The Fixer: Cell phone service

Students frustrated with Western’s shoddy cell phone service are finally getting some answers.

Major phone companies are attempting to fix the reception dead zones on campus following Wednesday’s article in the Gazette.

“There are areas of weak coverage on Western’s campus,” Julie Smithers, a Bell spokesperson, said. “We’re currently optimizing coverage on campus in a number of ways through technology upgrades.”

Much of what Bell is doing involves adjusting and tweaking their current system to see if they can improve service before investing in any additional infrastructure.

“We want to ensure the towers that are currently covering campus are working to their full potential and facing in the right directions,” Smithers said.

Smithers anticipated the system optimization would be completed sometime next week and students will begin to notice a difference immediately.

Smithers also said Bell wants to build a new cell phone site on campus — if they can get Western administration’s approval — which would improve coverage across campus and in buildings.

Bell hasn’t yet approached Western about adding infrastructure on campus but plan on doing so shortly.

Rogers is also diligently working on optimizing their system at Western. They estimate smartphone usage on campus has doubled since last year, which has put stress on the system.

“Our network engineers are working to increase capacity on the network,” Odette Coleman, director of communications for Rogers, said. “We expect the issue to be resolved within the next few days.”