I am posting this here because this is a major issue I have had. I live in a rural area and have sporadic reception in my house, and work in a large building with dead spots. When I am in areas without reception and a friend texts me, I will not receive it. When I get reception again a few minutes later, my texts will not go through automatically. From what I understand, the way SMS messages work they will send immediately, and if they do not go through they will piggyback on a different connection. So Verizon will not try resending them to you until it is good and ready, even if you have had reception since then. In my case today I got 3 texts 80 minutes late.I called Verizon tech support earlier with this problem and after describing to him everything, his only solution was to always leave my droid by a window and never have it near me. If I wanted a phone to never have around me I would not have purchased my shiny droid, so with a little screwing around I found a fix for this problem: You can fix this very simply by making a phone call and connecting through the network that way. When you connect again through a phone call, all of your missed texts will go through! I set a shortcut for this on my homescreen with these simple steps. 1.) Added an entry in my phonebook called 'Get Texts!' and set the number as *228. (This number is good to call every month or so to update reception, but you can back out of the call immediately as well.) 2.)Went to my homescreen and held down on an empty space. 3.)Clicked shortcuts and scrolled down to select 'Direct Dial'. 4.)Scrolled through my phonebook to the 'Get Texts!' entry and selected it. Voila! Now I have an icon beside my messaging icon that I can press when I feel like I have been missing texts and I can retrieve them manually once I have a signal again. Quick and easy. I hope this helps somebody that has the same problem as me, Verizon didn't seem to understand it very well.
I also work in a building with dead spots. A bunch of us chipped in and bought the Dual band zBoost cell phone booster and it made a huge difference. Stronger signal meant longer battery life and no more missed email/calls/sms. Kinda expensive bugger, but really helped a lot.
I have considered a signal repeater or booster, but I can't really afford one for my home. I get reception fine outside but of course nobody texts you while you are outdoors. I work in a hospital and half the time I am on the ground floor where the walls are too thick for any reception at all, and elevators literally chomp out your signal as the doors close. I don't mind getting texts a little late, as I'm not really supposed to be chatting on my cell at work anyway but an hour or more late is ridiculous and makes most text messages pointless.
One of the posters said when she added a signal booster (the one ya put behind the battery) her phone stopped working, and wouldnt work till she took it out.
Are those really that great? I get shit reception in my house and school. In school it drops to 1xRTT half the time and my batteryh is eaten alive, tried turning 3G off.but it only works to a certain degree.
"You can fix this very simply by making a phone call and connecting through the network that way. When you connect again through a phone call, all of your missed texts will go through!" I have the Voyager now, getting the Droid on the 23rd. And I live in a small town with little to now service, and me and all my friend discovered that trick too. Just call your voice mail, and within a few seconds the texts pour in.
I get pretty crappy signal here at the house... and about 45 minutes worth of calls today butchered my battery. In fact, the long call I took was calling Verizon to find out what frequency I'm using here at the house so that I could buy a repeater. Turns out they're doing a $50 rebate on their network extender thing, which puts it at the same price as the repeater I was going to buy... so I might go pick one up tomorrow and give it a test.
Like the second poster I'd recommend one of those pricey cell booster kits. (They've come down a ton the past 3 years) if cell reception is that spotty! Good workaround though
Petie, Amazon has a repeater for $190ish, but you have to figure out if your closest tower is on the 800mhz or 1900mhz band, because the units do one or the other. They do have one that both, but it's $300. I'm going to pick up a Verizon Network Extender today to check it out, since they are giving a $50 rebate, which will bring it to about the same price as the repeater, and would be easier to set up.
Wow, at $190 it is ALMOST worth it for me, but if I spent that much on an accessory like that I would have to know it would last me through future phones and would work everywhere in my house. Reception is fine if I am outdoors or standing right beside a window but I'm never just WAITING for a text so it does me no good. I hate answering the phone and knowing the conversation will start with 20 seconds of Hello? Hey! Hello? Can you hear me? -click- I always have to get up and quit what I'm doing and hope the call was worth going outside for.
Not to mention with verizon and sprint often they have EVDO on 1900 and 1xRTT on 850 or vice versa, if your only amplifing the EVDO signal its no use since EVDO is data only. Best bet is to check the carriers liscence in the area and call about which frequencies they use if you want to save cash or just get the dual band amp, plus 850 and 1900 are here to stay in the USA so your good when it comes to the future of basic phone calls.
