Making the “Lion King” position, or holding a cellphone to the sky while looking for another service bar amid a sea of dropped calls and unsent texts, is common for many Ohio University students and Athens residents.
Other parts of Athens County have it worse.
That’s because, generally speaking, the demand for cell service in parts of Athens County is greater than what is — or can be — supplied, officials said.
“There are some towns in Athens (County) that don’t have any (service),” said Kaylin Bitcher, store leader at Verizon Wireless, 551 E. State St.
Gary Goosman, mayor of Amesville, knows that pain.
He has a government-provided iPhone 4 that he said never holds a signal as long as it’s in his hometown. If he wants just one service bar, he said he has to go to the top of a hill to search for it.
For about $250, Verizon offers a “network extender” to provide a stronger signal to the homes in hard-to-reach areas.
“The only people that have cell coverage are the ones that have boosters in their home,” Goosman said. “But most of the town just uses a landline.”
Similarly, AT&T offers a specialized antenna to maximize service and speed, said Holly Hollingsworth, spokeswoman for AT&T Ohio, but she did not comment on price points and the company doesn’t have that information available on its website.
Other cellphone carriers — including Sprint — could not be reached for comment.
Stories of lacking cellular service are all too familiar to Athens County, despite the area gaining upgraded 4G LTE service by both Verizon and AT&T, according to a previous Post article.
In more rural parts of the county, these problems go largely unresolved.
The entire county holds 116 cell phone towers registered by the Federal Communications Commission, but there are other smaller-scale antennas scattered atop buildings in town. Because of the federal government shutdown, FCC officials were not available to comment on how many of those antennas are in town.
Sometimes, basic phones get better service than smartphones. One reason for that could be the larger antennae, Bitcher said.
Jonathan Campbell, director of government affairs for the Wireless Infrastructure Association, said the typical cellphone tower is 150 feet tall and can hold three or four carriers.
“With cell phone towers, there’s a limited amount of coverage you have,” Campbell said, adding that proximity to the towers might help increase the quality of cellphone service.
Bitcher said she believes Verizon provides the best service in Athens, but Goosman said he thinks they can do better in his community by adding a tower there.
OU students say they feel the effects of sometimes-poor cell service in the county, too.
“Most people I’ve known in Athens have AT&T. Cingular used to be the largest provider because they had LTE coverage, but then AT&T bought them,” said Isaac Smith, a senior from Athens studying political science. “But I have heard Verizon has been improving.”
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