It is certainly possible for a tower to go down and there are ways for them to check it but someone has to call to tell them. We have had that happen with Verizon in the US. We have also been places you would expect to have a good signal but do not - example - we were in a Verizon company owned store in White Plains,NY and could not get phone or internet - no one could - in one of their stores!!?? We had tower down experiences all over the west coast a couple years ago as they switched out the 3G for 4G - why not put up the 4G before turning off hte 3G? Must be a reason. There is always a reason. You would think that somewhere in their main computer signal center somewhere they would have bells and buzzers and flashing lights when a tower goes down - and meters to show signal strength and number of users etc. I doubt that over the air internet will ever be as good as cable as far as speed goes. When 3G first came out we could stream Netflix but that did not last even a month before the system bogged down with users. Then came 4G and things picked up a bit for awhile but we still can't do Netflix - or afford to pay for the time. We try to do the best we can with what we have. Somehow we are getting on up here in VdJ when others are not - but I have my stick up high over our Bus.