Unable to make phone calls because of neighbors network extender, what to do?

[Hoytster]

My Fiance and myself have been Verizon Wireless customers for over 8 years now and never had an issue with reception at our residence.  We've always had 2-3 bars of reception inside our home, and a solid 4+ when outside the house. Never had a problem making phones calls both inside and outside the house.  Within the last 2+ months, our cell phone reception has dropped to no more than one bar both inside and outside our home.  We are unable to make phone calls at our residence unless we are in one particular spot outside, and even then, they almost always get dropped a minute or two into the conversation.  Nothing as far as our equipment has changed during this time, we are still using the same phones we used to get good reception with.

About a month ago, I noticed a small "Home" icon by our reception bars. After looking into this icon, I discovered this meant that our phones are connected to a Verizon network extender.  By chance, we had neighbors move into the house two lots down from us around the same time that our cell reception has dropped to nothing.  I queried all my immediate neighbors to see if they had a network extender, which they don't.  The new neighbors down the street are the only ones that I haven't had a chance to talk to, but I'm assuming at this point it must be theirs since everyone else within a ~300 foot radius says they don't have a network extender.  The new neighbors are approximately ~120 feet from our residence.

I talked to tech support at Verizon to see if they had any control over the signal strength from our neighbors network extender as it seems this device is killing our reception, but they stated they have no control.  They also stated that you have to be within ~15 feet of the network extender for a phone to connect.  Obviously this isn't working like this in the real world since our phones are connecting to their extender at over ~120 feet.  I've been able to notice over the last few weeks that when making a call in our only location with some reception, the home icon won't be on the phone.  As soon as the call drops, it shows our phones connected to a network extender.  The spot we are trying to call from is over 100 feet from any house.

I was told my only option was to purchase a network extender for my house @ $250.00.   I'm at the point where I am just going to cancel both of our phone contracts and move to AT&T since I have a work phone with them that gets great reception all around our house. I'd rather not do that and stick with Verizon if at all possible, but I don't see how it is my responsibility to provide my own reception around my house when we never had an issue in the past.  Plus, how long do those network extender's last?  If they have the lifespan of a typical home WiFi router then it'll be way cheaper for me to cancel our contracts and pay the penalty than to purchase a new extender every couple years.  Do I have any other options here?

[acarheden]

I have no answer for you, but I just wanted to write to confirm that this is a very real problem, as it happens to me too. My wife and I both have problems with calls getting dropped. You suddenly hear an echo of your own voice instead of the person you are talking to and eventually you just have to hang up.

Fortunately my wife still has a dumb phone which displays "Network Extender" on the screen (which it's always doing when her phone drops calls). I have a Droid Incredible II 4GLTE and it tells me nothing about the cell tower or network extender I'm connected to. Since we have the same symptoms, I'm assuming my phone is connecting to the network extender too. From the Verizon FAQ, you can dial #48 to confirm you're connected to one, but I haven't tried that yet as I just figured out a few days ago that someone else's network extender is the problem.

To further confirm our experiences, goggling "neighbor's network extender" turns up no shortage of complaints that people are connecting outside the 15 foot B.S. and getting abysmal service.

I gave up waiting on hold for Verizon tech support, but I plan to give that one more try when I have an hour of free time before I file a complaint with the FCC. For others with the same problem who happen upon this thread, please complain to the FCC if Verizon doesn't resolve the issue for you quickly.