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03-09-2018, 06:12 PM
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#21
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: SF Bay Area
Posts: 594
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Quote:
Originally Posted by calmloki
Wifi assist claims to "Automatically use cellular data when wifi connectivity is poor". Checked and already had it switched on, but think it isn't for using wifi for phone calls. Hint: think this bit us in times past when our router shut down at night and the gal was listening to something all night using (she thought) wifi. We woke up that month to a biiiigg data charge.
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Oops, sorry for the bad suggestion. I think I was hoping for an easy fix for my own cell signal issues.
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03-09-2018, 06:53 PM
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#22
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 12,880
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuckanut
Have you confirmed that your Sweden purchased phone has the correct radio bands for the USA? Huawei makes separate phones for the USA. Some of the foreign phones may not receive all the USA bands including the faster better ones.
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Didn't confirm. That's possible.
Can someone explain this: There's only one tower that we have any chance of receiving signals from at our house. Given that, is it still possible that Lena's phone and mine are using different networks? Can different networks share the same tower?
__________________
Al
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03-09-2018, 07:01 PM
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#23
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 2,223
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The carrier is far more important than the phone in the suburbs and rural places. If you are not in a dense metropolitan area , some carriers are " sort of" on real world coverage, regardless of what the coverage maps.
In the foothill areas of so cal, Verizon works virtually everywhere , ATT works most, but not all places, Sprint and T mobil can work great on one block, and drop to useless in 500 feet.
I stay with Verizon, even at the oppressive cost due to rock solid coverage in the hillsides. They spend the money on micro cell sites where needed.
My municipal issued official work cellphone on T mobil does not work at all at mom's house in the hills. .
__________________
" A person is smart, but People are dumb, dangerous, panicky animals, and you know it " Agent "K", Men in Black
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03-09-2018, 07:04 PM
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#24
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 2,223
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TromboneAl
Didn't confirm. That's possible.
Can someone explain this: There's only one tower that we have any chance of receiving signals from at our house. Given that, is it still possible that Lena's phone and mine are using different networks? Can different networks share the same tower?
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Yes they often do, but not always.
3rd party cell site owners like Crown Castle build and maintain towers with power and landline infrastructure, then lease antenna and equipment space
on /at the tower.
__________________
" A person is smart, but People are dumb, dangerous, panicky animals, and you know it " Agent "K", Men in Black
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03-09-2018, 07:21 PM
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#25
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 1,251
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I'm not even sure that the levels of service are the same given the use of the same carrier on the same tower. BIL had service through a low cost alternative to Verizon that supposedly used the Verizon network but he was restricted to the previous generation technology. I figured this was a way for Verizon to offer different technologies at different price points.
__________________
"Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy, she'll beat you if she's able.
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet" -- The Eagles, Desperado
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03-09-2018, 07:24 PM
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#26
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 35,712
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Yes. It is very common for a tower to host antennas for different networks. The tower, the base building, and the support equipment are owned by a company neutral to all carriers. Besides Crown Castle, American Tower is another such company.
Carriers used to have their own towers and base buildings. Then, they changed their business model, and divest of this asset type to companies like American Tower, which then will host multiple carriers. It's more economically efficient.
The image below shows 3 levels of antennas, for 3 different networks.
If T-Al and his wife are on the same contract/same carrier, then they should be on the same network.
__________________
"Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man" -- Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)
"Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities Can Make You Commit Atrocities" - Voltaire (1694-1778)
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03-09-2018, 07:27 PM
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#27
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Colorado Mountains
Posts: 3,165
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lakewood90712
The carrier is far more important than the phone in the suburbs and rural places. If you are not in a dense metropolitan area , some carriers are " sort of" on real world coverage, regardless of what the coverage maps.
In the foothill areas of so cal, Verizon works virtually everywhere , ATT works most, but not all places, Sprint and T mobil can work great on one block, and drop to useless in 500 feet.
I stay with Verizon, even at the oppressive cost due to rock solid coverage in the hillsides. They spend the money on micro cell sites where needed.
My municipal issued official work cellphone on T mobil does not work at all at mom's house in the hills. .
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I recently switched from Verizon to Boom Mobile which uses Verizon towers. It is about half the cost of Verizon and works just like Verizon. They even have US operators.
