static bursts

I use a local cdma carrier, carolina west wireless, and am having a few problems and I was wondering if this is a problem of my carrier, or if this is normal for all networks.

1. I frequently get "Static bursts". Sometimes the static in my call is so much I cant hear the other end, I have to hang up and call back to clear it up.

2. Frequently when people call me, the phone never rings. They leave me a voicemail, a moment later the voicemail notification comes in but I was never alerted to the call.

3. I cannot send or receive texts to phones on other carriers, this started after i ported my number and someone messed that up, it had to be ported several times to get it to where i could at least receive calls from other carriers. but the texts never got fixed.

 

the network is congested, I frequently also get "all circuits busy" message, I have to keep redialing up to 10 times to get the call to go through. Strangely though, even when I can't place calls, I can receive them, or I can call *611 to get customer service to complain.

Maybe the congestion does cause the static, I've complained about all these things and I know others get the same problems but nobody else bothers to call the problems in so they probably think I'm just a demanding customer,

I've called the texting in too several times, apparently they don't know what they are doing. When the number was first ported, I couldnt even receive calls from certain numbers, they got a message saying the number is invalid. After re-porting, calls can come in but the texting still cant. I don't complain about that one much because I'd rather get the other problems fixed first.

I would love to change carriers, but this is not a highly populated area and it's rural and mountainous, there aren't a lot of carriers to choose from and, congested network or not, my carrier has way more towers in the area than the others. Maybe that's why it's so congested. Cingular, Sprint, and US Cellular are my other choices but they don't have near the coverage of my local carrier. I would like to have alltel but they don't cover my area.

 

It's a small company, I doubt they have a tier 2 support..ha.
I did talk with a network tech I know, he mentioned having to do some traces on trunk lines. After several calls to customer service, complaining to the tech, and complaining to the network manager over the phone, I'm not sure if it will ever get fixed.

Just out of curiosity, I asked him (I'm a geek and like to know all these useless irrelevant things) why the larger carriers sometimes have 5 antennas on each side of the tower, while my carrier usually has 2, sometimes even 1. He said he wasn't sure what the difference was, I'm not sure if I should take that to mean my carrier is less knowledgeable techs or maybe you would have to be trained on that network to understand that, I don't know. However the techs are, I'm certain the customer service and sales reps are not educated on the technical details of the network. CS told me the only way to increase capacity is to add a tower and I'm very close to 2 towers, so they tried to hint that wasn't happening.

I'm just going to assume any network would have those problems if they were too congested, because I'm not wanting to go to any of the competitors here, they may or may not have these network problems but I do know their coverage is far inferior.

 

I was guessing capacity but the tech said no. Capacity could be added just by adding another T1. the antennas could be 1 to send, 1 as a control antenna, 2 to receive, or some set up like that. I didn't really understand it much. Multiple antennas to receive in diversity I understand but that's about it. I continue to get different types of static...sometimes constant static..sometimes a split second burst of static for about a half second..it's just enough to be very annoying.

Speaking of capacity, neither alltel nor verizon service this area but do roam on my carrier, the few times a year we have festivals in town, all these vzw/alltel people come in town and it's impossible to get a call out. my phone is constantly switching to analog back and forth all day, i suppose that's unavoidable though. Maybe one of these days those carriers will move in town.

 

I think they have several dozen thousand customers, but isn't it true that a tower can only handle 100 or so calls at once? I'm in a residential area but also next to highway 421. I was guessing capacity was a problem because if I call around quitting time I get "all circuits are busy".

Ive thought about uscc, but they along with all the other competition, don't have near the coverage that cww does. I guess I'll see how it goes for the rest of my contract and see what happens. I'm not sure uscc even covers where I live, in which case I'd be roaming on cww anyway.

 

I'm very near 1 tower, I have a clear line of sight to it and always have full signal registering on my phone, even when I'm getting the static. There is another tower a couple miles away, there is a mountain in my line of sight to it but I should be able to pick up off that tower as well, ATT is on that tower and I always had full signal with them a couple years ago. Though I don't know how phones work with tower selection, or they may both be loaded at peak time.

I guess I'll just try to be content and patient during peak times and assume it's nothing out of the ordinary, I've called to complain enough they may pull a Sprint and drop me because I complain too much.ha.

 

Maybe it's a trunk problem, the tech I spoke with said that might be it. Though apparently he hasn't looked into it much. They probably think I'm just a nut, others have complained to me but not to them. I probably have to retry 1-2 calls per week, just enough to be annoying. Given the lack of good carriers here I may not have much choice anyway. I live away from town in a rural area and if I switched carriers I would still be roaming on the same carrier. I would like to be able to petition alltel to put up some native coverage, I like my rollover minutes but I'd like my circle too.

 

Ha I'll try that and see what happens.