Poor Network in my home area

[prashanttarkar]

I am with Telus with 2 lines.  At my home address, the network connection is Very very very very poor. Even though I have enabled the WIFI calling, the calls gets disconnected or the other person can't hear anything.  Even on the driveway out side my house same problem.  Tried to call TELUS support to escalate and they said the tower is outdated and need to upgraded with the new enhancements. There is no ETA for the update and might take couple of years or no updates.  Can someone from TELUS Side will help to look into the issue and resolve. Its like no service of mobility.

[KnightShadey]

If it is a tower issue you may be out of luck. That likely means you are in an area of low density where it cannot be bridged by micro/pico cells. You will likely need to address it with a small booster, preferably with a directional antenna.

My cottage is in between two towers that are not ideally situated (distance and antenna angle)), so calls ping-pong off towers and data is slow, but the number of people in the area isn't worth improvement for the few of us at the edge of the TWO TOWERS of Mordor & Isengard's coverage.

If Telus support are aware of the coverage weak spot and they have captured your connection details then it is added to their list of hardware/tower updates/upgrades. Just make sure if you call back to have them capture the data from your phone. They likely have already, just make sure if you bother to call and wait again.

In the meantime, you can check for towers in you area from different providers and the frequencies the towers cover via this online mapping tool: https://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/cancellsites.html

it will also tell you if another carrier might have a closer tower, which may provide coverage not available from Telus (and Bell) in your area. Also know that lower frequencies (600/700/800mhz)  tend to go further and penetrate obstacles a bit better, but also depends on power too, however usually freq is the best indicator of potential distance.

The commercial geomatics versions will show you the angle, frequency, and install height of the antenna components of the tower, along with terrain, obstacle, and  fresnel zone implications vis-a-vis your gear's line of sight. Sometime a tower may seem close but without anything pointed in your direction ir some terrain impediment.

In dense metro environments there are other considerations, but it sounds like your scenario and their response that it is a single source issue with a single identifiable tower.

Again, likely a cell booster is required, and if you go to a dedicated dealership that sell Wilson or SureCall , they likely have the commercial geomatics tool at the ready to quickly check (in a few seconds) your house location vs tower characteristics and even tell you the compass direction and height to install any booster antenna.

[prashanttarkar]

Thanks for the detailed information. I am actually in Brampton Ontario and unfortunately within GTA. As per Telus(and Bell), I am within GTA and suppose to get the good signal as my home address is not in rural area. Let me give them call again to capture my details. 

[KnightShadey]

Unfortunately, that likely also means that much of your nearby towers will still be predominantly Bell towers that Telus shares so Bell would maintain and configure them and Telus would need to pass along coverage issues, as most of Telus owned hardware would be in downtown T.O. or possibly in the highest traffic parts of Brampton.

You can still see what towers are in you neighbourhood via that map link above.

The issue with urban areas is bldg obstacles in addition to antenna angle placement. Also a lot of towers had 4G gear removed and redeployed to other locations to make room for 5G hardware sometimes causing little coverage holes where none existed before. Also there are other thing like signal bounce and freq overlap but those are rarer issues and usually in the densest of urban areas or near large emf generators.

Unfortunately consumer Femto cell deployment never really took off in N.Am, even in the US it's still mainly businesses that get that option even offered. The consumer side even for early advocates like AT&T (which I first saw a consumer option at CES in 2011) have offered, then discontinued, then offered solutions on&off with mediocre support or success, the 5G hit and the focus pivoted there. The Big3 in Canada played around with consumer femtocells around 2015/16/17 but it never took off, because ironically consumer coverage was good enough, and the gaps were mostly in areas where even internet was unavailable to fill that gap. Commercial solutions also didn't translate to consumer well. Whereas the US' patchwork offered a possibility of better adoption, but still didn't translate to it's widespread use.

Again, I would recommend looking at what hardware is near you and who owns it, whether or not a booster would help would depend on why your urban coverage is bad. A directional antenna & booster might help, but it still needs some signal to provide better signal, it doesn't work well on barely a single bar unless you have very clear line of sight.

[prashanttarkar]

there are bell towers close to my house. There is Telus tower, but its 2.5 km away. Let me call Telus today to capture the deails.

[NFtoBC]

There is also the Telus netXP app to help with troubleshooting and reporting.

[prashanttarkar]

I escalated it to Telus and they are looking into the area to do an analysis. During my call with them, it got dropped a couple of times, which actually helped them to understand the issue. They are monitoring my cell phone usage in terms of calls & data and will provide the details soon.