There is no cell service where I live. I use Google Voice and Hangouts over a satellite internet connection. It is certainly not the best, but I can make and receive calls which sometimes is important.
My son-in-law has a Nexus phone and gets better reception on T-Mobile than DD on Verizon most of the time including out here in the boondocks.
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03-09-2018, 08:06 PM
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#28
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Syracuse
Posts: 3,502
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TromboneAl
Didn't confirm. That's possible.
Can someone explain this: There's only one tower that we have any chance of receiving signals from at our house. Given that, is it still possible that Lena's phone and mine are using different networks? Can different networks share the same tower?
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Yes. Many towers are independently owned and lease space to the carriers, so individual towers can support many carriers. I think if you are both on the same carrier, her phone is better at receiving a marginal signal.
For example, at one place an iPhone using VZ network could not reach the network while the MotoG phone on the same network had three bars.
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03-26-2018, 01:15 PM
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#29
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 12,880
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Update: We bought a Samsung Galaxy Express 3 with a SIM from H2OWirelessNow.com. I was hoping that that phone would happen to have better coverage than my phone.
It does NOT have coverage in our house. IOW, its coverage is like my H2OWireless phone.
So, we'll send that back.
__________________
Al
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03-28-2018, 05:04 PM
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#30
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 568
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IIRC Tracfone CDMA uses Verizon, we verified that at the time we switched to them (about 4 yrs ago). We also verified we were well within the "strong" footprinnt of a nearby Verizon tower. Absolutely no connection problems, although personally I have cell phone audio quality (too compressed).
Our SimpliSafe alarm also uses Verizon CDMA with no problems. GSM coverage is very poor in our city.
_B
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Cell Phone Signal Strength Varies With Phones?
03-28-2018, 05:09 PM
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#31
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Oct 2017
Posts: 717
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Cell Phone Signal Strength Varies With Phones?
At one time when we were on Verizon years ago, we had to manually update our phones periodically to recognize any new towers added to the network. I think we had to dial *228 or maybe *226. Usually once we updated our reception was better...
__________________
Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought... - Bernard Baruch
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03-28-2018, 05:12 PM
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#32
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Independence
Posts: 7,297
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WestUniversity
At one time when we were on Verizon years ago, we had to manually update our phones periodically to recognize any new towers added to the network. I think we had to dial *228 or maybe *226. Usually once we updated our reception was better...
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Is the same thing accomplished by going to airplane mode then out to force a search for a new signal? I was just doing that with my old iPhone 5S with only one bar showing. On AT&T BTW
__________________
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." Dalai Lama
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Cell Phone Signal Strength Varies With Phones?
03-28-2018, 05:15 PM
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#33
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Oct 2017
Posts: 717
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Cell Phone Signal Strength Varies With Phones?
If I remember correctly for Verizon CDMA phones, dialing that code actually updated the programming in the phone. Their system would actually walk you through some prompts and then let you know when it was finished with the update...
__________________
Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought... - Bernard Baruch
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03-29-2018, 02:20 PM
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#34
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Oct 2017
Posts: 717
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I found this post on a Verizon support site...
“I want to ensure you are able to update your towers with the latest PRL (Preferred Roaming list). If you have a 3G device, you would need to dial *228. As tikibar1 mentioned, on 4G LTE devices, the PRL is updated with your SIM card. To ensure you have the latest PRL, you can power your phone off and remove/reinsert the SIM card once a month or so.”
Hopefully that helps...
__________________
Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought... - Bernard Baruch
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03-30-2018, 08:31 AM
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#35
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 115
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It may be a function of what frequency your phone and carrier are using. The Tracfone network is 3G and only uses 900 & 1800 MHz. H2O wireless uses 850 and 900 Mhz for 3G so by elimination, it is likely that your tracfone phone is using 900 MHz on the H2O wireless network. Are your smart phones are trying to use 4G or LTE? These are higher frequencies, are more easily blocked, and don't have as good coverage.
Also, not all antennas are created equal. Some phones just have better reception than others.
When I was looking to improve my reception, I found this summary of things to do. https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/blo...-phone-signal/
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