Cell towers are omnidirectional. That means that the signal is broadcast evenly in all directions. There is no way verizon could change the direction of the signal. It must be a problem with your phone.
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Sorry to disagree but cell towers are not all omnidirectional. In fact they are more often mulitdirectional than not and some are unidirectional. It's very easy for a cellular carrier to tweak the coverage in one area or another by using either Yagi antennas for specific narrow focus directionality or shaped reflecting antennas to cover wider areas, or a combination of the two. Even Omnidirectional antenna towers don't transmit evenly in all directions. It is nearly impossible to get a true circular dispersion from an antenna since even the slightest difference in alignment of various antenna elements causes a shape change in the radiation pattern.
Next time you look at a free-standing cellular tower, take note if it has a triangle frame at the top and on each corner of the triangle it has a white tall and narrow fixture. The white fixture are directional reflection antennas and the tower is configured in a "Triad" array. Think about how triangles fit together perfectly but intersecting circles have large areas they miss when placed edge to edge so in order to completely cover an area with circles there needs to be large overlaps. The overlapping circles result in wasted signal, and results in some areas with strong coverage and other areas with weak coverage.
Here's an example of a "3 sector [or triad] cellular antenna tower" http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Base_station_mexico-city.JPG
By placing multiple intersecting Triad arrays the cellular carrier can cover more area more evenly and have less overlap with less cell sites. This reduces equipment costs, provides more seamless coverage and eliminates wasted oversaturation of signal due to overlap.
Carriers can also place directional antennas on building corners or faces to concentrate signal into an area with poor coverage from the larger cell towers. They can even place mini-cell sites into spots that have some particular interference such as signal being blocked by another building.
When users report an area that has poor reception the carrier sends out a scout who analyzes the signal strength in the area with precise equipment. Then that information is uploaded to the carrier's computers and a very sophisticated algorithm determines whether the problem area can be addressed with an increase in output from one or more existing directional antennas, or possible increases in some and decreases in others. If it can be handled from the computers without having to send out a site crew they will. Otherwise, it may require new antennas, or a repositioning of one or more existing antennas. Where the problem is too large to address with existing towers, or where they are expanding coverage, new cell sites are mandated by the carrier and then they go through the application and approval process to have a new site installed.
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