Problems connecting to forum

[Steven@147]

testing, testing, thump, thump ---- really been having problems connecting to the internet and the forum the last couple days with our AT&T or Verizon hot spots. It's really zonkey this morning, getting and keeping connections. Internet storms? Hope everyone has their security software up to date.
Must be the Russians, Right? LOLs

[attaboy]

You are coming thru loud and clear Steven.
Bob A.

[Second Chance]

Reading you 4x4 here, too. We have had zero issues with our Verizon hot-spot. Are you out in the boonies?

Rob

[Ynot4me2]

Wasn't Verizon that had the commercial Can you here me now? [emoji2957]

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[Steven@147]

Reading you 4x4 here, too. We have had zero issues with our Verizon hot-spot. Are you out in the boonies?

Rob

No not really, Our Verizon hot spot running on Iphones has 3 or 4 bars, good signal, but keeps dumping us from the internet. Every time I would get a connection to the internet, logon to the forum or e-mail it would dump saying no internet connection. Our AT&T hot spots on Iphones with 3 or 4 bars, good signal are doing the same thing. Connects then just dumps us out. It was really bad this morning. Seems to have settled down a lot this afternoon.

If spotty problems hadn't happen yesterday as well, I would think today it was because of the tornado damage in this area last night. The news this morning said 19 tornados last night. At least 5 in the Austin Central Texas area last night. Round Rock / Elgen got a lot of damage. None in our immediate area thank goodness.
Also I was just reading last night the government warning about Russian cyber attacks. Sounded like a grim warning of what is to come. Urged the corporate infrastructure in transportation, electrical, banking to make sure their security was up to date. I know Apple was having a lot of trouble yesterday. Got a message their apps and cloud servers were having a problem, don't know what kind of problems.

[livinthelife]

My husband was having trouble with the internet on his phone this morning. He has AT&T. Maybe the problem is on their end.

[WhittleBurner]

We had spotty, sloooooow coverage yesterday morning in the Bradenton, FL area on 2 different lines and a hotspot. Funny though..I went to downdetector.com and soon as I did my signal jumped from 1 to 5 bars...which we rarely get 5 bars where we are parked. I think Verizon is throttling people even when not necessary until they either call and complain or report it to other internet sites that focus on reliability

[Hoopy Frood]

Wasn't Verizon that had the commercial Can you here me now? [emoji2957]

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Yes, they did. And they were averring that you would not have that "Can you hear me now?" problem with Verizon.

[ajg617]

Having spent the last 40 year in telecom and cyber, I can think of a couple of reasons this might be happening but I will say that one of my son's Iphones (Verizon) did not show calls from work for three days after a firmware upgrade. I might consider this to be a 5G roll-out issue as wireless companies deliberately degrade performance of older RF to get you to buy a new phone. But I suspect the following more likely.

We live in a marginal signal strength area (varies from 1x to 3 bars LTE when you walk around the house) with the signal constantly fluctuating and different towers being picked up. When COVID hit and we were working from home, my calls started dropping frequently and data connection to my phone hotspot would disappear on my laptop. Many times, I could not place a call - simply got dead air. My laptop would lose internet continuously on and off which made video calls impossible.

I happened to look at my Galaxy screen one day and noticed an icon which I had never seen before over the signal strength bars - looked like a mushroom (actually a house with two wifi bars over the top). This means I was connected to someone's Verizon Network Extender rather than to any cell tower. I only had that icon if I was on the office side of my house.

I contacted Verizon and they confirmed I was connecting to an extender which they had given to my neighbor free of charge. They sent an engineer out to (adjust) signal strength in our new neighbors house (new build). That didn't help. Range is supposed to be limited to 50 feet but the closest garage portion of his house is over 100 feet away. The only way I could overcome the problem was to buy an extender from Verizon. That's when the PUC complaint went in and an extender was provided. I believe AT&T also provides network extenders.

From what I understand, Iphones don't show any icon. But you can dial #48 (Verizon) and it should tell you if your are connected to someone's extender and give you the id. That is how the techs were able to diagnose the exact issues you describe that I was experiencing. One of the most frustrating experiences when I was totally dependent on phones and data to work.

[Steven@147]

I don't know what is going on, I know nothing about cell phone technology but it's really been rough the last couple of days getting and keeping a connection to the internet with our AT&T Iphone hot spots or our Verizon V's'ble hot spot. On the status line of the hot spots there is what looks like two paperclips connected together. Maybe like you say its a change over to 5G or shut down of 3G, don't know.
Wife is getting really frustrated when she gets a disconnect and kicked off the internet multiple times while streaming in her game shows on "frndly TV", or streaming amazon, Netfix and such. LOL's!
Now this morning I'm getting second authentication notices whenever I try to login to our gmail account that I never got before. I don't know but somethings up!