Cell phone reception bad. What can I do?

[Anonymous]

We have lived in our house about 10 years, had at&t cell phones for about 5.

In the past year, our cell phone reception in our home has gotten worse, so much so that I don’t trust it to take work calls from the kitchen table anymore.

Also, people complain when they talk to us that they cant hear us or that it cuts in and out.

The best place to stand seems to be outside the house on our front lawn, but that’s not very convenient.

Anything we can do to get a better signal? We have iPhone 8s so I don’t think it’s the phones.

[Anonymous]

Get a signal booster. Or switch carriers.

[Anonymous]

When I had that problem in a new house with Verizon I bought a Network Extender which at that time cost a lot. I think the cost has since come down. It works great.

[Anonymous]

I had a similar problem at my Florida condo. Verizon coverage was very poor and I looked into carrier supplied extenders. As a PP said, they were very expensive. My Verizon rep asked if I had enabled “WiFi Calling” in Settings. I did that and my connection improved dramatically.
Give it a shot!

[Anonymous]

If you have decent wifi in your house, wifi calling is the way to go. Settings>Phone>Wi-Fi Calling>On

[Anonymous]

Op here. I tried the wi-if calling thing but it’s still bad.

[Anonymous]

Convince the NIMBYs in your neighborhood to let the cell phone carrier build another antenna tower.

I have used repeaters to solve this reception problem in commercial buildings, but it's always a struggle to keep up with the changing frequencies in use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I tried the wi-if calling thing but it’s still bad.

Maybe increase the speed on your internet service or make sure you’ve got food Wi-Fi in the house. I use Wi-Fi calling with an eero range extender because we have similar signal issues and it’s great.

[Anonymous]

You should also let the carrier know. It probably won’t result in an immediate solution, but if it’s due to network congestion, they can build out more in your area. And if it’s something else, like interference from unauthorized devices, they’ll want to know that, too.

If you know someone that works at AT&T, I’d go through them, rather than just calling customer service. They’re more likely to be able to send your concern to the actual team that works on network build than just to a repository for these sorts of complaints.