LoveMyDobe
Active member
I live between Iron River and Brule and have ATT and it works fine, But ATT put a cell tower on my road 1/4 from my house!
Does Anybody have the real story on Cell coverage in Northern WI and the Yoop?
- Thread starter ragsled
- Start date
I switched from ATT to T Mobile about 5 years ago and have been happy. My use up north is primarily based in Hurley/Ironwood area and typical snomo a radius south to Minocqua, North to Ontanogon. Prior to switching, I bought a burner phone to carry a couple times I went up up to ensure the coverage I was looking for. T-mobile roams on ATT, so I knew where I worked previously, should be fine. T Mobile uses the 600mhz band, which lower bands travel further than some of the other carriers higher bands. Traveling from Chicago suburbs on 51, North of Minocqua is mostly LTE, but I'm on T Mobile pretty much the whole time. As recently as 18 months ago, I was always roaming north of wausau, now I'm on T mobile owned towers from door to door, 400 miles. Our house 5 miles west of Hurley, I used to have to rely on wifi calling, but in the past year the has been a 5g tower lit up near walmart in Ironwood and Whitecap ski area installed a tower, both of these has made my reception in the area improve dramatically. Texting, especially with pics, is still goofy in the northwoods though, delayed sends and recieves. I haven't paid much attention to my reception north of Ironwood to give an accurate opinion.
SunnySide
New member
That was my experience last year. Halfway between Land O' Lakes and Presque Ilse we took a break on the trail. I was checking emails and looking at google maps with no lag. Later in the year I was at Willy's Still in Iron County and was watching you tube
heckler56
Active member
I had been Sprint 20 years until 2016ish. Had Verizon since and service has been as spotty as was Sprint. My riding buddies also have Verizon and the same phone. At the same place same time, I get zero service and they have been good, WTF.
Verizon uses cdma and ATT & Tmobile/Sprint use a different protocol. Tmobile/Sprint has only put up towers with 5g and have a larger 5g footprint than Verizon throughout the US (Verizon has only concentrated on large metro areas for 5g deployment).
I recently changed to Tmobile. Part of the motivation was the steadily increasing monthly cost and crappy Verizon customer service. Tmobile has signed a deal with Starlink to begin next year where when a Tmobile tower is unavailable service will go through satellite virtually eliminating dead spots around the earth. Wether it works I am indifferent as I always carry a Garmen that links my cell to satellite incase of emergency.
Verizon uses cdma and ATT & Tmobile/Sprint use a different protocol. Tmobile/Sprint has only put up towers with 5g and have a larger 5g footprint than Verizon throughout the US (Verizon has only concentrated on large metro areas for 5g deployment).
I recently changed to Tmobile. Part of the motivation was the steadily increasing monthly cost and crappy Verizon customer service. Tmobile has signed a deal with Starlink to begin next year where when a Tmobile tower is unavailable service will go through satellite virtually eliminating dead spots around the earth. Wether it works I am indifferent as I always carry a Garmen that links my cell to satellite incase of emergency.
goofy600
Well-known member
I know when most of the towers went up in western UP AT&T got contract now I don’t know if others have since added but AT&T works way better than Verizon around the Cisco chain area. Before we went full time up here AT&T was what we used for all of our internet and usually don’t have a problem.
We are just outside of Lando to the west and was excited to hear a tower was going up in town just a few klicks east from us, actually right by the groomer barn. When we heard the tower was on we did not see any signal change and later found out it was an ATT tower. So lucky for us the wife had to change her work phone thus picked ATT so that coverage is better here, but my Verizon phone is a brick even driving thru downtown Lando. Today I found out even in Conover I barely had a bar which was a concern as it was pretty slippery out this late evening so made me hope that I did not need to call if anything happened (already was stuck at friends house for about 45+ minutes that has a steep, long and partly off camber in a tight corner section). Although from what I heard a new Verizon tower is going up just east of town down the street from LOL Rec. So hoping that turns out to be true it is Verizon but not holding my breath although I do know there is a tower going up as I saw the pics.
The lack of signal in Lando has been an ongoing issue forever. Frosty sent a letter to providers years ago on the behalf of area businesses asking for cell tower improvements. Sounds like towers are finally going up!
dfattack
Well-known member
exactly my experience around Florence. Most in my family has experienced the same thing. In fact some moved form AT&T to verizon for better coverage and now it's back to where it was when they were on AT&T. I tried calling verizon to report and they couldn't get it through their thick skull I was calling about cell coverage and not Wifi. They could barely speak english. I eventually hung up. Should probably stop at the local verizon dealer and complain to them.
Used to be wall to wall signal at your house 10 years ago. Very rare at that time up north for cell signal. I wonder what happened?
I've experienced the same as everyone else about Verizon service getting worse and worse. My theory is that this all started when they started the 5G rollout. And they are prioritizing 5G and the large metropolitan areas over 3/4G and less populated areas. Just a theory though.
dfattack
Well-known member
Does data effect the cell signal for making a call? Maybe I'm not informed enough but I thought 3G, 4G and 5G were all about data??
It does now. Originally calls were always made over 2/3G signals. But starting in about 2019 calls started to get made over the 4G network using data. When you have full 4G signal, it works great. But when you don't, service for calls suffers.
mezz
Well-known member
The good ole analog phones had more watts than the phones today. Got to love the price of advanced technology...... NOT.Heck i still can't Verizon service in central Wisco at deer camp!!!!. 8/10 miles straight east of Knowlton..
Back 30 years I could at least call on old analog phone!!!
Town of Phelps is a large landmass downtown worked ok but that’s about it.
heckler56
Active member
20 years ago I rode the train into Chicago everyday with a guy that called himself “doc”. He worked for AT&T and carried (more like clutched) a duffle bag. His then functional phone was one of the original “brick” models. He said they pushed 6+ watts versus the never ones that were regulated to less than 3 watts due to microwaving your brain if you were on it all the time.