I was up just this past weekend and was experimenting with one of the one-day passes for data on an Elevate 4G that I picked up for that purpose. Despite getting 4 bar indicator for signal strength, I could barely keep any data flowing at the 2G speeds that appeared to be available.
I was camping in a camper (read: a fancy word in wireless terms for a large faraday cage on wheels) but had an external antenna hooked up outside, thus the 4 bar signal strength on the wireless. However, my regular phone provider is T-Mobile (and my phone does not have the benefit of an external antenna jack and my plan doesn't include roaming data, thus is why I was trying AT&T which is the strongest signal I receive in that particular area. I assume they have a cell up on the CMU tower(s) just accross the road NE of Clear Lake)
I had to move my laptop outside to get their technical support on the phone, but was eventually able to keep them on the line, chase down the right phone number to call and at least get 'some' kind of connection (as mentioned above, barely working).
One of the things the guy I spoke with told me was that the towers in that area were due for an upgrade at some time in late July. My reason for coming to the forums this morning was that I was curious if there was any more specific comments on these upgrades and/or any way that I could be notified if and when they were actually up and working. (I won't be buying any more AT&T day/week passes until I know something has changed)
In the meantime, I will be playing with the Verizon hot-spot USB dongle that I have on the next trip. Allegedly Verizon bought all of the Alltel systems up there, and although there aren't any towers in the immediate vicinity of where I camp, there were a number of towers around the nearby towns and cities (two by Atlanta, one by Onaway, one by Hillman, one by Lewiston, a couple around Gaylord, etc) and i was seeing a very weak signal using just the omni antenna. (I also have an 11 element 850MHz Yagi I built to try to grab the verizon towers, but didn't end up buying any time on verizon this trip as the adapter I got for the antenna didn't quite want to fit on the Pantech hotspot to get a clean connection to the directional beam)
The upgrades, if what i was told was accurate, should help considerably if and when they end up covering at least the existing towers if not additional places. If you are in a weak signal area, there are a number of antenna options (for those not as savvy with antenna design like myself) in the $15-80 range depending on how much 'help' you need to find a good signal. In many cases, a hot spot or even a signal-booster (a bit more expensive) with a good, high profile omni-directional vertical antenna can help considerably in a given, fixed location. For very weak signals, if you can figure out which tower you 'see' the best, a fixed-location directional yagi antenna can also improve at least the signal side. (but as I mentioned, i was getting an 80% 4-bar signal consistently and still getting crap for data speed/consistency/reliability on 2g)
Most of what is currently implemented up there is still 800-850Mhz range signals. (verizon uses CDMA, AT&T uses HSPA) From where I was at, I could not see any GSM or LTE/4G signals, but among the weak-signal sporadic stuff I was picking up, presumably from the Onaway former-Alltel tower, I did see a 3G that identified itself as 'National' or something similar as the service provider - I assume the Verizon partner.
I was interested to be alerted or otherwise notified when AT&T upgrades the service towers as I will otherwise not do anything with AT&T until I know that things have improved. I already got bit in my sphincter-pucker when a non-AT&T, AT&T branded franchise store bent me over for $25 to get a sim card that AT&T corporate gives away for free. And I'm further disappointed by the costs, terms and limits of the pre-pay data cards. (T-Mobile, for example, sells similar bundles for about 1/4 the price in their coverage area, but unlike AT&T, when your data allotment is up, they don't tell you that you are Shat-outta-luck and simply switch you down to a throttled 2G speed until the actual time-period of the card is used up. From what I've been told, both AT&T and Verizon basically tell you to suck rocks when your data-block is used up, and verizon costs about twice as much, AT&T about 4x as much)
