SpectrumTalk

Verizon Wireless Guy:
Don't You Like Cell Phone
Services at Beaches?


I recently returned from trip to Boston area for a family event. I took my new Verizon Wireless cellphone with me for both telephone and Internet service and was very disappointed with coverage in popular beach areas, at least I can say that VW's coverage maps are correct if you look at them carefully.

The two beach areas we stayed at were Hull, MA and Plum Island, Newbury, MA. As you can see from the following Google Earth maps, these are populated areas with lots of houses as well as crowded beaches. Both are easy day trips in the Boston area.

Below are the coverage maps from Verizon's website. On the ocean side of both Plum Island and Hull there is little or no coverage. While Plum Island has a sand dune raising the height of the center of the island, creating a "backbone", and complicating coverage illumination, Hull is perfectly flat except for several hill throughout the peninsula which would be ideal antenna sites. (One already has a water tower.) Hull also has an AM directional array antenna, WBZ, where each tower is 525' tall (FCC Antenna Structure Registration Numbers 1003435 and 1003436) and would be good cellular sites if anyone really cared about cellular coverage.

Oddly in Hull, standing in the ocean water does give a usable signal, probably because the salt water acts as a ground plane.

Verizon Wireless Coverage Maps for Plum Island and Hull, MA

So Verizon Guy/"test man", take a trip to the beach and tell us why your boss' service is so bad!