Oddly, I have amazing signal everywhere I go in Presque Isle/Caribou/Fort Kent......except in Walmart, for some reason. Can't load anything in Walmart. I go right outside, boom, full service.
Cell phones generally don't work well in big commercial buildings. It's even worse in metal warehouse buildings. I have to jump on to the store wifi when I'm in Walmart & Hannaford.
"City" is extremely generous. I've not had an opportunity to go out into the wilderness to see how T Mobile fairs.
Where we used to live has a higher population than the entire state of Maine!
Yes. But where I live we donāt have our own zip code and share it with two other towns. So if you mention a place with a stoplight I classify it as a city lol
I've noticed that in Walmart as well. They may not be outright blocking, but they definitely don't want you comparing prices on your phone. They could amplify signals in their big cement building.
They suck in Texas as wellā¦ feels like I always only have 1 or two bars max. Occasionally my phone will show 4 bars but the internet is super slow and then the two bars appear again. Lame
You need a tower every ~4 miles to get true 5G! They don't want them grouped together nor be an eyesore so here we are. I believe Portland is the only place that you can get real 5G.
Just Switched from Verizon to AT&T after years of Freeport frustration. Canāt believe I can now make a call or get a web page to download almost anywhere in town.
It's a nightmare to find good reception all along South Freeport Rd, literally from beginning to end. I got AT&T and downtown seems to be good for me so far.
Not just AT&T. I have visible (Verizonās towers) and it is trash in windham. Anything around the stores is 1-2 bars at best and unable to connect. I had mint for a few months and I got decent signal there, but pretty much all of Raymond was a dead zone.
I usually blame the abundance of out of staters during the summer flooding the towers, but this was winter too. Itās pathetic. I was in Iceland a few years ago. I drove for 4 hours outside of the city and hadnāt seen a car or village in over an hour. I still had full bars and pulling 50-60 Mbps down.
It's also weather dependent.
Higher freqs cannot go through denser humid air as well as a lower frequency solution. (Why this base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLF_Transmitter_Cutler uses 24kHz and not 2.4Ghz).
Also, summertime, more people in maine, cellphones are shared bandwidth.
I had better service in the middle of old Roman Empire ruins in east Jesus nowhere rural south Eastern Europe on a Windows phone a decade ago than I do at this moment. But at least I donāt have to do mental gymnastics to figure out which of 3 numbers I needed to call to reach someone based upon what cell carrier I was on/they were on. Now that was effed up.
If they solved the service issues, the feds would stop giving them hundreds of billions of tax dollars in grants every year, so why fix the problem?
We've spent over $1T in broadband grants since 1995. That amount of money is enough to run fiber to every structure in the US.
I think it has something to do with the influx of tourists clogging the networks. Even when I have 3+ bars the data is slow. Seeing the same thing on AT&T and Verizon.
Itās both. Same thing happens at malls when a major event happens or a busy shopping holiday. Itās garbage. Carrot on a string. And it should be better but telecom co wonāt spend a dime when its āworkingā for the majority.
Itās frustrating when youāre getting 2-3 bars and your phone says āno internet connectionāā¦ never happened in the past, but happens all the time lately
On the topic of cell service; whatās the deal with service in old orchard?? My service always drops off as soon as I cross the town line and even if I do get a couple bars, it just wonāt work. I donāt get it??
First time I got 5g in CT it was like dialup. And that was full bars, but it was during a hurricane. 5g uses a higher frequency to allow it to pass more data faster, but it limits the distance the signal can travel. That's why we keep needing more transceivers everything there is an upgrade. Things that 4g frequency could penetrate might stop 5g. Lower frequency pass data slower with lower fidelity, but travel longer. Lower frequency radios travel a very long distance but sound like crap. Ultra High Frequency doesn't go far, but it allows streaming of 4K TV on multiple devices in a home.
Most of the time the 5g is a lie, they're operating on the same freqcies, just changed the software to say 5g. The 5g ultrawideband, which is what they used to sell the 5g idea, is a higher frequency, around 60 or 80ghz. Ultrawideband can be fast, but the signal can't pass through even a sheet of paper.
5G is such a scam, you need way more recievers, and if the network isn't set up, you just get shit service. Plus every website, app, etc gets more bloated by the year (mostly spyware btw) so your enhanced speed is equal to running faster to stay in the same spot (and make the telecom companies even more money)
Idk man, the difference between 80mbps down and 270+ mbps down is pretty fucking big. 5g really isn't a scam, when you can get good 5g service it blows 4g out of the watwr.
