Cell phone signals are often dependent upon the age of your phone

Have you ever parked near the Holiday gas station in Tofte and looked at the cell phone tower on the hill and wondered why you could only get one bar of service?

The explanation might be as simple as the age of your phone or the way you have set your phone up to receive calls.

Schroeder township supervisor Tina McKeever was curious about why the cell phone tower in Tofte didn’t provide better service, so she reached out to Nathan Peterson, who works for Verizon Wireless for some answers.

“All of our voice now runs over data lines,” said Peterson in an email back to McKeever.

“Some of our older towers can handle 3G voice and 4G data simultaneously,” he said. But, “The newer towers like the one in Tofte are 4G only, there is no 3G voice on them. Phones like older flip phones or iPhones older than the five (5) wouldn’t even use or see the newest towers we have put up.”

Over the last four or five years, Verizon has installed more than 50 towers throughout the state, including the one in Tofte, but these “new towers are 4G only, meaning they only put out a 4G data and voice signal,” Peterson said.

So, the bottom line is, if you don’t have a newer cell phone, chances are you won’t get much— or any—signal.

“You likely have a mix of folks up that way who are old flip phone users or have iPhones that predate the iPhone 5 or Androids that are four to five years old.

“Some folks with newer phones may be having issues as well if they do not have their Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) enabled on their phone. Their phone is capable of using the tower for voice, but perhaps they disabled it in error.”

To make sure you can connect to the tower, Peterson made several recommendations. . For basic phone users there are new 4G flip phones available in the stores or online that will allow folks to see/use all of the newest towers nationwide. . Older iPhone/Android/ Smartphones users with devices that utilize 3G for voice are going away completely by the end of 2019. Same as above, these folks need to get new devices. . For those with new phones, they may simply be missing the setting. Several ways to go here: Go to a Verizon store, Google the answer or call support at 800-922-0204.