Cell Phone question

[Adam Jensen]

Alright so this has been bugging me, and I don't know where to go for an answer, because it's too specific for a Google search.

So here's the deal. I have an iPhone 6, Verizon, if that's important and I live up in the mountains in Maine. Reception is fine where I live. Now to get from my little town to any real civilization, there's a road I always take, the only road. Travel south on that road, and my reception is fine, no interruptions. Travel in the opposite direction, as if going back home, however, there's one spot about 15 miles from home where my reception goes dead for about two or three miles. Just dead. This happens every single time I travel home. In that spot, if I'm going south, I get reception. If I'm coming back home, I do not.

Never fails.

So my question is, why does my direction matter when receiving cellular service? Why do I get it when I go south, but lose it when I go north, in the same exact stretch of road?

[Ragedaug]

Not sure if a trick question, but I'll try. Seems like you are getting reception from a tower south of your town, so when you go south, you maintain reception. When you go north, the next tower is too far away, so there's a few minutes when you are too far north of the southern tower that you were connecting to, and too far south of the next tower you will connect to in the north.

Oh yeah - could also just be some kind of dead zone with crazy interference, or the topography could impede the signal. For me I have a couple valleys near my house that are pretty sharp down & up dips. My signal gets pretty weak in those dips, and in years past would just disconnect.

[Docturphil]

Alright so this has been bugging me, and I don't know where to go for an answer, because it's too specific for a Google search.

So here's the deal. I have an iPhone 6, Verizon, if that's important and I live up in the mountains in Maine. Reception is fine where I live. Now to get from my little town to any real civilization, there's a road I always take, the only road. Travel south on that road, and my reception is fine, no interruptions. Travel in the opposite direction, as if going back home, however, there's one spot about 15 miles from home where my reception goes dead for about two or three miles. Just dead. This happens every single time I travel home. In that spot, if I'm going south, I get reception. If I'm coming back home, I do not.

Never fails.

So my question is, why does my direction matter when receiving cellular service? Why do I get it when I go south, but lose it when I go north, in the same exact stretch of road?

First, you probably shouldn't be on your phone while you're driving. So unless you're going to break down in that dead zone, who cares?

That said it's probably similar to what Ragedaug said. Either way, it's related to your mobile provider.

My recommendation: ditch the iPhone and get a Pixel so you can get on Project Fi. It's exclusive to Google phones at the moment but they're piggybacking off of three different providers so it's hard to find a place where you don't get reception. And as long as you don't use a shit ton of data it's pretty cheap. For example, this 1 month pay cycle I'm paying $23.60. That's it. That's my entire phone bill. And I'm on a plan by myself mind you.

Plus iPhones are just more restrictive. I could go into great detail on why the Pixel is better than the newest iPhone, but I'll restrain myself.

[Mistame]

Cell towers have a radial range and phone reception decreases the further away from the tower you get. So in rural areas, it's pretty common to come across "dead zones", or areas in which the influence of towers has a gap rather than an overlap.

[Puupi]

I once saw a movie about this. In the movie it was aliens. Maybe it's aliens for you, too. Can't remember the name of the movie

[Annoying]

Cell towers have a radial range and phone reception decreases the further away from the tower you get. So in rural areas, it's pretty common to come across "dead zones", or areas in which the influence of towers has a gap rather than an overlap.

I was thinking it's a tower thing. Transitioning from a weak tower to a strong tower is easy. Transitioning from a strong tower to a weak tower is hard.

So on your way south, you're on a weak tower, but have signal, as you were in range to acquire it earlier. As you move, you get picked up by a larger, stronger tower. Easy switch over.
As you come back north, you're on a stronger tower, and have signal, but as you lose range on the stronger tower, the weak tower still isn't good enough to make the initial connection, so you have to wait until you're closer.

[Puupi]

I was thinking it's a tower thing. Transitioning from a weak tower to a strong tower is easy. Transitioning from a strong tower to a weak tower is hard.

So on your way south, you're on a weak tower, but have signal, as you were in range to acquire it earlier. As you move, you get picked up by a larger, stronger tower. Easy switch over.
As you come back north, you're on a stronger tower, and have signal, but as you lose range on the stronger tower, the weak tower still isn't good enough to make the initial connection, so you have to wait until you're closer.

Bah! My aliens explanation was way better.

[the game]

I once saw a movie about this. In the movie it was aliens. Maybe it's aliens for you, too. Can't remember the name of the movie

I was thinking about that movie too. Also can't remember the name.

[zenkai]

Step one, sell your iphone
Step two, buy an android
Step Three, pocket the money you save as profit.

[Adam Jensen]

First, you probably shouldn't be on your phone while you're driving. So unless you're going to break down in that dead zone, who cares?

That said it's probably similar to what Ragedaug said. Either way, it's related to your mobile provider.

My recommendation: ditch the iPhone and get a Pixel so you can get on Project Fi. It's exclusive to Google phones at the moment but they're piggybacking off of three different providers so it's hard to find a place where you don't get reception. And as long as you don't use a shit ton of data it's pretty cheap. For example, this 1 month pay cycle I'm paying $23.60. That's it. That's my entire phone bill. And I'm on a plan by myself mind you.

Plus iPhones are just more restrictive. I could go into great detail on why the Pixel is better than the newest iPhone, but I'll restrain myself.

It's on a holder playing music on Pandora, I'm not calling or texting.

I go north, music stops for a few miles and starts again. I go south, music never stops at all.

- - - Updated - - -

I was thinking it's a tower thing. Transitioning from a weak tower to a strong tower is easy. Transitioning from a strong tower to a weak tower is hard.