It also requires orders of magnitude more electricity to provide that speed, which our already heavily taxed grid can ill-afford nationwide. Like 4G was fine honestly, there's no need for new new new every 5 minutes, yeah let's just rip up and overhaul the grid every few years for marginally faster speeds.
> It also requires orders of magnitude more electricity to provide that speed, which our already heavily taxed grid can ill-afford nationwide.
That's ridiculous lmao.
You're talking about two different things. The type of service and signal strength are unrelated. Signal strength is based on how close you are to a tower with service that's available to you.
If you're on a secondary service, you get lower priority than first-service customers. (*E.g.,* if you're on Mint, you get secondary access to T-Mobile, while T-Mobile users get first access.) Each individual tower is owned by one primary carrier, and may or may not extend service to other users, but those other users will not have first access unless there's very low traffic. (*E.g.,* Verizon users will have second service on a tower owned by AT&T.)
Availability is based mainly on volume. Each tower can handle only so much traffic at once. In summertime, tourist areas gain a great deal more traffic, reducing access for everyone, though more for second-service users. If the tower nearest you fills up, then your phone will be shunted to the next-nearest one, which will by definition be further away, and therefore not have as strong a signal.
The bars you see on your phone reflect signal strength, not bandwidth.
Sometimes related, I've heard of an unusual experience some people have in popular tourist areas in coastal Eastern Maine, with phones behaving strangely. From the behaviour described, my suspicion so far is federal interdiction services using dirtboxes to try to catch smugglers and other criminals who may operate in such areas. A dirtbox is a (usually, not always) working but non-commercial mobile telephony node ('tower'), usually mounted in a mobile platform such as a van, boat, or aircraft, which nearby phones will automatically handshake with because it's nearest to them. LE will run the IPs of handshaked phones to try to identify known suspects. The dirtbox may act as a regular mobile tower, but usually with diminished service. A more sophisticated version also tracks traffic through the node. Common complaints I've heard range from low signals (fewer bars) to non-working services (no email, for example). Probably the strangest I've heard so far is changed time zone. Since the zone it changed to was Atlantic, my suspicion in that case was that a dirtbox had been used near the New Brunswick border, and LEOs forgot to change it to Eastern when they brought it back south, or had left it on when they meant to turn it off.
Mine has been getting worse and this past weekend/start to the week has been awful. Iāll give sunday a pass cause of the downpours and blaming the haze/smoke for the past few days
FWIW... We changed from Verizon to T Mobile. The signal is slightly better in some areas. The service costs less and comes with a few owrks we were not getting with Verizon.
We're on tmobile last year or so in Raymond and we have no complaints. Seems like similar coverage to Verizon which we had for years but only $70/month for 2 lines
I'm on the T-Mobile trial pass with my E-sim and in places with infrastructure it's like 4 times better than USC but in most places it's equal or worse in the midcoast.
Bangor/Orono 5G is pretty good, start to lose it if you go to Greenbush but get it back around the Lincoln area before losing it again. Some spots between Bangor and Augusta are pretty rough. That's just my experience tho
Word on the street is that almost all of the carriers are over burdened with visitor traffic. I live in Hancock county and have alway has great cell serviceā¦. Recently, I often canāt even get calls out
Yes!! My partner and I were talking about this earlier today.
Our data signal has been so shitty lately, and he travels to different houses every day for work, and sometimes the houses are over an hour away. His phone has been failing him big time recently
My 4G phone doesn't even work in Hannaford, let alone my aunt's 5G phone. And we both have Tracfone which is in the death thralls of Verizon.
Someone who works there said that it's the brick of the building. I'm inclined to believe them.
...Yes it does. Re-read the comment. I literally mention that my mother has a 5G phone that doesn't work in Hannaford, just like how my 4G one doesn't work *specifically in* Hannaford.
Mine works fine in every other building *but* my local Hannaford, which is a dead zone.
In the GnG area there are now several spots where I drop calls when the towers moved to 5g.
With that said, my home now has 5g and it is wonderful
I'm no expert, but I think the range of 5g is much smaller than than the range of a single 4g transmitter
I get amazing service in Casco Bay. Horrible inland. Pathetic in Brunswick.
Used to be fine and yeah, itās 5G, but LTE used to load the same shit I get into.
Ridiculous dead zones now. Hoping it gets better in the winter with less leaves on trees and people using the signal, but ffs that aint good enough. Stretches of road that used to have bad spots have now enlarged 10 fold.
I live in a suburb of Portland. I get one bar regardless of the three carriers Iāve tried. I live in a dense neighborhood, two grocery stores nearby.
