In this new world that is connected by cell phone technology, we often find ourselves troubled due to the extremely poor signal reception. As a matter of fact, I am experiencing signal problems with my cell phone as we speak. Despite of the improvements in the bandwidth and the carrier technology over the decades, we still suffer from cell phone signal problems and dropped calls, poor voice quality and unsent texts in the outbox are pretty common.
When you cannot connect to a person’s phone via a call, sending them a text message might be the wisest choice. Today however, the bad signal reception has affected even the texts that often fail to be sent. Poor cell phone signal is pretty much ruining the ultimate Smartphone experience and doesn’t let us enjoy the revolutionary Smartphone technology that has come right out of the future. There are several tips however, so that you can improve your cell phone reception.
Clear Out the Obstructions
Whenever you use your phone radio waves travel to the nearest cell phone tower and you are able to make a call or send a text if the waves are not blocked by anything. It is almost like a game of Marco Polo where you cell phone says Marco and the cell phone tower replies polo. While you can’t do anything about the permanent obstructions like buildings and mountains, you can certainly move to an area with a better reception. Opening a window and clearing the curtains or blinds can also change the signal availability considerably.
Knowing the Location of Your Nearest Cell Tower
While most people are unaware of this, but knowing the location of your nearest signal tower can certainly help you get a better reception. We all know that the closer your phone is to the signal tower, the better cell phone reception you shall get. You can visit several websites that tell you the location of the nearest cell tower in your area based on your number, carrier, post code etc. You can also access the signal strength on your phone to know whether a cell tower is close or not. Anything from a -50 is considered a good and strong signal and anything below a -113 means a dead zone with low or no signal adequate enough to make a call. You can also find some Smartphone apps that tell you the location of the nearest cell tower.
Keeping Your Phone Charged
The main functionality of the phone is to connect to a cell phone tower so that you can make and receive calls. When a phone connects to a cell tower it uses up battery power in order for the signal transistor to work. It is a common problem for cell phones to experience a poor signal when the battery is low. Hence, keeping your Bluetooth and wifi connectivity visible all the time is certainly not a very good idea as all these functions use up the phone batter leaving little or no juice for it to connect to a tower. You can also disable push notifications or simply create a power plan for your smart phone that shuts down all the functions that you do not need to use on a regular basis. Make sure you constantly update you phone operating system.
Cell Phone Antenna
In older cell phone models, there used to be a visible antenna that was used for sending and receiving signals. However, in the models these days the antennas are often built inside the cell phone frame and while it worked well for the design team, it really created a lot of problems in functionality. This example is best evidenced by iPhone that holding the phone in a landscaped position blocks the inbuilt signal antenna and it literally renders the phone useless despite all its technological glory. While the new designs have a serious problem with their antennas that needs to be solved in the near future, simply holding them in an upright position can certainly improve the signals.
Change Network Carriers
After you have tried almost every method in the book to improve your cell phone signal availability, the last option remains to jump ships and change your network service provider. There are several cell phone service providers like Verizon, AT&T and others that provide cell phone network in almost all the parts in the US. There might be a chance that the service provider you are using doesn’t have too many towers in your area and hence you face a poor signal reception. If you want to change your crappy reception, why not change your crappy service. Do have a word with the customer service of your service provider before making any quick decisions. You can also visit various websites that provide ratings for the various cell phone services in your locality based on your location and zip code.
The above tips can certainly help you with your current signal reception problems. But, if all else fails you might want to talk to your carriers about selling you a Femtocell or you can plan on buying a cell phone signal amplifier by several manufacturers like Wilson Amplifiers and others.
Image credit Nan Palmero, CC BY 2.0
