How To Deal With Dropped Cell Phone Calls

When your cell phone drops a call, you might ask yourself, "What can I do about it?"

Let me break down some important things to think about:

1) Was it a one-time dropped call?

If you dropped one call, don't worry about it! Dropping a call is a normal occurrence on any wireless network, so don't go nuts over it. It's a CELL PHONE. Do you see any wires coming out of it leading into the closest telephone pole? No. It's not going to be as perfect as a land line, so you should set some realistic expectations in terms of your phone. Face the facts: you are going to drop some calls.

2) Do you drop calls everywhere?

If you drop calls everywhere, do you think that your cellphone provider has mistakenly set your phone with the very popular feature of "drop calls everywhere"? Again, you need to adopt a realistic understanding of cell phones. If all your calls drop in all places at all times, it's not a problem with the cell phone network; if it were, then millions of other clients on the same network would be calling in at the same time, all complaining of the same problem. In this case, the problem is with your phone.

3) Do you always drop a call in the same place?

Now we're on to something. This is the perfect kind of scenario for which to call your provider. It would be even better if you could get some friends or family members to call in about it too. The more calls coming in, the more likely the customer service department is going to push this up to Engineering.

It is important to note here that the Engineering departments at all wireless providers already know which sites are dropping the most calls. And the "can you hear me now" guy out in the field? That's real. Between him and Engineering, they already have most problems on their to-do lists.

There are also phone/hardware issues to consider.

For instance, do you have a stubby antenna? If so, you greatly increase your chances of dropping calls. Even worse, do you have one of those phones that has an "internal antenna"? Why would you do that to yourself? Also, do you have a flip phone or a "candy bar phone"? Candy bar phones (or stick phones) almost always perform better than flip phones. Sorry. That's just the way it is.

Let's think about this: back in 1999, you used to have a stick phone with a nice big antenna and it worked great. Now you have this little tiny flip phone that doesn't have an antenna (none that you can see). Smaller is not always better.

Keep these points in mind the next time you drop a call. It may cut down on your frustration level and stop you from making outrageous demands to your provider.

Author:

At Shawn B's site WyrlessWeb.com, there are some tutorials on troubleshooting cell phone problems as well as some other wireless industry news at his wireless blog.