San Francisco LTE Awful at Market & Fremont

[scottv31]

The LTE signal at Market and Fremont and surrounding areas is really weak.  I get faster download speeds on 3G, but who wants to keep turning LTE off and on.  Not to mention the weak signal kills my battery life.  Anyone else in the vicinity have this issue.

Verizon - if you're listening, boost the signal or do something to improve the network traffic.  There is an AT&T store on this corner and I'm sure they'd be happy to know they have you beat at least in this area.

[slamtilt]

I just submitted my ticket...ending with 8763.  Is that the same (possibly global ticket) as yours or different?

The Support Rep was nice and courteous, but i had to jump through the hoops:

- how many bars check

- turn off wi-fi

- data roaming on

- shut off the phone - did something on their side

- same issue

- Did a network reset

- same issue

I was offered a couple options, utilize my 14 day worry free guarantee or submit a ticket. 

After seeing this forum and having co-workers on iPhones and Android devices experiencing the same issue...we know it is not the devices.

Have your co-workers submit tickets and post on this forum. 

[whootang12]

I learned today that my ticket never got opened, despite them saying they would do so and then email me the ticket #'s.  Called back today and spoke with a very helpful rep who seems to have finally taken ownership of these issues.  She opened a new ticket for me and we'll see what they say.

In other news, Verizon finally acknowledged an issue in this forum post!  https://community.verizonwireless.com/message/1004741#1004741

Hi wootang12,

We certainly appreciate the details relating to your service. Having the best speeds is definitely important. Upon review of the area I do show that our engineers are aware of data speed issues in your location. We're currently investigating the issue and evaluating improvement locations for the data issues at hand, thanks!

MatthewS_VZW

VZW Support

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSUPPORT

[tmcd6257]

I work on Fremont Street between Market and Mission...joined the firm about a month ago and have been experiencing the same issues that are being discussed here. I have no idea to run a diagnostics test but I can affirm that there is a massive issue with the service in this area.

I walk home towards Russian Hill everyday and it's not until I cross over Pine Street that any of my service appears to come back to a reasonable speed. Wanted to chime in say that I have similar issues...

[slamtilt]

I think I know why the battery life on my brand new 5s is worse than my 4.

Settings > Cellular > Enable LTE > OFF 

Full 3G Bars

[slamtilt]

Looks like their problem is just bandwidth with this area. Look how slow it gets once everyone starts getting to work.  For being such a popular area, you would think they would have addressed it a long time ago.  It is unusable and the constant struggle to use the network just drains the battery. 

Here are my test results:

LTE 4G

7:30 AM 10/2  - 50ms ping,  9.74 down, 6.59 up

8:00 AM 10/2  - 48ms ping,  7.25 down, 3.16 up

8:30 AM 10/2  - 65ms ping,  1.54 down, 0.09 up

9:00 AM 10/2  - 129ms ping, 0.90 down, 0.01 up

9:30 AM 10/2  - 696ms ping, 0.39 down, 0.00 up

10:00 AM 10/2 - 298ms ping, 0.26 down, 0.00 up

After I turn off my 4G LTE and go back down to 3G:

10:00 AM 10/2 - 65ms ping,0.17 down, .013 up

*This is on par with my 3G service I received on my iPhone 4, barely mediocre at best, but at least it was steady.

I can only imagine as all of their 4/4S customers start receiving their 5S phones through October and November, there is going to be more issues and more impact.

[whootang12]

We aren't doing anything fancy, just visit http://www.speedtest.net/ and download the app for free.

[kickback]

I can't even get past the ping on speedtest.net. This sucks -- CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

[t2mobile]

Whootang

Once again LTE OR even 3g has been useless in 94117. I called tonite and was informed that they are aware of the issue but there's still no ETA on it being fixed. I was told that I could cancel without ETF. I cancelled my jetpack ast month and was informed that there would be no ETF. However there was an ETF charge that showed up on my bill. Still working on getting that one removed. It's obvious that Verizon knows about these issues in high density areas. The more people that know about this the better. I hope Verizon is making the fiancial community aware of these issues since it will certainly impact growth.

[whootang12]

I was told on the phone today that they were "tuning" and setting up cell sites in the area and expected to make progress by the end of the month.  I'm not holding my breath.  t2mobile, I'm curious when you bought your devices?  I am out of my 14 day window, but just got a 5s.  I think my ETF would be like $450, not sure they would let me get away with that?  It seems AT&T has much better coverage in SF from what I can see, although once I leave a city I'm sure I'll be cursing myself for not having Verizon.

