Manhattan has the worst dropped cell phone calls in the city, according to a new study. Sadly, this wasn’t news to anyone in Gotham.
“In New York, we’re stuck in some kind of time warp,” Sonya Burns, a 57-year-old Manhattan dog walker, lamented in the Post on Tuesday.
“That’s not going to happen in 2024. The whole world is stepping up, but Manhattan isn’t. I don’t really understand,” she said. “New York needs to get more up to date. You know it’s 2024!”
According to a recent survey conducted by polling firm HarrisX, about 60% of Manhattan residents said they frequently experience dropped calls.
In Brooklyn, 48% of respondents said they frequently experience poor service or dropped calls, followed by the Bronx at 44%, Queens at 38%, and Staten Island at 30%.
Some say they often rely on FaceTime calls in hopes of better service.
“In Brooklyn, we get a lot of dropped calls, probably once a week. To avoid regular calls, I usually do a FaceTime call,” said Arfreen Sound, a 27-year-old communication major at Pratt Institute. Told.
The culprit for Manhattan’s cell phone service problems is likely the very thing that makes Manhattan Manhattan: its skyscrapers.
“The radio frequencies used by carriers don’t work well in buildings. These frequencies don’t interact well with steel or concrete, which can block the signal,” said Ian, Technical Advisor at the Wireless Infrastructure Association.・Girotto told amNY.
“And, of course, New York skyscrapers are made of concrete and steel,” he says.
Cell phone network antennas are also typically mounted atop the city’s towers, meaning that in the hands of New Yorkers walking or driving, the signals they transmit can easily reach phones dozens of floors below. It can be difficult, Gilot explained.
“That signal bounces off the concrete canyons of Manhattan, bounces off windows, gets blocked by buildings, and can cause interference,” he says.
For some New Yorkers, connectivity problems have become a business problem.
“Sometimes the connection is really bad,” said an employee at Rosella’s Pizzeria in downtown Manhattan. “I can’t hear them say the numbers, especially the numbers on the cards. I always have to ask them to repeat them.”
But not everyone experiences this problem, even if they want to.
“It never falls. I wish it would,” said elevator mechanic Chris Vine, 49. “I hate telephone calls.”
