Public Mobile Coverage

[Asher2]

Once Ontario lockdown and covid is over, I am planning to go for vacation to Tobermory. 

I do have doubts about the coverage in that area since it is a rural area and not many people live there. I looked up the cell phone towers around that area and some of the towers are like 16 kilometers apart. (See picture down below)

 

I have a tower thats 700M away from me and I typically get a 3 bar service, so I doubt towers will work 16 km away. I do use an up to date iPhone with apn settings updated so nothings wrong with that if you think that affects my coverage. (I also tried it with samsung, same bars)

Public Mobile says there is coverage there though. (See picture below) 

 

I know these are aproximate BUT i really do doubt that most of this is true. Most of the towers use 850MHz or 1900MHz so that may help. I know its hard to get an answer for this but do towers really work 16 km away?

[Asher2]

Aw that makes sense. I was calculating the distance of the cell towers from eachother. And I thought that I would be that distance far away from the tower. I should’ve known something I wrote was wrong

[sheytoon]

Ok but in a contiguous coverage scenario, if 2 towers are 14 km apart, you would never be more than 7 km from one of them.

[will13am · Accepted solution]

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@sheytoon wrote:

Looking at the map, you would be connecting to Bell sites at a distance much closer than 16 km, so you should be ok.

But if it was 16 km, I wouldn't be very optimistic, even on low bands like B5 or B12. It really depends on the local terrain, antenna height and azimuth, and whether you have line-of-sight to the antenna.

There are some values on the network for preamble format and cell radius that will artificially limit a phone from connecting, even if a signal is present. This is to compensate for propagation delays and timing advances, so that data from all users in a cell can arrive at the tower simultaneously. Another reason is that a reliable uplink signal (phone to tower) is needed, and a phone's maximum transmit power may not be strong enough to maintain a connection at long distances in non-line-of-sight conditions.

I don't remember exactly, but I think 14km is probably the limit in most instances.

Here's a nice document from ZTE on some low band analysis from a few years ago:

https://www.gsma.com/spectrum/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ZTE-LTE-APT-700MHz-Network-White-Paper-ZTE-...

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As far as sparse towers are concerned, I am most familiar with cellular performance along highway 17 in northern Ontario.  I am certain the distance between cell towers are way more than 14 km.  Generally, the highway is covered.  Because of terrain, the connection might drop going around bends on the road or parts where the road is created by blasting through outcrop.  

[sheytoon]

Looking at the map, you would be connecting to Bell sites at a distance much closer than 16 km, so you should be ok.

But if it was 16 km, I wouldn't be very optimistic, even on low bands like B5 or B12. It really depends on the local terrain, antenna height and azimuth, and whether you have line-of-sight to the antenna.

There are some values on the network for preamble format and cell radius that will artificially limit a phone from connecting, even if a signal is present. This is to compensate for propagation delays and timing advances, so that data from all users in a cell can arrive at the tower simultaneously. Another reason is that a reliable uplink signal (phone to tower) is needed, and a phone's maximum transmit power may not be strong enough to maintain a connection at long distances in non-line-of-sight conditions.

I don't remember exactly, but I think 14km is probably the limit in most instances.

Here's a nice document from ZTE on some low band analysis from a few years ago:

https://www.gsma.com/spectrum/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ZTE-LTE-APT-700MHz-Network-White-Paper-ZTE-...

[esjliv]

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@Asher2 wrote:

Once Ontario lockdown and covid is over, I am planning to go for vacation to Tobermory. 

I do have doubts about the coverage in that area since it is a rural area and not many people live there. I looked up the cell phone towers around that area and some of the towers are like 16 kilometers apart. (See picture down below)

 

I have a tower thats 700M away from me and I typically get a 3 bar service, so I doubt towers will work 16 km away. I do use an up to date iPhone with apn settings updated so nothings wrong with that if you think that affects my coverage. (I also tried it with samsung, same bars)

Public Mobile says there is coverage there though. (See picture below) 

 

I know these are aproximate BUT i really do doubt that most of this is true. Most of the towers use 850MHz or 1900MHz so that may help. I know its hard to get an answer for this but do towers really work 16 km away?

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Hello @Asher2 ,

I had similar questions about coverage and location of Telus towers recently.

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Using-Your-Service/Accuracy-of-PM-Coverage-Map-VS-Tow...

With the help of @Dunkman and @sheytoon there was useful info provided.

See further info about Telus and Bell towers  https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Using-Your-Service/Network-sharing-explained/td-p/129...

[mm80]

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@Asher2 wrote:

I wouldn’t switch a carrier just because the location im going to doesn’t have service.

And even if I wanted better coverage, I shouldn’t, Bell/Telus has the best coverage in Canada so its pointless.

I’ll just hope for the best when I go for vacation out of the GTA.

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Coverage is usually along highway between cities but when you get to places people live and work, the service gets concentrated there. Canada is a big country and carriers cover only a little of the land but cover most of where people are.

[Asher2]

Aw sorry for the miscommunication. I really don’t understand how to use cellphone boosters and alot of them are expensive.

[gpixel]

@Asher2 lol I thought you were moving there.. if you have a camper you can also use the cellphone booster hooked up to it

[Asher2]

I wouldn’t switch a carrier just because the location im going to doesn’t have service.

And even if I wanted better coverage, I shouldn’t, Bell/Telus has the best coverage in Canada so its pointless.

I’ll just hope for the best when I go for vacation out of the GTA.

[gpixel]

@Asher2 yes, cellphones have the ability to reach towers that are 70km away, but a realistic value would be about half that if you consider different variables that may affect your signal quality trees, weather etc. 

you will most likely need to purchase a cellphone booster or even switch providers

I think when we connect to a tower, pm prioritizes the towers with bands 850/1900mhz. I can recall a few customers complaining about being connected to a tower further away, instead of the tower closest to them. I'm not too sure if the closer towers had HSPA capabilities, but I'm thinking they were only LTE towers.