Just started at T-mo as tech support

I have qustion.
My main problem with T-mobil is weak signal indoors, everywhere. Building I work in I have full signal right outside the door as soon as I get inside it's completly gone, one of the guys I work with that has tmo has the same problem so we're the only two that have to go outside to make phone calls, other guys with cingular, verizon and sprint can recive and make calls anywhere in the building. I also have simular problem inside my appartment where I have to be by the window to use my phone and right outside the door I get full signal, three deferent phones were tried with the same result, which are sharp t150, nokia 6101, and another nokia, not sure what the model number was also checked out the signal with my friends when visiting me at my place with other carriers had great signals.
Also when some one calls me while I don't have a signal and leaves a message, some times I don't get it for one to two days. It's very agrovating because it's very important for me to have a working phone at work since I work nights and there is no one in the office to pickup incoming phone calls. Once my wife ended up in emergency and I did not find out about untill I got home from work because no one could get hold of me. I can't switch providers due to contract and don't feel that I should be penalized for early termination because I'm not getting the service I should.

 

Unfortunately, no carrier guarantees service indoors. What is your zip code? I'm curious what the coveage looks like at http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage

 

I have similiar problems as SpecNaz308, I live in 92115 zip w/samsung T-809.
If I have my phone off, out of range or I reject incoming call I do not get any notification of a a voicemail msg. when I turn the phone on. I have to check my voice mail by calling. I get no on screen indication I have a msg. like when I just let the phone ring and someone leaves a msg. Also get poor reception indoors next to window. I know reception is not guarenteed but w/ a quad band phone it seems I should be more likly to recv. a signal. Also I get static when calling voice mail at times and need to call back a second time. All very fustrating as my cell is my primary phone.

 

Coverage is generally good in your area (using the map at the link above). But the voicemail notification should not be direct factor to coverage - for example if your phone is off, and you are in a great coverage area, when you turn your phone on you should get your voicemail notification within a minute or so. Have you called customer care?

Regarding coverage, two of the four bands of a quad band phone aren't for use in North America. In most of CA, T-Mobile uses 1900 only, the former Cingular network (PacBell) that Cingular and TM shared from 2002-2005. TM took full ownership of that network in 2005. Cingular uses that network as roaming right now (will be turned off eventually), but their primary network is the former AT&T network (all 850 in CA I think).

 

Thanks for reply Matt,

I am aware of the indoor limitations, but my main consern is that other cell providers do work, some better some worse but they work. I know that T-mobil is 1900mhz and cingular is both 1900 and 850, I've tried the nokia capable of both bands right next to the guy with cingular who was getting the signal, even tried to switch to cingular network manualy on the phone and it would not let me. This was the main reason I went with T-mobil because both T-mobil and Cingular are GSM and thought I would be well covered between the two, which for the most part is true except for indoors. What I've learned from expirience by treveling through out the country is that if T-mobil is not in the area I have no problem picking up Cingular but if T-mobil has coverage in the area I'm in, but has no signal it would not switch to Cingular.
So to conclude my gripe I'd like to emfesize the situation indoors in comparesen to other providers.
My personal guess is that 1900 band is weaker for barier penetration than other bands being used by the other cariers, whether it's true or not I'd like some education, please.
My area code is 01089

My appologies for spelling, English is my second language.
Thanks!

 

You area doesn't have the best coverage, but it isn't too bad overall - 4 new towers in the area shown by the pink T icons.

All thinks being equal, a 850 signal travels further than a 1900 signal, so indoor coverage woudl be better with 850 than 1900, assuming towers were in the same locations, etc.

You experience with roaming is consistent with T-Mobile's practices - generally if they offer in service in the area, you cannot roam on another carrier.

