Cell phone signal issues

[HCHTech]

I've got 5 phones on my business plan, all Galaxy S8s or S8+s. They were all purchased in the fall of 2017, so that means they're about to turn 5 years old, ancient by cell phone standards - ha. I've been a Verizon customer since the beginning (2004!), and chose them because they were king of the signal hill in my area. There were only a handful of small signal deserts in my travel sphere, and they worked great at my shop location....until they didn't, of course.

Over the last couple of years, the signal at my shop has gotten worse and worse, and we have call-quality issues on all of our phones all the time, when they used to be almost unheard of. As an illustration, I'm currently seeing -120dBm on my phone as it sits on my desk this morning. If I wander outside a bit, it gets better, but still only about -106dBm. If I go somewhere that shows all 5 bars on the main screen, I see -70dBm or -75dBm. We do have desk telephones that we use mainly in the shop, but so many folks have our cell numbers that many incoming calls come to our cells.

I'm sorry to say that I don't have a historical measure of what the signal was like when I wasn't having problems.

I can only surmise that Verizon must have lost a tower somewhere near me that was important to my signal at the shop. So this situation has me wondering if another vendor has a better signal here. Of course, this information is impossible to find, probably on purpose. I had a visitor who was on TMobile the other day, and I was sorry to note that the signal on their phone was just about the same as mine, hovering around -115dBm.

Short of finding friends who are on different vendors and inviting them here so I can measure their phone's signal, I'm at a loss to know whether I should jump off the Verizon ship for this phone renewal or not. 5 phones is a chunk of $ and I'm not keen to be locked into Verizon if I'm going to get the same poor reception here.

It also occurs to me that maybe cell phone antennas have gotten better in the 3 or 4 generations since my S8 was made, and I would get better performance just with a new phone from Verizon. I've also looked into cell signal amplifiers; they are expensive, but maybe worth it to stop dropping calls.

Any advice?

 

[britechguy]

I really don't know how to advise, specifically, with Verizon, but I can say that in general all the majors have been closing down their 3G service across the board, and 3G was still "king of the hill" in the timeframe where you initially acquired these phones.

I'd be inclined to ask your friends and neighbors (literal, in this sense) who are using more modern devices that run on the Verizon network using 4G, 4G LTE, and/or 5G what their situation is with reception where you are located.

I had to get new SIM cards from T-Mobile after I went over to 5G devices in order to get consistent 5G behavior on the phones.

If you use your phone for "basic stuff" like calling, texting, emailing and/or web browsing, there are scads of mid-grade devices that exceed the specs of the S8 and S8+ by far that are available. I had an S7 at one point, but have been buying my own global unlocked devices that will run on T-Mobile's GSM network (using the frequency bands they do) because I can get them so much more cheaply. But that requires research, as just because a device is a global unlocked GSM device doesn't mean that it supports some or all of the bands your own service provider uses. If you decide to think about that route, I have found the Kimovil Frequency Checker to be a very reliable source as far as which devices (that aren't provided by the actual carrier) will work on the different carrier networks and giving details on which bands the device supports as well as the frequencies that the carrier uses. It's seldom that you will get every single frequency band that a carrier uses also used by a global unlocked device, but just having most of them in 4G and 5G bands still gets you excellent service for both data and voice.

 

[Porthos]

I always use wifi calling when in range of wifi.

 

[britechguy]

I always use wifi calling when in range of wifi.

Just curious, as I have both VoLTE and VoWiFi options on my phone, what happens if you've started a call using VoWiFi and the WiFi connection disappears? I would hope that a mechanism exists to seamlessly hand it off, but I know better than to believe what I hope is what is, in actuality, out there.

Since I have unlimited data and good service in my area most of my calls end up VoLTE.

 

[Porthos]

what happens if you've started a call using VoWiFi and the WiFi connection disappears? I would hope that a mechanism exists to seamlessly hand it off, but I know better than to believe what I hope is what is, in actuality, out there.

Luckily, I rarely have outages. But when I do I have to disconnect from wifi manually to call my ISP.

 

[britechguy]

Luckily, I rarely have outages. But when I do I have to disconnect from wifi manually to call my ISP.

What I meant is not so much outages, but a scenario where you start a VoWiFi call then have to get in the car and go while still on the call (and I'll presume as a passenger, I'm not asking about whether one talks while driving or not). The original WiFi connection is going to drop, and very promptly, as you drive away. What happens to the call? Does it get "automagically" switched over to cellular or does it drop?

 

[Porthos]

What I meant is not so much outages, but a scenario where you start a VoWiFi call then have to get in the car and go while still on the call (and I'll presume as a passenger, I'm not asking about whether one talks while driving or not). The original WiFi connection is going to drop, and very promptly, as you drive away. What happens to the call? Does it get "automagically" switched over to cellular or does it drop?

I actually do not start or receive calls on the way out to the car. I once, when had a landline, walk out to the car with the cordless handset, and started to drive away.

 

[britechguy]

@Porthos,

Thanks for clarifying.

For others among the readership who do use VoWiFi routinely, is there anyone who has had the experience of having the WiFi connection drop (for whatever reason)? If so, does the phone gracefully switch the call to another transit method or just drop the call? I am presuming it will just drop, but I have no idea whether this is actually the case.

 

[xrobwx71]

@Porthos,

Thanks for clarifying.

For others among the readership who do use VoWiFi routinely, is there anyone who has had the experience of having the WiFi connection drop (for whatever reason)? If so, does the phone gracefully switch the call to another transit method or just drop the call? I am presuming it will just drop, but I have no idea whether this is actually the case.

I have the Pixel 6 Pro and use WiFi calling, it auto switches to cellular seamlessly. I frequently am on the phone while leaving the store and never notice any "switch" when it happens.