Service declining rapidly

[ja57]

I've been using Verizon in my town for over 5 years now and in the last two years the service has gotten drastically worse.  There are times where I supposedly have full bars and LTE connection and am unable to send or receive text messages.  I haven't experienced this with other carriers and now feel as though the only solution is to make that change.  The website says you can contact customer service until 9 PM every day of the week but I'm on eastern time and at 7:45 I called and it said the offices were closed.  You'd think a major company would have it together with something as simple as hours of operation, but apparently all I'm doing is wasting my time and my money.  We have six lines and I'm afraid Verizon can non longer give us the service we came to depend upon.

[vzw_customer_support]

Hi, ja57! Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Can you send us a Private Note, so we can look into this?

*Alexis

[Nmf347]

I'm having the same experience in St Louis!

[kschut73]

Agree! It has gotten absolutely ridiculous - and unacceptable!

[vzw_customer_support]

Good afternoon, thank you for reaching out to us today here on social media. It's our top priority to get you the assistance you need regarding any questions or concerns you have. How can I personally assist you today?

*Gen

[ja57]

I spoke with tech support and they sent me a signal booster for my apartment which is really in no way an acceptable solution to me.  It doesn't address the situation at all and after reading other posts in this forum, it seems as though there are many people in many areas experiencing the same issues and the response from customer service is always a private message so none of the problems are resolved as far as I'm concerned.  Taking the message private doesn't address the situation, it just keeps any resolutions from the public eye.

[vzw_customer_support]

We definitely want to see you be able to rely on the service day in and day out! I can help troubleshoot. May I have the name of your city and state to investigate the area? How far do you travel before the service improves? 

-Yale

[ja57]

South Bend, Indiana.  It happens in all Zip codes here.  I couldn't even use Google at a birthday party in a city park yesterday.  This problem is not unique to me as several other people I know are having the same issues.  Even in areas where my phone says I have a full signal, the data barely works and is very spotty to say the least.  This is with LTE as I have an iPhone 11 and do not have 5G.  The tech I originally spoke with on the telephone checked my line and said I'd never used enough data to be throttled.

[vzw_customer_support]

When you have full bars, that definitely means the signal is there, ja57. It could have something to do with congestion and how many people are on the tower being assessed since wireless service is shared and therefore if the data bandwidth is too high, it will experience normal slowdowns. It can also be a device issue if it's occurring everywhere in that zip code. Which plan are you currently on?

-Genesis

[ja57]

I have the new Verizon Unlimited Plan.  Network congestion shouldn't make data completely unusable or text messages not go through.  As I said before, I do not believe this is an issue with my phone since it happens to other people I know in our area too that also have Verizon.  It's not limited to just one zip code, it's a problem in at least 46619, 46628, 46637, 46530, 46614, 46615, 46635.  I've also read other posts in this forum and people have responded to this post as well with the same issues.  The network reminds me of Sprint when they brought on other smaller carriers to their network and completely overwhelmed their capacity.  I personally believe it to be an infrastructure issue and not a phone issue.  As far as I'm concerned the network has basically become unusable.  Call quality is down and in most places one bar is all you get.