Hello all, I'm new here so please be gentle on me. I live in the mountains in Southern Utah and I have been a Verizon customer for about 10 years. A couple of years ago our analog cell tower "died".............now a new tower is being built about a mile from my house, it has been under construction for about 3 months. I kept telling myself that I should got over to it and ask the construction guys when it will be up and running but never did. Now I have noticed that for the past week there has been nobody working on it ( I hope it's finished). Can anyone tell me how to find out how long it takes to get a new tower running once it is built? Thanks Much
3 months is not that bad. I've seen towers sit for 6 months with no activity for various reasons. They can run into all kinds of problems once construction begins and they people working on it usually won't be able to tell you when it will be up and running.
Thanks for the quick reply. This tower appears to be finished. It's 180' tall has pannels attached to the top of it and about 1/2 way up there is another larger round thinggy attached. Power has been run to the new building at the bottom of the tower and they have encolsed the whole thing with chain link. After going for two years without cell service at home it sure will be nice to have it again!!!
The time frame from physical site completion to on air can be same day to several months depending on the plan for it. I've seen a number of sites that were built out one year because the budget money was there but a site is was planned to work hand in hand with missed the budget so instead of setting up the built site as an island site they just waited for the other one. It's not a common occurrence and in your situation I'd think the site would be integrated quite quickly.
I just called Verizon Customer Service. They show the new tower on the "map" but have no idea on when it will be turned on. Hopefully soon. I would think that they would "advertise" in the area that service will be available to their subscribers as many of them are changing to other providers that do cover the area.
Of course there's also Vanowen & Topanga. How long as that one been physically complete but not on air? 8 months?
Lemme throw this out there Larry, I saw that a LA03 site got turned up a month or so back. That'd be 10 years of getting it on the air.
Haha that's insane! Even if it was a phase 2 LA03 site that would still put it at around 1998-99 for the budget right? Must have been in Bel Air or Malibu would be my guess.
I can think of a dozen reasons why a site isn't on the air yet. Power, permits, protests, angry property owners, not passing building inspection, an untimely lightning strike & more. In our state, snow can stop a site for months. Verizon had to wait 7 months just to repair a site in 2005:
Hi Steve, great to see another Utahan on this board( I live in Salt Lake). May I ask what city this new Verizon tower is going up in?
Hi There, It's not really a "city". It's in Central (there are 2 Centrals) in Utah, one by Richfield and the one I'm in. We are about 25 miles north of St. George right on Hwy. 18, in between Veyo and Enterprise or just below Pine Valley. The other name for here is "Mt. WhereinthehellamI?"
Ha ha that sounds like the middle of nowhere. How is ALLTEL service there? ALLTEL generally has a strong presence throughout Southern and Central Utah...Looking at Verizon's coverage locator, looks like Pine Valley is at the edge of their coverage, though. You should snap a few pictures of the new tower and post it in our Wireless Advisor Gallery!
Alltel, from what I have been told has ZERO coverage around my house. I did speak to the corporate office at Verizon this afternoon to try to find out when the new tower will be turned on and did get a promise (and name of the person) that they would get back to me within a week. I explained that Washington County (the county that I live in) has very poor radio communications for the fire departments and sheriff department in my area and cell phones are used in lieu of radio. This seemed to get their attention so maybe the switch will be turned on soon.
If the tower work seems to be completed you may already have full signal within a week. At least here in Salt Lake it doesn't take Verizon long to turn on a cell site once it has been completed. I don't know how fast telco lines can be deoployed in your area, but that would be the major hold up I think, if there will be one. You can try to see if ALLTEL has coverage at your house yourself. Dial *22800 and see if you get a signal.
Altell would be a last resort..................the whole family (east coast, west coast and here in Utah) are all on Verizon so the free cell to cell deal works great. Also the majority of the fire fighters in the area are Verizon users. The new Verizon cell is the simplest answer.
Update still waiting...................it sure looks like it's all finished, it has power to it and what I think is a microwave dish about 1/3 up from the ground. Nobody has done any work on it for about two weeks.
He mentioned there is "round thingy midway up the tower", which sounds like microwave backhaul. If so, the telco's not the problem, unless there's something wrong at the other end of that link. Mike
We had a tower take a couple of years with leasing and then some local were complaining then the tower sat for another year will the lawyers worked out the legal stuff. This was back in the early 90's when not many people had cell phones and nobody wanted a tower in their back yard.
Last Monday (the 19th) Verizon "took over" the tower from the contractors. It still isn't in use yet but the workers at the tower told me last week that it is ready to go. Now we just need Verizon to flip the stwich.
IT'S ON!!!!!!!!!!!!! About 2:00 this morning my phone beeped. I looked at it and have a good signal. Now a question. I have a Motorola Vm3 phone and right now there is no EV indicator on the display................could it be that the new cell does not have that turned on yet? If not any ideas? I did a *228 and updated the phone but still no EV.
Alot of times carriers will not turn up high speed (EV,UMTS) in rural area because of the extra cost involved. In some areas where there are no other Broadband carriers like DSL or Cable providers, a cell provider may turn up the Broadband to cover these areas. You never know thou. They may be working on it. I would call a sales office and see if you could get a DATA package with an Air Card and see if service is available. If they see an interest in the area this could prompt them to get it going.
When I spoke with the guys that were working on the elecrtonics in the building at the base of the tower they told me that the site had "everything that Verizon sells" meaning internet, email etc. I'm thinking that the section of the electronics that do all the fancy stuff may not be up and running yet. It is a very rural area so IMHO Verizon would have $$$ to gain for offering all their services. There is no DSL and no cable here at all, TV is via satellite and the phone lines are OLD.
I'm glad the site has finally been turned out. I would not be surprised if the site is EVDO ready, but Verizon is not launching it with EVDO until they have more cellsites in the area EVDO ready.
