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vacationing in upstate NY town that has no service from *any* cell phone company

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vacationing in upstate NY town that has no service from *any* cell phone company

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Old Jul 26, 2016, 10:10 pm
  #16  
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Originally Posted by KCZ
Or if your room already has a landline, you can get a modem and revert to dialup internet. You can at least check Email that way.
cool, I guess I'll have to buy one of those AOL or Earthlink CDs on eBay?
wow! this one comes with 1045 hours of dial-up AOL!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Collectors-C...oAAOSwY3RXJpmu
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Old Jul 26, 2016, 10:16 pm
  #17  
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Originally Posted by tmiw
How far's the main building from your room? A couple of wireless->Ethernet bridges with external high-gain antennas and an access point inside your room may work--if they'll let you install that stuff, that is.

BTW I'm a bit surprised Verizon doesn't have coverage somewhere, considering they have the reputation of working everywhere and all.
reputation and reality don't always align. Where I live VZW sorta works on 3G data, but don't bother with a voice call, it simply won't go through. (AT&T is in the same boat, zero Sprint, only US Cellular and T-Mobile -- barely)
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Old Jul 27, 2016, 12:28 am
  #18  
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Originally Posted by tmiw
BTW I'm a bit surprised Verizon doesn't have coverage somewhere, considering they have the reputation of working everywhere and all.
Those Verizon coverage maps are entirely fictitious. I live in northern New England, in an area that's included on Verizon's map, and we have no cell phone service in my town either from Verizon or anyone else.

Originally Posted by Siberian_Viktorya
cool, I guess I'll have to buy one of those AOL or Earthlink CDs on eBay?
wow! this one comes with 1045 hours of dial-up AOL!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Collectors-C...oAAOSwY3RXJpmu
Collector's item, my patootie. I was still using AOL dialup until a year ago. People that live in metropolitan areas have no idea how much of the US still has no cell service and/or high speed internet, which per this thread includes upstate NY, Wisconsin, and part of New England.
Last edited by KCZ; Jul 27, 2016 at 12:42 am
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Old Jul 27, 2016, 1:17 am
  #19  
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Originally Posted by KCZ

Collector's item, my patootie. I was still using AOL dialup until a year ago. People that live in metropolitan areas have no idea how much of the US still has no cell service and/or high speed internet, which per this thread includes upstate NY, Wisconsin, and part of New England.
add West Virginia and parts of Michigan to the list.
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Old Jul 27, 2016, 8:25 am
  #20  
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Originally Posted by KCZ
Those Verizon coverage maps are entirely fictitious. I live in northern New England, in an area that's included on Verizon's map, and we have no cell phone service in my town either from Verizon or anyone else.



Collector's item, my patootie. I was still using AOL dialup until a year ago. People that live in metropolitan areas have no idea how much of the US still has no cell service and/or high speed internet, which per this thread includes upstate NY, Wisconsin, and part of New England.
Mobile phone companies' coverage maps tend to show where they are licensed to provide coverage, not where they actually do.
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Old Jul 27, 2016, 8:36 am
  #21  
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Originally Posted by gfunkdave
Mobile phone companies' coverage maps tend to show where they are licensed to provide coverage, not where they actually do.
The coverage maps are usually quite rough and jagged. You're saying the licensed coverage area looks something like this? (from T-Mobile)
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Old Jul 27, 2016, 8:53 am
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Originally Posted by gfunkdave
Mobile phone companies' coverage maps tend to show where they are licensed to provide coverage, not where they actually do.
The ones I've looked at are clearly estimated coverage based on tower locations and topography.
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Old Jul 27, 2016, 8:55 am
  #23  
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Originally Posted by nerd
The coverage maps are usually quite rough and jagged. You're saying the licensed coverage area looks something like this? (from T-Mobile)
I think T-Mobile is the exception to the rule. They used to provide (it's been a long time since I looked) access to their internal RF models of actual coverage.

I meant the kinds of maps at the bottom of this page:
http://www.verizonwireless.com/landi...etter-matters/
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Old Jul 27, 2016, 10:35 am
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Originally Posted by Siberian_Viktorya
Wi-Fi without the internet is even worse.

Yeah - a bit of a tease when you see a wifi signal, but it's not connected to the Internet.

I guess to your original question, if you really have to be able to connect to the Internet, this isn't the place to be dragged on vacation.

Perhaps there's a tall mountain you can hike that gets signal? I encountered that in western North Carolina a few weeks ago. No signal until we hiked one of the taller mountains in the area. Boom - lots of texts and VMs started rolling in.
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Old Jul 27, 2016, 10:45 am
  #25  
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Originally Posted by KCZ
People that live in metropolitan areas have no idea how much of the US still has no cell service and/or high speed internet, which per this thread includes upstate NY, Wisconsin, and part of New England.
Originally Posted by Siberian_Viktorya
add West Virginia and parts of Michigan to the list.
Also Arkansas. On the drive to my mother's hometown, there is no cellphone service from the time you leave the interstate until about 5 minutes from the edge of the town.
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Old Jul 27, 2016, 2:23 pm
  #26  
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What you need is one of these:

Name: index.jpg Views: 372 Size: 5.4 KB
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Old Jul 27, 2016, 3:14 pm
  #27  
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Shall we play a game?

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Old Jul 27, 2016, 3:16 pm
  #28  
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Originally Posted by pinniped
Shall we play a game?

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You're welcome

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Old Jul 27, 2016, 4:30 pm
  #29  
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Originally Posted by gfunkdave
I think T-Mobile is the exception to the rule. They used to provide (it's been a long time since I looked) access to their internal RF models of actual coverage.

I meant the kinds of maps at the bottom of this page:
http://www.verizonwireless.com/landi...etter-matters/

it also amuses me that the Verizon "Can you hear me now?" guy
has defected to Sprint recently!



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Old Jul 27, 2016, 11:37 pm
  #30  
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Originally Posted by KCZ
Those Verizon coverage maps are entirely fictitious. I live in northern New England, in an area that's included on Verizon's map, and we have no cell phone service in my town either from Verizon or anyone else.



Collector's item, my patootie. I was still using AOL dialup until a year ago. People that live in metropolitan areas have no idea how much of the US still has no cell service and/or high speed internet, which per this thread includes upstate NY, Wisconsin, and part of New England.
I wouldn't include WI in that. The southern half of the state has very strong US Cellular LTE coverage (places where there are no service are the exception, not the rule.) AT&T and Verizon have the northern half fairly well covered. If you're finding areas in WI where coverage is lacking, it is 95% of the time due to local restrictions on building out a cell site. If USCC and Verizon are the primary carriers, coverage is generally not an issue. If it is AT&T and Verizon, you'll run into more dead spots. If you're in Maine (which would be NNE), and have no Verizon and no US Cellular, you're either in a forestry area, or a potato field.

Last bit, in Maine, fibre is surprisingly available in rural areas. There was an initiative a few years ago called 3 ring binder, which brought three rings of fibre optic to the various communities. Local ISPs have access to this, and are able to deploy it to their customers at fairly inexpensive prices.
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