Data Coverage Issues - Parry Sound, ON

[robtoe]

We've accessed data on Rogers devices about 30 mins from Parry Sound for years.    It wasn't exactly "city strength", but worked fine, and was even sufficient for rare video chats for work.

On the July long weekend, data stopped working.    I reset the phone, no change.   LTE continued to show as before.  A family friend arrived that weekend - also a Rogers customer - and confirmed no data.    I assumed a temporary outage.     My wife continued to have full data coverage from another carrier.

I attempted to report the outage, but was told that business support was not available.   I suggested this outage likely affects all customers, but the agent had nothing further to offer.

After getting 5 minutes away from the area, data returned, so it pretty much confirms a coverage issue.

I returned 2 weeks later, still no data.  Returned this past weekend, still no data, and I have a different phone.

It is an odd issue, in that I assume other people must be affected, even though it is a tiny town.    It's also frustrating that I've had solid data for years, only to never get it again.

Can someone suggest a means of reporting this?    Will Rogers even care about a coverage issue that likely affects only a handful of people?

***Edited Labels***

[RogersMaude]

Good day @robtoe,

Thank you for your contribution to the Rogers Community! We appreciate you took the time to bring this up to our attention. A poor cellular connection can certainly be upsetting, especially if trying to stay in touch with loved ones. 

If I understand correctly, since the beginning of July, your phone still shows LTE coverage but you no longer have access to data transmissions. Is that right?

Given the fact that you've already went through some troubleshooting you may reach out to us via private message so we can take a deeper look into this. For further assistance, please send us a private message at @CommunityHelps. You can find details about our private messaging in this blog.

RogersMaude

[toolcubed]

Where exactly?  Can you provide the name of the town, closest major intersection, etc?

[robtoe]

It's not on an outage map - seems very localized.

[toolcubed]

I wasn’t going to check an outage map 🙂 I’m going to check a 3rd party cell tower map which gets fed by data from ISED so that I can see where the closest Rogers tower/site is located. Just let me know the name of the town and/or closest major intersection.

[robtoe]

Ahmic Harbour.

[toolcubed]

There's a Rogers tower approx 4KM west of that location.  The tower is providing LTE service on two bands - 700MHz (low band) and 2100MHz (high band).  Low band will travel much farther and my assumption is that your Rogers device is connecting to the low band at Ahmic Harbour since 4KM is too far to receive an adequate high band signal.  The issue with the low band on this particular tower is that it's only operating on a 5MHz wide channel, so if there's congestion and/or if there's signal interference causing too much noise (low band signals are more susceptible and less tolerable to noise than high band signals), you will have problems with connectivity despite your device registering good reception.

By comparison, Bell also has a tower at the exact same location except that it's providing LTE service on three bands - 700MHz, 850MHz (both low band), and 1900MHz.  The Bell tower is also slightly taller than the Rogers tower.  It's hard to tell if a Bell/Telus device will perform any better...my guess is that it probably will but just speculation on my part given 1.) the tower's height advantage, 2.) it broadcasting on multiple low bands, and 3.) you saying that your wife had good connectivity from another carrier (assuming the other carrier is Bell, Telus, or one of their flanker brands - Koodo/Virgin).

[robtoe]

Thanks for this.   Yes, my wife is with Virgin, and they employ a different infrastructure.

Also considered congestion, especially on a July holiday weekend, but my data issue doesn't seem indicative of it.  I assume congestion symptoms would be highs, lows, brief outages, whereas I'm getting consistently close to zero.

By this I mean if I try to access the mobile Google homepage (which is lightweight example), it might take 45-60 minutes to load it, and a search from it is futile.     This is the same midweek, and every non-holiday weekend since July, at all times of the day.   

It's as if the tower was removed.

[toolcubed]

You would have to go into your device's service menu and look at which LTE band it's connected to, true signal strength (RSSI), SNR (signal-to-noise ratio), etc. to really understand what's going on.  I believe you said that you're still getting reception, correct?  Meaning you're seeing "LTE" along with one or more bars of service?  There are many places (I can name 5 off the top of my head) where coverage exists (i.e. there's reception...in some cases good reception) but where connectivity is basically non-existent, similar to what you're reporting.  And in those locations, it's due to bad SNR (too much noise) and/or high congestion (i.e. capacity issues).  Unfortunately, the number of "bars" you see on your phone does not tell the entire story of how good cellular connectivity is in any particular region.  Can you confirm whether or not you actually get LTE reception in that location?

