4 Reasons Your Phone Is Constantly Dropping Calls

According to a Pew poll, over three-quarters of cell phone users experience the agony of lost calls at least periodically. In certain circumstances, you may just call your friend again and start up where you left off. In other cases, such as being trapped on a highway in 120 F (48 C) temperatures, a missed emergency call might be the difference between life and death.

Because mobile phone networks and phones are such complex systems, there are many dynamic variables that lead to issues with voice conversations and data transfer. Signals appear to wax and wane, frequently in the same location, for no apparent cause. Why do signal strength and quality feel less like science… and more like magic?

So, let’s have a look at the top four causes your phone call drops and some solutions to enhance your reception. Because cell systems are some of the most complicated (and perplexing) systems on the planet, some of the principles we’ll discuss are oversimplified for clarity.

1. Your signal is poor.
Weak signals are by far the most common cause of lost calls and data problems. That’s according to George Lamb, vice president of customer support at Nextivity, a mobile coverage technology developer when we met with him in 2018.

In general, the stronger your signal, the closer you are to a mobile phone tower. The opposite is also true: the further you are from a tower, the weaker the signal, and the more likely you may have trouble. In a perfect world, your phone would be able to communicate with a tower located around 45 miles (72 kilometers) away. In practice, though, your maximum is usually closer to half that distance.

2. It’s pouring outside.
The wind has no effect on communications. Neither does the speed of the vehicle. Bluetooth signals, which operate on separate frequencies, do not.
Rain, on the other hand, destroys signals. This is due to the fact that the high-frequency wavelengths utilized by cell phones do not travel effectively through water. Water has a tendency to interfere with the radio signal between the mobile phone tower and your phone. Snow and hail are also bothersome, but because they contain less water than rain, they aren’t as disruptive as a torrential deluge. Temperature can also influence signal strength since warmer air can store more water vapor. More vapor indicates a larger possibility of signal attenuation.

3. The Cell Tower Is Congested
Signal strength is one factor that influences your calls. Another consideration is signal quality. In terms of quality, network congestion is a key issue. During times of exceptionally heavy traffic, such as a huge concert or football event, or during a large-scale emergency, abrupt increases in network traffic can cause network congestion, resulting in lost calls and data signals that are so overwhelmed that you can’t access the internet.

The geographic range (the size of the cell) that cell towers cover varies. Cells are modest (possibly only a few hundred meters in size) and there are many more towers in heavily inhabited regions than in rural areas, where cells might span kilometers.

4. You’ve gotten it wrong. Your Signal Power
Signal strength is an important – and sometimes misunderstood – component of cell phones. The small bars at the top of your phone offer you a basic idea of how strong your signal is, but each phone’s accuracy varies, and there’s also a lack of uniformity across carriers. To counteract those too-simple bars, go into your phone’s settings and find a numerical figure for signal strength, which is denoted as dBm (decibel milliwatts). That number may be found in the network settings section on Android cell phones. With iPhones, you’ll have to do a little more digging; techniques for identifying signal information may be found on this website.
Signals are represented by negative numbers, and in practice, you’ll frequently see figures ranging from -30 to -120. The better the connection, the closer your signal numbers are to zero. You’re unlikely to see a signal stronger than -50, and once it dips below -100, you’re likely to have problems and lost calls. At -120, there is hardly any acceptable signal.