As I finish writing my text to my mom, I press the green send button. The little send line shoots past my screen but stops at the last centimeter. It unfortunately never sends and I’m given a “message failure” notice. No matter where I go throughout the school, I can’t seem to send a single message. So, I went on a scavenger hunt to find the service.
Starting in the A wing, I gathered some friends with varied phone carriers. The hallways near the shop class gave Sprint and T-Mobile one shaky bar, while AT&T couldn’t provide any bars. The overall reaction of the A wing was negative with the low performance rate.
Heading out of the Art classes, and near the gymnasium, I was eager to find out how our phone services would hold up mid basketball game; Sprint and AT&T gave a strong one bar, while T-Mobile allowed about one to two bars.
Because the commons are the gathering place for all students before, after, and during school, my fallen hopes were raising. It only seemed logical that the cafeteria had the best service in the school. AT&T came in first with three entire bars, following that of Sprint, with two, and finalizing with T-Mobile’s single standing bar. For the commons, we all agreed it was best to stick to WiFi usage because of the lack of service.
Venturing down the the classrooms, most of our classroom data looked identical. T-Mobile gave an average of one to no bars, Sprint needed to use extended networking, skewing the average as most classrooms used the extended network. AT&T was anywhere from no bars to three bars, all dependent on where you stood in the room, the windows giving you optimal coverage.
Making our last indoor stop, we went to the media center to test the service coverage while picking up some new books. Near the windows, Sprint allowed around two bars, AT&T was still dependent on location in the library, however gave off around two bars, and finally only one bar was available to T-Mobile users. It might be best to stick to email communications while studying in the library.
Heading outside, we climbed the stadium stairs to test our Friday night game service. AT&T provided three bars, both Sprint and T-Mobile packed a strong two bars. Though all students noted that their service was a little bit worse during the Friday night games when everyone was connecting to WiFi and the service tower, however we might be able to account this loss to the WiFi connections.
Though we couldn’t find an area throughout the building with perfect signal, I was pretty impressed with the service throughout the school. With most classrooms having a lower ability to get higher cellular coverage, I would recommend that students get near the windows for better service, as we figured out that our phones worked less efficiently when we were in the middle of the classrooms or in the hallways. Stay smart about your technology usage, but maybe the lack of signal in the classrooms is for our own good!