 

Not sure what such practice would be based on but it would be enough to lose customers.
Too bad all those towers are on the wrong side of the river, in my case.
Forgive me if I sound like all I do is _____ing but what's frustrating is 99% of the time I here excuses as to why this and that might be and no end resalt other then you're screwed buddy untill your contract is up. In my opinion the whole contract deal is a wrong buisness practice adopted by cell phocompanies due to spotty coverege, people do move and change jobs so what might of worked yesturday may not work today but consumer is getting stuck with bills for the sevice they don't get. I know of few people that had to switch from t-mobil for exact same reason as soon as their contract was up and I'm sure there will be few people on this forum that will share my payne. I did call T-mobil customer service with such complaint and was told my only option was to transfer an account to some one I know, well in my situation it's not an option.
Matt I know none of this is your foult or that you can help me with it I just feel like beeing heard.
Thanks fro reply!

 

I'v been a rabid supporter of Verizon Wireless for many years, however, there are places where we simply haven't had any coverage, or it's been spotty. Zip Code 29385 in the Spartanburg SC area being one notable example.

On our last trip to that area, I borrowed my daughter's T-Mobile Sidekick II and it had solid coverage where my Verizon phones did not. I don't know which carrier's system the TMobile was roaming on but regardless, it worked, and continues to have coverage at least as good as I get from Verizon, in both Carolinas and Virginia, inside and outside of buildings.

So, at least in my case, I'm gaining a pretty favorable opinion of TMobile. Now if they were to come out with a version of the Sidekick that has voice dialing and bluetooth, I'd be joining up.

Brad

 

The Sidekick 3, due to be released in July, has BT but not voice dialing.

http://www.hiptop3.com/

Check out the reference guides on that page.

 

Matt, Thanks for your reply. I will contact customer support about voice mail problems.
bobbob37, I haven't used messaging yet so am not aware of its effect on mail notifications.

 

It also has to do with your proximity from the cellsites. I'm in the eastern part of Massachusetts (northeast of Boston), there are T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon cellsites within one mile from here. T-Mobile and Sprint's are the closest, in fact so close, I can see them from my house. I get a full signal with T-Mobile in my cellar! A Sprint-connected phone (Nokia 2115) only displayed 3-4 bars out of 7, despite being so close to their tower and Verizon will display 6 or 7 bars, but once beyond one mile from a Verizon cell site, their signal drops.

 

When cingular bought the AT&T Wireless network they also inherited all
their network. AT&T Wireless had 1900 in every market they served including Los Angeles, SFO and Seattle. Part of ATTWS' misstep was that they brought out GSM on 1900 on their network. Unfortunately 1900 does not propagate as well as cellular "800/850" and many customers who migrated to GSM bailed since service was not as good as the legacy TDMA/IS-136 network. cingular took a different path. Since cingular was at the time mostly "cellular 800" they couldn't have GSM except in the markets that they inherited from Pac Bell (in California and Nevada) and from Bell South DCS in the Carolinas. The rest of cingular was all TDMA/IS-136 and generally cingular was one of the cellular licensees. cingular could not convert their cellular/800 markets to GSM simply because up to that time there was only GSM in North America on the PCS (1900) band and there wasn't equipment either for the base stations or for customer handsets. Even though cingular was "late" to the GSM game they did it right and in their cellular markets they applied GSM radios to their cellular base stations and also by the time they rolled out GSM in the rest of their non legacy GSM markets there was then customer GSM handsets that would work on either cellular "850" or on PCS "1900." They needed to deploy GSM 850 which is what ATTWS did not do (likely because at the time ATTWS started to overlay GSM on the IS-136 network there were no "cellular 850" radios for GSM base stations or for customer handsets.

 

Check this out, this article make me happy! Very smurt move by T-mobil to go 850.

http://www.betanews.com/article/TMobile_Plans_for_Growth_3G_in_2006/1134755975

 

T-Mobile itself is and will continue to be a 1900 PCS only carrier. The move to 850 refers to new roaming agreements T-Mobile has made within the last year. Before, T-Mobile would only allow you to roam on 1900 networks, but with the addition of allowing customers to use 850 networks as well as selliing handsets with 850 capabilities, T-Mobile has greatly increased their footprint.

 

In this case I fail to understand, what exactly is the adventage of 1900 over 850. Has to be something segnificant if you get more reach with 850 and less towers.

 

It's the frequency. The lower the frequency, the further the signal will usually travel.

