ok, so i get my cell service thru verizon, and in december i got mobile broadband. i live way out in the boonies, and the service was never great, but i normally got at least two bars. that's up until about 48 hours ago. both my cell service and my mobile broadband went to absolute shit. im talking zero service thru my cell or computer. it takes me 2-3 minutes to fully download the front page to tdub, and if it's a site any more complex, with pics and whatnot, it often refuses to load.

my question, does anyone know if service providers like verizon ever decide to discontinue service to certain areas? this really sucks...i gotta drive 15 minutes to an area where i can actually call someone. i cant even call verizon to find out wtf is going on!

1/11/2008 5:57:01 PM

Nah it was probably an issue on the tower itself. Perhaps they had some wind mess up an antenna, or a lightning strike or something. Call them 1-800-922-0204 and let them know about it. Be sure to tell them you have a cellphone AND a mobile broadband card, so they can't say "Well maybe your phone is broken" or some shit like that. I have seen it happen before, and Verizon is usually fairly quick on getting out and fixing shit.

1/11/2008 8:26:03 PM

It's not just out in the middle of nowhere, I've been having the same problem w/ Verizon everywhere in Raleigh for the past 3 months or so -- and 9 out of 10 times I try calling customer service, I get "Thank you for calling Alltel" (since they share towers in areas where one or the other has poor service)

After they sent me a new BlackBerry saying the phone was the issue, I just gave up and have accepted the shitty quality since  

1/11/2008 9:43:20 PM

called the number a while ago...they said well maybe it's the house you're in. nope, my service was fine up until the past 2 days. well you're in an area that doesnt get much coverage. no, my cell phone has worked in this exact spot for 8 months, and the broadband was working for almost a month. not always the best service, but tolerable.

well, after about an hour on the phone going through one fix after another (except for the one where you have to call in from another line, which i dont have), he said there was nothing else he could do. he thinks it might be that the towers were updated or some shit like that. and whatever happened, it's probably irreversible.

it's pretty fucked up. ive only had this broadband for a tad under a month now. now ive gotta find a verizon store in an area i dont know worth a shit and find out if they can fix it before i get stuck into some 1-2 year contract.

god, i hope my days of driving 30 minutes to a holiday inn parking lot for internet dont come back.

1/11/2008 10:41:11 PM

could be ground radiation seeping from your house that's causing interference of the signal... Either that or zombies...

1/11/2008 11:29:49 PM

pine trees needles are nearly perfect absorbers for cell phone frequencies... so on a windy day any line of sight trees can easily be affecting the signal... if your far enough away from the tower than air turbulance itself can also cause problems (but very unlikely since this is more typical with optical wavelengths but the further away the more any little drop in power will affect you...)

if it's only bad on windy/rainy days your kinda SOL... hopefully it's something else though.

1/12/2008 12:30:21 PM

worked thru wind and rain before, and only yesterday did it rain, two of the other 3 days the service was crap on normal days. i would even say the days were nice.

anyway, im at the verizon store now, and the customer service rep just called the technical service guys (who i called last night and they did nothing for me), and handed me the phone.

if something is not resolved, im gonna get a bit angry here for having to drive an hour just to be handed the phone.

1/12/2008 1:49:05 PM