bad/no reception

marialette

My old Nokia (about 10 years old) was brilliant. Despite living very rural, I had brilliant reception, even indoors. Any brands/models that I've tried recently, fail to work, unless outside. It ain't the provider's fault, but the 'internal' antenna of the mobile phone. I am a Home Carer, and need to be able to be contacted. Surely I'm not the only one who's very inconvenienced by this. How can we get the manufacturers to clean up their act? [NB: you can only see whether your new phone works by buying it and trying it out in situ. For me that's an 80-mile roundtrip every time].
People on moon, me signal-less in between hills. It ain't fair.

grumbler

Have you tried disabling 3g (if it's not '3' network)?

Also, I think you still can buy a new 'old' Nokia, but it isn't cheap.

marialette

I have no 3g reception. Perhaps 2. Anyway, as I said - with the old phone I had no problem. It was one with a little toggle sticking out at the top. Why can't they make those anymore?

grumbler

marialette wrote: »

... It was one with a little toggle sticking out at the top.

Do you mean antenna?

Why can't they make those anymore?

They can: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=7110&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a#q=nokia+7110&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=UeC&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&prmd=ivns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=D-FUTv7xJoexhAe-7JiNBg&sqi=2&ved=0CDcQrQQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=8effd899b03ff10f&biw=1366&bih=550

marialette

Ah. Indeed they do still make 'em. But reception still isn't guaranteed. Just checked on-line the various providers' post code maps, and all of them guarantee 'good' reception. A friend of mine, who lives at the edge of a middle-size town, has no indoor reception at all. Has to hang out of her attic window. Preposterous. Text massages I receive are often hours old, and I recently put one my my messages out of its misery after it had been struggling to get out of my out-box for 3 days (and yes, I was out and about most of that time). Very frustrating.

marialette

Messages. Not massages, I wish...

grumbler

marialette wrote: »

....It ain't the provider's fault, but the 'internal' antenna of the mobile phone.

marialette wrote: »

...But reception still isn't guaranteed. Just checked on-line the various providers' post code maps, and all of them guarantee 'good' reception. A friend of mine, who lives at the edge of a middle-size town, has no indoor reception at all. Has to hang out of her attic window. Preposterous. ...

Preposterous? Are you serious? It's a mobile phone after all, not a landline. No providers guarantee indoors reception even in areas with a strong signal. Orange and Vodafone offer broadband-based solutions for improving indoors usage of mobiles.

Graham1

Have you tried all the major networks ? It's easy to get free SIMs to try out reception levels. The Vodafone and O2 (and all the MVNOs using these companies) 900 Mhz band signal tend to get through walls better than the 1800 Mhz band used by others. I don't know if they use the lower frequency band in all areas.

Eton_Rifle

I'm in a similar situation but with providers (not the equipment) not covering my area.

The best thing to do is ask neighbours what network and model they're using.

marialette

I'm with T-Mobile. And I did mean preposterous. As I said I my first post, I had no problems with my first Nokia, quite a few years ago. But for some reason the newer ones that I tried, with the same provider, do not give reception indoors. The old phone proved that the signal is strong enough.