There’s nothing more irritating than your phone dropping an important call. Learn why your phone keeps dropping calls and what you can do about it.
Did you know that 72% of cellphone owners experience occasional dropped calls? There are only a few things that are more frustrating than trying to make an important call or a business call to end up talking to yourself because the call drops. If you are dealing with this and wondering why your phone keeps dropping calls, we are here to clear things up.
- Signal Strength
One big reason for dropped calls is the signal strength. There is a minimum cell signal that cell phones require in order to maintain a connection with the cell tower that it is connected to.
If the signal strength falls below a certain threshold it will result in a dropped call and undelivered texts.
- Carrier Frequency
Another cause of dropped calls is the cellular frequency used by your carrier. Carriers use different frequencies on their towers which is why you might be talking fine on your phone while your friend standing next to you is dropping calls or vice versa.
The five main bands of frequency are lower 700 MHz LTE-A, upper 700 MHz LTE-V, Cellular 850, PCS 1900, AWS 1700/211 MHz. The higher the frequency is, the shorter the wavelength.
This means faster data speeds for surfing the web and answering emails. This also means that they travel shorter distances and therefore have more difficulty going through building walls.
- Cases
If you spent a ton of money on a premium case to protect your phone from breaking when it falls you might have also created a frequency block. If you notice your cell signal reception getting worse after buying your new case, you might want to test your phone without the case to see if it makes a difference.
Stay away from phone cases that have metal components because it can block reception.
- Building Materials
You might be experiencing dropped calls in certain buildings. If this is the case it’s because there are certain materials that block cellular frequencies and cause you to have cell phone reception issues.
Buildings made out of steel, stone, concrete, logs, metal, stucco, might all interfere with making and receiving phone calls. If you own a business that is inside a building that has multiple dropped calls, then you want to look into getting mobile repeaters to help alleviate the problem.
- Tower Handoff
If you are traveling and notice that your calls are dropping, it might be because of tower handoff issues. When you initially make a phone call, your phone connects to the nearest tower and will stay connected to that same tower as long as you are in range.
If you start driving or walking you might move out of that tower’s range which causes a handoff to occur. This is when your phone call moves to the next closest tower as you are moving. Usually, you don’t even notice when a handoff occurs but once in a while, it will result in a dropped call.
The dropped calls during a handoff can be from a glitch in the backend software when the handoff is occurring, a power outage, or extreme traffic on the new tower.
- Cell Phone Tower Distance
If you are far away from any cell phone towers and manage to make a call but it drops it can be because of how far away you are. This is more than likely to occur in remote and rural areas. Desert areas are places with a large number of dead zones.
If you are in a populated area and dealing with dead zones it might be because the towers are not aligned correctly. This will result in not having proper coverage.
- Damaged Phone
You might not even realize that the cause of your dropped calls is your phone if the damage is not visible. When phones have internal antennas they might be ruined after water damage, a drop, or from age. A damaged antenna will lead to dropped calls and poor cell phone reception.
Check if your phone’s software is up to date because outdated software can drop calls as well. Also, check your phone’s roaming software because it might either be corrupt or need an update as well.
- Rain
While wind does not affect cell phone signals, rain can totally kill your signal. The high-frequency wavelengths that cell phones use do not travel well through water. When it rains the water will block the radio signal in between your phone and the cell phone tower causing you to deal with dropped calls.
Sometimes snow and hail will also disrupt signals but not as much because the water content is not as high. Warmer air can be a culprit as well because warm air has the ability to hold more water vapor. The more vapor there is the higher the chances of dealing with signal interruptions.
If it’s spring and summer and you are noticing that your calls are dropping it might be the trees near you. Leaves contain plenty of water which makes them natural signal blockers. You might have excellent service in fall and winter in the same area but when the trees are in full bloom you might experience your calls dropping.
Now You Know Why Your Phone Keeps Dropping Calls
Now that we covered the top reasons that your phone keeps dropping calls we hope you are able to pinpoint the problem you are having. Hopefully, knowing the main culprit will help you have less dropped calls.
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