 

Also I heard somewhere that Cingular got their 850 towers from att wireless when they bought them out and are them selves using 1900 and will be fazing out 850 eventualy.

 

It's the frequency. The lower the frequency, the further the signal will usually travel.

exactly my point, so what is the adventage of usin 1900?

 

Not true. Cingular was 850 Mhz in many areas before the AT&T Wireless buyout, but because of the buyout Cingular, in some areas like Florida, now owns both cellular licenses, and in some areas where they only owned an 850 or 1900 network they now own both. 1900 will not faze out 850 eventually. Cingular is happy using either one or both frequencies.

 

Using 1900 in addition to 850 can greatly enhace your capacity. Verizon, in some areas like NYC is using both frequencies in order to take some capcity off the 850 cellular network and to get rid of capcity issues.
850 or 1900 can work equally well depending on how well it is built out and jsut because a network is 850 doesn't mean it is the best/better network.

 

No definite advantage. The 850 spectrum was acquired by the carriers in either ths 1970s or 1980s as part of the original cellular networks. The newer carriers (Sprint, T-Mobile) weren't around then. They got their first spectrum, all at 1900, in the early 1990s. Other carriers acquired 1900 spectrum at that time as well to augment their existing spectrum holdings. OF course, there have been mergers, spectrum sales, and trades along the way, but Sprint (not including Nextel) and T-Mobile's owned networks are still all 1900.

 

Andy forgive me if I sound stupid but I'm still missing something and I'm sure it has to do with me not understanding much about freaqunces.
So by higher capacity you mean 1900 is capable of supporting more simultaneas
calls?

 

No answer is stupid and by no means am I the best one to answer these technical questions for you, but I will try my best.
Just because a carrier is 1900 does not mean that they can handle more simultanous calls. 1900 networks usually have cellsites placed closer togehther, which means more calls usually, BUT an 850 carrier like Verizon and Cingular having 1900 overlays in some areas is for extra capacity because they are not only using their 850 spectrum, but also their 1900 spectrum and the more spectrum you have available and utilize, the more calls you can jam in on your network(of course the switch and backhauls from the cellsites to the switch need to be able to handle the traffic). So just because a carrier is 1900 does not mean they have more capacity. The reason why Verizon is doing voice overlays on 1900 is because their 850 spectrum is being used and is starting to get jammed or they are afraid it will soon get jammed, hence they are starting to utilize their additional spectrum, which is in the 1900 Mhz range.
I hope this makes sense. It's late and I've had a long day.
Andy

 

You can only use the spectrum that you are allocated. The "850" is generally one of the legacy cellular providers (or who the provider was e.g. Pacific Bell Cellular became Airtouch which ultimately became VeriZon.) Bell South and Southwestern Bell Mobility eventually became cingular. AT&T Wireless came from McCaw Cellular. Companies like sprint PCS and VoiceStream (which became T-Mobile) were PCS because that's what was available to them. The same thing happened in Europe. The companies BT Cellnet (which became O2) and Vodafone are the 900 operators while all the others in the UK use 1800 (Orange, T-Mobile etc.) The lower frequencies are more valuable and require that you don't have as many base stations. Basically you use what you are allocated.

 

That has changed quite a bit here in Europe. O2 and Vodafone have deployed their own GSM 1800 towers in the UK for overflow situations where their GSM 900 sites might be filled to capacity. T-Mobile and Vodafone have also done this here in Germany. E-Plus and O2 Germany will be also given access to GSM 900 frequencies by giving up some GSM 1800 spectrum.

 

quick cellular tutorial.....

there are four cellular bands that are employed by most companies throughout the world...

1900/1800/900/850/800

1900 and 850 and some 800 are the ones that are employed here in the US. 1800 and 900 are used overseas.

these cellular signals can actually be compared to DSL Broadband:

like the other users stated.....the lower the frequency the farther it can travel but.......

the higher the frequency the more it can handle..

DSL is much like this.....it can handle super fast speeds but.....the signal cannot travel far from the main telephone switch

therefore.....highspeed data services (GPRS, EDGE, etc.) are currently not available in the 850 and 800 bands.....they are available in the 1900 bands.