Bad reception near Chicago for awhile - why?

A friend of mine says his Nextel reception has been degrading over the past two
months in N. Ill area. (Dropped calls, message that network busy or even
subscriber unavailable comes up.) Other Nextel users tell him similar stories,
and it doesn't seem to affect other providers. He has heard some excuses like
"due to upcoming merger with Sprint, leading to work on towers" which he and I
agree sounds like BS. What is going on?

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› See More: Bad reception near Chicago for awhile - why?

In message <[email protected]> "Neil"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>A friend of mine says his Nextel reception has been degrading over the past two
>months in N. Ill area. (Dropped calls, message that network busy or even
>subscriber unavailable comes up.) Other Nextel users tell him similar stories,
>and it doesn't seem to affect other providers. He has heard some excuses like
>"due to upcoming merger with Sprint, leading to work on towers" which he and I
>agree sounds like BS. What is going on?

Tons of issues up there, but not all Nextel related. In addition to
what you described, I also experienced problems with landlines dialing
other landlines (Although I was able to dial LD and tollfree, just not
local calls), and cell phones on other carriers making inbound as well
as outbound calls.

That being said, Nextel's service was especially bad. I had two phones
with me, (One a TELUS Mobility phone, roaming on Nextel, the other was a
Boost Mobile phone), they would alternate being in service or not while
physically sitting side by side and not moving.

--
If crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight
fire, what do freedom fighters fight?

Sounds like capacity issues due to the re-banding of the 800 Spectrum
that has started in many
states including Ill. NEXTEL has to abandon a lot of channels in the
800 spectrum for the next
few years and this will be seen more often by the end-user as capacity
issues.

You can read about re-banding here:
http://www.911dispatch.com/informati...ransition.html