Which Cell Phone Carrier Performs Best at BHS?

The days of poor service may now be coming to an end with the construction of the new cell phone tower on the Branch Londonderry Turnpike in Bow. However, good service isn’t guaranteed, and it seems that it may not serve customers of all three main providers. So, what’s the deal? Which provider is the best for Bow right now, and which will be the best in the future once the Branch Londonderry Turnpike tower has been built?

Beginning with researching the best carrier currently in the Bow-Dunbarton-Concord area, Verizon is apparently the best choice, at least from observing Best Neighborhood’s maps and data. The exception is the southwestern part of Bow, in which AT&T is slightly better. Surrounding Concord, Bow, and Dunbarton is mostly T-Mobile. However, the legitimacy of this site can be questioned since the page writes that “Bow ranks #636 out of 639 cities for the fastest mobile internet network speeds in New Hampshire.” New Hampshire has 221 towns—quite far from 639!

Next, according to Signalchecker.com, T-Mobile is the best provider because it seems to be the only provider (this is just according to their site; it isn’t necessarily true) that has 5G coverage in the Bow-Dunbarton-Concord area.

Then, looking at CoverageMap.com, AT&T was ranked as the best. Of the articles so far, however, CoverageMap.com appears to be the most reliable. They claim that their findings have come from FCC data and “crowd-sourced” data from apps that can check your cellular speed data, noting in particular an app called SpeedSmart.

Finally, moving on to the FCC data that CoverageMap.com had referenced, they, too, had AT&T as their best cell provider in the Bow-Dunbarton-Concord area. In fact, almost the entire nation had AT&T as the best provider.

After perusing all the evidence that had been dug up, AT&T looks to be the best carrier currently in the Bow-Dunbarton-Concord area because multiple sources have agreed on this point and the FCC, a government agency, was one of the sources, thereby providing reliable evidence. Don’t take this as gospel truth, because although many sources have been checked, it could still be wrong!

Now, thinking about how Bow cell coverage might be influenced by the new tower and the best cell provider for the future, the direct distance between the future site of the tower at 21-51 Branch Londonderry Turnpike, Bow, NH, and BHS is about 1.71 mi, according to the distance.to direct distance calculator. On the website of dgtlinfra.com, it says that “the range of a 4G LTE cell tower is 2 to 4 miles” and “the range of a 5G cell tower is 1 to 3 miles.” This means there is a good chance that BHS may have some 5G cell coverage!

According to the Concord Monitor, AT&T appears to be the primary carrier serving this tower. Another article says that the tower will also serve Verizon users and that it will begin to be operated in September 2024. No articles mention T-Mobile. However, it should be noted that the chairwoman of Bow’s Telecommunications Committee has said that this isn’t “the magic tower that’s going to fix all our problems.” So, although it may potentially improve Bow and Dunbarton’s cell reception, nothing is certain.

Therefore, after looking at the carrier situation in Bow/Dunbarton, AT&T is probably the best choice both now and in the future. Although Verizon may be serving the new tower in the future, AT&T will be serving it as well, and AT&T already appears to have better reception than Verizon.

Only time will tell if the new tower actually improves cell reception at BHS. It hopefully and probably will, but nobody will know until September 2024.