Many Princeton residents reporting poor cell phone coverage last few months
If you live in Princeton and notice that your cell phone coverage has gotten worse, you are not alone. Many residents and people who work in Princeton have seen a decrease in call quality and an increase in dropped calls in the last few months.
Town officials are not aware of any changes in cell tower configurations in Princeton in recent months but said today they will look into the issue. Verizon customers in particular seem to be experiencing poor service in Princeton.
There are 50 cell towers and 237 antennas located within four miles of downtown Princeton. Most high cell towers in Princeton are located in the northwestern area of Princeton (see cell tower map above). The municipality also owns a tower at the former borough hall. Most of the other towers in town are medium towers under 200 feet. Wireless carriers often lease space from cell tower companies for their own antennas instead of managing the towers themselves.
Have you noticed a decline in cell pone call quality in Princeton lately? Share your experience in comments.
If you would like more detailed information about cell towers and antennas near you, you can look up your address on Antennasearch.com.
Krystal Knapp is the founding editor of Planet Princeton. Follow her on Twitter @krystalknapp. She can be reached via email at editor AT planetprinceton.com. Send all letters to the editor and press releases to that email address.
AT&T leaving town on Mercer between the Battlefield and the Lawrence border is atrocious!
I use Google Project Fi and have noticed no change for the worse. Project Fi uses Sprint, T-Mobile and other (non Verizon and non AT&T) towers. Coverage tends to be excellent in cities and major traffic corridors, but maybe not great out in the boonies.
the people I am talking to can’t hear me intermittently with Verizon from my home. It got better for a bit, then returned.
Same here! Very frustrating.
I have AT&T. Never have an issue anywhere in Mercer, Somerset, Hunterdon counties (except for that bit of road along 206 between Ewing and Herrontown Road. I get excellent coverage on Mercer between Battlefield and Lawrenceville Border.
Verizon customer and had some issue this past weekend. Was working with Comcast to try to get my cable fixed and cell call kept dropping. So frustrating, esp when we depend on cell service in lieu of landlines.
Yes, we have Verizon and recently have had problems with dropped calls and calls breaking up. It’s been pretty bad — in one 1/2 hour call it dropped four times. Thinking of changing carriers.
AT&T is pretty terrible in Princeton and throughout much of the state. There are weird dropouts in locations you’d think had fine service–great road between mountain ave and pretty brook, for instance is a dead zone. Bizarre.
Yes! Verizon customer here and it’s been terrible. Every phone call I made yesterday was dropped. When I had to dial 911 last week for a medical emergency, my service was spotty. It has definitely been worse in recent weeks.
I found a solution today after weeks/months of bad reception at home and work in Princeton. I have an iPhone…get off the cellular network (Verizon in my case) and use your phone over wifi. Do this by going to settings-then phone-wifefi calling and turn this option on. Then turn on airplane mode-easy to do by swiping up and pressing the airplane mode icon. This totally fixed the problem – a work around, for sure, but after I initially was annoyed, I accepted it and it’s a 3 second fix. Otherwise, horrible reception and dropped calls.
This precisely describes my recent experience with Verizon. Coverage used to be great, but recently has been unreliable. Connection quality seems to vary a lot from one day to the next. July 24 was particularly bad — I couldn’t stay connected to anyone I called, whether I was inside or outside, and whether I called them or they called me. I had wi-fi (also Verizon) calling turned on the whole day, and still couldn’t talk to anyone for more than a few seconds.
Nothing has improved since this article was posted. I have Verizon and every single call I make either doesn’t connect on the first try or the person on the other end can’t hear me. If we do connect, the phone call drops anywhere between 2 seconds and 15 minutes. Most times they drop within the first minute. I am going to switch providers, along with with my 3 kids accounts as Verizon doesn’t seem to care.
I’ve noticed that my phone is also super weak right now. So, I’m having to resort to a booster. It’s frustrating as hell, but here we are!
I see that people complain about ATnT and Verizon, and yet, I envy them 🙂 I have T-Mobil and most of the day get no reception in my house. When I do ‘search networks’ (on my Android phone) ATnT almost always comes up, T-Mobil un available most of the time. Phone service is both expensive and terrible
Where River Road and Rt. 27 meet at the edge of Princeton/Kingston has become a dead zone. Calls just literally end and this is new. It wasn’t a problem for many years (I have Verizon and have driven this route to work for more than a decade). If you turn right onto Rt. 27, the dead zone continues until you get to the area near the synagogue.