So on your way south, you're on a weak tower, but have signal, as you were in range to acquire it earlier. As you move, you get picked up by a larger, stronger tower. Easy switch over.
As you come back north, you're on a stronger tower, and have signal, but as you lose range on the stronger tower, the weak tower still isn't good enough to make the initial connection, so you have to wait until you're closer.

Okay, I guess that makes sense. Thanks.

[alexkeren]

I was thinking it's a tower thing. Transitioning from a weak tower to a strong tower is easy. Transitioning from a strong tower to a weak tower is hard.

So on your way south, you're on a weak tower, but have signal, as you were in range to acquire it earlier. As you move, you get picked up by a larger, stronger tower. Easy switch over.
As you come back north, you're on a stronger tower, and have signal, but as you lose range on the stronger tower, the weak tower still isn't good enough to make the initial connection, so you have to wait until you're closer.

Tagging this, that was a very non-techie way of saying it while being 100% accurate.


BTW, did you go to Pie Town on Pi Day, Annoying?

[Docturphil]

It's on a holder playing music on Pandora, I'm not calling or texting.

I go north, music stops for a few miles and starts again. I go south, music never stops at all.

Ahh, makes sense then.

Still, I can tell you with 95% certainty that it's not your phone that is the issue but your mobile provider. There's a little dead zone. Not at all uncommon. Weird that it only stops in one direction but others seem to have somewhat of a handle on that.

Either way, if you want the problem to go away you would have to either switch carriers or wait long enough and maybe they'll get better coverage.

I mentioned Google's Project Fi. The way that works is it's $20/month for no data. Then you pay $0.01 per megabyte of data or $10.00 per gigabyte. It's precise down to the megabyte. So if you use 1,269 megabytes of data you would pay $12.69 for data + $20 for a total of $32.69.

I mention that because it actually sounds like it may not be a good option if you stream music on your daily commute. That will probably add up to a lot of data. Still, I'm guessing you probably use 3-4GB of data. It might still be cheaper than Verizon. Just something to consider.

[Annoying]

Tagging this, that was a very non-techie way of saying it while being 100% accurate.


BTW, did you go to Pie Town on Pi Day, Annoying?

Hah, unfortunately I had to work. My mom's dog is from pie town, though. And is named Pi.

[PC2]

I mentioned Google's Project Fi. The way that works is it's $20/month for no data. Then you pay $0.01 per megabyte of data or $10.00 per gigabyte. It's precise down to the megabyte. So if you use 1,269 megabytes of data you would pay $12.69 for data + $20 for a total of $32.69.

I mention that because it actually sounds like it may not be a good option if you stream music on your daily commute. That will probably add up to a lot of data. Still, I'm guessing you probably use 3-4GB of data. It might still be cheaper than Verizon. Just something to consider.

Yeah I'm on Project Fi, bill is usually $22 or $23 for my uses. My house is in a weird zone between two semi-far cell towers, so its fantastic that I can put it in airplane mode(saves battery) and still use the wifi for call and texting while on the same number and system as my cell service.

Personally I don't see the point of streaming music from radio or cell towers when I can easily put thousands of songs on the phone and set a playlist or shuffle. But I also get that there are people who might want to hear a brand new song that came out that day and hasn't come to their attention otherwise.

[Forgettable]

It's on a holder playing music on Pandora, I'm not calling or texting.

I go north, music stops for a few miles and starts again. I go south, music never stops at all.

Sounds like the solution to your problem is to just download the music to your phone instead of streaming it.

[Docturphil]

Yeah I'm on Project Fi, bill is usually $22 or $23 for my uses. My house is in a weird zone between two semi-far cell towers, so its fantastic that I can put it in airplane mode(saves battery) and still use the wifi for call and texting while on the same number and system as my cell service.

Personally I don't see the point of streaming music from radio or cell towers when I can easily put thousands of song on the phone and set a playlist or shuffle. But I also get that there are people who might want to hear a brand new song that came out that day and hasn't come to their attention otherwise.

Yeah for most people it's a great option because even if you use a lot of data you can probably find ways to reduce data usage without really sacrificing anything. And yeah, the wifi calling is pretty great.

Still, I love Pandora. I use it all the time, but pretty much only when I'm on wifi. So I can see why heavy data usage might be important to some people.

[Adam Jensen]

Sounds like the solution to your problem is to just download the music to your phone instead of streaming it.

It's not really a problem, it's only like 3 miles of road.

I was really just curious as to why my direction had anything to do with it, and it seems like Annoying provided what's probably the right answer.

[alexkeren]

Hah, unfortunately I had to work. My mom's dog is from pie town, though. And is named Pi.

ROFL ... that's awesome.

[lordsphinx]

Here is my stab at it…

You’re switching from one tower to another that overlap coverage areas, but the southern tower has newer technology. Allow me to explain…

When traveling South, you are starting with coverage from the northern tower. Once coverage areas overlap, your phone begins connecting to the southern tower (or at least locates / recognizes the tower). By the time you leave the northern tower’s coverage zone, you are completely connected to the southern tower.

When traveling north, you are starting with coverage from the southern tower. Once coverage areas overlap, your phone begins connecting to the northern tower. The difference is that it takes longer for the tower to respond to your phone’s “ping”. By the time you leave the southern tower’s coverage zone, you have not yet connected to the northern tower.

How was that? Do you think we got it?? =)

[Thoughtful Trolli]

Time of day is important too.

The towers have heavier traffic later in the day, when everyone is "Going back home" I imagine. Or something, idk, you need to supply time of events.

If you say "it happens every time I do it, and I've done it at random all day long" idk, you might be deluding yourself.