Santa Fe’s spotty cellphone service getting worse
Analysis confirms what many have experienced: Coverage by Verizon has dropped downtown
As a popular local photographer, Caitlin Jenkins doesn’t have to search far to find beautiful photographs in downtown Santa Fe, where she’s often called on to commemorate community events. But when it comes time to share those photos from her smartphone onto social media platforms like Instagram, it becomes a hunt to find just the right spot with strong enough cellular data coverage.
“Often it’s unusable. Especially in the downtown area and in the Railyard, it’s unbearable,” said Jenkins, 29, who uses Verizon Wireless for her cellphone service. She is not alone in her frustrations. Downtown Santa Fe, the cultural and economic heart of the city, is for many a wasteland when it comes to cellular data coverage.
“I know that I find it frustrating, especially when I need to respond to a client in a timely fashion. Sometimes they won’t get my email on time or sometimes the email won’t send at all,” said Jenkins, who is also co-owner of a social media company.
For years, cellphone reception and data service in Santa Fe have been inconsistent. The problem appears to have become more acute in recent weeks, with a sharp drop in Verizon Wireless coverage in the downtown area — where tens of thousands of art lovers are converging this weekend for the annual Indian Market and might find it particularly difficult to share photos, videos and other content.
A review by The New Mexican shows that among the top four
cellphone carriers — Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile — Verizon, which once had robust coverage downtown, had the weakest data service in Santa Fe’s central core. While Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile had some of poorest data service in residential areas of Santa Fe, Verizon had some of the strongest in those same neighborhoods.
To conduct the review, the newspaper performed download and upload tests around the downtown area and in residential areas with smartphones using each of the carriers.
Some officials believe the problem stems in part from a reluctance on the part of the carriers to invest in additional infrastructure in a small market. At the same time, a vocal and politically active group of residents who believe that cellphone towers and related infrastructure cause cancer has heavily opposed carriers building additional towers downtown. Apart from the health hazards, opponents say the towers also ruin Santa Fe’s skylines.
Jeannine M. Brew, a spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless in Dallas, did not respond directly to a question about why the company’s service appears to have become so inconsistent or what, specifically, the company has done to upgrade its technology in Santa Fe.
“Verizon has been working diligently to add new sites and technologies which will provide more capacity and improve coverage in downtown Santa Fe,” she said in a statement. “This process includes working with building owners, property managers and government entities, all of whom are interested in ensuring the best experience for Santa Fe residents. We’re working as quickly as the process will allow.”
While Verizon’s issues in the city’s historic and economic core might be the most pronounced, more carriers have experienced difficulty in building new infrastructure.
“Although people want coverage, they also want their skylines protected,” said Peter Dwyer, an attorney who represented AT&T when it unsuccessfully sought to build a 64-foot tower on the corner of St. Francis Drive and Alameda Street in 2014. “But the challenging part is changing people’s attitudes.”
He said the city has policies that allow for carriers to apply to add infrastructure. But, he said, the problem is a combination of the “vocal minority” that opposes telecommunication infrastructure and the small market, which dissuades private businesses to invest in Santa Fe.
According to the American Cancer Society, there is no concrete evidence that cellphone towers or antennas cause cancer.
Still, this didn’t prevent the city’s Historic Districts Review Board from rejecting AT&T’s request to erect a cell tower next to a Burger King restaurant near the intersection of St. Francis Drive and Alameda Street in June 2014.
At the time, the board members’ and public’s concerns ranged from possible health and safety risks of the proposed tower, especially so close to an elementary school, to the design, aesthetics and effect on Santa Fe’s views, with a structure said to be as tall as La Fonda on the Plaza.
Cecilia Rios, the chairwoman of the historic board, said she couldn’t comment because of a city policy of referring all media inquiries to other city officials. David Rasch, the city’s historic preservation planning supervisor, didn’t return a phone call from The New Mexican seeking comment.
Greg Smith, the city’s Planning Division director, said the approval process for a carrier to add a tower or antennas varies, depending on the proposed location.
Not all projects go through a public hearing, as did the proposed 64-foot tower next to the Burger King, he said. In some cases, the carrier applies directly to the city’s Planning Commission, and the request to build or add to current infrastructure is approved or denied administratively.
Despite several requests by The New Mexican for information on companies that had recently applied to build or add infrastructure, Smith said the city did not have updated information available.
Among those frustrated with Verizon service in Santa Fe’s downtown area are business leaders and city officials, who complain about both data and voice service.
Simon Brackley, president and CEO of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, said he recently had to cancel a cellphone interview with a local radio station. City Councilor Mike Harris changed his cellular service after spotty reception at his home. Even more concerning, city officials recently reported that firefighters have had trouble with their cellphone service. All use or used Verizon. In Brackley’s case, he said, every Monday morning he does an interview with the host of the Richard Eeds Show on KVSF to talk about the city’s business trends.
But on a recent Monday, the interview had to be canceled because the reception on Brackley’s cellphone was so bad. Brackley was outside the state Capitol in downtown Santa Fe.
“That makes me wonder how many people are conducting business and government and aren’t able to communicate,” Brackley said.
Harris, a District 4 city councilor representing the city’s south side, monitors constituents’ discussions on the online social network nextdoor.com, which serves as a bulletin board for neighborhoods. One man complained that his Verizon coverage was so bad that he dropped the service, Harris said. Harris followed suit, and his cellphone service has been better. He declined to say
which cellphone provider he has now. “I did notice a change,” Harris said. Renee Martinez, deputy city manager for innovation and the city’s former technology and telecommunications department director, said that recently, the city’s fire department, which also uses Verizon Wireless, had complained about bad cellphone reception.
Though she didn’t give specific details about the department’s complaint, she said city officials would ask Verizon Wireless about the recent inconsistent coverage.
She said the city has distributed 316 cellphones to city workers at a monthly cost of $15,434, all with Verizon. The majority of the workers have smartphones that require internet data, and some have regular cellphones that don’t require data.
“As a customer, we’ll let them know we’re noticing a change in service, and we want to know what’s going on and what they’re going to do about it,” she said.
City Councilor Joseph Maestas said city leaders should have a responsibility to help residents get better service and help providers make it easy to build infrastructure in town. But he admits that “there’s a challenge” in changing the attitudes of residents who oppose such cellphone sites.
City councilors can only do so much, he said. Since the Federal Communications Commission regulates telecommunication companies and how they provide service, city officials can only approve or deny applications based on federal regulations. The FCC didn’t return an email from
The New Mexican seeking comment. If residents want to keep up with business demands, Maestas said, they have to accept that cellphone data is a necessity, and technology is needed to support it.
“We’re a data-driven society,” he said, “and we need to evolve with that demand.”