Update 11/06/2012: A proposed tower to provide service in the Lake area is in the process of obtaining the last regulatory approvals. The proposed location is included in the map below.
Starting July 3rd I am going to be making Yellowstone “home” for a couple of months. Like most people in this modern age, I have obligations that require me to maintain some degree of communication with the outside world regardless of where I might find myself. Therefore as part of my research into the area one of the first subjects of research was that of cellular reception inside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park.
During the course of my research one thing quickly became evident… that within the park CDMA technology is king and Verizon is the top dog. The reason for this dominance comes from the fact that Verizon owns the rights to the towers, which formerly belonged to Alltel; a former company whose assets were partly acquired by Verizon in 2009. What this means is that all native (i.e. not roaming) CDMA access within the park is Verizon’s and that you may also roam on other companies, like say the other big CDMA company in the country, Sprint, with differing degrees of satisfaction.
Additionally it appears that Verizon either leases space on its towers to other GSM/3G companies or that it itself provides roaming GSM/3G capabilities, because there is an overlapping 3G footprint. According to the AT&T coverage viewer, the company considers the vast majority of this footprint 3G native with the exception of the area around Old Faithful and some minor patches here and there. T-mobile on the other hand, seems to consider the entire park a roaming area.
Armed with this knowledge the next question that crops up is “how can we improve reception”? Well short of pleading with the National Park Service to authorize the installation of more wireless technology within the park,—The NPS limits the installation of wireless technologies within the park in order to preserve the pristine quality of the local environment for humans and animals, a goal with which I wholeheartedly agree.—the next best thing we can do is to identify the location of the towers and physically get closer to them in order to make a call. Through various online sources, official Yellowstone publications, and Google and Live Maps I was able to identify the location of the four locations from where all park signals emanate. You may see them below.
View Yellowstone cell locations in a larger map
I chose to utilize the topographic/terrain map because using the location and knowing what the area around it looks like in terms of elevation should give you a better idea of where to go for improved signal.
In order to get a better idea of the signal strength it is better to see it stated in dBm, a logarithmic scale of power in milliwatts, rather than the common bar indicators in phones. Most modern handsets have a way to display the signal in this fashion. For example, iPhone owners can display the signal strength in dBm by dialing *3001#12345#* and hitting send. Owners of Blackberries with hardware keyboards can hold the alt key and then press n, m, l, l. In both of these cases the bar signal strength indicator should convert into a number. You may exit field test mode on the iPhone by hitting the home key and you may return the regular bars indicator on the blackberry by entering the same sequence again. Android handset owners can also get a dBm reading by going to the status screen (menu>about phone>status).
This number tells you the power of the signal you are receiving from the tower. The smaller the number is, the better the signal and therefore, the better the call quality and data transmission. The number generally ranges between -60 dBm and -110 dBm. A reading around -60 dBm will generally give you a perfect calling experience, while a reading on the higher -110 dBm range will most likely result in dropped calls and cut-offs.
While this is by no means a comprehensive guide into all that can be done in order to improve call quality at Yellowstone, and for that matter anywhere, it should provide with a basic understanding of some of the factors. I will try to amend this post, when I get to Yellowstone, with more information regarding GSM/3G company ownership and other factors that may help in determining which carriers should theoretically have the best signal strength.
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