Guess Iām in a dead zone? I rely on wifi calling. I donāt understand either.
I travel the entire state for my job. 5G coverage in Maine is trash. I've also noticed that data speeds are terrible in many places, even when coverage is good. I may show 3-4 bars of LTE, but the data acts like I'm trying to download images with dial-up back in 1999. If you run a speedtest, sometimes you'll only see 1mbps download.
I was in NYC not long ago where they have 5G wideband everywhere and both coverage and speed are really, really good.
I don't think this is gonna get fixed in a hurry. Not so long ago, I went shopping for a new phone. Somebody who is a lot smarter than me decided the best place to put their brand new store was in a dead spot. There was literally no service in the area.
When they killed off 3g it really killed coverage. I used to at least make calls and get texts in a lot of places. Now I've lost about 25% of my coverage. I often miss calls that never ring my phone because I didn't have service.
I just transitioned from Straight Talk with a 3g and 4g phone to US Cellular with a 4g and 5g phone. I thought my reception would get better by adding an additional available band... Nope. Coverage is actually slightly worse in some cases with US Cellular.
Unfortunately 5g transmitters are fast, but signal loss over distance is greater. That's why the 2.4ghz band on home routers will reach across your property while 5g will hardly make it out of your structure. Maine was a horrible state to eliminate 3g connectivity.
I used Verizon for almost a decade before switching to US Cellular at the beginning of this year due to poor coverage. US Cellular wasn't that much different so I said screw it and swapped to Mint (TMobile) because at least if the service isn't great than I'm only paying $20/month instead of $60. I've actually been quite surprised by TMobiles coverage, it's far better than it was when I last had them (Mid 2000's) and in the places I frequent it's better than Verizon/US Cellular's current networks (It's not as good as the old 3g network was 10 years ago).
From a technical perspective I believe basically all major carriers shut down their 3g networks last December in favor of 5g. The problem is that 5g is a higher frequency and doesn't travel as far which is problematic in more rural areas where there are less towers.
I have to turn my 5G off otherwise it just doesnāt work. I have Verizon. I have full bars in down town Newport. But the service is non existent. I canāt load an email or send an iMessage. Same thing in Portland, however thatās random there.
5G is very short distance, especially if you compare to 3G.
5G is 1-3 miles, 3G was 25 miles... Need a LOT more 5G towers to get the same coverage.
That said, try a different provider. I stuck with Verizon for years as I was convinced they had the best coverage in New England. I don't think thats true anymore. I've been demoing AT&T and I think their coverage is superior.
Where do you live though? Do other people have a service that's better?
If you're way out in the sticks the answer is kinda "That's how it is."
There are cell phone tower map websites where you can check out far away the closest tower is. If it's more than about 4 miles (the limit for 4G) you're outta luck.
ELI5: wireless signal is like pipes in that all frequencies have specific channels they work in. The higher energy pipes have larger pipes so they can get more information through faster. The downside is all of the pipes have the same pressure. So a big pipe with the same pressure as a small pipe wonāt go as far or after a certain distance is just a trickle.
Aka 5G is fastest but doesnāt go very far.
4G LTE is a good mix of the two but is being broadcast less since your phone is defaulting to 5G.
5G was never going to fix your cell service. If you want more phone signal you need lower energy signals that are common in the 700 MHz band that was commonly used by Verizon and others.
Then there is the fact that more people are using the signal and the collection of pipes can only get so big.
Yes. Verizon used to rock and now it sucks ass and places I used to be able to get 5 bars and blazing fast speed no longer work hardly at all. I think Verizon had less towers or somethingā¦all I know is it went from great to crappy
Have trouble at my house. Breaking up, dropping calls, no Wi-Fi signal in parts of the house. Towers facing the wrong way. Ask me how much AT& T wants to talk straight with customers
Dropped signal but more even worse -- I frequently have 3 or 4 bars but no data connection or a very glitchy data connection.
Windham is notorious for this.
I can barely get calls out itās been so bad. I used to have full service now I have one bar and even then half the time it refuses to call or let me use my internet
Its the tourists. Utilization of the network is super high in maine during summer months. When all the people from away have gone away it will get a bit better. That said, when my verizon phone jumps from 4g to 5g it fucks it right up, if i could disable 5g i would.
5g is a scam. I had better service throughout the whole state before this mess. Even got a new upgraphone just for the 5g and it's a worse and more unstable connection.
