So just you understand the technology behind all your drop-calls, you must come into understanding the companies that provide you with the “incredible” service. This is an issue almost everyone I know has with their cell company. No matter who is providing you the “service” or whether you are getting “rollover” or “more”, the reception is always the same: crappy. For example, I cannot get a single bar inside some buildings, underground parking lots, elevators or even the 18th floor of a tall building.

This might not be an issue for most of us. We have become ‘used’ to this. It is normal now-a-days to have a few dropped calls. No one complains anymore -it is that rampant. I am one of those who have gotten ‘used’ to this normal cell reception issue (if that is the word I can use). But then I start reading some articles about how good the reception is in other countries, such as in South Korea and Japan; and Europe. Then I tell myself why we shouldn’t have the same privilege as the Europeans or S. Koreans? We pay in dollars and more of it with long term contracts with these so called ‘get more’ companies; at least we can expect is a better service -err – reception.

If you have been reading about what kind of issues I have had with my provider, you would understand my frustration -and it wasn’t even about the bars in my phone. My researches also yield some other interesting points. To start with, we have very few cell-stations around the cities -the cell phone signal can not always reach everyone or every place. These big cell service providers rather spend a lot of money on advertising on big celebrities than infrastructure. Most claim to have more bars in more places but the real story is that they all lease cell tower/stations from each other -in couple of years, every cell service providing companies will just synchronize and be as one -not as a company but as far as their service is concerned.

Another road-block in the cell industry is the public outcry and lack-there-of of having new cell towers installed in their neighborhoods. Many people, me included, complain about the reception and the service but yet we deny and resist having the companies build the cell towers in our neighborhoods (I am in favor of it). Perhaps there is a study or some sort of survey that supports all this -but our legislators are not pushing the public or vice versa to accept these plan/ideas and thus leading to better cell signals and bars all over the city/town. In my view the whole concept of having better service and reception is not being debated enough to catch the public eye or the politician/legislators. We only talk and hear about it in articles hidden in page 8 of the technology section of the papers or if one is concerned enough, as I am -to read more and learn that we are behind many countries when it come to cell technology and service.