A dropped call happens when your mobile phone disconnects from the network, usually due to a weak signal. Here’s why it might happen:
The closer you are to a cell tower, the better your signal. Conversely, the farther you are, the weaker the signal. Being on a mountain top usually gives you a better signal than being in a canyon. Even on flat land, being far from a tower can weaken the signal due to the earth’s curvature.
Dead zones occur due to various reasons like lack of cell towers, misaligned towers, and physical obstacles. Remote areas have fewer towers, creating large dead zones. Hills, mountains, trees, and buildings can block signals, creating dead zones. Underground areas like subways and basements are also common dead zones.
When moving during a call, your phone switches from one tower to another, known as a tower handoff. Usually, this happens smoothly. However, if you are equidistant from multiple towers, your phone might switch between them frequently, causing issues.
Objects between you and the cell tower can obstruct the signal. Depending on the material, the obstruction can block some or all of the signal.
Rain is a major signal blocker because cell phone signals don’t travel well through water. Snow and hail also cause issues but to a lesser extent. Temperature can impact signals too, as warmer air holds more water vapor, increasing signal disruption.
High mobile traffic, such as at concerts or sports events, can overload the network, leading to dropped calls. Excess traffic is diverted to another tower when a tower is overloaded, which might weaken or drop your signal.
The small bars at the top of your phone give you a rough approximation of how strong your signal is, but each smartphone varies based on its accuracy and there is also a lack of standardization among the carriers (2 bars for Orange users is different than 2 bars for Proximus users).
To better understand your signal strength, you can dig into your phone’s settings to get a numerical value for signal strength. This is represented by dB (decibels) and are always negative numbers.
The closer to 0, the better the connection. You won’t often see a signal stronger than -50, and once the number drops to about -100, you’re likely to run into problems. At -120 you basically have no usable signal.
It is not always easy to find a solution, so that’s where we come in!
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A large-scale study has been carried out into the coverage of the mobile networks in Belgium.
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