Where did my LTE signal go? Why are so many others reporting the same thing?
jrwilk01
Newbie

I live a few miles south of Louisville, KY, about 4 miles from Mt Washington.

I have a Pantech UML290 modem. I've had service on this device since April of 2011. When I first purchased it, LTE was not available in the area, and my EVDO signal strength was pretty weak. I purchased an indoor Wilson panel antenna which did its job and got my 3g signal strength to about -85dBm, which is usable.

When LTE became available in the fall of 2011, I found I could get a better signal with the external antenna unhooked. Odd, but I didn't care since I was getting about 85dBm, and able to pull between 9-18Mbits/s down.

Everything was great till mid-May. Then the signal just went away. It isn't intermittent. I can't get an LTE connection at my house at any time of day, under any weather conditions.

Recently, I've had to lock my UML290 to EVDO because it attempts to switch to LTE but never fully connects. The service display changes to LTE, but the device never reports a signal strength/SINR.

If you read read through the forums here, and on other websites, you see many people reporting the same thing during the April-June timeframe. People in the "Extended Service" areas went from having a usable signal to none at all.

I've seen more than one post where someone mentions that they used to be able to get LTE service at least 4 miles from the tower, but now they lost signal about 2 miles away. 

It sounds like Verizon has made some type of configuration change that limited the effective range of their towers.

I wish someone from VZW would acknowledge the issue and let us know what is going on. What changed? Too many people are describing the same thing for this to be coincidence.

Would a different antenna setup + LTE signal booster help my situation, or does this have something to do with RTT between the modem and the tower?

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Re: Where did my LTE signal go? Why are so many others reporting the same thing?
wkavan02
Contributor - Level 1

The Underpants Gnomes from South Park stole your LTE.

Business Plan:

Step 1) Steal everyone's LTE signal

Step 2) ???????

Step 3) PROFIT!!!!

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Re: Where did my LTE signal go? Why are so many others reporting the same thing?
beandawg
Enthusiast - Level 2

I'm starting to think interference is the problem.I'v only had a LTE phone for three month's but I have never got more then 2 mile's away from a tower and lose connection to LTE. Extended coverage just make's Verizon look good on paper when people start to see that extended coverage is useless, VW may start to see people re-bell.

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Re: Where did my LTE signal go? Why are so many others reporting the same thing?
Not applicable

jrwilk01 wrote:

I live a few miles south of Louisville, KY, about 4 miles from Mt Washington.

I have a Pantech UML290 modem. I've had service on this device since April of 2011. When I first purchased it, LTE was not available in the area, and my EVDO signal strength was pretty weak. I purchased an indoor Wilson panel antenna which did its job and got my 3g signal strength to about -85dBm, which is usable.

When LTE became available in the fall of 2011, I found I could get a better signal with the external antenna unhooked. Odd, but I didn't care since I was getting about 85dBm, and able to pull between 9-18Mbits/s down.

Everything was great till mid-May. Then the signal just went away. It isn't intermittent. I can't get an LTE connection at my house at any time of day, under any weather conditions.

Recently, I've had to lock my UML290 to EVDO because it attempts to switch to LTE but never fully connects. The service display changes to LTE, but the device never reports a signal strength/SINR.

If you read read through the forums here, and on other websites, you see many people reporting the same thing during the April-June timeframe. People in the "Extended Service" areas went from having a usable signal to none at all.

I've seen more than one post where someone mentions that they used to be able to get LTE service at least 4 miles from the tower, but now they lost signal about 2 miles away. 

It sounds like Verizon has made some type of configuration change that limited the effective range of their towers.

I wish someone from VZW would acknowledge the issue and let us know what is going on. What changed? Too many people are describing the same thing for this to be coincidence.

Would a different antenna setup + LTE signal booster help my situation, or does this have something to do with RTT between the modem and the tower?

A) of course an antenna made for 3G would't help with 4G, they use different frequencies. That's like asking why your UHF antenna doesn't work well with VHF signals.

B) did occur to these people that Verizon is working to bring 4G to their area and that that work is what is causing signals to not appear sometimes. If you're in an extended area you close to a 4G area and thus its logical your area would be next for expansion. You need to realize these guys can't work on towers that are active. The would literally fry themselves like a hot dog in a microwave oven. That's why they don't want people to climb towers. Not so much because they are afraid of them falling. So when a tower close to you is being upgraded to 4G, guess what, it's not going to be active during that time.

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Re: Where did my LTE signal go?  Why are so many others reporting the same thing?
jrwilk01
Newbie

I've done quite a bit of research about antennas, boosters, and related topics. It is disappointing that you started off by assuming that I had not.

A) The antenna is a "Wilson Indoor Directional Panel Antenna (part# 301135). It is multi-band, and advertises about a 5dbi gain for the 700-800MhZ band. You can look up the rest of its specs by following the link.

B) I had solid LTE reception for 8 months, followed by no reception for 2 months. LTE is still available in areas closer to the tower which I believe is providing my service. I'm not sure why you think they'd have to turn off service on an existing LTE tower to bring up new service on a different tower. I could understand that logic if you were saying that I might lose 3G service while they were installing new LTE panels on an existing tower. I've never lost 3G coverage.

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Re: Where did my LTE signal go? Why are so many others reporting the same thing?
beandawg
Enthusiast - Level 2

Verizon does not want mobile device's used as home internet.That's what fusion is for.

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Re: Where did my LTE signal go?  Why are so many others reporting the same thing?
jrwilk01
Newbie

HomeFusion did launch right around the time that my 4G signal disappeared....

Are you saying that Verizon did something that caused me to lose LTE service after 8 months of solid signal at the same location?

I think you might be right, I just wish someone from VZW would address the issue.

I tried to get HomeFusion, but I was told that it was not available in the "Verizon 4G LTE Extended" territory that I'm in.

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Re: Where did my LTE signal go?  Why are so many others reporting the same thing?
beandawg
Enthusiast - Level 2

Just my opinion.Just something to think about.My problem with this extended coverage area is that it just make's Verizon look good,and is useless for people like us.I never lost signal,but I have never had signal at home and never will,the county I live in say's there will be no more tower's.

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Re: Where did my LTE signal go? Why are so many others reporting the same thing?
jrwilk01
Newbie

Verizon must love me after all.

My LTE service is back, -65dBm signal with the SINR around 12-16.

My throughput is great, around 14Mb/s down and 10 Mb/s up.

Lets hope this lasts.

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Re: Where did my LTE signal go? Why are so many others reporting the same thing?
dbw77
Enthusiast - Level 2

Hi,

So your signal was gone and no Home Fusion for 2 months, then it magically came back?

Mine was working for 1 month, from June- July, then on July 5th it disappeared.

I have had trouble tickets and interaction with many VZW tech support reps, and they still have a ticket open in the "network group" with no response. The first ticket was closed, and they told me to restart my router. (Like I didn't try that 100 times).

Anyway, I hope mine comes back soon, as it is very irritating that the signal and service worked perfectly for a month then just dropped.

How did they handle your billing for the time there was no service?

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