing and sometimes completely in the background. However, as you said, if its only around this one tower, I would agree that its a specific tower issue. I think this is backed up by the fact your wife is having the same issues with her phone. Due to this, you may be up a creek until something gets changed. Sorry...hope they can do something for you.

 

[EarPlug]

On your phone under Setting, there should be a place to find out the Signal Strength. If you can't find it Sprint tech support should be able to help you. The number should be able to tell you if the tower is actually operating.

 

[kennyd]

Cell towers are owned by wireless carriers, but they buy their service connection from or thru the ILEC (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier) in the area. Towers now a days are usually fiber fed from the ILEC, due to the bandwidth needed but a tower out in the country could be fed by by something as small as a single T-1 or several bonded T-1's. In your case Fairpoint is the ILEC, and has nothing to do with the tower, or the radio's or antennas on the tower.. They are responsible for getting the bandwidth to the towers equipment. Thru their equipment and either copper lines or fiber lines. Most people think that when they are making a Cell call they are bypassing the "phone company". NOT so, you are contributing to the local phone company's revenue. not in the form of analog voice communication. But in the form of Digital Data bandwidth, which almost all of the local phone company's (ILECS) are losing voice lines and gaining data connections and constantly increasing bandwidth to cell towers.


here is some info on Fairpoint

FairPoint Communications - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James K0UA

Most of that is 100% correct James, I work for a very large communications company that has the initials of VZ (not VZW however). I main job is working at cell sites, installing and maintaining FO (fiber optic) cable and mux's (digital multiplexers)-in other words the "ILEC" in your description. We provide high speed "landlines" or "back-haul" circuits for various cell carriers like Verizon Wireless, ATT, Sprint, T-Mobile, Cricket, Nextel (now pretty much all those site are off-air and abandoned now). We provide T1's (not used much anymore), TLS (ATT and some Sprint) and GIGE (VZW) services.

The one thing I will disagree with is that at least in this area, MOST cell towers are owned by a third party that just build and lease space on towers, around here there is American Tower Corporation (called ATC) and Crown Castle International, they own probably 80% of the sites/towers between them. They pay the property owner, secure right-of-ways and easements, negotiate 24/7 access, and lease ground and tower space to the carrier. Some carriers do pay building owners, like churches and farmers directly for putting antennas in steeples or on silo's. On most towers, there are multiple carries.

Ductape: Sprint has very few "technicians" that actually work for them, most are contractors that are probably not getting paid enough to troubleshoot crazy problems like this. I suspect one of two things are happening:
1) Your signal is "to strong", meaning that the receiver is getting overpowered. Ever mess with CB's in the old days?
2) You are suffering some the "umbrella" effect, meaning that the signal is going over your house and missing you completely-I have seen/experienced this myself while at cell sites. But looking at the picture, and base on the fact that you have full signal strength I doubt this is the cause.

 

[k0ua]

Most of that is 100% correct James, I work for a very large communications company that has the initials of VZ (not VZW however). I main job is working at cell sites, installing and maintaining FO (fiber optic) cable and mux's (digital multiplexers)-in other words the "ILEC" in your description. We provide high speed "landlines" or "back-haul" circuits for various cell carriers like Verizon Wireless, ATT, Sprint, T-Mobile, Cricket, Nextel (now pretty much all those site are off-air and abandoned now). We provide T1's (not used much anymore), TLS (ATT and some Sprint) and GIGE (VZW) services.

The one thing I will disagree with is that at least in this area, MOST cell towers are owned by a third party that just build and lease space on towers, around here there is American Tower Corporation (called ATC) and Crown Castle International, they own probably 80% of the sites/towers between them. They pay the property owner, secure right-of-ways and easements, negotiate 24/7 access, and lease ground and tower space to the carrier. Some carriers do pay building owners, like churches and farmers directly for putting antennas in steeples or on silo's. On most towers, there are multiple carries.

Ductape: Sprint has very few "technicians" that actually work for them, most are contractors that are probably not getting paid enough to troubleshoot crazy problems like this. I suspect one of two things are happening:
1) Your signal is "to strong", meaning that the receiver is getting overpowered. Ever mess with CB's in the old days?
2) You are suffering some the "umbrella" effect, meaning that the signal is going over your house and missing you completely-I have seen/experienced this myself while at cell sites. But looking at the picture, and base on the fact that you have full signal strength I doubt this is the cause.

Cool, but when I When I referenced "tower" I did not really mean the structure. People just use the term "tower" to refer to a cell site. Yes I knew that most of the tower installations were owned by others. Most people, unless they are into the business or just really curious have no idea how a cell "tower" operates, or what equipment is in them, and a lot of people don't even fully understand how many radio transceivers are even in the little Hershey bar shaped thing in their hand that they now call a "smartphone". I can think of 3 right off the bat. The CDMA or TDMA or GSM transciever, the WIFI and the blu-tooth.. Not to mention the GPS receiver. And for all I know there may be more. And that does not even cover the full duplex speakerphone, the Linux computer, the accelerometer, compass, Camera with flash, Huge LCD display with touch screen, Memory storage.. on and on ad-nauseam.. How do they get it all in there? I work for Windstream, but have nothing to do with that part of the business now. But I do know this, when I was involved in some ways with getting backhaul to various places, Cell towers were the biggest and ever growing consumer of broadband. 1 Gig was becoming common to take to a tower.. And I haven't been involved with this in a while.

