Problem with verizon wireless in northeastern PA (Hawley,honesdale,waymart area)

[jasonbrianmerrill]

Hello

i have an issue. Similar to this one actually: http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/no...one-tower.html (Verizon Problems off of Cell One tower, northeast PA)

but its closed

I've not really used cell phones much, but last year i went on my mother's plan as i am going to college and commuting back and forth to scranton pa, from honesdale pa (18431).

We were on alltel and it worked fine, but one day the antenna on my phone came off. Gradually it seemed i was losing signal, and eventually after a month - (in May i 2009 i think) it just got no service at ALL.

i figured my phone was broken.

but, i needed a new car, and i didnt need a new phone till sept, so I waited a bit.

In the beginning of this month (august 2009) My mothers plan completely switched from alltel to verizon wireless.

I waited till then to get a new phone, and whilst i was up in rochester NY visiting my girlfriend at the time, i bought a cheap phone up there, and it worked great!

I was every so often stopping and texting her to let her know where i was (and testing it every now and then) and it worked great.

the problem happened here:



this is northeastern PA, and its borders to NYS, and NJ.

the green line is the border of PA

the red line was my trip to honesdale.

RIGHT when i crossed the PA border, service died. every call i made was met with a message 32 from cellular one, text messages did not go through, obviously.

I figured, well, we are in the boonies. No biggie, im sure it will work in town, just as my alltel used to.

no go.

it didnt work in honesdale. on that map, the pinkish lines are roads i travel normally to friends houses. It didnt work in Hawley, where another friend lives. It wasnt working around lake wallenpaupack, where the area is based around.

I dont know why the phone wont even roam? My mother, thinking this was the problem, upgraded the roaming plan somehow so i would be able to roam... but that didnt fix it.

it kinda sucked.

anyway, tonight i tested it on a trip to scranton, as soon i will be traveling there often, and its the point of my having the cell phone (of course its also useful if my friends need anything if im not at home now, im addicted, etc)!

see the big black line? apparently thats where service STARTS on the way WESTward to scranton.

that means it wont work until a little less than halfway through my trip.

and of course, its an area where i might need help if my car breaks down.

the purple line is my trip to scranton.


if you follow it FROM honesdale (where the red line ends) westward (to the left) you can see where service begins.

So when i finally stopped getting that message, i did a *228 and chose option 2 to upgrade my roaming. I thought somehow this would recalculate where i was and maybe fix things? I dont know anything about this stuff.

anyway, it worked all the way to scranton, obviously, but died on the way back at the same exact place. The only difference was instead of "roaming" it said "Extended network".



If it continues this way, i really dont see the point of having this line on a verizon phone any longer, and im also going to start a thread to see if there are any good prepaid plans for my area which ill post here.

but is there any solution in sight? My mother was told that alltel, before they merged or sold out to verizon, sold their towers here to sprint, which is why my original phone more than likely stopped getting service.

It is a decision i need to make by august 31st or so, cause school starts on the 1st...

any help would be greatly appreciated!