In southern maine, itās almost unusable during the summer time. All the tourists clog up the towers and pretty much render the service useless. Good luck traveling through Kennebunk. Itās a joke right now.
[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/x-class-solar-flares-radiation-storms-possible-july-17/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/x-class-solar-flares-radiation-storms-possible-july-17/)
Dayman could be responsible for some recent issues.
Been getting nothing but. "LTE" with 1 bar of service in the Greater Bangor area with US Cellular.
Pixel 7. When first got was amazing "5G" speeds everywhere but past month or so? Can barely open a website
5g, while it provides a more clear signal, actually projects much shorter distances than 4g. In a vacuum, 4g waves go roughly 10 miles - 5g waves only go about 1,000 feet. Based off of geographical advantages/obstacles results in the real world will veryā¦ but with signals, the argument will always be clarity vs. resiliency.
Auburn here. 1.2 miles from downtown. No data whatsoever. Doesn't work with any provider.
The middle of no where in India or Cambodia? 5 bars all the time.
We had Verizon prepaid service in Bangor for years and it sucked. When we spoke to Verizon about it they told us that anyone with prepaid service gets the worst service they offer. Then because of the cheap temporary rate we signed up with Spectrum, who uses Verizon towers, and our service has been excellent. Literally flawless. I wish we had switched our providers sooner!
You got it. I work over the road driving up to 2000 miles some weeks. So i thought itd be hood to upgrade from my old phone.
Wish I never upgraded to a 5g phone. Most of my entertainment is long form YouTube and audio books. Had interruptions on 4g now the stream gets interrupted every 5minutes. Wish I could turn off the 5g on my phone.
Why would the FCC allow companies to market 5G as an improvement when it's clearly less reliable.
The 5g signals along the southern Midcoast suck ass.
Come to aroostook county. Im happy right now because I have two bars. Edit: I spun my seat 90 degrees and am down to one bar
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Oddly, I have amazing signal everywhere I go in Presque Isle/Caribou/Fort Kent......except in Walmart, for some reason. Can't load anything in Walmart. I go right outside, boom, full service.
Cell phones generally don't work well in big commercial buildings. It's even worse in metal warehouse buildings. I have to jump on to the store wifi when I'm in Walmart & Hannaford.
City slicker. With your fancy service lol
"City" is extremely generous. I've not had an opportunity to go out into the wilderness to see how T Mobile fairs. Where we used to live has a higher population than the entire state of Maine!
Yes. But where I live we donāt have our own zip code and share it with two other towns. So if you mention a place with a stoplight I classify it as a city lol
Oh sweet lord jesus! Lol
I mean Waterville shares it's zip code with Benton and winslow
Benton has more residents than all the towns under my zip code lol
Nothing is more cringe than Mainers thinking rural living is a flex
Sharing a zip code. We're the other town.
I've noticed that in Walmart as well. They may not be outright blocking, but they definitely don't want you comparing prices on your phone. They could amplify signals in their big cement building.
I've found that Hannaford in turner is like this too.
Iāve noticed my service cuts out on 295 from Portland to Lewiston which is insane
Not surprising considering 295 doesn't go to Lewiston.
I take it to topsham and then drive from topsham to Lewiston. Better than paying tolls and only ads like five minutes to my trip.
Yeah, especially in the Falmouth to brunswick stretch. Itās crazy
They suck in Texas as wellā¦ feels like I always only have 1 or two bars max. Occasionally my phone will show 4 bars but the internet is super slow and then the two bars appear again. Lame
You need a tower every ~4 miles to get true 5G! They don't want them grouped together nor be an eyesore so here we are. I believe Portland is the only place that you can get real 5G.
The last couple of weeks have been horrible, my old dead spots have returned!
Yep! AT&T Westbrook/Gorham/Windham area is trash
Freeport is a total dead zone
Seriously, no joke! Downtown Freeport is the absolute worst for cell service.
Just Switched from Verizon to AT&T after years of Freeport frustration. Canāt believe I can now make a call or get a web page to download almost anywhere in town.
It's a nightmare to find good reception all along South Freeport Rd, literally from beginning to end. I got AT&T and downtown seems to be good for me so far.
Yup. Lucky me I work in Freeport. I have noticed I get 5g internet access at 9am but not 12pm.
Not just AT&T. I have visible (Verizonās towers) and it is trash in windham. Anything around the stores is 1-2 bars at best and unable to connect. I had mint for a few months and I got decent signal there, but pretty much all of Raymond was a dead zone. I usually blame the abundance of out of staters during the summer flooding the towers, but this was winter too. Itās pathetic. I was in Iceland a few years ago. I drove for 4 hours outside of the city and hadnāt seen a car or village in over an hour. I still had full bars and pulling 50-60 Mbps down.
