Carriers have an optimising function which used to be called voting (no idea if is this way) where the connection between a phone and a tower is determined by geographical mapping of signal strength. Think: a tech driving around neighbourhoods with a briefcase computer logging signal strength from each of their towers.
That data governs which tower subscriber devices use. If this optimisation is insufficient, or if circumstances change which affect signal strength, line of sight, interference etc. your device may be connecting to a more distant tower.
There are apps that can display a map of all radio towers, the carriers that have transceivers on those towers, and which tower you are currently connected to, along with signal direction and strength data. Most phones also have a diagnostic mode you can enable which provides more data about your device’s cellular connection.
The data from such apps can be useful if you raise a complaint with your provider - of course no guarantees they’ll do anything, but providing them with quantitative data to support your request gives you the best chance of their taking action.
5G has a very short working distance, even if you can see it, that doesn't mean it will work well. Most likely there is either some kind of interference or it is a different network or something.
You may be thinking of ultra-wideband, a very fast but extremely rare variant of 5G that only works over short ranges and requires you to be in sight of the transmitter. This is available in some parts of some stadiums, although Verizon tries hard to make it seem like it’s everywhere.
Normal 5G, such as the midband frequencies that T-Mobile often uses, covers a several-mile radius.
I mean its not impossible for the OP to be looking at a wideband transmitter, so maybe? Saw an MKBHD video of one on a street corner and he couldn't get it to work while looking at it from a couple hundred feet away
MKBHD was using mmWave. When 5G first came out, most news stories talked about it being “10 times faster” and that it had a short range, so phone companies would have to put transmitters on every light pole. All of which is true for ultra-wideband/mmWave.
What those stories missed was that UWB/mmWave isn’t the common 5G. Most 5G is mid-band or low-band, which uses regular towers and has a range of miles. As of 2021, latest data I could find, less than 1% of users were on mmWave.
Having worked with similar tech, but for wireless internet: Being too close to the tower may actually be the problem. The signal doesn't radiate out from the entire tower; it comes from the big white rectangles and circles up at the top. They're not usually pointed down, and they don't really propagate in a sphere, so right under the tower can be a sizeable dead spot.
Antenna engineer here. You are correct. Also there is something called multipath. Because urban environment was mentioned...This is where signals bounce off of objects and combine constructively or constructively creating dead spots. There are many more reasons but most of them have been covers by others.
could be that police removed a stingray/trigger fish surveillance cell tower cloning system from your neighborhood