Hey thanks for bearing with me and giving me a better understanding of this stuff. I appreciate you taking the time to do so.
You are quite welcome! I'd rather take the time to try to explain why we all get so frustrated with technology than call people names or let a different point of view go unexplained.
The more we know, the better we can make decisions!
So in an area where both AT&T and Verizon smartphones have difficulty finding even enough signal to send a text message, a Tracfone might be able to text?
No, because Tracfones use either AT&T or Verizon type towers and frequencies to send voice, data, and texts.
I guess I need to be more clear about how these things work;
Voice goes over one set of frequencies, data over the same, or another frequency (depending on available frequency bandwidth) and texts (typically) go out on another completely different frequency band.
Also voice and data use a lot more bandwidth than a text. You can figure on 1MB/minute of digital info for a highest call quality call, although your phone's algorithms will compress that and filter a bunch of it out.
Data requirements, being run over different frequencies where available, will also be subject to filtering and compression.
Ever wonder why pics and internet surfing take so damned long? Probably because you'e actually downloading it through a 3G audio frequency!
Ever take a picture and try to text it and the phone says that it's formatting it into a MMS format? There's a buttload (Warning, technical terms being used!
) of info in that picture being filtered out and/or really compressed.
A text, purely text, no emojis, no pictures, no video, will be in the KB range, not the MB range of audio or data such as a picture or even a short video.
Because a text is such a small file, sent in a burst over a different freq, it can get through because it doesn't have to compete with processor time and bandwidth.
Also, if you have ever had a flashlight battery going down and you just need that
last little bit, so you turn the flashlight off and turn it back on and the light is suddenly brighter, then dims? Well, that text is like that first instant that you turn the flashlight back on.
So... it's not that Tracfones get better results than an AT&T or Verizon phone, it's the physics of how a text works, regardless of the carrier.
As I mentioned earlier, some phones have better antennas, and this business is
all about antennas! Remember the iPhone debacle a few years ago about dropped calls in the brand new iPhones? That was because some "Engineering Manager" signed off on an antenna design without the team doing their proper research and testing. So, Apple got a black eye, had to recall a buttload of iPhones and then had to pay another buttload of R&D money to get it right. Buttloads of "Engineering Managers" being bullied by buttloads of bean counting buttheads and not crossing the "t's" and dotting the "i's" due to R&D funding having very limited, line item funding and no mercy.
As my Dad used to say; "Do it right the first time". Or, as Pat Parelli says; :" If you take the time it takes, it takes less time."
I have talked with innumerable cellphone reps at Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile stores and none of them knew what the hell I was talking about. They are sales people with a tiny bit of tech support training, mainly based on the devices they sell, and know almost nothing about how the system actually works. It falls into the "It's not your job, don't worry about that" category of training that they receive.
I'm not a cellphone engineer, I just have over twenty years of hands-on experience having to use the technology for electronic surveillance and counter-surveillance.
Ed
P.S., almost forgot...Saddlesore, the other reason your old phone could reach is that the old broadband frequencies used back then were considerably lower in the frequency spectrum than are used now. Most are now in the microwave range where the old ones were in the high VHF range. The lower the frequency, the farther it will travel given the same power output and antenna gain.
