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Sometimes I Wish I Knew More About Cellular

SomeRadioGuy

SomeRadioGuy

I really wish I understood cellular better, I'm just a radio station program director. Sometime early this morning, our 2G cellular network had some kind of melt down/failure and landlines can't call cell phones and cell phones cant call landlines. It appears to be a localized issue.

Calling a landline from a cell phone will result in either "this call cant be completed as dialed" message for some and others have the call immediately fail. Calling a cell phone from a landline results in a fast busy signal.

They've been troubleshooting the issue, but haven't fixed it and it appears like something may need to be sent out to fix it.

Our radio station has a toll free # provided by ATT and that works, even from within town.

And all this melts down as the river begins to unthaw and break up could flood the town, again.
 
speer360 said:
What decade are we in?
Does Alaska still have 2g networks in operation?
Click to expand...
Exactly. 3G service ended here in rural Vermont around this time a year ago. Of course, we're hardly as remote as Paul's Alaska location is, so maybe some small-time operator has a 2G network serving that area.
 
I thought T-Mobile was the last 2G GSM network operator, it's possible some small network operators could still be hanging onto that old technology. 2G is so spectrum and energy inefficient compared to 4G & 5G networks and far more complicated to operate.
T-Mobile plans to shut down 2G in April 2024.
 
RonCole said:
I thought T-Mobile was the last 2G GSM network operator, it's possible some small network operators could still be hanging onto that old technology. 2G is so spectrum and energy inefficient compared to 4G & 5G networks and far more complicated to operate.
T-Mobile plans to shut down 2G in April 2024.
Click to expand...

Well, it isnt changing for us anytime soon as far as i know
 
Kelly A said:
What's the population count in your community?
Click to expand...

275.

Which is the reason why oru system is what it is.. there isnt money and enough to customers.. GCI finally said about 6-9 months ago after some serious melt downs of the system that they wanted toi upgrade but has to find the money
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
275.

Which is the reason why oru system is what it is.. there isnt money and enough to customers.. GCI finally said about 6-9 months ago after some serious melt downs of the system that they wanted toi upgrade but has to find the money
Click to expand...
Seems like the next reasonable tech step for such a small community will be when the next generation iPhone and Android phones come with Starlink capabilities. Word is, that may happen sometime next year.
 
Kelly A said:
Seems like the next reasonable tech step for such a small community will be when the next generation iPhone and Android phones come with Starlink capabilities. Word is, that may happen sometime next year.
Click to expand...

youd think? but this is a company who doesnt even have wifi calling enabled on prepaid calling plans.. just contract plans
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
youd think? but this is a company who doesnt even have wifi calling enabled on prepaid calling plans.. just contract plans
Click to expand...

Is your internet service reasonably fast?

One option, well, for cell phone service, is for a SIM with one of the major cell phone companies in the lower 48, and use the wi-fi option of the cell phone to connect to the internet wherever you have access to a wi-fi router and then the cell phone operates as if it were on that cell company's network.

I've T-Mobile service and with very rare instances, I've used my T-Mobile phone on the wi-fi access for telephone service in a number of countries. The one rare instance of it not working was a hotel wi-fi system which would not allow phone calls but zero problems in text messaging and wi-fi access for my laptop. Since I had a local cell phone for that country, I did a work around using my local phone as a wi-fi hot spot and then my T-Mobile phone used the local cell as access to the T-Mobile network.
 
boiseengineer said:
With all the Fed $$$$ out there for rural broadband something should be available to upgrade that crap.
Click to expand...

We have at times begged GCI.. "give us direction, well help you find the money" and they more or less ignored that and gave us no info
 
RadioFan2J3 said:
Is your internet service reasonably fast?

One option, well, for cell phone service, is for a SIM with one of the major cell phone companies in the lower 48, and use the wi-fi option of the cell phone to connect to the internet wherever you have access to a wi-fi router and then the cell phone operates as if it were on that cell company's network.

I've T-Mobile service and with very rare instances, I've used my T-Mobile phone on the wi-fi access for telephone service in a number of countries. The one rare instance of it not working was a hotel wi-fi system which would not allow phone calls but zero problems in text messaging and wi-fi access for my laptop. Since I had a local cell phone for that country, I did a work around using my local phone as a wi-fi hot spot and then my T-Mobile phone used the local cell as access to the T-Mobile network.
Click to expand...

Most have starlink here now.

The problem is AT&T and VZW and Tmobile.. NO OTHER carriers work out here off wifi.. none work on the GCI 2 g cellular network
 
Back around July 27th or 28th, we started to have problems with cell phones calling landlines and landlines calling cell phones.. it wouldn't work. Cell to landline resulted in a "your call can't be completed as dialed" message and a landline to cell call resulted in a fast busy.

About a week later, a GCI Tech came out and what I understand to be some kind of bridge that hands the transfer between cell to land line and vice versa failed, they installed a new one.. didn't fix the problem.

A few days later, another tech was out here, and he said some kind of server of some sort failed and they were waiting for a pair to arrive that day (Tues the 8th).

Our phone service worked ok for a night, at least for some of us.. but by Wednesday afternoon the 9th, the same problems started happening and we're back to not being able to call cell to LL and LL to cell.

We've had many problems in the past with calls randomly dropping, not connecting, calls remaining connected, but one party losing audio, basic text messages not going through, calls not being able to leave the village or come in

And one time, the company couldnt reach their tech in town and she couldn't reach them outside of town...I had to page her on the radio, have her call me at the radio station... and i would call the company, cuse i could reach them and her.. get info from them and pass it along to
 
To answer your original question. Cell phones constitute one network controlled, by say, one computer. The landlines network is similarly configured. The two networks, touch at one point between the computers. There is a technical term for that which escapes me at the moment. When that interface goes down the two networks cannot talk to each other.
 
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