No coverage at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, CO?

[MarkyD]

I spent the last weekend at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, CO. All over the park, I had no service. It would occasionally pick up a bar of LTE or 3G, but it was never enough to make a call. I could eek through a text message on occasion, but that was rare.

It seems really strange to me that VZW would not have better coverage in a place where 10k+ people gather on a frequent basis for big name concerts. Has anyone had any experience with VZW up there? I'm curious if it was just my Nexus.

[GusHerb94]

According to their coverage maps there should be voice coverage and solid LTE coverage. Perhaps a tower was down? and god knows how many other variations to that possibility as well.
My personal experience has been that in CO Verizon's network is a bit on the tired side. In southwest Colorado the network has had issues with calls going dead for friends, and even an entire network outage in a town for an entire day at least once. I'm sure that doesn't apply to the entire state but I like to keep that in mind. My own personal side by side observation was that AT&T's shiny new 3G only network blew VZW out of the water in rural CO, but that's because like I said, it's brand new.

[johnhere]

I had always heard in areas like boulder, att was a little weak but when I was in co, my att phone worked much better than my vz phone. I went through quite a few areas of the state and vz had many more trouble spots which surprised me.

[mpossoff]

I had always heard in areas like boulder, att was a little weak but when I was in co, my att phone worked much better than my vz phone. I went through quite a few areas if the state and vz had many more trouble spots which surprised me.

AT&T has really improved their network it seems not just in Philly but SF and CO it looks like.

[johnhere]

Yeah I've been to quite a few states recently and att has been very good in the places I've been. Much much better when compared to 07 to 2010 timeframe. I'm not getting dropped calls, choppy voice, no service like I did before so it's a nice improvement. The one thing I would like to see is them expand in the more rural parts.

[iFLAUNT 3G(S)]

It seems really strange to me that VZW would not have better coverage in a place where 10k+ people gather on a frequent basis for big name concerts.

Well. As they say, there's your problem. You've got 10k+ people all uploading pictures, sending texts, posting to facebook and whatever else all choking down ONE cell tower. You're going to find the same issue at ANY concert you go to. And no, Verizon isn't going to plot and pay to maintain multiple towers in one area for the sake of providing sufficient network support for 10k people for a 3-hour event.

[CPGustafson511]

I haven't been there in about 16 months, but when I was there during the day, no concert. I had the same issue, little to no signal.

I'll probably be out there again in two months, I'll try to remember to check and report back.

[ggore]

It's the same at any concert venue, stadium, or arena. The cellphone companies, team owners, and arena owners are always bragging about how they have had dozens of antennas and cellphone equipment installed at these venues to improve users' experience, adding more antennas and equipment every season, and yet none of it seems to have any effect at all. I was at the AT&T Cotton Bowl a couple years ago at the new Dallas Cowboy stadium, and despite having 5 bars of 3G on my phone, it was completely unusable for anything, phone calls, SMS, nada. Looking around, there was a cellphone antenna every 5-6 feet, they are part of the decor. I realize not all those antennas were AT&T,s but really. One would think at an AT&T-sponsored/named event the conditions would be better, but no. It wasn't just me, no one's AT&T phone would work. Cellphones are still virtually unusable in any sort of large crowd situation. Just a fact of life I guess.

[johnhere]

Verizon seems to do better at the stadiums from what I've seen although att seems to be much improved as of lately

[efparri]

Verizon uses 1xRTT for voice. It uses EV-DO(3G) and LTE for data only.

[MarkyD]

Well. As they say, there's your problem. You've got 10k+ people all uploading pictures, sending texts, posting to facebook and whatever else all choking down ONE cell tower. You're going to find the same issue at ANY concert you go to. And no, Verizon isn't going to plot and pay to maintain multiple towers in one area for the sake of providing sufficient network support for 10k people for a 3-hour event.

Ehhh, I don't think that's it. This was a signal strength issue, not a capacity one. I could not even hold any signal. To compare, I frequently attend OU football games with 70-80k people and have no issues with voice, data or text.

I've been to countless other concert venues much larger than this (I do concert photography on the side), and I have never had issues like this.

Red Rocks is a MAJOR venue that brings some very big names. One would think VZW would want service there. I've put in a trouble ticket, as support says they show "very strong voice and LTE coverage."

[mmaximus]

Verizon seems to be having capacity issues on 3G here in town lately. I was at Coors Field last night and data was basically worthless. My phone would drop 3G and go to 1x often. I gave up trying to use it. LTE seemed to work ok (a guy in front of me was using it throughout the game).