Frequent dropped calls at home on Sprint and forced roaming following electrical work nearby - only a coincidence?
My BF and I always had perfectly good cell reception at his apartment until 3 days ago, when suddenly, the cell service became almost unusable (dropped calls). It occurs both on Sprint and on forced roaming only. Our phones both work fine away from the apartment, although I haven't tested yet to see how far is required. We both have HTC TP2s running WM 6.1.
Maybe simply coincidence, the problem began within the same hour I saw a utility worker outside doing something at the electrical cabinet for the apartment complex, about 25ft/10m from our apartment. Also maybe just coincidence, the apartment manager complaining later about her phone "acting weird" all day. (I don't know if she meant her cell phone or landline.) I asked a neighbor in the next building over if he was having any signal issues and he said he wasn't (AT&T).
PG&E (the gas and electric company) says their equipment is functioning correctly. At first, Sprint said theirs was too; 2 days later they said it was due to tower upgrades that would be going on until September 7. Then I realized the rep was talking about system-wide project dates and she could provide no useful information about whether work on towers in my area had actually begun or when it would start or end.
A few times since then my call dropped immediately when I walked by the electrical cabinet downstairs but I can't think of a good reason for this. There is also a bank of about 3 dozen "smart meters" immediately below our apartment, which I think operate on cell phone frequencies, but if they're working right, shouldn't interfere.
If it's the Sprint network upgrade work causing the call drops, then shouldn't the service most likely be better, or at least different, when I switch to Roaming?
I wanted to see if I could get more information about what was happening by using Cellmapper on my HTC TP2 WM6.1 but it wants a newer .Net framework. I'm hesitant to upgrade .Net because I don't know how it will affect my current applications.
I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to troubleshoot the suddenly horrible reception since Sprint and PG&E are uninterested in figuring it out.
Thanks, ppc geeks
