Weak signal and speed Zip 96091

[kgantcell]

Over the last 3 months, the signal strength and download speeds on my local tower have degraded terribly. It now to the point that I only can use service outside my house and even that is adequate and calls fail. Data tests this morning shows 4.6 up and 8.2 down. 

Service used to be great. What gives? 

[vzw_customer_support]

Thank you for reaching out to us today. Reliable service is a must and we want to help in any way we can. Are you only experiencing issues with your calls? What happens when you try to text or use data? The speeds above are withing the range we can provide with our LTE service. - RogerZ_VZW

[kgantcell]

Text messages work fine, but of course they work with most bad service. The internet is very poor also. 

As I mentioned, this has been a slow degradation of service over the last 4 month. We are a forest community with two towers and only 150 full time residents. The towers are about 5.2 miles apart through hill terrain. My closest tower is 50ft tall and 8,000 ft away.

Verizon is the only cell service in our area of the county. Many people have cell service as their only phone options. Verizon is very important to our county since it is the only service available, outside of Weaverville and Lewiston. 

Having reliable phone service is a big safety issue, especially with wildfire season upon us. My husband is the ambulance driver for our volunteer fire department. Over Memorial Day weekend, two 911 calls took over 3 attempts to complete because the calls kept getting dropped. We have never had this problem before. Just yesterday, as I was trying to get hold of Verizon tech support, after an 1.5hr call back wait my call was dropped while I was talking to the tech. 

The speed numbers that I originally sent were from a third-party speed test app on my phone. This morning I went outside, can see the tower, used the Verizon Fios speed test page, and got these sets of speed numbers --- Down/Up.... 2/5, 2/4, 4/3, 0/3, 2/4. The WiFi internet service (from across the lake) that we have had to purchase because Verizon is getting so bad, got speed tests of 11/18, 17/2, 11/3, 11/2, 14/3,  17/2. Not stellar, but at least we can get business done. 

Our tower location is 40deg 58.01N, 122deg 42.34W. Note in Google Earth that the metal tower at this site is not Verizon's. It is a non-functioning Sprint/TMobile tower. 

I would really appreciate having this issue researched some more. 

- Kelli 

[kgantcell]

Correction, the metal tower is owned by US Cellular. 

[vzw_customer_support]

kgantcell, having dependable service is a priority. The last thing we want is for you to feel we don't care. We can certainly look into troubleshooting. You are in a community forum. I have sent you a Private Message so you can authenticate the account. DoloresK_VZW

[kgantcell]

I received the private email, but there was no authentication link. The end of the email looks like this:

By clicking the link to continue, you agree to allow us to share your info, including CPNI, in Messenger and Direct Message. To stop sharing info including CPNI, stop using Messenger and Direct Message to chat with us. Contact Facebook and Twitter about your rights, if any, to delete info that was previously shared.

Authenticate here:

DoloresK_VZW

---

To manage your private message options, click here.

Thanks for being a Verizon Community member.

Your Verizon Community Team

[kgantcell]

Oopps... my error. I got the auth link to work this morning.