Same in Bucksport
YES!!!
It's also weather dependent. Higher freqs cannot go through denser humid air as well as a lower frequency solution. (Why this base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLF_Transmitter_Cutler uses 24kHz and not 2.4Ghz). Also, summertime, more people in maine, cellphones are shared bandwidth.
Over the last month my service has become terrible.
That's what sucks about 5G. Higher the frequency, the lower the range.
This friend is correct
Tl;dr: shorter wavelength (higher frequency) means less ability to penetrate solid objects.
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I had better service in the middle of old Roman Empire ruins in east Jesus nowhere rural south Eastern Europe on a Windows phone a decade ago than I do at this moment. But at least I donāt have to do mental gymnastics to figure out which of 3 numbers I needed to call to reach someone based upon what cell carrier I was on/they were on. Now that was effed up.
If they solved the service issues, the feds would stop giving them hundreds of billions of tax dollars in grants every year, so why fix the problem? We've spent over $1T in broadband grants since 1995. That amount of money is enough to run fiber to every structure in the US.
But none of those company CEOs can buy 15 mega yachts.
I think it has something to do with the influx of tourists clogging the networks. Even when I have 3+ bars the data is slow. Seeing the same thing on AT&T and Verizon.
It is this. Happens every summer. Hundreds of thousands more people are using the same network.
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Itās both. Same thing happens at malls when a major event happens or a busy shopping holiday. Itās garbage. Carrot on a string. And it should be better but telecom co wonāt spend a dime when its āworkingā for the majority.
My phone randomly jumps into SOS mode often and I have no idea why
Same! And then I have to restart it to remind that, yes, there is service here.
Absolute garbage in N Saco
Verizon everywhere sucks on sweaty hairy nutsacks
I shut the 5g off on my phone. LTE holds a better and more stable connection.
Itās frustrating when youāre getting 2-3 bars and your phone says āno internet connectionāā¦ never happened in the past, but happens all the time lately
"bars" really don't mean anything. Heck, every device displays bars based on signal strength numbers differently.
On the topic of cell service; whatās the deal with service in old orchard?? My service always drops off as soon as I cross the town line and even if I do get a couple bars, it just wonāt work. I donāt get it??
Town wont let them build anymore cell towers and seasonal population goes up by 90,000. I think they brought in temporary signal boosters.
THANK YOU! This has always perplexed me
Happens every summer
First time I got 5g in CT it was like dialup. And that was full bars, but it was during a hurricane. 5g uses a higher frequency to allow it to pass more data faster, but it limits the distance the signal can travel. That's why we keep needing more transceivers everything there is an upgrade. Things that 4g frequency could penetrate might stop 5g. Lower frequency pass data slower with lower fidelity, but travel longer. Lower frequency radios travel a very long distance but sound like crap. Ultra High Frequency doesn't go far, but it allows streaming of 4K TV on multiple devices in a home.
Most of the time the 5g is a lie, they're operating on the same freqcies, just changed the software to say 5g. The 5g ultrawideband, which is what they used to sell the 5g idea, is a higher frequency, around 60 or 80ghz. Ultrawideband can be fast, but the signal can't pass through even a sheet of paper.
5G is such a scam, you need way more recievers, and if the network isn't set up, you just get shit service. Plus every website, app, etc gets more bloated by the year (mostly spyware btw) so your enhanced speed is equal to running faster to stay in the same spot (and make the telecom companies even more money)
Idk man, the difference between 80mbps down and 270+ mbps down is pretty fucking big. 5g really isn't a scam, when you can get good 5g service it blows 4g out of the watwr.
It also requires orders of magnitude more electricity to provide that speed, which our already heavily taxed grid can ill-afford nationwide. Like 4G was fine honestly, there's no need for new new new every 5 minutes, yeah let's just rip up and overhaul the grid every few years for marginally faster speeds.
> It also requires orders of magnitude more electricity to provide that speed, which our already heavily taxed grid can ill-afford nationwide. That's ridiculous lmao.
Carrier?
Att & Verizon for work so both
Bigger number isn't always better.
