I have noticed that since the end of December data coverage around town has been severely lacking
-anywhere within a block of campus
-the Tejas center
-near university and hwy 6
These are the areas I frequent, I’m sure there are more
In January I called 611 and was told that they had a down tower and that perhaps that was to blame for the slow connection. In February I called back and was told that the down tower had been fixed. I had been reporting problems with the “mark the spot” app since December. I explained to the tech support person on the phone that I was still having the same issues and it was not getting better. I could reboot the phone and it would be okay for about an hour or reset the network connection and it would be okay for an hour or so, but the problem always returns. Full signal strength and cannot access the data network or it is extremely slow, over 5 min to load a webpage. I happen to have a spectrum analyzer at my disposal (tool for looking at rf signals, mine goes all the way to 7ghz or so). I verified good signal and now signs of interference with tech support and the suggested that perhaps it was EMI. I was getting pretty ticked off seeing how I do this kinda thing for a living and I was getting a line of bullsh!# from tech support. All the while they still deny there is any problem.
Fast forward to last Friday. For a while now I have been reporting problems using the “mark the spot” app (I really think it’s more of a placebo then att actually using the data to fix anything) and received zero feedback regarding my issues. At lunch I stopped by the att store near east 29th and Villia Maria. Went straight to the counter and starting trying to explain the issues I’d been having with my dataplan. He pulled his non-iphone 4g smart phone out for a comparison. I tried pulling up a webpage and streaming music from Pandora, he was playing videos from ESPN before I could load google’s webpage. Pandora never worked while I was there. I explained that I could leave the phone off for a couple min or reset the network connections and get the phone to work for an hour or so. The tech explained that my phone was out of warranty and perhaps I needed a new phone. I said that was a very silly summarization. My phone worked fine last semester, it works at times, it hasn’t been damaged, the only change has been the changes to the 3g/4g network. Att doesn’t offer any droid phones im interested in, the newest iphone is still a 3g phone and my friends are having problems on them as well. So what phone exactly are you suggesting I upgrade too? This was about 30 min into the conversation, at this point he finally admitted that iphones had been having a problem since December when the 4g deployment started.
Suffice to say it’s not my phone and I’m not crazy.
The problem was again confirmed by another friend after an hour and a half conversation with 611 tech support yesterday.
I don’t know how att’s system works exactly but I suspect a couple things could be occurring
Perhaps the new 4g cell protocol is putting 3g users into a different role or assigning 3g users a lower priority on the towers.
It could really be any number of things but I know nothing nor would ATT&T say anything
Things that still have me upset
-no timeline on when it will be fixed
-no public acknowledgement of the issue
-one of the tech guys in February suggested I switch carriers
-switching to another iphone won’t help
-paying for services I cant use
[This message has been edited by pacecar02 (edited 5/9/2012 10:37a).]
[This message has been edited by pacecar02 (edited 5/9/2012 11:14a).]
-anywhere within a block of campus
-the Tejas center
-near university and hwy 6
These are the areas I frequent, I’m sure there are more
In January I called 611 and was told that they had a down tower and that perhaps that was to blame for the slow connection. In February I called back and was told that the down tower had been fixed. I had been reporting problems with the “mark the spot” app since December. I explained to the tech support person on the phone that I was still having the same issues and it was not getting better. I could reboot the phone and it would be okay for about an hour or reset the network connection and it would be okay for an hour or so, but the problem always returns. Full signal strength and cannot access the data network or it is extremely slow, over 5 min to load a webpage. I happen to have a spectrum analyzer at my disposal (tool for looking at rf signals, mine goes all the way to 7ghz or so). I verified good signal and now signs of interference with tech support and the suggested that perhaps it was EMI. I was getting pretty ticked off seeing how I do this kinda thing for a living and I was getting a line of bullsh!# from tech support. All the while they still deny there is any problem.
Fast forward to last Friday. For a while now I have been reporting problems using the “mark the spot” app (I really think it’s more of a placebo then att actually using the data to fix anything) and received zero feedback regarding my issues. At lunch I stopped by the att store near east 29th and Villia Maria. Went straight to the counter and starting trying to explain the issues I’d been having with my dataplan. He pulled his non-iphone 4g smart phone out for a comparison. I tried pulling up a webpage and streaming music from Pandora, he was playing videos from ESPN before I could load google’s webpage. Pandora never worked while I was there. I explained that I could leave the phone off for a couple min or reset the network connections and get the phone to work for an hour or so. The tech explained that my phone was out of warranty and perhaps I needed a new phone. I said that was a very silly summarization. My phone worked fine last semester, it works at times, it hasn’t been damaged, the only change has been the changes to the 3g/4g network. Att doesn’t offer any droid phones im interested in, the newest iphone is still a 3g phone and my friends are having problems on them as well. So what phone exactly are you suggesting I upgrade too? This was about 30 min into the conversation, at this point he finally admitted that iphones had been having a problem since December when the 4g deployment started.
Suffice to say it’s not my phone and I’m not crazy.
The problem was again confirmed by another friend after an hour and a half conversation with 611 tech support yesterday.
I don’t know how att’s system works exactly but I suspect a couple things could be occurring
Perhaps the new 4g cell protocol is putting 3g users into a different role or assigning 3g users a lower priority on the towers.
It could really be any number of things but I know nothing nor would ATT&T say anything
Things that still have me upset
-no timeline on when it will be fixed
-no public acknowledgement of the issue
-one of the tech guys in February suggested I switch carriers
-switching to another iphone won’t help
-paying for services I cant use
[This message has been edited by pacecar02 (edited 5/9/2012 10:37a).]
[This message has been edited by pacecar02 (edited 5/9/2012 11:14a).]