Cellular carriers have put a lot of effort into upgrading their facilities at UCSC in the past 12 months. Here's a summary of what has taken place so far:
T-mobile gets the nod for most improved. They added several new antenna sites and upgraded to the most current celluar systems (LTE).
Verizon and AT&T completed LTE upgrades to their existing sites. Verizon has also added two new antennas.
Sprint has services at five campus locations as well as a position on the tower behind Crown/Merrill Apartments. While they have not constructed new facilities, they have converted some of the business services to general purpose cellular service.
Metro-PCS was purchased by T-mobile. The MetroPCS brand will continue, but the network has been converted to T-mobile. Changes from the conversion have made some handsets obsolete. But rapid obsolescence driven by new technology happens in the cellular business even without the effects of mergers and acquisitions.
Upcoming Improvements
The table below includes future improvements. Don't assume that more sites means better coverage. Because of the hills and trees, UCSC is a very challenging environment for cellular service. If you live on-campus at College Nine or in the Lower Quarry, Sprint would probably not be a good choice for your cellular carrier. On the other hand, Sprint is on the Macro tower behind Merrill which provides good coverage at Crown and Merrill Colleges.
Each carrier has service in several frequency bands with different channel mixes. The characteristics of the channels may require more antenna sites to get similar coverage.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| TAPS (lower campus) |
|
|
|
|
| Natural Sciences 2 |
|
|
|
|
| Baskin Engineering |
|
|
|
|
| Porter D |
|
|
|
|
| College 8 Academic |
|
|
|
|
| Stevenson Event Center |
|
|
||
| Crown Fireside |
|
|||
| Macro tower behind Merrill |
|
|
|
|
| Oakes Academic |
|
|
|
|
| Theater Arts |
|
|
|
|
| Soc Sci I (College 9) |
|
|
|
|
| Kresge |
|
|||
| Lower Quarry |
|
|
|
|
| Humanities (Hagar & McLaughlin) |
|
|
|
Wifi Calling
WiFi calling is available from some carriers. Google Fi, Republic Wireless, Sprint, AT&T, Verizon and T-mobile can complete calls and text messages over the campus Wifi eduroam.
Many people will find that they can move around within a building but if they go outside, calls will drop rather than switch to a cellular network. WiFi calling today is best thought of as a stationary service rather than one where you can expect full mobility. Of course, good WiFi is required. Strategy for selecting between WiFi and cellular when both are available differs by carrier. Some people have found that turning WiFi off sometimes results in better call quality, especially for outdoor calling. Check with your carrier to see if your handset has WiFi calling and to find out how to turn it on.
Article written by, Jim Warner, Information Technology Services