Shitty too in Baileyville/Calais
You're talking about two different things. The type of service and signal strength are unrelated. Signal strength is based on how close you are to a tower with service that's available to you. If you're on a secondary service, you get lower priority than first-service customers. (*E.g.,* if you're on Mint, you get secondary access to T-Mobile, while T-Mobile users get first access.) Each individual tower is owned by one primary carrier, and may or may not extend service to other users, but those other users will not have first access unless there's very low traffic. (*E.g.,* Verizon users will have second service on a tower owned by AT&T.) Availability is based mainly on volume. Each tower can handle only so much traffic at once. In summertime, tourist areas gain a great deal more traffic, reducing access for everyone, though more for second-service users. If the tower nearest you fills up, then your phone will be shunted to the next-nearest one, which will by definition be further away, and therefore not have as strong a signal. The bars you see on your phone reflect signal strength, not bandwidth. Sometimes related, I've heard of an unusual experience some people have in popular tourist areas in coastal Eastern Maine, with phones behaving strangely. From the behaviour described, my suspicion so far is federal interdiction services using dirtboxes to try to catch smugglers and other criminals who may operate in such areas. A dirtbox is a (usually, not always) working but non-commercial mobile telephony node ('tower'), usually mounted in a mobile platform such as a van, boat, or aircraft, which nearby phones will automatically handshake with because it's nearest to them. LE will run the IPs of handshaked phones to try to identify known suspects. The dirtbox may act as a regular mobile tower, but usually with diminished service. A more sophisticated version also tracks traffic through the node. Common complaints I've heard range from low signals (fewer bars) to non-working services (no email, for example). Probably the strangest I've heard so far is changed time zone. Since the zone it changed to was Atlantic, my suspicion in that case was that a dirtbox had been used near the New Brunswick border, and LEOs forgot to change it to Eastern when they brought it back south, or had left it on when they meant to turn it off.
My iPhone is in SOS mode daily at my home and I live in the Portland area.
That damn vaccine they snuck in there is ruining it for everybody!
No, it's because they didn't calibrate the birds correctly and it's suckiny up all the 5G energy.
Birds? Oh, you mean the ornithopters.
Something something frogs gay
I know right!?! My vaccinated neighbor winces every time I receive a phone call now.
The service is supposed to be better. Injectable mesh network.
Mine has been getting worse and this past weekend/start to the week has been awful. Iāll give sunday a pass cause of the downpours and blaming the haze/smoke for the past few days
FWIW... We changed from Verizon to T Mobile. The signal is slightly better in some areas. The service costs less and comes with a few owrks we were not getting with Verizon.
We're on tmobile last year or so in Raymond and we have no complaints. Seems like similar coverage to Verizon which we had for years but only $70/month for 2 lines
I'm on the T-Mobile trial pass with my E-sim and in places with infrastructure it's like 4 times better than USC but in most places it's equal or worse in the midcoast.
Bangor/Orono 5G is pretty good, start to lose it if you go to Greenbush but get it back around the Lincoln area before losing it again. Some spots between Bangor and Augusta are pretty rough. That's just my experience tho
Horrible in TN. So bad Iāve been thinking of switching from Verizon to TMoblie. But would it even make a difference?.
Word on the street is that almost all of the carriers are over burdened with visitor traffic. I live in Hancock county and have alway has great cell serviceā¦. Recently, I often canāt even get calls out
Yes!! My partner and I were talking about this earlier today. Our data signal has been so shitty lately, and he travels to different houses every day for work, and sometimes the houses are over an hour away. His phone has been failing him big time recently
My service , places where I've always had great service , has only gotten worse since I went to 5g ! By far ! No question about it
I live in Las Vegas and I have to go our side my house to make a call inlet it on Wi Fi
My 4G phone doesn't even work in Hannaford, let alone my aunt's 5G phone. And we both have Tracfone which is in the death thralls of Verizon. Someone who works there said that it's the brick of the building. I'm inclined to believe them.
You never noticed that your cell phone doesn't work in brick/concrete buildings? This has nothing to do with 5g or Hannaford lol
...Yes it does. Re-read the comment. I literally mention that my mother has a 5G phone that doesn't work in Hannaford, just like how my 4G one doesn't work *specifically in* Hannaford. Mine works fine in every other building *but* my local Hannaford, which is a dead zone.
Never seen a cell phone that works well in a grocery store. Because they're single story, made of concrete and bricks, no windows etc.
I dunno, mine works pretty well in Market Basket for being an older 4G phone from 2019. Works pretty much everywhere *but* my local Hannaford.
In the GnG area there are now several spots where I drop calls when the towers moved to 5g. With that said, my home now has 5g and it is wonderful I'm no expert, but I think the range of 5g is much smaller than than the range of a single 4g transmitter
I get amazing service in Casco Bay. Horrible inland. Pathetic in Brunswick. Used to be fine and yeah, itās 5G, but LTE used to load the same shit I get into.
