IMAGINE that you are stuck in a place and you are looking to complete some tasks online but unluckily, you open your phone to tackle these tasks but you notice a complete lack of bars up in the corner. No reception, 3G or Wifi. It can be frustrating, isn’t it?
Maybe the area you are stuck in is a no-network zone, or maybe there are too many obstructions interfering with the signal, but, either way before you give up entirely on using your phone, here are what you can do to boost your reception.
Ensure your battery is full
Your phone is used for so many activities such as messaging, email, internet, apps, social media, and other real-time services and most times, these activities drain the battery of your phone. Unfortunately though, if you’re low on battery, your phone might not have enough juice to find a signal. Keep your phone battery charged and conserve battery power by turning off hardware options like Bluetooth and NFC when not in use, using lower screen brightness, closing unnecessary or unused apps working in the background, keeping your phone away from extreme temperatures.
Elevate your phone
This is the most common way to improve your cell phone connection. Basically, the higher you are, the less there is in the way to block signal. So, climbing up a chair or going upstairs to make phone calls can make the signal better. If you know what area your phone mast is, you can try going to the side of the house closest to it or opening window nearest to mast so you can get enough signal to have an uninterrupted conversation.
Switch providers
The service providers in Nigeria are not superb when compared to those in other parts of the world and as such the most common cell phone reception problems encountered include dropped calls due to network error and poor voice quality. To help ease up your cell phone connection, you may want to get a double SIM phone, that way you can easily switch providers when you are experiencing difficulties as some providers have better coverage than others, especially in rural areas.
Use Wi-Fi calling
If you are in a location or area where you have a Wi-Fi router connected to a broadband connection, chances are your cell phone signals may experience fluctuations. It may be advisable to turn on your WiFi call feature, that way you can defeat patchy mobile phone signals. You can even set up your phone to automatically connect to WiFi when you are in a WiFi connected zone, and you will not even notice that you are making and receiving calls
over the internet rather than via a cell phone signal.
*Nkem Ndem, a PR Associate at Jumia Travel sent in this piece