Hello? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me.

January 28, 2016 10:49 AM

I have no cell phone service at my apartment since two weeks ago. What can I do? Maybe-snowflakes inside!

Two weeks ago, I suddenly got the dreaded "No Service" status on my phone, at my apartment. Once in a while, I'd get a strong signal, for like two seconds, and then pbt, back to No Service. I used to get a strong signal, so I doubt it's the out-of-tower-range problem. Rather, it's likely something recently installed nearby, that's interfering with the signal at home.

I've taken a look at possible solutions to improve the signal at home, but...
- Cell phone boosters: Gah, why are these $200 and up? And if the interfering apparatus is coming from outside, won't that mess with the booster anyways?
- Femtocells: I've heard these can be requested from the carrier, but I'm on an MVNO, and I doubt they would have femtocells available.
- WiFi Calling: this would be swwweeetttt... but my MVNO (Red Pocket on AT&T's network) doesn't support it :(

To complicate matters a teeny bit, I've been considering switching to Cricket Wireless (for unrelated reasons), but because that's also on AT&T, I'm worried that the no-service would just carry over.

Now what? I've tried toggling LTE, toggling cellular data in general, toggling Airplane Mode, standing near my windows for any kind of signal... Nope. If I want to make/receive calls or SMS, I have to scramble around outside to find a signal.

I rent, so no permanent installations please! The phone itself (iPhone 6S) is totally fine elsewhere.

posted by curagea to Technology (8 answers total)

Call your carrier-- they could just have an outage on your local tower. Any idea how well other carriers are doing at your location?

They need to hear from you if you're not getting coverage; they'd want to know if it was interference. An unchecked source of interference is a problem for everyone, especially if it's someone's active interference.

The phone does work at other locations, right?
posted by Sunburnt at 11:03 AM on January 28, 2016

Go through whatever process your carriers uses to refresh cell towers...
posted by HuronBob at 11:10 AM on January 28, 2016

I know you say you have no service in your apartment but how is your service when you are outside of your apartment. If you still have problems outside of your apartment you will have a much stronger case with customer service when you call.

I had a similar problem a few years ago where I was routinely getting no service at home and strangely enough I could successfully talk on the phone while driving to my house but once I hung up I couldn't make additional calls. When I called customer service all they heard was "no service in my house" and were running through their typical script about how they can't always provide reliable service in all buildings, etc. However when I shifted focus to expressly mentioning that I couldn't make calls when standing outside my house then they took action to do a site survey. Turns out the tower nearest my house (about 2/3rd of a mile away) was partially failing which is what was causing my problem.
posted by mmascolino at 11:27 AM on January 28, 2016

You've tried rebooting the phone, right?

I agree that it's likely a specific tower that is near your house that is failing. The thing to do is to report the outage, and hope AT&T fixes it soon.

Apparently, another option would be to switch to AT&T briefly, acquire & configure a microcell, and then switch back to the AT&T MVNO of your choice - the microcell will keep working. Obviously, this is probably a last resort solution.
posted by kickingtheground at 12:02 PM on January 28, 2016

Response by poster: I have, indeed, tried a reboot before, to no avail. Service outside my apartment seemed fine.

Well, I contacted Red Pocket and they said they did a "reset", and I should turn my phone off then on again. 'Course, I'm at work right now, so I can't actually test this until I get home. Fingers crossed.

I was hesitant about contacting my carrier, because Red Pocket doesn't own the towers, AT&T does, so if there was indeed an outage, there would be the whole "well we'll poke them and see if they'll do anything" dance.
posted by curagea at 1:12 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Cell phone boosters: Gah, why are these $200 and up?

They're $200 and up because you are on a budget prepaid service. T-Mobile, for example, sends 'em out for free if you're on a postpaid account. Of course, you would be paying a lot more for the service, but stuff like this is one of the things you're paying for.
posted by kindall at 6:16 PM on January 28, 2016

You've already done this but nthing calling the provider. My region had a huge storm last year and I lost my internet but was in a small minority that didn't lose power. When I called the ISP -who were based in a city halfway across the country - he was convinced it must be me only because they'd had no other calls logged from my exchange. Well it turned out that no one else using this provider had internet either and he was shocked I was the first caller. I pointed out that I was probably the only person in that area using their services who still had electricity to realise their internet didn't work!

All that to say that your call might help others :-)
posted by kitten magic at 1:16 AM on January 29, 2016

Maybe someone in your apartment had a booster and moved.
posted by Feisty at 8:34 AM on January 31, 2016 [1 favorite]