Chaser Convergence Cell Data Issues

[Bill Tabor]

Day before yesterday I was in Cordell, OK and west of there and notice I had data fine and was able to stream until I entered town. This continued as I chased the storm west of there and off and on all the way to Woodward. There was a very large showing of chaser convergence in this area. However yesterday I was there again and had no issues with getting data for radar or streaming. Nice cell between there and Clinton but not as many chasers as SPC was keying further ne. Anyway, appears there is truth to the idea of chasers overloading the local cell infrastructure for download and streaming (upload) in convergence areas.

Anyone else have issues the same way. I was using Verizon and basically normally I can go all over that area and never have a problem.

 

[Scott Weberpal]

Southwest of Wakita I was unable to get data or make a phone call even though I had a nearly full signal. I can't imagine it was anything other than the cell towers being overloaded.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

I had a simalar issue yesterday too. Glad I still have my wxworx.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

It always takes me about seven years to realize my radar hasn't updated lately ... I'll look at the same screen forever before it finally dawns on me that the storms have probably actually moved somewhere other than where the screen has shown them for the last 30 minutes.

 

[Chris Campbell]

Verizon spends billions of dollars to create the impression that their cellular network is some unbreakable thing. But there are real limitations that no amount of marketing can overcome. Enough load can break any network.

There's also the possibility that a severe weather event could knock out backhaul -- lines to cell sites, microwave links, etc. Most cell sites are fed with multiple T1 lines, although more of them are starting to be fed with DS3 fiber optic service. The rural ones are sometimes fed by microwave links. A tornado or lightning knocks out a microwave relay tower/equipment and the cell links go down.

 

[Jason Berner]

I think Chris made a good point in that a lot of the rural towers will have more inferior technology as providers put their money in restoring and updating their highest used towers/networks first. That many people converging onto a rural tower is likely to bog it down quite a bit.

 

[Jay Cazel]

I found this story today on CNN about 4G service.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/13/cnet.verizon.4g.wireless.rural/index.html

I know Verizon was having some problems this week (of all weeks to have problems) I just got a pcmcia card from a freind of mine and changed over to it and had a new updated for that card. Well it would not stay connected so I had to call in and have Verizon switch back to my USB card. I will say one thing about Verizon custmer service, they where VERY fast to get my USB card back online once I got to a real person.

 

[Wes Carter]

We were on the Medford, OK tornado and I got a text from Kendra Reed wanting to know what happened to my stream. I had lost connection. I was not looking at GRLevel3 or any other data because we were on the storm. And with a Cradlepoint router the icon in the lower right corner of the screen shows everything is OK. I have been aggravated for days because my best catch ever was not streamed live.

 

[Scott Olson]

Storm chasers can very easily disable a rural cell network. If I build a cell tower that reaches to 5,000 people and 200 of those are customers. Then I need to builld a cell tower that can handle what could be considered peak. So maybe I need to build a cell tower that can handle 150 customers at a time. 500 chasers show up with 100 using my cell service and

Retrying in 59

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Day before yesterday I was in Cordell, OK and west of there and notice I had data fine and was able to stream until I entered town. This continued as I chased the storm west of there and off and on all the way to Woodward. There was a very large showing of chaser convergence in this area. However yesterday I was there again and had no issues with getting data for radar or streaming. Nice cell between there and Clinton but not as many chasers as SPC was keying further ne. Anyway, appears there is truth to the idea of chasers overloading the local cell infrastructure for download and streaming (upload) in convergence areas.

Anyone else have issues the same way. I was using Verizon and basically normally I can go all over that area and never have a problem.

Vortex 2 was quietly parked in Cordell for much of that day and they went after the storm near Woodward, so that's probably why it dropped off there. I've noticed that the DOW 7 radar truck seems to kill cell signal pretty quick too; not sure if it's the ginormous retractable repeater that thing has or the huge microwave dish on the back pumping radar all over the place.

 

[Bill Tabor]

It always takes me about seven years to realize my radar hasn't updated lately ... I'll look at the same screen forever before it finally dawns on me that the storms have probably actually moved somewhere other than where the screen has shown them for the last 30 minutes.

That's absolute true of me too Mike!

 

[Jay McCoy]

yesterday (5-18) near Dumas cell data was extremely difficult to get. My card kept losing connection and even when connected was very slow. I was lucky to grab a radar update about once every 30 minutes. Even trying to make a call on my cell phone was next to impossible. I kept getting "network busy" messages and busy tones. Very frustrating. I was using AT&T. Anybody else have that issue?? I talked with another chaser who uses Sprint and he was able to DL GR3 but it was slow.

With hundreds of chasers, Vortex2, all the tours and TWC all streaming and downloading we knew this was going to become an issue in rural areas where the towers arent set up to handle that kind of load.

Also of note. When I 1st set up in Vega. It is a data void if you have AT&T. The towers are a private carrier who doesnt have an agreement with AT&T so I had no data at all there. Think its time to switch to Sprint!! Hopefully west Oklahoma will be kinder today.

 

[Chris Sokol]

On the 19th, did anybody else have issues with GR 2, especially the Twin Lakes Radar Feed? It took me forever to realize that it was updating fine on other sites such as Vance, but I was not able to get Twin Lakes until after I made it home, around 2130.

Allison House data such as warnings, etc were still updating...just not the radar.

***EDIT*** Sorry, I meant GR Level 3, not 2.

 

[Brett Benson]

I was on AT&T on the 19th, had no problems (other than roaming in SW OK for a bit) until I hit OKC and went north up 35 to catch the hook as it was coming across just south of Guthrie. I knew GR3 was not updating, but it took me about 25 minutes before I could take a breather and figure out what was wrong. I was still connected, but the backend had lost connectivity. Cleared up once I got back into OKC, but occured periodically as I headed south of the city. Pretty obvious that the backend, regardless of provider, was overloaded.

 

[Dave Marshall]

The outage in question had nothing to do with chasers. It was a network wide 3G outage that stretched from just west of Lavern, OK to at least Seiling, OK. According to locals, it had been ongoing since the storms came through the night before. AT&T and Verizon as well as Pioneer Wireless were all equally affected, I would assume because of tower/copper sharing agreements. Cellphone service was intact, but apparently only on the low band. Voice and text worked fine, but nobody had data service. This caused the appearance of a complete lack of coverage to any data card in the area, as the VZ Access software is smart enough to know when its local towers are incapable of data service.