300 Yds from Cell Tower, ZBoost Screwy????

Help! New member here looking to solve long running technical question/problem. I live 300 yards from a cell phone tower. Currently have AT&T service and have poor reception in my yard and worse inside my home (built in 1960s with plaster and electric ceiling cable heat, i.e. lots of metal in the walls). Does not matter what carrier (we have had Sprint, Verizon, Nextel and now AT&T), the reception in the yard is poor. AT&T's coverage map shows the reception improving mid-way through my backyard (side away from cell phone tower) and, guess what? The reception IS better in my backyard. Our neighborhood is on a big hill/small mountain. My house is slightly down the hill from the cell phone tower.

Santa brought me a zBoost YX510-PCS-CEL and I have been locating it all around the house and have found a most curious thing - the unit's flashing lights indicate we are receiving signals too strong for proper operation. What the heck?! Too strong?

Here are my questions to the technically savvy. Is poor reception near a cell phone tower a fact of life? If so, what makes it poor? Second question: Why would I be getting a too strong indication when historically my cell phone has always shown a one or two bar indication?

Would love to know what is going on with this close proximity to tower issue.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Bill in NC

---

› See More: 300 Yds from Cell Tower, ZBoost Screwy????

Sounds like a defective phone. Take it back. you should have full coverage if the tower is 300 yards away. Or maybe the tower is not active.

From original post:
"Does not matter what carrier (we have had Sprint, Verizon, Nextel and now AT&T), the reception in the yard is poor."

We've lived with this poor reception for many years. Anybody a cell tower engineer that can explain why houses near (almost underneath) a cell phone tower in our neighborhood have poor reception no matter what carrier? It is poor in my car driving around the neighborhood. It is poor standing outside in my front yard (the side nearest the cell tower - about 300 yards away).

Inquiring minds want to know. Thanks for any technical explanations.

Generally, wireless towers have an umbrella signal infrastructure...this means, the farther you are from the tower--the worse the signal. This also means the closer you are (like really, really close) you will have poor signal.

Also, in many of the smaller communities (including suburbs of larger cities, rural areas, country side), wireless carriers will share one tower. Yes this sounds impossible...since GSM and CDMA carriers cannot possibly roam on each other's towers. GSM carriers are like AT&T and T-Mobile, carriers that use SIM Cards. While CDMA would be the vast majority of the U.S. Carriers (including Verizon Wireless, Sprint, US Cellular, Alltel, etc). All alone would be Nextel with their Motorola iDEN technology (which also uses SIM Cards). Well, wireless carriers can in fact place their own technology onto one tower. This means AT&T and Verizon Wireless may have their own local coverage on one tower. This is also why carriers like Sprint PCS and Verizon have very similar coverage areas in some areas. It is a way of getting past city regulations of the number of towers carriers total can have.

This may explain why you always have poor coverage, no matter the carrier. As far as the ZBoost thing...I have absolutely no idea.

I guess the good news is that even though we are so close at least we are not getting brain cooked at this close proximity. I always wondered about the EMR effects from being so close to a cell phone tower. I guess it is all going over our heads. There are also microwave units (the old fashioned type) on that tower but so far as I can tell they are not oriented in line with our house.

Thanks for your explanation. It makes sense as the signal in our attic (two story house) is five bars. Our house's front door is about 50 feet below the ground level at the cell tower. The cell tower is a traditional tower and has been in place since the first cell phone networks first came on the scene. It is all on a former volcano hill (rounded and about 300 feet above the surrounding landscape). The cell tower has mucho equipment hanging on it so you are probably right about every carrier being on the tower. The signal strength has been essentially the same no matter which carrier we were using (with the possible exception of Nextel, but my memory could be faulty).

Make sure you're actually referring to a cell phone tower.

