Did your Verizon 5G cellphone show SOS instead of signal bars this morning, Thursday, July 4, 2024?
SOS mode indicates you can make emergency calls to 9-1-1, but can indicate that you can’t make regular voice calls.
This morning, CARDINAL NEWS observed our 5G phone going into SOS mode and staying there, even after a reboot. However, as soon as a phone number was entered to call out, the SOS disappeared and the signal bars appeared in the upper right corner of an Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max being used. The trouble occurred along the parade route of the Arlington Heights 4th of July Independence Day parade.
A 4G phone located in the same location as the 5G phone showed the signal bars at every glance. A voice phone call from the 5G phone to the 4G phone was dropped, and another call from the 5G phone to the 4G phone did not ring at all.
All the SOS trouble on the 5G ended when the parade ended, and voice calls and text messaging worked fine when the parade was over.
Although CARDINAL NEWS has no confirmation from Verizon, and the wireless service provider had no staff available to handle a service request on the holiday, we suspect that at least part of the wireless service problem was that the Verizon wireless network was overloaded with a huge turnout of cellphone users at the Arlington Heights 4th of July Independence Day parade. The network possibly couldn’t handle all the people using their devices for streaming, sending photos and using voice and chat while standing and sitting along the parade route.
This type of network overload can happen at sports stadiums and large music concert venues with large crowds. Most professional sports stadiums have built-in solutions to handle extra cellphone traffic where tens of thousands of people with cellphones can be in the stadium, but wireless network problems still happen without adequate wireless equipment or complete lack of extra wireless equipment at a venue.
It’s possible that cellphone users that weren’t actively on the their phone were kicked over to SOS mode until they attempted to make a call, when they might have been fortunate enough to be able to make a call. CARDINAL NEWS didn’t test whether the 5G phone could receive calls while in SOS mode — probably it could not.
Downdetector.com users submitted outage reports regarding Verizon cellphones on Thursday, July 4, 2024; and outage reports peaked between 11:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Only a user in Arkansas provide their location Thursday morning, but the downdetector.com outage map indicated Verizon trouble in New York, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and to a lesser extent in San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver.
Outage reports from users indicating trouble with Verizon peaked at about 492 users around 11:00 a.m.
The Verizon outage reports graph on downdetector.com indicated a slow decline of outages — approaching baseline by 2:30 p.m.
Since downdetector.com reports outages at a national level, CARDINAL NEWS suspects that 5G wireless customers were likely having problems at other parade or event locations for the Independence Day holiday across the United States.
There has been criticism of all brands of 5G networks that different types of technical rollouts involve some 5G deployments working better than others (TechTarget.com | 5G NSA vs. SA: How do the deployment modes differ?).
According to the Rolling Thunder Illinois Chapter 2 (rollingthunderil2.org), they expected about 3,000 marchers with 5,000 to 8,000 for the 2024 Arlington Heights Memorial Day Parade.
Although there is initially no crowd estimate available today from the Arlington Heights Police Department, the parade viewer attendance may have approached the 15,000 range. The slight threat of sprinkles or light rain did not hinder a large crowd … probably better for many people than sunny and upper 80s or 90s.
The sidewalks in Arlington Heights from Oakton Street to Dunton Avenue to Miner Street were all packed on both sides of he street — as in standing room only. In locations that have previously had some empty spacing along the sidewalks south of the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, it was also standing room only. In many areas it was impossible to walk along the sidewalk on the parade route.
Greg Padovani, Chairman of the Veterans Memorial Committee of Arlington, who was in a unit at the beginning of the 2024 Arlington Heights 4th of July Independence Day Parade said in all his years of experience with parades in Arlington Heights … and he has a little experience with parades in Arlington Heights ;-) … July 4, 2024’s Independence Day parade involved the largest turnout that he had ever seen.
On chat sites and reddit, people have indicated they have trouble using their phones in other crowded events, such as fireworks displays.
If the 5G network is overloaded, and possibly even rationing users’ access, you might try switching your phone from automatic 5G access to LTE or 4G access. Using an Apple iPhone? Go to Settings: Cellular: Cellular Data Options: Voice & Data (where you can temporarily change 5G Auto to LTE). LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and is sometimes referred to as 4G LTE.
Some or all 5G phones aren’t “smart enough” to switch to 4G when there is trouble with the 5G network. The 5G phones might detect 5G and “go for it” in auto mode, but the phones aren’t smart enough to “know” that the 5G network is overly congested.
ATT FirstNet vs Verizon Frontline
In some areas, first responders (police, firefighters, EMS) have special 5G networks, such as FirstNet, built with AT&T that operate separately from the 5G network of the general public. AT&T claims it has the only network “built with and for first responders and those who support them for mission-critical services.”
Verizon also has a First Responder 5G network known as Verizon Frontline that is described as an intelligent platform that automatically provides prioritization and preemption to first responders’ voice and data communications so they can stay connected.
The better network for first responders is apparently a subject of debate. A couple of users on reddit have reported trouble with FirstNet in hurricane-prone areas (reddit: Frontline vs FirstNet).
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