James K0UA

 

[MRSDOUGLAS]

I've been with AT&T for 20 years. Two weeks ago I ported to Verizon. AT&T just wasn't working for me any more when at work or at our place in the country. My home service deteriorated as well. No technical answers but if one carrier isn't working where you need it to, see if anyone in that area has better service with another carrier. My phone now works where I need it to.

 

[jinjimbob]

If Sprint is reducing coverage, and was no longer servicing this tower, how would I have full signal strength in my livingroom?

Sprint (who bought Nextel years ago) and Nextel are one and the same company.
Sprint is shutting down the older Nextel iDEN network in 6 months, not to save money, but to reuse the 800 Mhz frequency spectrum.
They have already reduced the number of iDen only towers in the country as the number of users has declined over the years, not as many needed.

Sprint's (CDMA-3G and LTE-4G) network is in the 1900 Mhz spectrum, they are shutting down Nextel to add the 800 Mhz spectrum to the CDMA network now and over the next year, eventually adding LTE (4G) to the 800 Mhz band too.

Why does this matter to you and me? Well the 800 Mhz frequency can penetrate buildings walls and structures about 3 times as far as the 1900 Mhz frequency, which gives much better coverage indoors.
No other cell company will have that quality, apart from SouthernLinc.

Since Sprint is also buying (and owns over half it right now) Clearwire outright, over the next few years they are also adding LTE-4G to the 2500 and 2600 Mhz spectrums, to handle the increasing data usages of current and new users.

Once Sprint has bought Clearwire next year, they will will have more spectrum than any other cell company. http://gigaom.com/mobile/heres-why-sprint-offered-2-1b-to-buy-the-rest-of-clearwire/
Maybe your location is included in this transition right now.

Hope this clears things up. For more info see this site. Network Vision/LTE Deployment Running List - Sprint 4G Rollout Updates

Sprint and other cell companies buy their data connection (back haul) to the cell towers from all companies which includes local phone companies, Comcast and other cable companies, microwave, fibre, anyone that sells it in the area.

 

[edlegault]

I also have been a long time Sprint user (10+ years). Where we live now (7 years), our Sprint service has actually deteriorated over the last couple years. Don't know if it is because a local cell is out of order or because of more users on the system. I just know it leaves much to be desired.

I have had to call Sprint service many times and politely insist on speaking with someone higher up the management chain. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Again, the open cell tower ticket for something "wrong" or "needs to be upgraded". What I have noticed is a sort of correlation between our service getting worse after a major storm, like a hurricane or tornadoes, in OTHER parts of the country. I always suspected Sprint was cannibalizing equipment here to get other cell areas going.

Until recently I had a Blackberry phone on Sprint. Lots of problems between Blackberry/Rim and Sprint. Changed last summer to an Android phone on Sprint. Kinda wish I had kept my Blackberry. Lots of problems with the Android phone. Even found a bug with the built-in calculator. Showed the service technicians. they blamed it on the Android operating system. could be, but I am not happy. Thinking about going to a simple pre-paid Tracfone or something like that.

 

[Ductape]

Ductape: Sprint has very few "technicians" that actually work for them, most are contractors that are probably not getting paid enough to troubleshoot crazy problems like this. I suspect one of two things are happening:
1) Your signal is "to strong", meaning that the receiver is getting overpowered. Ever mess with CB's in the old days?
2) You are suffering some the "umbrella" effect, meaning that the signal is going over your house and missing you completely-I have seen/experienced this myself while at cell sites. But looking at the picture, and base on the fact that you have full signal strength I doubt this is the cause.

If I may ask you to elaborate in laymans terms...................

1) If I were getting overpowered, wouldn't I have been getting overpowered 6 months ago, a year ago? Perhaps I'm not getting it, but as I stated earlier, nothing has changed here other than the service has all of a sudden deteriorated within the past 60 days. I am using the same phone I was using a year ago. (my wife the same phone as a year and a half ago)

2) As far as umbrella effect, same question. Is there a reason I might have it now, when my service has always worked very well at home in the past (7 years)?

It seems as though no one I've talked to at sprint knows anymore about their own system than I do (which isn't much). I suppose I was hoping I might figure out what would cause my service to deteriorate overnight so that they could better inform whomever it is that is doing their service work. As far is the Nextel being dropped, I'm on the old Sprint (originally Sprint PCS), not nextel..... as is my wife.

I agree that I may end up with no other choice but to leave Sprint for another carrier (likely Verizon), but was hoping this could be resolved. No doubt starting over will require a two year service contract, etc. As I said, we have had some issues in the past, but in the end they made me feel like a valued customer (as much as any company that size can). There is a reason I've been with them 15 years..... 13 as a customer at will.

Thanks for the help......