[t2mobile]

I bought my jetpack (now drink coaster) in April of 2012. I did  receive the credit of the ETF last month already for that.(I misread the bill) However I was offered the option tonight  to cancel my droid DNA phone with no ETF since its a known problem in the area with no specifics on the dates for resolving. I bought the Droid DNA last December. I decided not to for now since my wife's phone is tied to mine. They will definitely will push back more on a newer IPhone since they're in the hole for more $$ on those. However based on the principal that the data  service doesn't work and as far as we know will not be working anytime soon where we are should be enough. Even if you need to go to the Verizon store directly. I'd bring in all the sample speed tests as well. The reality is that even 3G speeds don't work. It's not like I'm complaining about only getting 800kbps or 1Mb. The problem is 8 out of 10 times I'm getting nothing or less than 500kbps

[gigadrill]

I also work at Market and Fremont and mobile data service is abysmal in the entire area -- indoors, outdoors, sidedoors

[slamtilt]

LTE started working well for about a week, translated as...I was getting sub-par 3G, but better than 0.00 speeds for about a week. (Oct 7-14)  I actually thought they were addressing the problem.

After that, LTE went back to crap and has stayed there.

As of right now, I get -1ms pings, 0.00down/0.00up speeds on OOKLA while on LTE.  Yay! 

I have to turn off LTE at work now.  My 3G at least gives me 133ms pings, .57down/.26up speeds which means I can send/receive something barely reliably.

[whootang12]

I got my iPhone 5s in September and was really surprised at how spotty the network was in SF.  My home in the Inner Sunset neighborhood had zero LTE coverage.  I just noticed this weekend that things have changed, so at least we know Verizon is actively making changes (way to go!).  I still have lots of issues at Market and Beale though; at the heart of the downtown area and LTE barely functions.  Oddly if I go underground into the Embarcardero train stop I get 5 bars.  Just nothing on the street level.

Verizon, any updates on fixing this area?  It'd be great if you took some credit for changes you are making, at least we know our complaints are being actively addressed (and most of us will recognize that you can't fix everything at once).

[whootang12]

This is likely our issue, published yesterday:

Verizon Wireless's chief financial officer Fran Shammo said today that customers are seeing lower data speeds due to "capacity constraints" in big cities, a rare admission for the carrier.

The rapid growth of data usage is outpacing infrastructure in cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, Shammo said at a conference today.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/12/5097454/verizons-wireless-network-is-straining-under-demand-in-bi...

[slamtilt]

Saw this report today on CNET.  Mobile broadband carriers in data hungry metropolitan cities over-promising their services?  If only they could have seen this coming!  They must be the first carrier to ever experience this type of demand right? 

[Ann154]

slamtilt wrote:

Saw this report today on CNET.  Mobile broadband carriers in data hungry metropolitan cities over-promising their services?  If only they could have seen this coming!  They must be the first carrier to ever experience this type of demand right? 

This type of demand maybe for the LTE network. For years though AT&T often had complaints about dropped calls and texts with the quality so bad at major events one would be lucky to get a text message through.

[lester537]

Has anyone received any responses on the trouble tickets that they opened for Market/Fremont? I opened another ticket last week and haven't heard back anything. I'm about to demand that they cancel my contract because I'm paying for a useless service and my complaints are not getting any response. I should have stuck with AT&T service. They are getting blazing fast download speeds at Market/Fremont.

[whootang12]

I've heard nothing.  My experience with the trouble tickets is they close them and don't tell the user who opened them that they closed them or a final status.  I went through about 3 cycles of opening a ticket and not hearing anything before calling them to learn the ticket was closed and everything was reported as "working okay".  That's when I gave up on opening new tickets.

[vzw_customer_support]

We would never want to lose your business lester537! What is your zip code? What make and model device are you using? We are happy to review the area with our system performance team to see what has been reported.

JonathanK_VZW
VZW Support
Follow Us on Twitter@VZWSupport

[slamtilt]

Verizon quietly unleashes its LTE monster, tripling 4G capacity in major cities

http://gigaom.com/2013/12/05/verizon-quietly-unleashes-its-lte-monster-tripling-4g-capacity-in-major...

"In the commercial corridors of major cities like New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Seattle and Washington, D.C.. Verizon has tripled its LTE capacity by tapping new airwaves, while in downtown San Francisco and Los Angeles it’s boosted capacity by 150 percent. "

“You could see 80 Mbps today and 20 Mbps tomorrow and then 10 Mbps the next day,” she said.

Hopefully we can get over 1 Mbps in the commercial corridor of our referenced major city.

[gendudr]

Union Square - terrible!! Dropped calles and my iPhone shows LTE while it take FOREVER for anything to load. They really are taxed in SF though happy to take your money while delivering a sub-par network in SF. Sad. Maybe time to check out TMobile.