Cell Phone Reception

Vette said:
^ With 802.11ac out, I agree that we should get full park wireless.

Except that I would imagine less phones support 802.11ac than 4G. And I think somebody on a website from a Google Search just a bit ago said that 5Ghz (802.11ac) is more easily blocked my structured.

802.11ac is backwards compatible with 802.11gn (and maybe bgn) if I remember correctly.

The problem with installing park-wide wireless isn't the routers or the cost. Those can easily be offset and the technology is there. The problem is going to be the exact same as with our cell phone networks: bandwith. The technology to support that many users isn't currently available at a reasonable price, which is why you don't see it available.

They can provide wireless at places like hotels where they roll it into your room fee, but do you really want to pay and extra couple bucks every time you come to the park just so it has wireless internet?

The other option that they have is installing the routers and infrastructure system, but charging for the service, and I'd be willing to bet that most people here would go with the "free or don't bother" policy.

Holiday World doesn't seem to have a problem with it. Busch Gardens is adding park wide wifi next year.

CP is bigger. I would love to see park wide wifi, but it is a huge investment that may very well not work.

Just to chime in here, visited the park today (the 4th), and despite nearly full bars at some points, I was completely unable to access the Internet for the entirety of the day. I was on Verizon 3G, but family members on LTE were experiencing the same.

Can anyone with a strong tech understanding explain the cause of this issue to me? haha Why does the park being crowded render data unusable? Does Verizon need to put in more infrastructure, or is this the park's issue? (Sorry to sound stupid, but I don't get it.)

Top Thrill: have you ever opened up every faucet in your house? If you do,the water pressure drops way down and you end up with a trickle coming out of each faucet, rather than the high volume of water you are used to.

Think of the Version data as that. A limited resource with many people attempting to use it. Everyone gets a few drops of water (data) at a time. Not enough to get what you need without the phone timing out.

I was recently at "Comfest" in Columbus - 20,000 people in a community park in downtown columbus. Full bars, no data. Had trouble actually making a phone call - couldn't get out. Text messages took forever to transmit. More people wanting the resource than the infrastructure was made for. The cell towers in the area were simply overloaded.

Fortunately we don't have an issue getting access to the voice portion of our phones at CP. It would require a significant infrastructure upgrade to get us all the data we would like from Verizon.

The nsa might be up to that upgrade in the park :-P

The amount of bars is simply a visualization of the strength of the communication signal between you and the tower. Just because you can talk to the tower great doesn't mean you can get beyond it. If I remember correctly, AT&T and possibly Verizon have mini towers at the park. I'm betting, however, that the communication infrastructure just simply isn't in place to feed enough bandwidth to those towers to handle 1000 phones requesting data at once. The problem is further compounded by those 1000 phones trying to use the connection, only getting a few packets back, timing out, and then the user constantly refreshing or trying to pull it. Eventually the data connection gets so overloaded nobody will be getting anything.

45Wheelgun said:

I was recently at "Comfest" in Columbus - 20,000 people in a community park in downtown columbus. Full bars, no data. Had trouble actually making a phone call - couldn't get out. Text messages took forever to transmit. More people wanting the resource than the infrastructure was made for. The cell towers in the area were simply overloaded.

Same thing at OSU games. I get multiple bars of service in the Shoe, but it is a miracle to send a text during halftime.

Its not unique to Cedar Point -- as I mentioned before, MANY areas in Sandusky have terrible cellphone coverage...people coming from Cleveland/Detroit/Toledo/Pittsbugh are usually stunned to learn how bad the cellphone coverage is in tiny Sandusky...

That being said, the more people that try to access the towers, the less chance of having a signal -- its the same at sports arenas and stadiums (there is no data coverage in Comerica Park nor Michigan Stadium once about 1/3 of the seats are full)...

I live four blocks from Michigan Stadium, and on UM football game days, I have no cellphone coverage at all from two hours prior to the game until about an hour after the game...

Cedar Point is the same -- and I would venture to say EXACTLY THE SAME -- just like everyone at a UM football game is taking photos they want to share on Facebook, so does everyone at Cedar Point...and that results in no data...

Anyone with Sprint that has a modern Android (HTC or Samsung) or iPhone 5 (not 4 or 4s) can confirm better than usual voice coverage (voice, not data) at the park? Apparently they've added their 1x 800MHz carrier for voice coverage to prepare for ripping out their old equipment to add LTE at the park. Oh, and since it's 1x, you can just use the bars. The bars on a phone by default always show voice coverage (which on Verizon and Sprint is 1x RTT (aka 2G))

I had full 4G on the fourth of July but couldn't send a single text. Calling worked fine though. I have T-Mobile.

Same thing happens to me when I go to Browns games.

RideWarrior18 said:
...do you really want to pay and extra couple bucks every time you come to the park just so it has wireless internet?

If it's reliable and reasonably fast, sure.

Yes I agree the cell phone signal is bad in the park due to everybody has a cell phone these days. When you get thousands of cell phone in the park at once it sucks up all the signals out of those cell phone towers to the point that you can,t send out texts, emails or surf the internet while waiting in line. Even making a phone call can be a pain due to lack of signal strength. Perhaps these cell phone carriers need to boost their signal output or add more towers in the park so the phone will function properly.

I'm on AT&T and never had a problem with reception. I still get good 4G coverage in the park.

I have a plain old flip style Trac Phone and have never been unable to make a call in the park. I think I often miss calls, though. Fortunately I have enough of an imagination to entertain myself in line without resorting to surfing the net.

Peggy Cocinelli said:
Perhaps these cell phone carriers need to boost their signal output or add more towers in the park so the phone will function properly.

More towers won't really help, you're still limited by the bandwidth available at the park. I'd love to see better reception and faster data service, but the bandwidth just isn't there at this point.

Without knowing anything about the park's communications infrastructure you're most likely still talking millions of dollars to get more fiber out there, unless they have a ton of fiber buried they aren't using, and that's assuming Sandusky has the bandwidth to support it.

You know, all of the Disney parks have WiFi available throughout the park. I see that being something Cedar Point might invest in if enough people are complaining about it.

I have an iPhone 4 and am on Verizon. The service is full bars, but the 3G is spotty at best on busy days, but on days where there isn't many people, I have great service and 3G. Also, at night I have great 3G and service.

I am only saying when the park is very busy that's when the signal gets suck up otherwise when the park is not so busy then I can get the sigal ok. I have Sprint HTC smartphone.