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Talk amongst yourselves: Where is cell phone coverage spotty in northeast Johnson County?

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Work was being performed on the tower near 63rd and Mission in the last couple of weeks.
Work was being performed on the tower near 63rd and Mission in the last couple of weeks.

Under our occasional “Talk Amongst Yourselves” offerings, today we would like to add the topic of cell phone coverage in northeast Johnson County.

We are sometimes troubled by our own cell reception and hear stories from our neighbors about dropped calls, poor reception or the need for a booster box to get calls inside the house. The large crane that took up residence between Indian Hills Middle School and the fire station at 63rd and Mission a couple weeks ago gave a spark of hope that Sprint, in particular, might be adding more service that would help coverage in the northwest corner of Prairie Village.

A Sprint spokesperson says there are no plans currently for adding to the tower. Sprint’s Melinda Tiemeyer tells us that Sprint vehicles have been in the area, though, doing drive testing for network coverage. The fire department, which owns the tower, relayed that the crane was AT&T doing maintenance on its equipment, but that Sprint reportedly ran some tests while the crane was in place.

Tiemeyer says each tower can cover three to four miles in radius, but several factors affect the coverage: the height of the tower, terrain, foliage to name a few.

Most cities keep information on the towers that have been approved in their boundaries and which carriers applied for the towers. Mission keeps the tower records, but not the carriers. We have compiled what we can learn about our coverage from those records which we will share in a later post.

How do you find the cell coverage from your carrier? Do you see any weak spots where coverage is marginal or where you drop calls. Talk it over.

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