[BigLew]

Originally Posted by Eve2278

We live off Rainey Trail. Awful service. Calls drop all the time. Anyone who has At&T in our neighborhood has to go outside to make a call. My husband called my phone as we were standing right next to each other and my IPHONE never rang. We had the sim card change and it still didn't help. AT&T offers for 100.00 (no longer free) a product called M-CELL that is suppose to act as a mini tower. However they told us you should have Comcast internet for it to work because for some reason Centrylink doesn't work well. You plug the mini tower into the modem/wireless. It worked well for my husband's blackberry he got 5 bars and on the phone's face it says AT&T M-CELL so you know it's activated but my Iphone has a hard time picking up the signal.Customer Service told me to go into Settings,General,Network and disable 3G (oh yeah, won't work with 2G phones) then once disabled my phone goes into 2G (E) then I go switch back into 3G and at that time (sometimes) my IPHONE picks up the M-CELL signal. When it works its great. We are still going to request we get that 100.00 back. Not fair to pay for cell service and have to buy additional equipment to get it...Were thinking once AT&T moves to lake Sumter the service may get better. They just need more towers!! NOW I must tell you when I go into 2G (E) I actually get 4 bars... Crazy!! I told AT&T that and they knew it already but they said you can't use the data with 2G...

I have century link and iphones. go into settings turn airplane mode on wait 2 seconds and turn it back off. This causes it to search for a cell tower and usually puts you right into your mcell. I use it for data with no problem but have my wifi connection anyhow when I am within the mcells range which is about 5,000 sq ft. By the way, the $100 you had to pay, I made them credit it back to me on the next bill....they can see from their side how many dropped calls you have had!! Hopefully when they put the towers into service I can turn my mcell into an anchor

[Freeda]

Originally Posted by swimdawg

AT&T service has been a bone of contention for me since I initially visited in January. I'm practically on a first-name basis with them! The bottom line is that they say that the new tower will be activated on the 25th of this month....and two more towers are coming shortly. The new towers are located at Cherry Lake and E. County Hwy/466A; Buena Vista - E. County Road and El Camino/ R. 25 near 165th County Hwy. Since I don't know my right from my left these days, I have NO IDEA where these places are....but that is the latest update from my "friends"??? at AT&T.

The interesting fact is that I did receive the latest update while at the TOTV luncheon at Crispers last Friday. I announced the update to the crowd and a round of applause was heard throughout Crispers! I hope the AT&T supervisors heard it as well. If I hear any more updates, I'll keep you posted.

I've been on a trip for two weeks and get back to TV Thursday. I'm curious whether anyone has noticed any ATT reception improvement since Sep 25 as that was the date they had said one of the new towers would be active. I called on Monday and was told one would be working by end of October and the other one in March 2012. As others have mentioned above, the dates keep changing. I pointed out, again, the dangers (not just inconvenience) that this is causing, such as potential for not being able to make 911 calls etc. When I asked why the delays and why so much longer to get the second new tower working, they had no idea. When I asked why we needed the second tower I was told it was because they realized the first one by itself won't be enough. I asked how long it takes to build and activate a tower from start to finish and was told three months; then another person said six months. If we all call about this regularly it might help.





months.

[kansasr]

When we first arrived back at the end of October, service actually seemed better. We could actually make and receive calls here in Pennecamp. It seems like we were getting an additional bar of signal.

However, in the last week it has become even worse that it was this summer. Impossible to make or receive calls in the house and even going outside means dropped calls or calls that are breaking up.

I actually had to drive over to Lake Sumter and park in the parking lot one day this week to get some important phone calls made.

It certainly makes life in The Villages unpleasant, if not dangerous.

[vj1213]

We had a rep from AT&T at the LSL sales center the other day and she told us that 2 towers were scheduled to be built during the first quarter of next year...that is the same thing they have been saying for the past year.

[swimdawg]

I have to say that AT&T service in the St. James area was MUCH better when I was there the past two weeks. I had virtually no dropped calls and most of the time, I had 3 bars of signal. Before this visit, I had to go out to the lanai to make/receive calls......so there was a definite improvement. It can only get better with additional towers going up.

[mfp509]

I have not been able to use my cell phone since 11/15 - this is first time in 8 years that I have had a problem. Called twice and am told that a tower is out. This is too long without service. Anyone have another company they are really happy with for The Villages? I live up near 42 in Calumet Grove.

