“Overloaded networks, lack of towers to blame for areas wireless woes” |
| Overloaded networks, lack of towers to blame for areas wireless woes Posted: 21 Nov 2010 07:05 AM PST CHARLOTTE -- In the Charlotte area, cell phone firms are spending millions to fix what's been called the nation's worst wireless call quality. But that's of little solace to customers such as Jerry Hancock, who says reception's long been poor at his Davidson home. "You can tell when someone is on an important cell phone call in our neighborhood," he told the Charlotte Observer's Public Insight Network. "They're in the front yard. Indoor service is usually terrible." Most major carriers readily admit that, despite their smart engineers and high-tech equipment, there will be times when calls will drop or you can't even get a signal. Which prompts a simple question from frustrated users of Charlotte's cell phone network: Why? A call-quality survey J.D. Power and Associates conducted of more than 26,000 customers earlier this year showed the Queen City finishing dead last among 27 metro areas. The major carriers, battling for supremacy over a $150 billion-a-year industry, aren't talking – at least not in the kind of detail necessary to clarify why. Private media research firms such as J.D. Power and Nielsen have the data but won't share it, at least partly because they market their information to carriers. Government regulators have so little insight into call quality that, if they sought to study Charlotte's networks, they'd need to buy the private firms' data. Still, clues have emerged in a series of interviews and site visits the Observer conducted in recent weeks. The list of culprits appears to include: Use of bandwidth-hogging smartphones has soared in growing Charlotte, straining carriers' networks and staff. So many cell sites are being built or upgraded that call quality suffers. And in some areas, there simply may not be enough towers. The Nielsen research firm predicts smartphones will be as common as "regular" cell phones by the end of next year. Carriers say they are racing to stay ahead of demand as well as the competition. Currently, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon are the major carriers in the market. Each is plowing money into Charlotte upgrades to meet rising data demand from smartphones, even as they try to keep existing systems running smoothly. Each must figure out where to put antennae and how to calibrate the signal emerging from each one – even as demand patterns generated by on-the-go callers and Web surfers shift by the day. It is, they say, like trying to hit a moving target. "It's as much art as it is science," said John Taylor, a Sprint spokesman. "I think as a company, we do a good job. Are we perfect? No. There's not a wireless company in the United States that's going to give you 100 percent perfect service 100 percent of the time." The big problems: dropped calls, and calls that failed to connect. Customers in Charlotte experienced 19 problems per 100 calls. Callers in Tampa, Fla., the city with the fewest problems, suffered only 5 per 100 calls. The Southeastern average was 12 problems per 100 calls. Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile tied in the survey for best call-quality results in the Southeast, but J.D. Power officials said they didn't have a broad enough sampling of Charlotte customers to disclose which company did best in the Queen City. The Observer later asked readers about wireless call quality. Hundreds responded. For all the shouting about which carrier boasts the best network, the breadth of complaints suggest the four major ones face similar problems. Indian Trail resident Sheila Klausman said she has to go outside on virtually every call to get good reception. "The carrier doesn't matter," said Klausman, who uses Sprint. "Neighbors who have Verizon or AT&T also have reception problems in their homes, as do friends in Ballantyne area." Others said they often find their phones don't ring inside their homes, sending incoming calls straight to voicemail. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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