What would reduce cell tower signal?

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Geektastic

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#242525 2-Nov-2018 09:34

I can see the local cell tower from my house clearly. Until recently we had a weak but steady 2 or 3 bars of 4g.

All of a sudden it's dropped to one bar and been that way for for a couple of weeks now.

What would do that?

timmmay

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#2118267 2-Nov-2018 09:37

Government monitoring? ;)

DjShadow

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#2118271 2-Nov-2018 09:39

I would say Noise/Capacity use

e.g my parents use spark wireless, but also with near line of sight to their tower the router wouldn't get more than 3/5 signal, but once spark activated another LTE band (1800mhz) it suddenly went up to 5/5 signal

NickMack

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#2118313 2-Nov-2018 09:53

Hiya,

So many answers to this question - a few things to consider.

* Bars on the phone isn't necessarily a good indication of performance or signal strength. This is a feature created by the handset operator, and like all standards, these are open to being deployed in variety ways.

* RF interference is a hard issue to investigate based on the need to deploy expensive kit, monitor everything and draw conclusions backed up by real data.

* Telco's tune performance of sites for a variety of reasons, even things like having a major event in a area could mean they can turn up and turn down various elements to seek better performance.

* When new sites are deployed in close proximity and there is overlapping coverage, phones can constantly handover between multiple cell sites and impact reliability.

* Troubleshooting faults is another reason in terms of the need to tweak / change and monitor items.

Best course of action is to call Vodafone, raise a ticket/concern about the change in behaviour. @JasonParis

Nick.

https://nick.mackechnie.co.nz | NZ ISP latency monitoring - https://smokeping.thenet.gen.nz

Talkiet

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#2118381 2-Nov-2018 10:59

NickMack:

Best course of action is to call Vodafone, raise a ticket/concern about the change in behaviour. @JasonParis

I need to point out (and you have picked up already by the look of your word choice) that it's a change in observed handset behaviour. OP gave no indication that performance or stability has been impacted in any way.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

MikeB4

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#2118386 2-Nov-2018 11:10

Geektastic: I can see the local cell tower from my house clearly. Until recently we had a weak but steady 2 or 3 bars of 4g.

All of a sudden it's dropped to one bar and been that way for for a couple of weeks now.

What would do that?

You polished your Landrover and its bouncing the signal.

NickMack

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#2118388 2-Nov-2018 11:15

Talkiet:

NickMack:

Best course of action is to call Vodafone, raise a ticket/concern about the change in behaviour.

I need to point out (and you have picked up already by the look of your word choice) that it's a change in observed handset behaviour. OP gave no indication that performance or stability has been impacted in any way.

Cheers - N

Correct Neil :-) Funny, two other Telcos commenting on the other one....

Nick.

https://nick.mackechnie.co.nz | NZ ISP latency monitoring - https://smokeping.thenet.gen.nz

Sounddude

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#2118480 2-Nov-2018 13:02

There is also a symptom called "Cell Shrinkage". The more people doing data on that cellsite will cause the coverage to shrink. The Cell tower adapts its power levels to cope.

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Jase2985

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#2118492 2-Nov-2018 13:34

who says you are even connected to that tower?

MikeB4

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#2118499 2-Nov-2018 13:41

Sounddude:

There is also a symptom called "Cell Shrinkage". The more people doing data on that cellsite will cause the coverage to shrink. The Cell tower adapts its power levels to cope.

I thought that had something to do with cold water and swimming

Linux

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#2118503 2-Nov-2018 13:49

Azimuth change on the serving cell

John

tripper1000

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#2118551 2-Nov-2018 14:21

Other possibilities:

1) Have you dropped the phone or is it possible that the phone has deteriorated (eg through sweat/moisture/dust ingress) in some way or has it been opened recently to replace an internal battery or LCD for instance? This can disrupt the connection and and phasing through to the internal antenna.

2) Has a new higher frequency band been enabled on the tower or nearby towers? (check RSM website). The phone may be connecting on a higher frequency band which offers better bandwidth, but lower receive signal strength.

3) Has the bandwidth of the cell site been widened? eg, some 2G/3G slots converted to 4G?

4) Has something obstructive or reflective to the signal changed near by? EG a tree growing, garage being built, shipping container/truck been placed in the neighbours yard, or a roof changed from tile to iron? This could be behind or beside you and not necessarily between you the and tower you think you are connecting to.