Survey: Highlands residents fed up with cell phone service

It is known that Highlands is a resort town that brings in thousands during the busy tourism season. With the influx of people and recent concerns about cell phone service on social media, The Highlander sent out a questionnaire to find out what Highlands’ residents are dealing with when it comes to completing a call or sending a text.

Results of the survey

In two days, 110 people responded to the questionnaire, and 73.4 percent said they lived in Highlands full time, while 26.6 percent said they were seasonal.

Out of 108 respondents to a question asking about which service provider they used, 76.9 percent (83 people) said they were using Verizon, 18.5 percent (20 people) said they are using AT&T, 1.9 percent (two people) said they are using T-Mobile and 2.8 percent (three people) marked other.

With the busy season in Highlands starting in the spring and lasting until November, most people said summer is when cell phone service is the worst with 64.1 percent (66 people,) but not everyone agreed. 19.4 percent (20 people) said it was the fall and the spring, 2.9 percent (three people) said winter and 40.8 percent (42 people) marked all the above.

Why is cell phone service important?

Whether it be emergencies, keeping in touch with family or entertainment, Highlands residents made it clear that quality cell phone service is essential.

For Faye Wurm, keeping in contact with her child and work is why good cell service is important.

“Most importantly, I have a child. He is active with his friends, goes around town with friends, to the park, fishes at Harris Lake and goes to the pool,” Wurm said. “If there is an emergency, I worry about him not being able to reach me or vice versa due to lack of good service that seems to really center in the downtown area during peak season and times. It can be scary for any parent to not be able to reach their child and more scary for a child to not be able to reach their parent. Second, I am a realtor, it is my life line. I live in-town, in Highlands, just a few blocks from Main Street. When we get a huge influx of people (weekends, holidays, all of July and October) my calls don’t go out, they don’t come in, my messages don’t send, my voicemails don’t come through and that means I lose business.”

Niki Conner agreed, saying the safety of her teenager is why she needs good cell phone service.

“It is scary knowing if my teenage driver has an accident or car trouble,  she most likely will not have cell service to call for help,” Conner said. “Same at our home. If the internet goes down and we don’t have Wi-Fi calling, there’s no cell service to contact anyone if we have an emergency.”

For resident Casey Flint, their cell phone makes them feel safe.

“My cell phone makes me feel safe because I know my loved ones are only a phone call away,” Flint said. “If I have an emergency I can call someone to help me. Without my cell phone I would have to rely on strangers in the event of an unforeseen circumstance. That being said, there are many amazing ‘strangers’ with good intentions. Unfortunately there are some ‘strangers’ that do not have good intentions.”

What do providers tell their customers?

Several respondents have reached out to their providers asking for solutions to their concerns. Many stated that their providers responded with answers varying from upgrading to 5G to mountains getting in the way of towers.

James Jones said he reached out to Verizon complaining about his cell phone service and they responded by mailing him a new SIM card and network extender.

“Verizon mailed and we installed new SIM cards which did nothing to improve the lousy connection,” Jones said. “Now, Verizon is sending a network extender to be attached to our home Wi-Fi. Perhaps this will help with service within our home. But it will do nothing about poor connections from Main Street Highlands. Communication with Verizon is extremely difficult at best. It is very hard to understand their agents and make them understand the problem correctly.”

Another respondent said she tried to reach out but her provider told her to report the concern via their app, but she couldn’t get enough signal to run the app for a report.

Robin Neal called Verizon last week when her family couldn’t make or receive calls.

“They seemed clueless to any interruptions in service,” Neal said.

What Verizon told us

Karen Schulz, with Verizon’s Global Network and Technology Communications said company engineers have been combing through network performance data in our area and are not seeing any unusual traffic growth in the six primary counties in Western NC.

“Nor are we seeing any network performance degradation compared to YOY trends or third-party conducted wireless carrier network comparisons,” Schulz said by email.

However, the company frequently receives reports of problems during the tourist months.

“We regularly see a rise in reports of service changes in Western NC in summertime due to higher tourist traffic, terrain and foliage and believe that some of the issues being reported are attributed to that annual seasonal change,” she said.

She added they work directly with customers who call in and identify specific problem areas or changes in service.

Verizon is currently working in the Asheville area west to Waynesville to increase coverage and is continuing to prepare the area for 5G deployment.

“In the meantime, we continue our ongoing network investment in this area. In 2022 alone, we will deploy 16 new network solutions in Western North Carolina including new macro towers, small cell sites, capacity additions on current sites, and repeaters to increase 4G LTE capacity and coverage,” Schulz said by email.

Customer thoughts

Autumn Beck added to the questionnaire that she loves that Highlands is loved by so many, but the influx of people is crushing the service towers.

“I love that our town is loved by so many people far and wide. However they are all crammed in this small town with hundreds of people and it’s crushing our service towers, our internet services and our lifestyles,” Beck said. “It can be a lot to take in. Not to mention it’s not just once or twice a year. Our town has become so popular that it operates 24/7. All seasons. 365 days a year. It’s a lot for a full time local to take in.”

Mia Nelson said she just wants more answers.

“Offer solutions, if there are any, like building another tower, or improving connections and budget,” Nelson said. “Explain in more detail what is the cause of the worsening service.”

For Adam Henry, who works remotely in Highlands, service has gotten progressively worse since spring of this year.

“Making calls doesn’t seem to be affected but data has been bad since spring,” Henry said. “Also, what I call ghost signal when the phone shows service but won’t make calls or use data seems to happen more often.”

How to improve your cell service

To reset your network settings on an iPhone, go to settings, click general, scroll down to transfer or reset iPhone. Click reset, then reset network settings. Then your iPhone will turn off and reset the network, then come back on as normal.

Be careful while following these steps to not reset your iPhone to factory settings as this will delete all of the photos, contacts, etc. off of your phone. Preferably try doing this after an iCloud backup, just to be safe.

If you have Wi-Fi at home and have a smartphone, connect your phone to Wi-Fi calling so that you are able to make and receive calls/texts using your home’s Wi-Fi, and not relying on cell towers.

Restart your phone, in hopes of helping reconnect to the network’s nearest tower.

By Christopher Lugo

Hannah Styles, reporter for the Smoky Mountain Times, contributed to this article.