[gage405]

I have trac fone and have had very spotty service for the last
4 or 5 days. Before that, service was very good...and I have
a 413 area code and not a 352 are code.
I guess trac fone must use the ATT tower.
I also live near Rainey Trail.
Hope it is just because a tower is down and that it will be
fixed soon.

[sukismom]

I finally had to give up on AT&T after many years. Cencelled my service, paid the arly termination fees and went to Verizon. Verizon service has been Great. Went to the BBB to complain about AT&T charging when most of the time no service was available. Got a full refund from AT&T.

[Sail41]

I have t-mobile and mine works great the last couple years. Was a little spotty at first but now is great no matter where we're at. Wouldn't change.

[memason]

What I find amazing is that these companies do not share communications towers. There used to be a day when you "roamed", meaning you were using someone else's network (tower). You paid more to roam, but companies always had a plan where you did not pay roaming fees. Cell phone reception was much better then.

What am I missing here . . . ????

[Bob45]

Originally Posted by memason

What I find amazing is that these companies do not share communications towers. There used to be a day when you "roamed", meaning you were using someone else's network (tower). You paid more to roam, but companies always had a plan where you did not pay roaming fees. Cell phone reception was much better then.

What am I missing here . . . ????

I think in the early days they needed each others towers for better coverage to make cell phones worth while. Now since they have so many of their own towers, I think it's a battle of who has the best reception. Right now Verizon is winning, so why should they share? It's all about $$$, not customer service.

I had to give up my iPhone because of almost non-existent coverage at my home in Hemingway.

Bob

[Virtual Geezer]

The tower situated in TV is very odd. If you look at the water towers you will see cell phone antennas located on most if not all of the towers. I will have to check to see if there are any cohabs on the water towers. I cannot remember ever seeing a stand alone cell tower within TV.

Now many of the towers are not owned by the actual companies such as AT&T or Sprint but by a local or regional communications company that leases space on the tower to the major companies. I know up north at one time the communication companies were paying $1500.00 a month to the property owner for having a tower on their property with only one carrier on the tower. I have seen as many as 5 different cell companies locate (cohab) on one tower and $7500 a month income for having a tower out on the back 40 was great income. I know that up north the state wanted to cash in on the tower royalty and place the towers in the median of the interstates. Not sure what happened to that proposal but I have only seen a few travels and that was where there was a very large separation between the lanes.

If you look close at some of the high tension power like towers will have cell phone antennas attached to their rigging. I would not like to be the one to make a service call on that antennas.

Now about AT&T getting the new so called towers installed you are at their mercy. The best thing to do is go to the AT&T store wanting to buy a new iPhone. Let the sales person go through their pitch and when they are done ask them about coverage south of 466a. After you hear the tower story just tell the sales person no thank you that you are not about to wait for coverage since Verizon already has good coverage and walk out. If enough people do that AT&T will get the message and either switch to another lie or push higher up for action.

VG

[billalexander]

I have Verizon and have had no issues anywhere I have been in The Villages, which is everywhere.

[JohnN]

I'm a retired AT&T guy, they used to have great service and equipment, now unfortunately it's all junk. I've tried to email customer service and got nowhere, I guess I'll take a trip down to the store.

It's not the towers, it's the metal house framing for me in Hemingway.
My signal is fine on the lanai but drops once indoors.

It hurts to think of changing to Verizon, but if this doesn't get fixed
on my trip to the store, I'll drop AT&T (but keep the pension)

[cwbrandt]

WE have AT& T wireless in Sunset pointe on the golf course and it is just awful. Our contractor had it and said sometime in 2010 it went bad. He called and was told it was a problem with 1 tower. I called and they said there was no problem. He finally dropped them for Verizon because he couldn't be reached and needed to be available all the time to his crews.

I have called over and over and complained and they say there is no problem but I remember 2009 we did not have this poor service. WE are moving in permanently in January and I will try to use my Ooma with the Ooma bluetooth to see if I can put my phone somewhere where I get good reception and leave it there when we are in the house. BUt when I was there in November there was one day when I couldn't get any reception even outside. I don't know if I will jump to Verizon next year when my contract is up because I hate to lose my free data.
Cindy