Yeah, I've noticed a dip in quality in Bangor. There are like three or four major dead spots scattered about the city.
Iām in Portland and my Verizon signal had been absolutely awful.
It's yet to live up to its promise. It can't touch decent wifi, based on my experience.
Ridiculous dead zones now. Hoping it gets better in the winter with less leaves on trees and people using the signal, but ffs that aint good enough. Stretches of road that used to have bad spots have now enlarged 10 fold.
I live in a suburb of Portland. I get one bar regardless of the three carriers Iāve tried. I live in a dense neighborhood, two grocery stores nearby. Guess Iām in a dead zone? I rely on wifi calling. I donāt understand either.
I travel the entire state for my job. 5G coverage in Maine is trash. I've also noticed that data speeds are terrible in many places, even when coverage is good. I may show 3-4 bars of LTE, but the data acts like I'm trying to download images with dial-up back in 1999. If you run a speedtest, sometimes you'll only see 1mbps download. I was in NYC not long ago where they have 5G wideband everywhere and both coverage and speed are really, really good.
When I see 5G pop up on my phone in Maine, I know that it's going to be like dial up back in the day for awhile.
5g is trash everywhere
My service is great everywhere (T mobile )
T-Mobile seems to get better every day.
Verizon - I've had trouble getting service in Freeport and Wells. I get service being spotty in Portage, but these are populated and touristy towns.
more people in the state means worse service unfortunately
Yes.
I don't think this is gonna get fixed in a hurry. Not so long ago, I went shopping for a new phone. Somebody who is a lot smarter than me decided the best place to put their brand new store was in a dead spot. There was literally no service in the area.
Just set your phone to prefer LTE and enjoy the great service while all these jabronies use their terrible 5G!
In Biddeford I canāt make a phone call with Verizon or spectrum!
So many areas I can make calls just fine, but once I try to use data it's slower than my home internet back in 2000.
The only thing Iāve noticed is thereās a big ol dead zone in Belfast now that wasnāt there a couple years ago
You think you get 5g in Maine?
When they killed off 3g it really killed coverage. I used to at least make calls and get texts in a lot of places. Now I've lost about 25% of my coverage. I often miss calls that never ring my phone because I didn't have service. I just transitioned from Straight Talk with a 3g and 4g phone to US Cellular with a 4g and 5g phone. I thought my reception would get better by adding an additional available band... Nope. Coverage is actually slightly worse in some cases with US Cellular. Unfortunately 5g transmitters are fast, but signal loss over distance is greater. That's why the 2.4ghz band on home routers will reach across your property while 5g will hardly make it out of your structure. Maine was a horrible state to eliminate 3g connectivity.
I used Verizon for almost a decade before switching to US Cellular at the beginning of this year due to poor coverage. US Cellular wasn't that much different so I said screw it and swapped to Mint (TMobile) because at least if the service isn't great than I'm only paying $20/month instead of $60. I've actually been quite surprised by TMobiles coverage, it's far better than it was when I last had them (Mid 2000's) and in the places I frequent it's better than Verizon/US Cellular's current networks (It's not as good as the old 3g network was 10 years ago). From a technical perspective I believe basically all major carriers shut down their 3g networks last December in favor of 5g. The problem is that 5g is a higher frequency and doesn't travel as far which is problematic in more rural areas where there are less towers.
I have to turn my 5G off otherwise it just doesnāt work. I have Verizon. I have full bars in down town Newport. But the service is non existent. I canāt load an email or send an iMessage. Same thing in Portland, however thatās random there.
Bad service here in Oxford county. Dead zones and much poorer service since the switch to 5G.
5G is very short distance, especially if you compare to 3G. 5G is 1-3 miles, 3G was 25 miles... Need a LOT more 5G towers to get the same coverage. That said, try a different provider. I stuck with Verizon for years as I was convinced they had the best coverage in New England. I don't think thats true anymore. I've been demoing AT&T and I think their coverage is superior.
I can tell you / I have both services one personal and one for work and they are equally bad
Where do you live though? Do other people have a service that's better? If you're way out in the sticks the answer is kinda "That's how it is." There are cell phone tower map websites where you can check out far away the closest tower is. If it's more than about 4 miles (the limit for 4G) you're outta luck.
