Blackberry Bold 9650 Dropping Calls When Driving
jcioban1
Newbie

Have a new BB Bold 9650 (6/10/2010) and have HUGE problem with dropped calls in zones where my 8830 never had issue. Lost calls 12 times between Brookfield, CT and White Plains, NY yesterday. Phone is useless if you are a mobile user. Software update seems to be at my current level, but may try that. Went into store yesterday and spoke to the flextronics Contract Service Tech who said, "Gee that's the first I heard of that. Or, wait, there was a women here about 1/2 hour ago with a similar complaint. But there is still nothing I can do. Maybe you can call RIM."

 

Phone seems to have problem on tower-to-tower handoffs. Right now, STRONGLY recommend that users be cautious about 9650 until someone at VZW acknowledges what is happening here. Look at signal strength indicator in car and it is bouncing all over. Yesterday got "SOS" indicator in downtown Danbury which is a normal strong (5 bar) signal area.

 

Unless someone at Verizon helps, this junk is headed back to the store....

 

I love Verizon (customer since the company became Verizon in 1999), but this is maddening and makes me think about getting an iPhone. Heck, can't work any worse than this device. 

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Re: Blackberry Bold 9650 Dropping Calls When Driving
StreetDocRN
Champion - Level 1

Hi,

 

Just to update, I received an answer from someone at Verizon Wireless.  It was the usual "try a reboot, battery pull" response.  They also replied that there is no "known" issue with the OS 6 software.  I half-expected a response like this, but will keep trying to get a response that will give some sort of satisfaction to the affected users. 

 

Doc

 

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Re: Blackberry Bold 9650 Dropping Calls When Driving
bosslady85
Specialist - Level 1

Try dialing *228 send and option 2 to update your phone to the nearest towers. This normally helps with the drop calls.  Hope this helps! :smileyhappy:

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Re: Blackberry Bold 9650 Dropping Calls When Driving
jcioban1
Newbie

Last week, I had an AM in NYC and  PM appointment in Boston, which was traveled by car. Are you suggesting this as a routine???  And why suddenly do I need to do this on the NEW device when I did not do this with an older, "less cool" 8830. Does the radio in the Blackberry Bold 9650 suck?

 

As you can tell, I am not happy that I am getting no info or band-aid fixes. I will try this later today when driving, but I am questioning the *228 thing since it seems geographically-focused and this is a movement/migration/handoff issue (or just a really bad radio issue) IMHO.

 

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Re: Blackberry Bold 9650 Dropping Calls When Driving
jcioban1
Newbie

BTW...I am a reasonable person and will do whatever is recommended. In the end, I just need a phone that works. :smileyindifferent:

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Re: Blackberry Bold 9650 Dropping Calls When Driving
bosslady85
Specialist - Level 1

Anytime you are traveling to a different state other than the place the phone was activated, it is good to update your PRL, so that you can hit the latest towers in the area you are traveling.  The PRL update should be done at least every 30 days, even if you are in the same location, because PRL's are updated quite often.

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Re: Blackberry Bold 9650 Dropping Calls When Driving
pettis63
Newbie

I have been having the same problems!!!  I've tried everything from *228, resetting the unit taking the battery out and nothing!!  I am really disappointed with this phone!!  I had never had a problem with the blackberry curve 1, except for going through 6 of them because the buttons wouldn't work after 2-4 weeks of having it and then I couldn't access anything!!  Why can't Verizon fix this problem....if the older bb aren't having the problem why should the newer ones do??

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Re: Blackberry Bold 9650 Dropping Calls When Driving
jcioban1
Newbie

I did all the *228 stuff as well. No impact. The Bold 9650 phone either has a serious wireless radio or antenna issue, or a serious bug in tower-to-tower handoffs.

 

For me it is time to ratchet up the noise on some other bulletin boards. Obviously Verizon does not want too much noise about this, but there is clearly an issue. I have had 3 different Blackberry phones, as well as numerous other cell phones through the years and never had a phone perform this poorly while traveling. I use my phone over 2000 minutes a month, so I am not a casual home user...

 

Again, it is fine as long as you are standing still in a coverage zone. It just cannot travel more than about 20 miles without dropping. It is the perfect "Immobile Phone." Between Danbury and Hartford, CT yesterday, I dropped out 5 times while on Interstate roads (on back roads it was unusable...).

 

I am within my 30 day return period, but the options are pretty lousy if you want to have a phone that works internationally. Sprint and AT&T have better phones, but weaker networks. No good options IMHO.

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Re: Blackberry Bold 9650 Dropping Calls When Driving
Hard
Newbie

So im not crazy i noticed the same problem on my phone since i have changed to this blackberry i think i have got more dropped calls in 1 day then i have in my 6 years of being on verizon network.. i even switched the phone and same problems as im driving it keeps killing calls i must have dropped over 50 calls in the past 2 weeks, some important calls for vendors. i notice that the bars keep resetting themselves then i get the SOS at times.... VERIZON what is the issue here..........

we need a fix ASAP

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Re: Blackberry Bold 9650 Dropping Calls When Driving
jed1894
Newbie

I have the Tour (same basic phone) that does the same thing.  

 

 

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Re: Blackberry Bold 9650 Dropping Calls When Driving
bosslady85
Specialist - Level 1

Try dialing *228 send and option 1 to re-program the phone.  I checked for outages or signal issues.  I was unable to find any.   If the re-programming does not work, I would recommend you contact our Tech Support department for further trouble shooting.   HTH!

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