Cell service inside Michigan Stadium

Submitted by Eck Sentrik on

I have Verizon service and my son has Sprint. Neither work for damn inside the stadium. Does anyone have AT&T that can tell me how well their data service works?

 

I'm willing to pick up a prepaid for during the season if I could get a decent connection.

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MGoGrendel

January 11th, 2016 at 12:55 PM ^

I thought the upgrades were for Wi-Fi services and not carrier services.  While your cellular calling may be weak, you should be able to surf.  (...back in the day this meant that a co-ed was being passed up to the top of the student section)

I have T-Mobile (for work), which does have it's share of dropped calls.  They also allow for calls to connect via Wi-Fi, which works well in my home office.  Not sure it would work well with 100,000 fans sharing the same network! 

Joined: 01/21/2013

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StephenRKass

January 11th, 2016 at 10:51 AM ^

I think this was one of Dave Brandon's priorities. Not the current administration or coach's priorities. I don't know the answer, but I think this gets dealt with later, as we have other more important priorities than the quality of cell reception in Michigan stadium.

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danimal1968

January 11th, 2016 at 11:01 AM ^

That is what NFL stadiums do and it takes a lot of the load (primarily people trying to send pictures they've taken either to friends or to Twitter/Facebook).

The problem is that there are not a lot of good places in the bowl to put the antennae.  I think they tried it out on a limited basis for a few sections on the east side of the stadium in 2013 but then things got really distracted going into 2014.

Brandon blamed the decline in student attendance on this issue but the fact that it was an excuse was shown by the fact that he didn't exactly make it a priority to deal with.

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MGJS SuperKick Party

January 11th, 2016 at 12:21 PM ^

I strongly disagree with you. I think cell reception in the current state of the world (no politics) should be the most important priority for the University regarding athletics (not the athletic department).

If an emergency were to happen inside of the stadium, it would be a nightmare. Calls don't go out, calls don't come in.

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tjohn7

January 11th, 2016 at 10:51 AM ^

ATT has been garbage inside the stadium for years.  At least now you can get stuff sent and received randomly.  Back when I was in school, specifically around 2008-2009, the network would collapse for the entire weekend after game time.  Really sucked when you needed to get a hold of people.

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Eck Sentrik

January 11th, 2016 at 10:53 AM ^

Galaxy S5 on Verizon. I'll click post to something on facebook, twiiter, or send a text and it will spool for as much as an hour before anything happens.

 

I posted a picture at kickoff of the BYU game that went through after I left the stadium.

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DetroitBlue

January 11th, 2016 at 10:54 AM ^

I'm probably in the minority here, but I like the fact that I don't get cell service during games. No annoying work emails, no calls from my wife or anyone else. It's basically the only time I'm sure I can just watch the game uninterrupted



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True Blue Grit

January 11th, 2016 at 1:18 PM ^

My wife's cell phone is like a huge yoke that she has to wear wherever she goes.  Some of the people in her department at work who don't have a life and work 7 days a week are always sending her crap to look at or do - even on vacations.  I think when we retire in a few years, that will be one of the THE best aspects of it - no more work emails.  It's horrible. 

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julesh

January 11th, 2016 at 10:56 AM ^

When you have that many people in an area all trying to use it at once it's not going to work, whatever your carrier. I live a mile from the stadium and can't use my phone some game days.

Joined: 11/28/2011

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SwordDancer710

January 11th, 2016 at 10:57 AM ^

I have T-Mobile, and my service is fantastic in Michigan Stadium. No delay for Twitter, Facebook was pretty fast too. I can even text and make calls, something I could never really do with ATT.

Joined: 08/17/2009

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The Mad Hatter

January 11th, 2016 at 11:03 AM ^

I recently switched to T-Mobile (haven't been to a game since the switch), and Michigan Stadium must be the only place it works.

I was with Verizon for a decade.  Less than 5 dropped calls during that time and good service even in the basement of skyscrapers.

T-Mobile sucks ass.  Shitty call quality, dropped calls at least twice per week, and forget about getting a signal away from a major population area.  Verizon is worth the extra $.

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sikety

January 11th, 2016 at 11:56 AM ^

What phone do you have with T-Mobile? I know the newer phones have a lower frequency LTE that travels farther and penetrates buildings more efficiently. I have had a really good experience with TMobile and get much faster LTE than I was getting with ATT.

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The Mad Hatter

January 11th, 2016 at 12:04 PM ^

Galaxy something or other.  The smaller one.  I don't like the phones with the tablet sized screens.

As much as I hate Verizon, I'm switching back as soon as my contract is up.  It's worth the extra $50 per month.

Also, T-Mobile seems to be the ghetto cell phone provider.  I didn't pay my bill exactly on time (it was not more than 7 days late), because I pay all my bills on the 1st and 15th of the month, regardless of due date.  Those fuckers shut of all of my phones in the middle of the night and then tried to charge me $80 to have them turned back on.

I once forgot to pay my Verizon bill two months in a row.  You know what they did?  Nothing.

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sikety

January 11th, 2016 at 12:23 PM ^

Weird. Totally different experience with the company and I saw they just ranked number 1 on the JD Powers customer satisfaction. Just as a FYI, I saw Verizon advertising that they will buy out contracts up to $600 so you could probably switch back whenever you want. TMobile doesn't do contacts anyways.

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sikety

January 11th, 2016 at 1:59 PM ^

No problem. I'm saving about $200 a month because I travel internationally a lot and T-Mobiles international rates are far superior to any other carrier. The guy who sold me the phones told my wife to get the iPhone 6S instead of the 6 because the 6 didn't have the better LTE frequency. I have to guess you ended up with a phone that doesn't have that frequency.

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Bando Calrissian

January 11th, 2016 at 11:05 AM ^

I swear, it would not surprise me if there was some kind of cell jamming or slowing technology being used in the stadium. 

I know, tinfoil hat... Hear me out.

We tailgate right next to the stadium. There have been multiple games over the past few years where, like clockwork, cell service drops to zero exactly two hours before kickoff. One minute I'm able to do stuff on my phone, the next minute (and thereafter) it's either completely off the board or so painfully slow it doesn't even matter.

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