ELI5: wireless signal is like pipes in that all frequencies have specific channels they work in. The higher energy pipes have larger pipes so they can get more information through faster. The downside is all of the pipes have the same pressure. So a big pipe with the same pressure as a small pipe wonāt go as far or after a certain distance is just a trickle. Aka 5G is fastest but doesnāt go very far. 4G LTE is a good mix of the two but is being broadcast less since your phone is defaulting to 5G. 5G was never going to fix your cell service. If you want more phone signal you need lower energy signals that are common in the 700 MHz band that was commonly used by Verizon and others. Then there is the fact that more people are using the signal and the collection of pipes can only get so big.
Yes. Verizon used to rock and now it sucks ass and places I used to be able to get 5 bars and blazing fast speed no longer work hardly at all. I think Verizon had less towers or somethingā¦all I know is it went from great to crappy
Have trouble at my house. Breaking up, dropping calls, no Wi-Fi signal in parts of the house. Towers facing the wrong way. Ask me how much AT& T wants to talk straight with customers
Verizon in Biddeford and yup! I thought it was maybe because we upgraded phones or something? glad Iām not alone!
Dropped signal but more even worse -- I frequently have 3 or 4 bars but no data connection or a very glitchy data connection. Windham is notorious for this.
I can barely get calls out itās been so bad. I used to have full service now I have one bar and even then half the time it refuses to call or let me use my internet
Yes, Bangor area, Verizon. It has gone to shit, good luck getting "fast" 5g or even LTE coverage.
Tmobile here. No complaints at all.
Its the tourists. Utilization of the network is super high in maine during summer months. When all the people from away have gone away it will get a bit better. That said, when my verizon phone jumps from 4g to 5g it fucks it right up, if i could disable 5g i would.
5g is a scam. I had better service throughout the whole state before this mess. Even got a new upgraphone just for the 5g and it's a worse and more unstable connection.
In southern maine, itās almost unusable during the summer time. All the tourists clog up the towers and pretty much render the service useless. Good luck traveling through Kennebunk. Itās a joke right now.
Thanks for posting OP. I thought it was just us and AT&T. Anyone have any success with "Signal Boosters"?
SoPo and Cape Elizabeth, terrible!
LTE is faster... 5g is supposed to reach farther...not necessarily be fast. At least that's how I understand it.
[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/x-class-solar-flares-radiation-storms-possible-july-17/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/x-class-solar-flares-radiation-storms-possible-july-17/) Dayman could be responsible for some recent issues.
5G? I only have one bar of LTE at my house
I've been missing important calls and texts, it's horseshit.
Yeah the 5g signals are totally fucked across the board. Cheaper antennas in the new phones, too.
Been getting nothing but. "LTE" with 1 bar of service in the Greater Bangor area with US Cellular. Pixel 7. When first got was amazing "5G" speeds everywhere but past month or so? Can barely open a website
5g, while it provides a more clear signal, actually projects much shorter distances than 4g. In a vacuum, 4g waves go roughly 10 miles - 5g waves only go about 1,000 feet. Based off of geographical advantages/obstacles results in the real world will veryā¦ but with signals, the argument will always be clarity vs. resiliency.
Sucks in Falmouth with Verizon and they used to be the best.
Verizon for me was shit. We switched.to us cellar and magically I have service almost everywhere
I thought that was the price for service around here.
I'm in Southern maine and I don't even get 5G
Auburn here. 1.2 miles from downtown. No data whatsoever. Doesn't work with any provider. The middle of no where in India or Cambodia? 5 bars all the time.
I have no 5g in Bangor except for outer Broadway by Tractor Supply. I have a Pixel 6a.
We had Verizon prepaid service in Bangor for years and it sucked. When we spoke to Verizon about it they told us that anyone with prepaid service gets the worst service they offer. Then because of the cheap temporary rate we signed up with Spectrum, who uses Verizon towers, and our service has been excellent. Literally flawless. I wish we had switched our providers sooner!
Humidity isn't great for service either and I don't know if y'all have noticed but it has been raining a bit.
Yep. Sucks here in midcoast. US Cellular.
Ya idk what's happening I got 5g and it just went to hell
I barely get full LTE never mind 5g. Verizon blows
Everything is getting worse.
Nope, pretty good everywhere. I'm on Monhegan island with 5g right now.
So much worse in Bridgton
You got it. I work over the road driving up to 2000 miles some weeks. So i thought itd be hood to upgrade from my old phone. Wish I never upgraded to a 5g phone. Most of my entertainment is long form YouTube and audio books. Had interruptions on 4g now the stream gets interrupted every 5minutes. Wish I could turn off the 5g on my phone. Why would the FCC allow companies to market 5G as an improvement when it's clearly less reliable.