Unusable signal in congested areas.

[Apexeon]

Details:
Stock/unrooted Moto X 1st gen bought from Motorola Unlocked on MetroPCS. 5.1

Problem:
Can't send/receive calls, texts are delayed by several hours, no internet access in specific contexts.


This has happened on 3 occasions. Once at EDC in Las Vegas, my texts would fail to send and i would generally fail to receive anything. Verizon customers nearby were unaffected. AT&T text were slightly delayed. I was inside T-Mobile's network. I understand the area I was in was heavily congested, so the towers could've been overwhelmed.

2nd time happened in San Francisco during a parade: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint phones were working. I had to walk about half a mile out of the parade in order for my phone to be useful again. In this scenario, the area was not particularly congested

3rd time happened in San Francisco during a musical festival: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint phones were working. In this scenario, the area was not particularly congested


I understand when there are a lot of phones in an area, towers get overwhelmed. What's peculiar is that in all 3 scenarios, my phone worked fine for about a half hour. After the half hour mark is when it first delays everything, and then becomes progressively unusable for communication.

My APN matches what t-mobile has on their website. Any suggestions is appreciated, maybe I'm using some old metropcs settings somewhere?

 

[PapaGary]

Yep, that's why I gave up on T-Mo after thirteen years. Too many dead zones.

 

[Apexeon]

The center of San Francisco is hardly a dead zone

 

[PapaGary]

Can't send/receive calls, texts are delayed by several hours, no internet access in specific contexts.

Sounds dead to me.

 

[Almeuit]

Some carriers just have issues in certain areas. If they aren't working where you travel I would suggest switching. If you can confirm other T-Mobile users are having issues when you are then you know it is a tower issue.

 

[Bob61]

Op titles this as unusable signal in congested area and then has 2 of 3 examples that says area he is having problems is not congested..... Um, OK....

 

[Apexeon]

Op titles this as unusable signal in congested area and then has 2 of 3 examples that says area he is having problems is not congested..... Um, OK....

So if I change the title of the thread, will that get me closer to figuring out if it's a phone issue or tower issue?

 

[Bob61]

So if I change the title of the thread, will that get me closer to figuring out if it's a phone issue or tower issue?

It's could be one of those issues. Could also be interference or blockage of the signal. Could have been a isolated system issue. How would you think any one could provide a reasonable response?

BTW, thought you were more trolling than looking for answer. Enjoy the day.

 

[Apexeon]

If I was trolling, I wouldn't have taken the time to detail out my experience.

One of the nice things about forums in general is that people are able to share experiences. Thus, someone could come along and say "Hey, I had a similar experience and it was because of xyz... maybe you should try that" or "hey, that's actually the norm for what you're using."

Then you have people who, rather than provide useful information, are more interested in attacking the post for inaccuracies or simply target the poster. I can't imagine which camp you fall in.

 

[l_bean]

I have had a similar experience at Disneyland when people got gathered around the river to watch Fantasmic. I would have full LTE signal but would still struggle to open a web page or refresh apps.

 

[Apexeon]

It happened to me again a few days ago. Full signal, no text messages coming through. Called MetroPCS, they reset the connection. While I was still on the phone with them, all my text messages arrived at once.

A few hours later I received a message from metropcs telling me to use the fast.metropcs.com without proxy APN rather than the tmobile one. Next time I'm in a congested area I'll switch between the two; I wish my phone would roam rather than latch onto an unusable signal.

 

[Almeuit]

Mod Note - Please keep it civil and do not go down the troll road. Thanks.

 

[Apexeon]

Mod Note - Please keep it civil and do not go down the troll road. Thanks.

Thank you for the insight.

 

[debdroid1a]

It could be because it's congested. When I'm at church, there's wifi, but I never bothered getting the password as I have unlimited. However, I'd lose connection, then get it back, then lose it and so on. With my Samsung Galaxy S5, my battery in a little over an hour I'd lose up to 10% and I wasn't using it. When I did use it the next hour, it went down more as others were using their phones and tablets. My Note 5 is much better, but the battery still drains quicker there then anywhere else. Even at work in a 29 floor building with cell phones, wifi network, etc. When I'm at the church on other times, it's not as bad.

 

[GadgetGator]

I have had a similar experience at Disneyland when people got gathered around the river to watch Fantasmic. I would have full LTE signal but would still struggle to open a web page or refresh apps.

I also sometimes have a problem at Disneyland. Or Knott's for that matter. Anywhere there are a lot of people all hitting the same towers I guess. I think that is the OP problem. Also doesn't metro PCS get less priority? I thought I had read that somewhere once. That may factor in to things as well for the OP.

 

[Bob61]

It happened to me again a few days ago. Full signal, no text messages coming through. Called MetroPCS, they reset the connection. While I was still on the phone with them, all my text messages arrived at once.

A few hours later I received a message from metropcs telling me to use the fast.metropcs.com without proxy APN rather than the tmobile one. Next time I'm in a congested area I'll switch between the two; I wish my phone would roam rather than latch onto an unusable signal.

You have now shared different/additional info. You didn't mention in original post that you were o. metroPCS. Based on and message found here http://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?p=4557049 MetroPCS gets lower priority than T-Mobile customers. I guess when congested that means you get dropped. Maybe the new APN will help.

 

[Apexeon]

You have now shared different/additional info. You didn't mention in original post that you were o. metroPCS.

Details:
Stock/unrooted Moto X 1st gen bought from Motorola Unlocked on MetroPCS. 5.1

I also sometimes have a problem at Disneyland. Or Knott's for that matter. Anywhere there are a lot of people all hitting the same towers I guess. I think that is the OP problem. Also doesn't metro PCS get less priority? I thought I had read that somewhere once. That may factor in to things as well for the OP.

I'm increasingly seeing mentions of Metropcs customers getting less priority. And that might be the case for data, but is really troublesome if I'm just trying to make a call or text (which have been my issue). Incidentally on the metrocs apn yesterday, I didn't receive any mms group message until the end of the day. And this is in areas and populations where I get them normally.

 

[raino]

I'm increasingly seeing mentions of Metropcs customers getting less priority. And that might be the case for data, but is really troublesome if I'm just trying to make a call or text (which have been my issue).

I don't know about text messages, but by law, phone calls cannot be de-prioritized. Not saying that it isn't what TMO may or may not doing, but legally, they cannot.

MMS is sadly an ongoing issue. It's talked about a lot on Reddit, like this recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/3kjpm6/discussion_missing_texts_rethinking_my_carrier/

 

[Apexeon]

I don't know about text messages, but by law, phone calls cannot be de-prioritized. Not saying that it isn't what TMO may or may not doing, but legally, they cannot.

MMS is sadly an ongoing issue. It's talked about a lot on Reddit, like this recently:

I'm surprised, it sounds like even Verizon issues has problems with mms group message. I considered switching to them, but the $60 a month unltd is hard to beat. Except in areas where there are more than.. say... 500 people... Then i just want a service that works. I would pay even a little more if I could just have guaranteed text/voicecalls (data isn't as important when you're meeting up with people).

 

[Apexeon]

I'm again having problems, but I think I've isolated the problem. When network type is set to automatic (4g), I couldn't receive texts today. But when I switched to 2g, after a few minutes the texts poured in. There's a thread on reddit with another person who has the same problem, and other threads with different phones or carries but a similar issue. In trying to understand if it's my phone? Metropcs said they've opened a ticket for investigation.