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Poor to no service on board aircraft at ATL(Atlanta Airport)

I recently switched to Verizon after being with Cingular/AT&T forever. In general, Verizon has provided a great experience for me and works in a number of places that I always had problems with AT&T. Once you board a plane at the Atlanta Airport you might as well turn your phone off because LTE or 3G just will not pass data. It works "ok" in the terminal but not great many times but once you're on a plane or right after you land you can forget it. I have colleagues that experience the same and my family members as well so I know it is not an issue with my phone. I see other posts regarding this same topic and I travel a lot via ATL so I wanted to ask if there was any plan in the works to attempt to resolve the issue there. AT&T would usually work on the planes and I have a T-Mobile hotspot which I get out and use while sitting at the gate which works fine. Overall, I am pretty happy with Verizon but I would expect Verizon to provide a better service at the busiest airport in the world.

Thanks!

Comments

Verizon_Support

Welcome to the Verizon Wireless Family! kennebg, I want to thank you for letting us know that you have had an enjoyable experience with us so far. We appreciate that. I also want to thank you for advising us of the opportunities we appear to have at the ATL (Atlanta Airport). I am sure that with all the signals and transmissions going on that there may be interference in your wireless signaling. I will lift up your concerns to our Engineering Team to advice of the situation. Currently, I do not have a time table for improvements, but trust that we will review the cell tower coverage and make improvements for our customer’s services in the airport.

VeronicaM_VZW

If my response answered your question please click the �Correct Answer� button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

BRECHA19

I find the same issue. There is zero coverage on the airplane on Verizon while other passengers around me are catching up on email after a long trip. I would think this would be priority at the busiest airport!! Does Verizon have a plan to address?

DCJONO

I share the same sentiments as the original post. I am very happy with Verizon service except at Atlanta Airport - especially while planes are parked at the gate. Several bars of LTE and little to no data sending/receiving. Happens on a regular basis and has been going on for several months.

TennJay

Like most, I am happy with Verizon data except at the Atlanta airport. Whether I am in a plane or in a concourse, data service ranges between very slow to doesn't work. I have noticed this more in the last year or so.

I always have good signal strength, so it has to be some type of infastructure problem. I was sitting next to a gentleman yesterday that had T-Mobile, and he was zipping through the Delta Web site. Me? I got a timeout with Delta, email, MSN.com, and CNN.com.

I see this every week at ATL, so it isn't like it is a one time rush of people.

smeech

Same thing happens to me. I travel all year for business and I am about done with Verizon. Many years ago I had an Android and thought that was the issue. I would see people using their phone with no problems on the plane parked at the gate. I then switched to iPhone and still have the problem. This problem goes back many years. About a month ago solidified my belief that Verizon is the problem. My seat was double booked. I suspected I was upgraded after I got on the flight. The flight Attendant asked me to check. I could not connect (as usual). Another passenger with AT&T and an iPhone asked me for my name to check the upgrade list and pulled it up in seconds. Verizon does not work when you are on the plane at the gate. It’s inferior to AT&T at the Atlanta Airport. Since I use that airport a lot, I’ll be switching to AT&T. If you use Atlanta airport a lot you should Switch to AT&T as well. Verizon will not make any changes and the problem will continue indefinitely. They won’t even admit they have a problem there, so don’t expect them to address it. It’s been at least 10 years that I have had this problem with both Android and IPhone. I can’t even check my mail while sitting on the plane while loading. I can‘t do any business while on the plane as it loads. Goodbye Verizon. You don’t care so I’m gone.

jproctor9

Hate to add a simple "me too" but this is past ridiculous. I've basically made the decision to switch and am now simply waiting out a contract period. VZW is great most place except my house and ATL. Worthless and aggravating at ATL. Not worth it given I see others using their phones without issue.

stef7

Great post.

Agree there should be a means to submit comm issues easily and effectively. There should not be a middle person involved for the kind of report you'd submit. Likely, the report would end up being less informative and accurate if it had to go through some help desk process with untrained staff.

They should have comm specialists handling these reports. The way they are doing this now is 180 out of phase with recognized best practice.

If the performance of their network is going to be a selling point or used as a differentiator, they need to back that up with a much much more mature process.

syrwhizzy

I hate that this happened to thousands of people today, but this underscores why this is important.

Thousands of people were stranded on planes, taking 4-6 hours to deplane, and the news covered that cellphone coverage was not working.

'It was completely pitch black' at Harstfield-Jackson Airport - CNN

"With weak cell phone service and spotty wi-fi connections..."

Now, the engineer in me knows that there's more at play on a facility wide power outage -- but -- Verizon NEEDS to offer service out on the tarmac for incidents like this, and look at hardening its cells with generators and backup batteries. In an event like this, other critical infrastructure such as the fiber and data circuits might not have been backed up either. And learning from this incident, should probably have infrastructure outside of the airport on the parameter as part of the design.

I'd be happy to consult :smileyhappy:

But seriously, something needs to be done about this. Use today's unfortunate news as a reason why Verizon can no longer ignore this issue.

boringusername

syrwhizzy wrote:
I hate that this happened to thousands of people today, but this underscores why this is important.
Thousands of people were stranded on planes, taking 4-6 hours to deplane, and the news covered that cellphone coverage was not working.
'It was completely pitch black' at Harstfield-Jackson Airport - CNN
"With weak cell phone service and spotty wi-fi connections..."
Now, the engineer in me knows that there's more at play on a facility wide power outage -- but -- Verizon NEEDS to offer service out on the tarmac for incidents like this, and look at hardening its cells with generators and backup batteries. In an event like this, other critical infrastructure such as the fiber and data circuits might not have been backed up either. And learning from this incident, should probably have infrastructure outside of the airport on the parameter as part of the design.
I'd be happy to consult
But seriously, something needs to be done about this. Use today's unfortunate news as a reason why Verizon can no longer ignore this issue.

You do get Verizon just can't put up towers anywhere at any time they want. There is a lot of red tape involved. Anytime I see anyone say "Why doesn't Verizon just put up a new tower here? They have the money" I facepalm.

Dolcean

The only thing more frustrating than the actual problem is Verizon’s total lack of empathy and constant bullbunk in reply. There have been several threads and Verizon refuses to even ACK the problem and spits out aggravating replies how airports are complex. We all get that but every other carrier has figured it out. I would just like Verizon to be upfront about the problem and say there is no solution or we will have one in 201X. But getting a response thanking me and that they will refer this to engineering just shows they really don’t care about the customer. I may move our Corporate account to another carrier.

On a different post an RF engineered explained the problem and what needs to be done, but of course no response from Verizon.

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