What to do when coverage gets worse?

[littleroot]

We've been using a blackberrys with Nextel in and around my office for about two years and suddenly begining on March 13 there is about half-mile radius where we cannot send or receive emails, and our building is just inside this dead spot by about 100 yards.

Specifically, we cannot get the upper-case "L" on the "NXTL" signal-strength indicator. This started nearly two weeks ago and we've been driving around and found the geographical limits where it works and doesn't work.

If anyone cares this is in San Jose near the Santa Clara fairgrounds and 10th street. It's completely dead from Burke to Tully along 10th street, and going east on Tully until you get to McLaughlin. There no are buildings taller than three stories and we have line-of-sight with the major telecommunications hill. We've been calling Nextel and talking with them and blackberry support but they say there are no outages in our area and want us to replace our handset. I've been traveling up and down the coast and spent last week in Florida and the unit works fine.. They seem to have no way for us to report an outage.

Any ideas on who I can call to report this?

Thank you,
-Bob

[Fkewl]

Ask your provider if your BB's have the latest PRL list

This might affect your coverage if you have an out of date PRL list (list of which towers it can connect and talk with)

[NJBlackBerry]

PRL list updates only apply to CDMA phones.. (*228)....

[Fkewl]

Well then, maybe a Master Radio Reset for iDEN (with PTT button) BBs

Is there anything like that on the GSM phones ?

[NJBlackBerry]

Nope..

[littleroot]

Ask your provider if your BB's have the latest PRL list

This might affect your coverage if you have an out of date PRL list (list of which towers it can connect and talk with)

They had me do a IMZ (sp?) reset which was supposed to get me to pickup signal from a different tower but that didnt' work.

Finally a Sprint rep suggested I request a "coverage trouble ticket". I gave the CSR all the info on my location and they said you would be contacted within 48 biz hours. Well, I came back to work today and it's working great, finally, after three weeks it's fixed. I wish I knew sooner.

Repeat after me: "COVERAGE TROUBLE TICKET"

-Bob

[coreyg510]

I had an issue like that with coverage at my Cingular store....imagine that! Selling phones in a store where you couldnt get coverage. That was difficult selling. What had happened was a degraded tower was causing a loss in signal. We called our emergency techs out the store who promptly did some tweaking and only then was the coverage in and out through out the week. It was fixed and I can only hope that I dont have to go through that again.

[SMorganPhoto]

I had an issue like that with coverage at my Cingular store....imagine that! Selling phones in a store where you couldnt get coverage. That was difficult selling. What had happened was a degraded tower was causing a loss in signal. We called our emergency techs out the store who promptly did some tweaking and only then was the coverage in and out through out the week. It was fixed and I can only hope that I dont have to go through that again.

That was like when I worked at Circuit City in the camera department. None of the cameras had power. That was a hard one.

[jbairdjr]

I had this same problem here in Lincoln, where Alltel is merging its towers with the Cellular One towers in the area (after they purchased Western WIreless). The tower covering downtown Lincoln, where our office is, was not giving us the 1X, but 1x. This made our data not work.
I called, and they made a trouble ticket for what also was a tower problem.
Took most of the day, but it was eventually fixed.

[bigdaadio]

It is unclear from your post, if this issue pertains to one device or several ??
if several,you may also want to look into interference issues...
But in either case you need to call 611 and put in a trouble tic, make sure you have them get in touch with you after investigating issue.
Stay on them also...
If that doesnt work, there are some reasonably priced sig extenders out there. I have installed several for rural cell customers, that have been extremely happy with them for years.
PM me if yo need info on them.

[coreyg510]

They had me do a IMZ (sp?) reset which was supposed to get me to pickup signal from a different tower but that didnt' work.

Finally a Sprint rep suggested I request a "coverage trouble ticket". I gave the CSR all the info on my location and they said you would be contacted within 48 biz hours. Well, I came back to work today and it's working great, finally, after three weeks it's fixed. I wish I knew sooner.