A cell phone tower will be a straight up tower with triangles every so far down the tower (triangles that go around the actual tower). Those are the transmitters for each carrier. It may also have little satellite dish looking things. That means that AT&T or T-Mobile (or another GSM carrier) is operating off of that tower, since they use more of a satellite based system.

I would recommend a CDMA carrier for your specific needs. CDMA carriers have much better luck penetrating buildings. They also, in the U.S.A. have a larger range for coverage improvement since the software/hardware for the towers is much quicker and cheaper to install and utilize. I would recommend switching back to Verizon Wireless. Then when you discover the signal is poor, like it is...inside and out, call customer service and do all the troubleshooting (even if this may not improve the issue). Then go ahead and allow them to issue a trouble ticket. When they come back with a response (usually 72 hours or so), ask them if they have a location where the nearest tower is near you. They can tell you about the mileage from your house. Then they can tell you what plans (if any) are going to be implemented. Then, if they say they aren't planning on doing anything, harass the online "contact us" form customer service department at http://vzw.com/contactus. Eventually, improvements will be made. We actually had to do all of this in the area I lived a few years ago. It had taken about 3 years for them to improve it, but coverage is amazing now...but then I moved.

Originally Posted by wstr75

I guess the good news is that even though we are so close at least we are not getting brain cooked at this close proximity. I always wondered about the EMR effects from being so close to a cell phone tower. I guess it is all going over our heads. There are also microwave units (the old fashioned type) on that tower but so far as I can tell they are not oriented in line with our house.

Thanks for your explanation. It makes sense as the signal in our attic (two story house) is five bars. Our house's front door is about 50 feet below the ground level at the cell tower. The cell tower is a traditional tower and has been in place since the first cell phone networks first came on the scene. It is all on a former volcano hill (rounded and about 300 feet above the surrounding landscape). The cell tower has mucho equipment hanging on it so you are probably right about every carrier being on the tower. The signal strength has been essentially the same no matter which carrier we were using (with the possible exception of Nextel, but my memory could be faulty).

Nicknrm, thanks for all this help. Yes, now that I recall we did have better service to a limited degree with Verizon (CDMA). However, we like our iPhones and kind of hated the way Verizon was so darn slow to approve new phones. I could never understand why Verizon was often months behind the other carriers regarding new phones. Here in NC there are lots of folks who have been happy for many years with Alltel. It will be interesting to see if their good thing continues to be a good thing with the Verizon acquisition of Alltel.

I'm going to mess around with a directional attenna with the zBoost and see what we get. Yes, it is a bonafide cell phone tower and it has every thing imaginable hanging off it including the triangles you mentioned.

Thanks again for the technical information. We be under the umbrella and it ain't the red one!

Bill in NC

Generally, Verizon Wireless tested the phones to a higher extent.

AT&T (previously Cingular, before that AT&T Wireless) was the first wireless carrier to release the Motorola RAZR. 3 years later, Verizon released it. Which RAZR had more enhancements? Which was more prosperous? The Verizon Wireless RAZR V3c and V3m had far less issues. The RAZR with AT&T has issues to this day. Those issues include: Random resets, Lint in screen from pocket, and frequent internal issues. None of these issues appeared in any of the Verizon versions.

Also, the issue with Verizon being slow with devices is coming to an end.

Originally Posted by wstr75

Nicknrm, thanks for all this help. Yes, now that I recall we did have better service to a limited degree with Verizon (CDMA). However, we like our iPhones and kind of hated the way Verizon was so darn slow to approve new phones. I could never understand why Verizon was often months behind the other carriers regarding new phones. Here in NC there are lots of folks who have been happy for many years with Alltel. It will be interesting to see if their good thing continues to be a good thing with the Verizon acquisition of Alltel.

I'm going to mess around with a directional attenna with the zBoost and see what we get. Yes, it is a bonafide cell phone tower and it has every thing imaginable hanging off it including the triangles you mentioned.

Thanks again for the technical information. We be under the umbrella and it ain't the red one!

Bill in NC