Mobile phones and reception advice

[wolfking]

Hey mates,

In my house, I have shit reception on both my mobile phones.  Because I am on an on call roster at work, I need to solve this problem.  Over the last couple of nights, I have missed calls and they have been then diverted to someone else, therefore I get my assed kicked for not answering my phone.  I didn't even ring.

I tested it out and when I try and call (when I can get some reception)  it won't even connect and goes to message bank.  I have had a friend try and call also, and they say it doesn't even ring. My phones also are old Nokias which are almost extinct.

My questions are, should I change service providers?  Should I ring my current service provider for advice?  And does the type of phone depend on the reception?  If I get an up to date iphone or something will that make the reception better.

I am a total n00b when it comes to mobile phones, I hate them.  Thanks for any help.

[jingle.boy]

not sure how many of us would have advice for your locale.  Could be the phone; could be the network; could be a dead spot from the carrier in your house and surrounding area.  There's a spot that I used to routinely drive - major road, middle of the city - that was a dead zone.  Zero reception.  It happens.

How about text messaging?

[BlobVanDam]

I'd get some friends over to test their phones in your house. If their phones work, and they have different phones but the same network, then it's your phone. If they're on different networks, you could probably try some sim swapping to help narrow it down to either the phone or the network/area.

[rumborak]

This thread is blobbed.

[wolfking]

not sure how many of us would have advice for your locale.  Could be the phone; could be the network; could be a dead spot from the carrier in your house and surrounding area.  There's a spot that I used to routinely drive - major road, middle of the city - that was a dead zone.  Zero reception.  It happens.

How about text messaging?

Fair enough, it's definitely a dead spot, so dead that text messages won't even come through.  I'm thinking it could be the phones.  My work phone completely doesn't work and my personal phone works just a little better, but not reliable.

I'd get some friends over to test their phones in your house. If their phones work, and they have different phones but the same network, then it's your phone. If they're on different networks, you could probably try some sim swapping to help narrow it down to either the phone or the network/area.

My old man is on a different carrier and has perfect reception in the same area.  I think it could be a combination of the phones and the service.

Thanks for the help.

[Nigerius Rex]

Almost extinct nokia phones have almost extinct crappy transmitters. I had a similar situation in my house where data is dropped  because I have a barely capable connection, and upgrading from a low end old dumphone to a smartphone drastically increased its strength into usable levels.

However like the above said it could be just very poor location to your cellular providers tower. If it is that the area just has poor reception and an upgrade wont help, then you could invest in a smaller cellular repeater to mount in your house/roof.

[wolfking]

Thanks for the response Rex.  I thought it might be the phones, as I'm looking to upgrade anyway, I might get an iphone of something. 

Also, have monitored my reception outside my house, and it's perfect on both my nokias.  So it's obviously just inside my house where I can't get any reception at all, weird.

[jingle.boy]

You live in a bunker?

Or maybe you should think about getting rid of all that asbestos.  Could be hazardous to your health too.

[glaurung]

This thread is blobbed.

rumborak

[kirksnosehair]

We have some issues at my office with 3G mobile reception and we deployed two of these on the roof - problem solved.

I don't know if you can do this where you live or not, though.

[wolfking]

You live in a bunker?

Or maybe you should think about getting rid of all that asbestos.  Could be hazardous to your health too.

Our house is only 1 year old.