I went up to my cabin this last weekend. We hung out on the lake, had bon fires, and just had a blast. Okay, okay I’ll stop bragging now. We went in to the nearest town the first night for dinner and saw that the newest addition was a cell phone tower. I thought, “Awesome! My cell will actually work up here finally!” Boy was I wrong. But I couldn’t figure out why. I thought that with the new tower, I would be good to go. Instead, it was the same as always – dropped calls and no service.
So what was the issue? I found my answer after reading this article- Top 5 Things That Hinder Cellular Communications, by Laine Matthews. You can read his whole article here, but I will give you the gist of the article with the list of 5 cell hindrances.
- Distance from the nearest cell tower
This one is the most common and obvious answer on the list. The farther away you are from a tower, the weaker the signal is. Your device may even say you have service but it is too weak to push the signal all the way back to the tower. - Local terrain features
Any situation in which there is higher ground between the cellular device and the cell tower can cause signal issues, says Matthews. This I did not know, but I suppose it does make sense. Things like hills or mountains are just some of the terrain that can cause weak signals. - Man-made obstructions
Radio frequency signals have difficulty passing through almost any material used in construction. Everything from buildings to bridges can cause issues. This is more of an issue in urban areas, so reception is usually best outside of buildings. - Vehicles
This is similar to the man-made obstructions in that metal and glass block and weaken signals. Matthews research showed that on average cell signals drop by about 30 percent in a vehicle. - Vegetation
My issue turned out to be this one. I had no idea that trees, shrubs, and other foliage can absorb cell signals. That’s right, folks. Plants absorb our signals. This still blows my mind, but explains a lot about my signal levels since my cabin is surrounded by trees.
Bonus!
Matthews also provides a link to download a whitepaper by Andrew Seybold that we included here. The whitepaper discusses signal boosting solutions for remote and mobile workers. It’s an awesome tool!
Some of these on the list are pretty obvious, while others are not expected. But at least the next time you experience mobile field service communication issues you will know it can be due to many different factors instead of just your phone sucking!