Elliott Bay Marina cell coverage

[Hydraulicjump]

I have asked this before, but wanted to update. AT&T has abysmal coverage in EBM. Rumor has it that a bigwig from Verizon has a boat and so there is good, stable cell coverage. Not sure about T-Mobile. Normally, we use this excuse of lousy cell coverage to get the boat out on days when need a lot of zoom bandwidth and head over to Blake Island where speeds are amazing. Today is too rough to get out and we are stuck with the unstable AT&T coverage. We use a WeBoost, which helps a bit, but the coverage is so unstable the drop outs are immense and all seem to occur at precisely the worst possible time.

Thanks. Sorry for the very specific nature of this request for beta.

Jeff

 

[FlagShip]

Hi Jeff,

We're on E-dock and have Xfinity Mobile (which uses Verizon's network). I can't say the coverage is all that grand, typically two bars. Streaming using the phone as a hotspot is pretty sad. Occassionally we can get on some Xfinity wifi on our dock, but that's not very reliable.

 

[FlyMeAway]

Coverage varies widely depending on slip and where you are in the marina.

The Verizon rumors aren't really true. There are some spots in EBM where Verizon is terrible, too. The only marginally "true" rumors about cell coverage in the PNW is that quite a few T-Mobile execs are boaters (including the former exec who was in charge of deciding where coverage goes), so T-Mo has the best coverage in the San Juans.

I have T-Mobile and the coverage is mediocre in D-4 but pretty good at the end of D-Dock. 5G is better than 4G right now (my 5G hotspot gets better coverage than my still-4G-iPhone).

Right now, cable is down at EBM (and much of Magnolia) because people stole a bunch of equipment from below the Magnolia bridge. Last I heard, TBD for when it would be back up. When I was a sailboat liveaboard on E-Dock a few years back, I ended up spending the $50 a month for Comcast cable and just put a jack and a router in my boat. Was pretty straightforward.

 

[watson1987]

I'm on J (59 - so 3/4 to the end) dock with AT&T and T-Mobile. I have a mast mounted cell phone booster attached to a cellular router (AT&T) on the boat, coverage is OK for that, I can normally get 10-20Mbit/s down - compared to 80-100Mbit when I'm in the middle of Elliot Bay. My T-Mobile phone does a bit better, and works anywhere on the boat. My partner's AT&T phone does not work well while in the berth, OK on the top side.

My guess is most cell towers are on top of Magnolia and EBM is in a blind zone, and towers across the water are just a little too far for most devices.

 

[Hydraulicjump]

Thanks everyone. I walked all over the marina with my phone and you are all correct: it depends. Annoying as it is, we are just a handful of cell phones compared to everywhere else where cars continuously flow by with cell phones. This is my only real gripe about EBM and they are helpless to solve it. And we can see cell towers from the marina, not to mention all of downtown Seattle and the Space Needle!

And I took a zoom from the command bridge at sunset this evening since my spouse was in a zoom meeting in the cabin. I Googled the term "hypothermia" but I lacked the bandwidth to find out what it meant.

spoken like a thermally wimpy Californian...and the local paper called this weather a "false spring"! Brrrrr!

 

[Hydraulicjump]

What I meant to say was

"I tried to Google "hypothermia" but my computer froze"

 

[FlyMeAway]

My guess is most cell towers are on top of Magnolia and EBM is in a blind zone, and towers across the water are just a little too far for most devices.

You would think, but coverage is so weird in the marina. Cell service in the parking lot is significantly better than on the docks -- so much so that if I can snag a parking spot in the row closest to the water and nearest my dock, I have put my 5G hotspot on top of my car (just inside wifi range of D-4) and gotten better service than placing it at the top of my mast.

Some of it must be elevation; service is also significantly worse at my slip at low tide.

YMMV, indeed 🙂