Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Cell phone use in the mountains

I would like to know what cell phone companies offer the best coverage along the 395 corridor and the north eastern Kern county desert. I currently have ATT Wireless which I believe has just changed to Cingular. If I am anywhere that is slightly remote I lose my signal and then I am unable to make a call. Strangely enough I have been in remote areas of Red Rock Canyon and my phone chirped to let me know that I had a message, but I was unable to answer it. If I am in Ridgecrest, or Lonepine I can get a signal but If I am just a couple of miles out of town I get nothing. Just a couple of weeks ago I was in the Carrizo Plains and I got strong signals. This area is very remote, go figure. Forget about getting a signal from Whitney or Telescope peak. I did manage to get one from White Mountain Peak. I don't wish to discuss the ethics or aesthetics of having a phone out in the boonies. I hike a lot! I also have a young family that I may need to get a hold of and vice versa in case of an emergency. If you don't like the idea of cell phones out in the wilderness, I respect your opinion, but don't bother responding to this thread.

Rafael...

last july I was able to make a call home from whitney summitt using verizon. we had a couple of different cell phones in our group and verizon had by far the best coverage. as far as phones in the wilderness you can always just turn it off except for emergencies!

I agree with esco. I've tried both Cingular and Verizon. The Verizon phone I'm using now has both analog and digital modes and has worked on Whitney as well as many other Sierra peaks. It also got a strong signal up at Upper Boy Scout Lake. My Cingular phone which is digital only has worked great along highways but doesn't often work on high peaks.

-Rick

Cingular seems to work marginally better along 395 but I don't take it up into the mountains because they don't work most of the time, the exceptions being the ridgelines and mountain tops.

If it's an overnight trip make sure the phone goes in the sleeping bag or the battery might discharge.

I have cingular and I had good coverage on the roads last year and up to the portal camp grounds but I could not get a signal on the summit. I did not check in between the portal and the summit. I have heard good things about verison as well. Good luck.

Rafael, which type of ATT service do you have -- is it GSM or the older TDMA? (TDMA is not internet/picture compatible, GSM is.) I have the TDMA service, and I was barely able to get a signal from the top of Whitney last summer -- had to sit on a slab on the northeast edge of the summit and hold real still. When I got my bill, I got charged for roaming in ...get this... Tonopah, Nevada!

However, I was able to connect just fine down in Lone Pine and again from Independence, and a few places up the Onion Valley road, and again just barely on Kearsarge pass.

This topic was discussed on the board last year. Here are some links: <A href="http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=001246">Cell Coverage 1</A> and <A href="http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=001888"> Cell Coverage 2</A>.

In 2000 I only got analog coverage with Verizon. Last year I had fairly strong digital coverage at the summit (but only near the edge of the cliff).

FYI, I have Cingular and it has worked on top of Mt. Langley, so I'm sure it'll work on Whitney.
Good luck.

Steve C,
I have the TDMA service as far as I know. Strangely enough I did recieve a faint signal and almost got a connection from the top of Whitney when I stood near a woman who was using her phone at the same time. Once she hung up, my signal was lost. It's amazing that a couple of years before I was born, we were able to put a man on the moon. Thanks for the info everyone. I will consider changing to Verizon soon.

Rafael...

There are many places in the western Sierra where ATT is the only provider that works well. The area in where lakes Edison and Florence, Dinkey Lakes, Wishon and Courtright reservoirs, for example. So...I guess it depends upon where you are going.

Mine is the older network, also, anyone have experience with the newer network?

I used to have the "Digital OneRate" plan from AT&T. On Whitney, on occasion, I would "roam" to verizon and get a call out. When I switched to their GSM service, I hardly got any signal past Ridgecrest. (I believe things have improved with the merger with Cingular.) I now have Verizon, and have made calls from Langley, Whitney, the approach to Williamson and Onion Valley. I'm much happier with the Verizon service.

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I get a five-bar signal on the summit with Verizon, but it invariably takes half an hour to get a call to connect...I was told it was an issue with capacity, not signal strength.

Here is some applicable info I found via Google (pasted below the === line). It is consistent with what I have heard before, but I did not recall the exact distance limits. Clearly analog has the ability to reach much further than digital due to the timing/gating issues with digital technology. Of course digital is much better when you are not far from the antennas.

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http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:4UK3txXTh0sJ:telecomwriting.com/+practical+distance+limit+GSM+phone&hl=en

Q: What is the maximum distance a pair of cell towers (cell sites) can be separated and still function? Obviously there is some overlap of coverage, but what is the maximum, and maybe minimum, too. Assuming flat terrain?

A. From Mark van der Hoek (internal link):

Too many variables!

At the limits? I know of analog calls being made several hundred miles away from the serving cell site. I've personally made analog calls 50 miles away from the site. Digital won't go that far because of timing issues. For CDMA, the practical limit seems to be around 30 miles or so and that only under ideal conditions. 20 is no problem, but rarely done. I've seen it in rural south Texas, west of McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley.

GSM has a hard stop by design at 35 km (22miles), but that can be doubled with some special equipment and software. The price you pay is that you cut in half the available time slots. Some years ago Nortel was trying to make GSM go 200km (124 miles) for an Australian operator, but that effort seems to have faded into obscurity.

Minimum? <shrug> I know of sites running an eighth of a mile apart. If you count in-building systems, less than that.

The analog/digital distance differences would explain why my old Nokia TDMA worked fine with AT&T from the top of Mt. Whitney, while my new Motorola TDMA did not. The Nokia would switch to analog, and make the connection, but really burn up the battery. The Motorola just doesn't make the connection -- I don't think it is capable of switching over to analog, or at least its analog output is not as strong.

You might just call the towns that are local to where you plan to go and ask them what cell services are offered in those areas. In Bishop and Mammoth they have Cellular One and Verizon. On the west side it might be different. The local chamber of commerce should be able to tell you that.

If the locals up there use the service then it is probably the most reliable for the area but an out of town company might roam or have limited service.