topic Re: Cell coverage in Get Support

Cell coverage

Mark59 — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 20:00:56 GMT

We have very poor cell coverage at our summer home at S.V. of Island Lake, Alberta. You have to walk out onto the road to get a connection. Seems to be an issue with many of the residents there. Can something be done?

Re: Cell coverage

will13am — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 20:40:00 GMT

There's not much that can be done with poor coverage in rural areas.

Re: Cell coverage

Mark59 — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 21:03:22 GMT

Yes but when I enter the location on the coverage map it shows full coverage

Re: Cell coverage

slusagm — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 21:09:09 GMT

people on Telus and Bell both have the same problem??

try manually choose 5G and 4G or 3G?? check each one and maybe one is better

Re: Cell coverage

will13am — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 21:16:08 GMT

@Mark59 , this is the cell map for Island lake. This will give you an idea how far away you are from the local towers. Even though a carrier might say an area is covered, coverage holes are possible when tower density is low.

https://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/cancellsites.html?lat=54.123822&lng=-113.546448&zoom=8&type=Roadmap&layers=a&pid=0&ds=0

Re: Cell coverage

BKNS27 — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 22:03:12 GMT

@Mark59

If coverage shows that it is OK then make sure the Roaming setting is enabled.

Re: Cell coverage

Mark59 — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 00:35:48 GMT

Aren't there extra charges for roaming?

Re: Cell coverage

Mark59 — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 00:37:04 GMT

I've seen that. Yes, I believe you are correct, just hoping there's a fix.

Re: Cell coverage

Mark59 — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 00:38:37 GMT

I'm set to LTE, 4G, 3G

Re: Cell coverage

Mark59 — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 00:39:21 GMT

Yeah...

Re: Cell coverage

hTideGnow — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 00:40:07 GMT

HI @Mark59

if it shows EXT, you can try connect with Roaming enabled and it is free

and PM is prepaid, you have to buy before you use. If you can use it, it means it is included

Re: Cell coverage

eddieO — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 00:45:14 GMT

The nice thing about PM is that it's a prepaid service meaning you will not get charged extra so no need to worry about roaming charges

Re: Cell coverage

BKNS27 — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 00:47:42 GMT

@Mark59

No charge for roaming if you are in Canada. It searches for the strongest signals from Telus or Bell cell towers where you are located.

You will need to purchase USA roaming for the phone to work in the USA…so no worries. Your phone will not work if you don’t purchase US Roaming.

Re: Cell coverage

Mark59 — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 15:17:13 GMT

Thanks for all the advice folks! I will switch to roaming and tech support refreshed my sim data. Fingers c

Re: Cell coverage

Mark59 — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 17:41:10 GMT

Well, PM refreshed my sim, I set my phone to roam, searched for wifi. Nothing worked. The other folks on my road have the same problem regardless of provider. A company named MCS provides internet in the area but roaming doesn't connect me to them. Some folks use starlink.

Re: Cell coverage

ottawa — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 18:11:32 GMT

The 2 nearest towers (per the ertyu.org map posted upthread) are Telus and Rogers. If users on Rogers/Fido/ChatR and other Rogers-based carriers are having the same problem, there's probably no easy fix (if it were only a Rogers tower, you could try a Rogers carrier, or full Telus with roaming on Rogers).

But a question for the crowd: is there any chance 600MHz would carry further? The one difference I see between the Rogers and Telus towers is the additional frequency on Rogers.

I helped a friend with an analogous situation at his chalet in QC, he tried multiple prepaid phones but they all lost coverage at the large E-W highway to the south; turned out that's where the nearest Rogers and Videotron towers were, and all the prepaid phones he tried were on Rogers. He's now happily a PM customer since we worked out only Bell serviced their N-S highway. I suspect full postpaid Rogers would have worked for him because they probably roam on Bell/Telus, and v/v. But he didn't want expensive postpaid anyone. Don't blame him. 🙂

The only other other solution I can think of, would be a mobile-capable router and directional antenna. Then use a softphone to make calls on WiFi. Or if you have MCSnet service, again use a softphone to call on the WiFi. But MCSnet (like most rural services) looks really expensive.

Re: Cell coverage

Mark59 — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 18:36:40 GMT

Right, and we're only out there in the summer and don't use it a ton as we're mostly outside so I don't want to pay for another service as well. I did purchase a booster for $100 from Amazon, put the antenna on a pole by the road and the booster by our travel trailer and it made zero difference. I thought maybe certain boosters only work for certain phones but anyone that comes out fares no better. I'm not too technologically bright and can't think of another solution. Maybe I should lobby Telus for a closer tower for our village?

Re: Cell coverage

Mark59 — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 18:40:41 GMT

I don't know what a soft phone is...

Re: Cell coverage

slusagm — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 18:43:16 GMT

soft phone is VoIP phone

you can see if you can download Fongo and use that to call

Re: Cell coverage

computergeek541 — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 18:56:57 GMT

@BKNS27 wrote:
@Mark59
If coverage shows that it is OK then make sure the Roaming setting is enabled.

Most phones do not have a a setting to enable roaming, but rather just to enable raoming data. Either way, enabling raoming will not improve the coverage that Public Mobile provides in Canada. Roaming is not used in any way while connecting the Public Mobile network anywhere.