Top 5 Things That Hinder Cellular Communication

By Brian Allred, senior account manager, Wilson Electronics

This has happened to everybody. You or a dispatcher in your office is talking to a crew working out in the field. In the middle of the conversation, a realization hits - there’s no one on the other end! The call has dropped and you’ve been talking to yourself for who knows how long.

Perhaps even more frustrating for field crews is losing their cellular connection while referring to a mapping or GPS app on a phone or tablet in order to locate a work site. Now what do they do? Drive around in hopes of picking up the signal again?

In our always-on, data-driven, 21^st century world, a reliable cellular signal is not optional, it’s required. So why does it seem that acquiring and keeping a solid signal is frequently a hit-and-miss proposition?

Here are the top five things that weaken or block cell signals. One or two of them may surprise you.

1. Distance from the nearest cell tower

This is almost always the first thing we blame when a connection is dropped or service unavailable. After all, cellular signals are radio frequency waves and they behave like any other RF signal. If the receiver (in this case a phone, tablet, cellular modem, etc.) is too far away from the signal source –a cell tower – then the signal will be weak or maybe altogether undetectable.