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Indoor coverage - Not very impressed!

Hi guys,

So I've been a VZW customer for about 1 week now and have been testing the service before porting my personal number from another carrier, AT&T.

I will mention that I live in NYC and so the Voice and 4G LTE coverage here is supposed to be great. But at times it's very less to be desired, and I'm hoping someone here can help to better the experience or provide some info on why certain things happen.

Firstly, let me start with voice calls. They do not sound crystal clear like my experience on ATT, but it's understandable and it doesn't really bother me. However, what does bug me is that while on a call (and I've seen this happen when the signal gets weaker or when surrounded by buildings) likes to chop up slightly. If I step on a main road however, like in the Bronx area (zip 10453), the service is fine.

Secondly and what really bothers me is the 4G LTE service. Outside of my home, I can have 3-4 bars of service, but my service is fast, so I'm not bothered. However, when I step inside my building, it goes right down to 2 bars. On ATT, I have 4 bars LTE indoors. I was also around midtown manhattan (zip: 10001) area and when I stepped into a store, my 4G LTE service went down to 1X!! Huh? How does the service go from 5 bars LTE service to 1X when I'm in a strong area, albeit in a store. The worst part was it wasn't even usable. Now I compared this to my other device on ATT and that phone stayed on LTE and didn't even flinch.

How can this happen on the No. 1 carrier in the nation? How is it that ATT, the No. 2 seems to do better indoors and have better crystal clear, landline sounding calls? How can this be improved? I'm looking forward in working with you to resolve this and better the experience.

Comments

wildcat2

I shall also mention that I've tried the following steps:

1) replaced the SIM card

2) reset the network settings on my iPhone

3) tried the sim in another iPhone (VZW branded/certified)

4) restores my phone via iTunes

Looking forward to solving this.

veryfrustrated0118

Welcome to our community help forum. The responses you will get are from others VZW customers like yourself. I am NOT a VZW employee.

I travel to New York frequently and experience no issues. In fact, I was at Madison Square Garden for a sold out concert and experience no problems with my service.

It does not sound like switching to Verizon is right for your specific needs. I can tell you from experience that VZW cannot guarantee service inside any structure. There are just too many factors that contribute to signal strength inside of buildings. In my previous home my AT&T phone worked perfectly but not my VZW phone. However, just yesterday, (and on other occasions) I witnessed my VZW service work better in an area where friends' various other carriers fell very short. VZW is a CDMA network and AT&T is GSM. They transmit on different "frequencies". So in some cases one may work better than another inside of different structures.

I would suggest that, if you simply can't bear with the service you receive from VZW in the places you live, work and play, you should return your device ($35 restocking fee will apply) and cancel the service if you are inside the 14 return/exchange period. You will also be responsible for paying for cellular and data services for the time you were using this phone. I don't usually suggest this but there is not a one size fits all wireless carrier.

wildcat2

Thanks for the reply!

I know this is a peer to peer forum but I do see some reps answering here from time to time so I was hoping maybe one would see this and maybe pass on the feedback or something.

I wasn't in MSG, but I was actually I the Macy's store which is right near there and that's where the service deteriorated. I know that the carriers use different frequencies but I would expect New York to be a very strong market, which should have no issues indoors for the most part, but the network is picky I guess?

I was also hoping maybe there was something I didn't try that someone could suggest. Cause I'm not sure what else to do to try to troubleshoot.

veryfrustrated0118

The thing is that in a lot of stores in NY some parts are underground and we may not realize it. Expecially in a place like Macy's.

Getting an in-depth replay within your 14 day period from a rep on these forums is going to be close to impossible.

wildcat2

Hm well yeah I would understand if I were on the basement level, but I was on the main floor (where the entrance and exit is) and the signal just kept getting weaker to the point the internet couldn't be used.

I wasn't sure if they could fix within the 14 day period, I was more hoping someone could like idk put a request for checking the area or maybe add more lower frequency towers etc. just something in particular

MAD21

Ya know...this is getting silly. If you cannot.get.adequate coverage at.home or work, get a $5 a month plan from republic wireless.and use your Wi-Fi while.at home or work or.shopping or getting.coffee. …It 100% coverage.

jaket85

The issue with Verizon not doing as well in buildings can be because of a couple of factors. The first one has already been discussed regarding what spectrum licenses they are operating on in the area. Rule of thumb is the lower the spectrum band, the better building penetration the signal will have. One would think that due to the fact Verizon has the lowest band spectrum (700 mhz) available for their LTE network nationwide that they should be super reliable indoors; however, we are finding in many areas this is not the case.

That brings us to the second variable in quality coverage: tower spacing. Due to the fact that Verizon operated a CDMA network for so many years on the CLR 850 mhz spectrum band, it allowed them to construct around half of the towers that AT&T and other competitors needed at the time. Once again, Verizon had the best spectrum available for distance/penetration. They also used CDMA for their network technology, which by nature, the signal carries much further and it can operate with less signal strength due to towers being able to use soft handoffs compared to AT&T and other networks using GSM technology which can't do soft handoffs and is what led to the AT&T dropped call fiasco. When signal strength would drop below a certain level on GSM and it didn't have another tower to connect to with good service it would just drop (GSM carriers needed more towers back then), where as Verizon's CDMA phones could be milking low signal off of 4 or 5 towers and send pieces of a conversation to each to then be reconstructed before reaching the other party's phone (sorry I know really technical). This combination is what allowed Verizon to be so reliable back in the 1x and 3g days, and also what helped them cover those super remote areas where the other carriers went to no service.

Fast forward to today and the LTE age: LTE is an evolution of GSM technology for lack of a better description. It's not the exact same network architecture but it works similarly to how GSM used to carry data and requires more towers due to signal not traveling as far. This is why AT&T offers better in building coverage. They have tower spacing that is closer together due to their GSM network than what Verizon had to have with CDMA. This has left Verizon in need of adding more sites. Time will tell if they will step up to the plate and fill in some much needed infrastructure, but I would say there is a good chance they will, it will just take time. They have ridden on the coat tails of being so reliable for years, I just can't see them leaving their tower spacing too far apart. Also, with the addition of Voice over LTE having debuted, it is clear that it is Verizon's goal to shut down their 3G and 1X networks which would mean they would have to have blanket/reliable LTE coverage indoors so people could make calls. Side note: I think that they have taken the first step to correcting their sparse tower spacing with announcing that they are looking to sell a lot of their tower sites to a third party. This would allow them to pull equipment and relocate to new towers and/or additional towers and basically re-map their network infrastructure to accommodate for the shorter coverage distance requirements of LTE. Hang in there, or go where the grass is greener, you can always return when they turn things around.

Longshore79

Excellent post and it totally makes sense now why sometimes my Lte falls back to 3G/1x. Verizon does indeed have an issue with tower spacing. I am impressed with their aws deployment though and if some areas Im pulling down 75-80mbps which is lightning fast. They will have to add more capacity since the higher frequencies don't travel as far as band 13. Far as Vol lte goes Ive been using it sparingly and haven't experienced any dropped calls (although the signal is much weaker than 1x). If Verizon plans on tuning out cdma completely, they have no choice but to build more towers. Do you see tower spacing to be an issue in the rural areas as well?

Nick

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