Four bars to one to four to one to out

I have been told this problem is a result of receiving multiple cell towers
and that you phone does not know what signal to lock on to. That is why it
goes from 4 bars to one and essentially bounces back and forth until it
eventually drops the call. I was told that this is called "Pilot Pollution"
and there is almost nothing that you can do about it. It will cause your
phone to drop the call. I switch from Verizon to Sprint because of this
problem in my area in Southern Orange County California. Sprint has better
signal in my neighborhood and therefore I do not have this problem anymore.
If you want a technical description of "Pilot Pollution" I would suggest
asking the question in the alt.cellular.cdma newsgroup. You may get lucky
and find some cellular developers that can explain it to you in greater
detail.

Regards,

-mij




"JXStern" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 02:38:22 -0500, [email protected] wrote:
>>Cell traffic in the area?? Perhaps a little description of the area?
>
> West Los Angeles (Brentwood), just short of Santa Monica.
>
> You can just about get a tan from the gigahertz transmissions in the
> area.
>
> J.
>

---

› See More: Four bars to one to four to one to out

I had a similiar problem where the bars would go from max to none and
then back again. When I was visiting a VZW store, I noticed it was
happening there and was able to demonstrate it to a service technician.
He immediately said that my VX4400 needed a software update. He took
the phone and said come back in about 45 minutes.

After that, the problem was solved.

Mij Adyaw wrote:
> I have been told this problem is a result of receiving multiple cell towers
> and that you phone does not know what signal to lock on to. That is why it
> goes from 4 bars to one and essentially bounces back and forth until it
> eventually drops the call. I was told that this is called "Pilot Pollution"
> and there is almost nothing that you can do about it.

Not quite correct.

A CDMA phone by nature will lock onto more than one tower, if they are
available. This is what makes soft handoffs possible. At any point in
time, your phone can be actively using two cell sites, and can have a
fix on up to three primary sites and one alternate, under ideal conditions.

The problem is when you have a cell tower that is distant, yet is
providing an uncharacteristically strong signal (either through
environmental factors or some technical error). With CDMA, timing is
everything, and a distant cell tower will not hold your call if the
signals are not time-synched well enough (due to distance travelled).
This is pilot pollution: a strong CDMA signal that is in fact, not useable.


--
E-mail fudged to thwart spammers.
Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.

You would think by now that CDMA technology would have evolved to
eliminate or at least reduce this pilot pollution effect from
happening. But it has not. I'll watch my phone in debug more and see
it land on a particular PN offset. Let's say that offset produces a 3
bar signal with perfect call quality and no drops. But a minute later
it bounces to a different offset and then I'll notice the signal has
dropped to only 1 bar or 0 bars. It appears to me like the phone is
simply picking up the wrong pilot and any call attempts on that offset
will fail until it cycles back to the better offset. It would be nice
if they could invent a smarter CDMA chip to diferentiate the best
available signal (regardless of conditions) and to remain locked on
this dominant offset, at least to originate the call on. The dominant
PN offset that each call originates on is very important and can make
the difference whether or not your call will go through and not be
dropped.

Software updates usually have nothing to do with the signal the phone
is receiving and won't change any such behavior. There are exceptions
to this but they are very rare.

On 18 Mar 2005 14:57:24 -0800, [email protected] wrote:
>You would think by now that CDMA technology would have evolved to
>eliminate or at least reduce this pilot pollution effect from
>happening. But it has not. I'll watch my phone in debug more and see
>it land on a particular PN offset. Let's say that offset produces a 3
>bar signal with perfect call quality and no drops. But a minute later
>it bounces to a different offset and then I'll notice the signal has
>dropped to only 1 bar or 0 bars. It appears to me like the phone is
>simply picking up the wrong pilot and any call attempts on that offset
>will fail until it cycles back to the better offset. It would be nice
>if they could invent a smarter CDMA chip to diferentiate the best
>available signal (regardless of conditions) and to remain locked on
>this dominant offset, at least to originate the call on. The dominant
>PN offset that each call originates on is very important and can make
>the difference whether or not your call will go through and not be
>dropped.

Well, hell, this sounds entirely likely. I'm on the third floor, have
a nice view southward that probably includes several towers, but I
think the nearest tower is northward over a few obstructions.

So, can I wrap the phone in aluminum foil and point it south, or
something, to get around this?

J.

Its that preemo Lucent/Nortel infrastructure for you. CDMA is HOW MANY
years old?

JG

[email protected] wrote:
> Its that preemo Lucent/Nortel infrastructure for you.
> CDMA is HOW MANY years old?

I gather you used to work there?

-Quick

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Its that preemo Lucent/Nortel infrastructure for you. CDMA is HOW MANY
> years old?
>
> JG
>
>
I've been having this trouble a lot and tech support said they don't
know why it happens. I felt much better after that :-)

Louise