It's not clear where McDude's quoted article comes from, or when.

Does anyone know if the tower is active yet or not?

Sorry....I'm usually more conscientious about this!
 

this week's issue of the Baysider.

I gotcha,. I'm not using binoculars just the naked eye. If it has fake branches, they do not make much of a difference as it still looks like a cell tower when driving down the mountain to this ole geezer.:):laugh:

I have to put this note in as I have seen the tower you are talking about. I didn't realize that there are 2 towers over in the same direction. A little to the right there is another tower. I'm guessing that the one you see in the correct tower. Just hope the whole darn thing is up and working very soon and it helps many individuals get better signals.:)

Yes there are two...
 

The one that is skinny and tall has actually been there for longer than we have been talking about the cell tower in Alton.

The cell tower only extends about 20 ft above the tree canopy.

RLW - I must admit I never noticed the second tower to the right. Does anyone know what it is for? Is it on the same ridge line? I will have to check it out this weekend.

Cell tower
 

Look this site to be turned on for at&t tomorrow as long as the weather doesn't get to bad for final inspection.

Alton cell tower
 

Ok after a few more tweak's and a couple of drive around's today the cell site for at&t should be on the air. Not sure what the coverage will be because of all the hills but we will see. Don't yell at me if it isn't perfect I don't design them I just keep them working...........sometimes :):):)

Verizon
 

Any idea when Verizon will be up and running on the new tower?

verizon
 

Not sure the only thing that is there is a concrete pad for there building

Verizon
 

With only a pad I guess it will be awhile even with a pre-fab building.
Thanks Den

No joy here. :( Still no signal at the house. Oh well...back to the mini-tower. Hopefully coverage when out on the roads will have improved.

Don't feel bad.
 

I live on the other side of the bay from the tower and I am not seeing any signal either...same old single bar of coverage.

Me neither, but I'm on the other side of Alton mountain. By what is being inputted about the signal, I'm wondering if it really has been activated:)

Tower signal
 

Is it GSM, CDMA, TDMA or LTE signal? If it broadcast all then you should see a difference. If not it depends on your phone carrier.

Alton tower
 

It is CDMA (3g) only at this time Lte is in the process.

There is no way that thing is up and running.. Service hasn't changed a bit from sandy point on towards West Alton

you are correct
 

you are correct sir, they turned it back down due to RF issues, they will address them on Monday............sorry told you there was some tweak's to do to it. Always tough right before a holiday. We'll try again on Monday:)

3G service tonight from sandy point on! I'm guessing verizon is up and running!!?

And 3G all the way through West Alton! Sweet!!

I had full bars on both AT&T and VZW while duck hunting on the merrymeeting this morning

How did you do? Planning on some duck burritos I hope.:laugh:

Per Den65...
 

In a PM with Den65, he told me that the tower is ATT only right now, and that Verizon hopes to be up by the end of this month. He also informed me that Att and Verizon do not have a roaming agreement in this area.

As I stood at the end of Lakewood, at the intersection of Rte 11, looking at the tower across the bay, I had one bar of 3G on my Verizon Droid.

Coverage at the Merrymeeting is off of Prospect Mt. Tower.

Not trying to cause an argument, and maybe Den65 will jump back in and explain further what is going on with the new Alton Tower.

I will be very happy to see the tower functional with Verizon.

Interesting, maybe my phone was just having a good day and all the stars were aligned... I had 3 bars of 3G at the west Alton marina entrance, that never happens!

Not necessarily...
 

I had dropped my car off in Laconia for some servicing, and so my wife was driving. I thought about your post on the way home, and had just gone past the west end of 11D heading to Alton. I held my phone in my hand, and watched the bars. I too had 3 to 4 bars, which I think may have been from the Roberts Cove Campground tower.

After the scenic views, and getting onto the long straightaway to the east end of 11D, I was down to my standard 1, sometimes, 2 bars of 3G. Went by Rand Hill Rd, past Precious Gardens, and turned onto Lakewood, all with just 1 bar.

I just hope that Den65 was given good info about Verizon. Since this whole debacle about the tower started, through the long overdue agreement, it seemed that everyone was in a rush to get the tower up and running. Since the agreement, and the start of construction, it has been one delay after the next, and the consumer is the one to suffer.

Hopefully, at the start of the new year, we can "clink" our Androids together and toast each other with a text on how great our signal in Alton Bay has finally come to fruition. Or maybe just a good stein of libation! :cheers: :laugh:

at&t Up for real now
 

All the issues have been resolved and the at&t site is on the air now. Verizon is up on prospect mt (if that is where they grow the blueberries) and on overcast days rf signals seem to work better also Verizon is 800 MHz up here which gives them better signal. So some days you may work better than others.

