Cell service reliability

Not had any problems with Verizon. I had a few dead spots with AT&T, which went completely dead everywhere when Atlanta is here on Spring Break.

Not had any problems with Verizon. I had a few dead spots with AT&T, which went completely dead everywhere when Atlanta is here on Spring Break.

Yikes! Glad you mentioned spring break, Kurt. I'd completely forgotten about that. I haven't had any problems during break in the past. My problems now aren't lack of service, it's just incoming calls don't work about 1/2 the time.

Yikes! Glad you mentioned spring break, Kurt. I'd completely forgotten about that. I haven't had any problems during break in the past. My problems now aren't lack of service, it's just incoming calls don't work about 1/2 the time.

What service do you have? Are you sure it's not an equipment problem?

YES!! I have the same problems as well and have for years! Text messages never get through and resetting a phone once or twice a month. I ever went so far as to write a letter to the Regional VP in Alabama , with nothing received in return. I have AT&T and in the past also had Sprint but the service is horrible and just wait until Spring Break season starts!

Kurt, it doesn't appear to be a phone problem. Happens to both of us, but only when we're on the local cell tower that serves the Eastern Lake area. Inbound calls work fine elsewhere. For instance, I got a call in Grayton two days ago, just 15 minutes after leaving home where we couldn't stand in the living room and call each other. Outbound calls work fine, no matter where we are. It's not a lack of service, we have 3G and 3 to 5 bars all the time.

I'm on Sprint. Other than a tower failure in December 2013 and some issues after Katrina, service has been pretty good in the 10 years I've been living here. No issues with spring break. There's a Sprint dead zone at Camp Creek, but that doesn't affect me.

Sorry to hear of justhavinfun's similar problems with AT&T, but that seems to agree with Kurt's comments about them.

New ATT tower at Grayton beach just went into service early January. Rumor another ATT roof top tower coming to BMB on too of a higher
Condo xstreet from Sally's.

Thanks steel1man. Those towers won't do me much good. My problem is at home, just west of Eastern Lake.

I had the same issue in my home in Grayton Beach.

The solution is a cell signal amplifier. Not inexpensive but a total solution for your home and/or vehicle.

Check out http://www.wilsonelectronics.com/store/index/category/45/small-areas

I had the same issue in my home in Grayton Beach.

The solution is a cell signal amplifier. Not inexpensive but a total solution for your home and/or vehicle.

Check out http://www.wilsonelectronics.com/store/index/category/45/small-areas

Awhile back AT&T would send these out free to their customers on 30-A who called and complained enough. Maybe Sprint will do so for TreeFrog? Might as well try Frog, worst they can do is tell you no.

Sprint does this also, but it is determined by the coverage map. You will need an internet connection.

It could be the equipment. How old is the phone you are using? If it's less than a year it's probably not you.

It may be neighbors fault too. I know that sounds odd, but what happens is that someone else is experiencing the same issue as you. Sometimes this comes down to the tower's focus. They literally send someone out to move the antennas. This sometimes results in you losing service or the level of service you had. Cell phone companies aren't keen on doing it so you have to kind of beg for it.

Sprint also has a weird bonus structure and sometimes maintenance supervisors will have techs redirect towers when antenna units fail. They aren't cheap and inventory is part of the bonus structure.

Just relieve the headache and switch to Verizon. We had sprint and did. Best decision in a while.

It's not the phone. I only have problems at home.

And, it's not a weak signal. I can make outbound calls without any problems. Never roaming, always 3G and 3 to 5 bars.

It's just a problem with inbound calls/texts/voicemail. And not all the time, either. 4 or 5 people called me yesterday just fine. But a couple went straight to voicemail, no ring on their end or mine - one was immediately after I had just hung up from an outbound call.

Our local tower went down in December for two or three days. I'm suspecting that it's malfuncting in some way that Sprint has yet to either diagnose or care about.

Sprint is sending me an Airave, their box that connects to the internet. Meanwhile, I'm carefully researching Verizon. I'm not just concerned about service in SoWal - I travel a lot for work. And use a lot of data, too. My work requires me to be a committed smart phone user.

Do you have an iPhone or an Android? I know with some Android phones there is a setting that keeps it silent if you place it screen down.

Do you have an iPhone or an Android? I know with some Android phones there is a setting that keeps it silent if you place it screen down.