Repeat after me: "COVERAGE TROUBLE TICKET"

-Bob

[Jase88]

Wasn't Nextel transitioning to 1900MHz spectrum in some areas? Perhaps this account for the reduction to in-building coverage?!

[phonemonkey]

iDEN only operates at 800MHz in the US. There is no Nextel iDEN transition except to leave it over the next couple of years in favor of the Sprint CDMA network.

The Nextel coverage finally got so bad for me at home (and at work, with a Nextel BDA in our building) that I switched to Cingular. We have a few users with 7100s who seem to have the "l" vs "L" problem pretty often, and the only fix seems to be a wireless off/on. Dumb.

[phonemonkey]

Also -- you can certainly try a network ticket, but these often won't get worked on unless they receive a number of complaints. Even then, unless it's a major problem (like no service or phone but no DC, or all voice but no data) don't expect much to happen for a week or so. We had a lot of experience with this before Sprint came along, and at least on the iDEN side, nothing has changed after the merger.

[Jase88]

You sure? Don't mean to doubt you, but I do recall reading about some interference issues with Nextel and public safety services, with the end result being Nextel was forced to give up some 800MHz spectrum in return for 1900MHz....

[dc/dc]

You sure? Don't mean to doubt you, but I do recall reading about some interference issues with Nextel and public safety services, with the end result being Nextel was forced to give up some 800MHz spectrum in return for 1900MHz....

Yes, we're sure.

You're right they were interfering with public safety nets, so they merged with Sprint in order to vacate 800 MHz rather than migrate their entire network to 1900.

[Jase88]

Nextel to pay $2.5 billion for new wireless spectrum

EE Times
Jul 08, 2004




WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday (July 8) to free spectrum in the 800-MHz to eliminate interference problems on public safety radio networks.
The action means wireless carrier Nextel Communications Inc. (Reston, Va.) will give up some of its licenses in the 800-MHz band and all licenses in the 700-MHz band. In exchange, the FCC will modify Nextel's licenses, giving it two 5-MHz blocks between 1,910-1,915 MHz and 1,990-1,995 MHz.

Nextel will also pay for the cost of moving other 800-MHz incumbents. The agency decided that Nextel will have to establish escrow accounts and obtain credit totaling $2.5 billion to ensure adequate funding of the relocation of other 800-MHz incumbents.


Nextel's wireless rivals vehemently opposed the spectrum swap, maintaining that Nextel was being given prime spectrum for its patented push-to-talk technology.

Law enforcement groups pressed the FCC to move commercial operators off the 800-MHz band to end long-standing interference problems.

[Jase88]

How would such a merge eliminate interference?! Sprint doesn't own 800MHz spectrum, do they? (assuming that Nextel would use other spectrum in 800MHz to avoid interference).


Yes, we're sure.

You're right they were interfering with public safety nets, so they merged with Sprint in order to vacate 800 MHz rather than migrate their entire network to 1900.

[Winters_Bill]

I have had the same thing happen to me in the last ~month or so on my 7520 and I had associated it with updating the software to the version that came out in February. At home, particularly in the evening my L (in NXTL) goes lower case for the entire night. As soon as I leave the house its fine and I receive alll the messages that came through in the night. It used to be fine all the time.

At first I didn't know if it was a BES problem or a Nextel problem but after talking to our messaging guys they indicated that our BES server was a-okay.

I called Nextel today to try and open a "coverage trouble ticket" and got the excuse that they are having nationwide data coverage problems and are not able to do any sort of troubleshooting until they have resolved it. They said that powering the unit off and back on every two hours is the current best approach. Frickin' super. In reality, as mentioned above, turning the radio off and on usually gets the L back for a time, then it goes back to l.

[Winters_Bill]

Well, for two days in a row now I have not been plagued by the lower case L. I guess maybe they did have a global problem that they have now resolved.