Thanks for the continued updates. Is AT&T on with all protocols, or still just CDMA?

I was not aware that AT&T used Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). I thought that they were wed to GSM which is a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) structure.

Now that you mention this, it makes sense to me. I originally went with AT&T because I was traveling a lot overseas and GSM was more universal than Verizon/CDMA.

I was keying off the earlier statement by Den65 that is was turned on for CDMA only.

Verizon
 

DEN65, you mentioned that Verizon is up on Prospect Mountain. Does that mean they will not be using the new Alton Cell tower and what we got is what we'll get?

I would think verizon would almost have to put sites up on the new tower just to try and "clean up" the area around the bay up to west Alton. Let's hope so with the prices verizon is charging.

Not at all.
 

The new tower is scheduled to have ATT (up already), Verizon, Sprint, and TMobile.

alton tower
 

The only system that is there is 3G which is WCDMA which is wide band CDMA there is no GSM there, we are not installing GSM at any new sites, just UMTS(3G) and LTE (4G).

phone gobble D' gook
 

AT&T GSM PHONE HELP: Copy from their site. UMTS (WCDMA) outperforms any other cellular technology planned for global deployment. AT&T UMTS service provides average speeds of 220-320 Kbps with burst speeds up to 384 Kbps. The international standards body designed UMTS to complement and co-exist with GSM networks.

AT&T signal strength
 

So now that AT&T is hooked up on the Alton tower do AT&T users in this area see a big improvement in signal strength? I have Verizon now and am thinking of making a change to Consumer Cellular which uses the AT&T network. So I am wondering how the service will be. Does anybody use Consumer Cellular and what do you think of it?

If you can see the tower...
 

You show that you are in Alton Bay. If you are on the West side between the end of the bay and say Rte 11D west end, you should have great coverage.

On the east side, should be better than now. It will depend on where you are.

My sister in law has Consumer Cellular. Basic flip phone. Has it only for emergencies. Was out of power one day, called her son to let him know and they talked for about 20 minutes, at 25 cents a minute, I believe. She freaked out when she got her normal $10+ charge that was was $5 or more higher.

I looked at it because we do have Verizon. Wife and I now both have smartphones. Looking at the coverage almost everywhere for Verizon vs ATT, we still were curious about Consumer Cellular. After comparing apples with apples, we decided we were good with Verizon on there Share Plan...Unlimited Talk and Text with a Gig of Data. The closest we came to using a gig was while we were on a trip and away from wireless a lot of the time.

Consumer Cellular looks ok for the casual user...don't think I would recommend it for someone who uses their cell a lot. I also didn't like their choices of smartphones.

Not sure I am helping...Wish you luck.

No improvement with AT&T at our home near Copple Crown/Kings Highway. Marginal, if any improvement when driving around the roads in the area.

I did have a good signal while having breakfast at the Olde Bay Diner last week. Used to be there was no signal there.

So, some improvement, but nowhere near what I had been hoping for or expecting. Still hoping it's because they don't have full power or services enabled yet.

I just bought a Nexus 5 and my wife a Moto X for $350 each and I'm in the process of moving us from Verizon to StraightTalk with AT&T sims. I've been very happy with the reception. We will have two smartphones with unlimited text, talk, and data for $25 less per month than we had one smart phone and one feature phone on Verizon. It's worth looking in to...

verizon
 

Does anyone know if Verizon is up and running on the new cell tower? Driving thru the bay the other day I had better service than I have in the past but not full service which is what I thought I would have so close to the new site.

Verizon: not yet.
 

My daughter and son in law were up on Christmas day and they have ATT. Full bars of 4G, so I know I will have good coverage at my house here just off Alton Bay above Keewaydin, or just outside Sandy Point.

As we speak, no change in my 3G / 1G 1 bar coverage:(. So much for being up by the end of the month...last month:mad:. Come on Verizon, get with it!!!!!

I feel better now that Verizon knows how I feel. They do read this thread, right?:rolleye2::laugh:

It definitely helps in the bay, but I've been somewhat surprised how limited the improvements have been elsewhere. Though I probably shouldn't be. The hills, mountains, and granite have a great impact on the signals so this area will always be challenging.

The Rt 28 stretch from Wolfeboro to Alton has always been marginal, with more lengths without a signal than with. Unfortunately, it is still the same.