Forum Discussion
Service Improvements in Hoodland Ore Area
I live 1 mile north of Welches Oregon on the north side of the Sandy River. Despite this areas constant growth and its popularity as a resort gateway to Mt. Hood, the lack of coverage here is alarming. If I didn't have wifi calling in my home I'd have no service at all. When the power goes out we have have to drive several miles to get a call out and contact the power company. The extreme distance between towers is clearly at fault. You need to set more towers on the south side of US26 in the Welches area to fill these huge gaps in service. Why don't you do this? It's been 15 years now and you and your absorbed partner Sprint have simply ignored this area except to upgrade the few existing towers. Please fix this.
Yup. similar to many rural areas, TMobile often uses the big macros to 'cover' large areas, and most often use terrain. Unlike At&t and Verizon, which both appear to have local towers in Welches, TMobile has decided it isn't worthy, and 'service exists'. I'd recommend their messaging for support, and push a request. This is a consumer forum.
Similarly, you can dial 611, but expect to go through low-level troubleshooting before you can escalate
i would stick with the Facebook/Twitter route though..calling in lands you with tier 1 support where the FB/T route lands you with tier 2 support.
scroll to the bottom of this page and the FB/T options are right there.
It isn't always carriers not wanting to build towers. There's a lot involved. Spectrum licensing, neighborhood boards, and swaths of other things.
Sprint for example wanted to put a tower in Aeia heights in Hawaii for example. Sprint found someone to lease land so they could put a tower up. The board there refused Sprint to put a tower up in their area. Sometimes carriers can even lease or buy land in the area. It's not so simple as I want to build a tower here.
Yup. similar to many rural areas, TMobile often uses the big macros to 'cover' large areas, and most often use terrain. Unlike At&t and Verizon, which both appear to have local towers in Welches, TMobile has decided it isn't worthy, and 'service exists'. I'd recommend their messaging for support, and push a request. This is a consumer forum.
Similarly, you can dial 611, but expect to go through low-level troubleshooting before you can escalate
I suspect that this is a little different. It appears that both Verizon and AT&T are on a colocated tower.
https://goo.gl/maps/PRnY2JwGVJahm68GA
Typically in urban areas, its much more difficult due to regulations. In some rural areas (National Forest), it can be difficult as you have to deal with building on federal land.
Verizon and AT&T make more per line than T-Mobile does. They could choose to take a loss than T-Mobile. Also seeing how low that tower is. It doesn't fair well for range going lower than what is seen. Without knowing the deal they have it could be T-Mobile would have to construct the tower they'll never own and have to lease.
I know in some places in Hawaii GTE(Verizon) built towers for coverage in those places agreed to not lease out space their competitors as why Verizon has the best coverage overall in Hawaii. Verizon at one point wanted to buy those towers but if they did they'd have to lease out to their competitors. They opted not to and keep their original deal.
The tower in this area appears to be a colocation, and like many more rural areas, T-Mobile often does choose to take the loss rather than build. Eg. ~12 miles north of me, both AT&T and Verizon have built small towers (4 - 5 each) on utility poles and at least one each on a macro, where T-Mobile has chosen to not to deploy any, giving reach from towers +10 miles away. This appears to be similar in Welches, OR.
Thanks for all the useful information! I feel I understand T-Mobile better now and their non-customer centric approach to this issue. I add that I also believe that they believe Starlink is going to be their savior in this matter. I'm not as certain that this plan, should it ever happen, will prove as useful as they think. And even if it does clear all the hurdles that lay ahead of it, it may be years before its fully viable. Until then I will be the squeaky wheel here and try to get their attention, for all it may be worth.