It's an Android, Local. Thanks for the tip, but that's not it:
1-We can stand in the living room, phones in hand, with 4 bars and 3G, and call each other. The caller hears no rings, and the call goes straight to voicemail. And the callee's phone never rings. Outbound calls work, inbound don't.
2-Then, I can drive to Grayton or Rosemary and my phone will ring and inbound calls work fine. Different cell tower from the house in both spots.
3-Our phones don't have that setting. Even if it did and I didn't know about it, I never leave it face down.

And it's nothing peculiar to our house. We've had good service here for the 10 years we lived here. Then this started 3 weeks ago.

And, we can drive across Eastern Lake to a spot near the Old Florida Fish House (on the same cell tower) and get the same results as at home.

We have Sprint. Never had any problems over the years until the past 6 months or so. We also have the airrave from Sprint due to my husband not receiving calls (when he was on call).
Since getting the airrave....Now I can't make a call as I'm leaving the house. As soon as I get away from home (about 200 ft. or so), that airrave will drop my call, then my phone has to grab signal from another tower. Sometimes, when i make calls, the person I'm talking to sounds like they're under water. At the same time my internet is extremely slow, and I can't watch videos. I can't figure it out. Good luck.

I was on the cell that's on top of one of the high-rises in Seagrove, can't remember which. That's the cell with the problem. I could receive calls just fine in Rosemary or Grayton, just not on my home cell. Never had any problem with outbound calls or dropped calls. I missed half or more of my inbound calls, texts, and voice mail.

They sent me an Airrave but I never hooked it up, expecting exactly the same sort of glitches you've experience. Besides, I didn't want VOIP. If the DSL goes down, there's no phone service. Same reason I've still got a real land line.

I have called, emailed, Tweeted and chatted with Sprint for 6 weeks, just about daily. Can't tell you how many hours went into it. It took 3 weeks just to get them to realize that it was neither downtime on the tower nor the (non-existent) 4G upgrade. Their internal organization for taking trouble calls isn't flexible enough to allow them to define a problem other than the routine stuff like a tower that is dropping calls. They also don't have a way for anyone to take ownership of your problem, so you're constantly starting over from scratch.

One of the aggravating things was this: Their network techs checked out the tower, found good uptime, and said "problem solved". So, a person from Sprint calls me to confirm. Can't connect, goes straight to voicemail. EXACTLY the problem I'd defined over and over to them. The Sprint person hasn't even looked at my file, or the lack of a ring-through would have tipped them off. But no, they just leave a message - "your problem's been solved, have a nice day". Equine exhaust.

We went to the Verizon store Sunday and solved the whole thing. It was disappointing to have to do that, because we'd been with Sprint since 1997 and generally had very little to complain about.

Moral of the story - If you're on Sprint and live between 395 and Eastern Lake, you're hosed for now and may be hosed for quite some time, unless someone at Sprint wakes up.

And we don't even live in that area. I'm off W. Hewitt. Thinking it's time to make a change too.

And we don't even live in that area. I'm off W. Hewitt. Thinking it's time to make a change too.

If you go to Verizon, go to the store, don't just do it online. The switchover process took some attention from a tech. I'd have hated to be trying to go it on my own.

It appears Verizon added a new tower in Grayton Beach. This was a fairly weak coverage area previously. Coming from Seaside tonight, I noticed that I had a full LTE signal and nice speeds all the way from Western Lake to the west side of 283. This test was taken at 30A & 283.

Thanks for the info. I hope this helps us. We have Verizon, and the reception that we have had is awful. I have had to use our land line that we have as a backup for important calls. We'll check out our Verizon signal the next time we're at the beach. We've always had problems in Grayton Beach and Seaside, regardless of provider.

It appears Verizon added a new tower in Grayton Beach. This was a fairly weak coverage area previously. Coming from Seaside tonight, I noticed that I had a full LTE signal and nice speeds all the way from Western Lake to the west side of 283. This test was taken at 30A & 283.

<img src="http://www.sowal.com/bb/attachment.php?attachmentid=38795"/>

We have Verizon and nada 30a and Lakewood, 3G occasionally 1 4G bar.

I wish they had added a tower, but in all likely hood they've adjusted their existing tower. The complaints from phase 3 of watercolor should start coming in soon. On Friday 3-4 bars of 4G service, then suddenly on Saturday 3-4 bars of 3G.