Why does Verizon LTE not function at all at ATL airport?

[JOSJOH15]

Verizon LTE does not function at all at ATL airport! This happens every week when I travel through here... I've rebooted my phone, reset settings, enabled and disabled every setting I can find, with no change in results.

[KinquanaH_VZW · Accepted solution]

Keeping you connected no matter where you travel is always our goal JOSJOH15. Service inside and around airports can fluctuate or be challenging at times. This is due to the range of traffic control equipment used and transmission between their towers occurring constantly. Most airports do provide wifi which can be used in its place. I hope this information is helpful. Once you leave the airport, please let us know if service is better.

KinquanaH_VZW

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[Acrillix]

Yeah like what KinquanaH_VZW said, airports are about the absolute worst place for data. My father travels between Washington and Colorado and California, and Rochester constantly and always complains to me about this issue. Your phone is working as designed.

[DigitalRules]

Unfortunately putting up cell towers near mega airports is a challenge with all the height restrictions created by low flying aircraft.

[JOSJOH15]

You indicated that service can sometimes fluctuate, it does not fluctuate at all. It is 100% consistently nonexistent. It is a complete failure. I can never get LTE to work at all in the Atlanta airport. Every single time. There must be something not functioning correctly, it works at every other airport. I travel every single week.

[syrwhizzy]

I am an RF engineer.  The problem is not lack of towers or signal.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  The problem is Verizon added lots of micro-cells or repeaters inside the terminal buildings which has caused a lot of interference out on the tarmac.  So the situation on both LTE and 3G bands is that when you are in the terminal, you get great coverage.  But, the current engineered solution throws all the interference on the tarmac between terminals.  The situation I frequently encounter in Atlanta is my phone works perfect in the terminal... even on the underground tram.  But when I board an aircraft, my coverage goes away.  There is plenty of signal out there, it's just that there are multiple interfering cells on the same frequency from adjacent terminals.  So the signals on the tarmac are not usable.  Sometimes switching back and forth to 3G vs 4G helps, but often the case both networks are inundated with self-interference from Verizon cells in adjacent terminals.

Verizon needs to re-engineer the Atlanta airport to allow for some frequencies outside on the tarmac without interference.  It appears this was overlooked in the current design.

This is very important because if you're on the tarmac, in an airplane, trying to use your phone... you are trying to let people know you are leaving or arriving... this is especially important when there are flight delays... being able to communicate to let people know you are late or might or have missed a plane is very important... and the current network design in Atlanta essentially prohibits this.

AT&T does not have this problem.  I know this because, in fact, if I know I need to use my phone on the plane before it takes off or when landing, I have an AT&T WiFi hotspot and I tether my phone to it.  If my flight is running late, I always make sure I grab this out of my laptop bag before we land in Atlanta so I can communicate with the outside world while waiting to get off the plane.

So, I suggest Verizon get their engineers out on the tarmac to observe this themselves, and then design a solution that works.