Your wife being on Virgin means that her device is connected to the Bell network.

[robtoe]

Yes, there is LTE reception.    Rogers is in touch with me now, and has asked that I try a few different networks.    I tried a bit of that back in July, but will do more when I'm back on site.

Yep, was aware of Virgin using Bell's network.    Was using a mobile hotspot on my wife's phone to allow my phone to access some things - ouch.

[toolcubed]

OK good luck. Let us know how everything plays out. I’m curious.

[robtoe]

Went back to the location this past week.    First 2 days data worked as expected - was great.

The next day it went to zero again.    Had 2 other Rogers customers out, and they also had no data.

I've given the signal details and timestamp to Rogers, so we'll see how it goes.

[robtoe]

So does anyone know the process with these outage reports?

I was told to expect an update within 72 hours, and it has been 2 weeks.

[robtoe]

Thought I'd share an update.

After contacting Rogers to get an update since I hadn't heard anything in a couple of weeks, I was told my first ticket reporting the outage was closed.    I received no notification about this.  

I was told that it was created as under a personal account, and upon discovering my phone was business-related, they just closed it without contacting me.    (Are towers separated by personal and business?)

They offered to create a new, business ticket.

I received an update just now that no problem was found.    This is surprising, as 4 separate Rogers customers  had no data at that location, and I gave a timestamp as to an outage time.   Data is fine at that location at other times.   

While all Rogers personnel involved have been polite, the process, follow up, and ultimately lack of resolution is extremely disappointing.

[toolcubed]

Sadly, I feel your pain. I went thru something similar with an intermittent internet problem that I was having monthly. Tickets kept getting closed with no update or follow up. I think Rogers has some improvements to make with their processes.

With respect to your issue, I’m sorry to say that it probably won’t get resolved. And if it does, it would likely take a long time. They could try adjusting transmit power on the tower serving the area or realigning one of the antenna panels to see if it improves service in the area, but that could cause problems in another area being served by the same tower. The other option is that they install another tower closer to your location, but that could take years (once it’s been approved) or it may never happen.

Since you’ve been given the runaround, and you know you can get better coverage and performance from another provider on the Bell/Telus network, my recommendation is to switch providers.

[JustDucky64]

We have the same issue while visiting in Swords/ Orville area just outside of Parry Sound. Last year was spotty this year even worse. Never had issues getting signal prior to summer of 2020

[RogersCorey]

Greetings @JustDucky64!

In a situation such as this, I will likely need to escalate a ticket to have the area investigated to ensure there are no issues with your local towers.

Did you happen to report the issue via the MyRogers app by tapping Support > MyNetwork and then Report? I would always recommend that our customers do this before reaching out to us!

Please feel free to send a private message to @CommunityHelps so we can assist you further. For more information on how our Private Messaging system works, you can find out more here. 

Regards,

RogersCorey 

[mackbig]

Same. I’ve had many years of good data at the cottage in Carling Bay. In 2021 LTE stopped working completely. 2022 same thing. I can get by if I force the phone into 3G mode. 2023 still going. Arrive at marina 3 bars of LTE. Zero data. People with 5G phone seem ok this year.

[robtoe · Accepted solution]

Think I found a solution to this a few weeks ago.    Stumbled across the Settings - Mobile Networks - Network Operator setting in Android - it defaults to "Select Automatically".    Turning that off shows other carriers and displayed a second Rogers network (can't recall the exact name).    Switching to this made data work immediately.    I looked up that network name and there was Rogers documentation on it saying that if you were on that alternate network too much it could be a problem.   (Unsure if they are leveraging other towers to make this happen?)

[RogersZia]

Hi @robtoe, thanks for keep the Community updated! Quick question, did you by any change connect to Rogers-EXT? If that's the case you may want to check out our FAQs on Extended Coverage Eligibility, Usage & More.

I hope this helps :).

RogersZia