Say what?
I was born in Long Beach and grew up in various homes in Orange County. Now I don't know Lubbock at all, so I'll take your word for it that it's totally flat. And certainly there were dead spots in OC such as the cliffs next to the Pacific where one of our homes needed a big antenna on a tall mast to receive even snowy TV. But most of the population lived on a flat plain with LOS to Mt. Wilson. Am I not remembering correctly?
Huh? Well south LA County and that far south into Long Beach area is fairly flat by comparison to MOST of the grater LA area. Also, yes, the Gateway cities of Los Angeles County (Cities like Downey, Lakewood, etc.) and neighboring cites in Orange County like La Palma to Buena Park, is probably the flattest area in the metro area (and its very high water table due to its flatness that caused the sinking of the 105 Freeway that required an approximate $250,000,000+ fix), but those areas a truly the exception (even the SFV and SGV aren't as flat as most cities) few, and one simply can NOT judge quality of service by only ONE location, such as one's home.
What you may be "forgetting" is that these are MOBILE devices and people travel all over the LA Metro area and do often encounter poor reception, dropped calls, much slower speeds due to terrain even with 4G/LTE, because one can NOT escape even just the hills and bigger hills and mountains that we must either travel alongside or traverse to work or visits or pleasure. In fact, there has been and still are to some degree, a great many dead zones when crossing the mountains or larger hill because of the challenge the Wireless face in getting a cell tower built there. And these conditions for RF can get worse with the 5G wireless spectrum.
Also, you may have "forgotten" a great many people live in the shadow of these hills and mountains that block broadcast towers RF signals from Mt. Wilson and, even lower, Mt. Harvard, and have no other means to watch linear TV than a pay TV service. Sure the LA area looks flat looking at the mountains and then seeing the natural slope downward, but, but when one is on the ground throughout Southern California, often surrounded by hills and mountains EVERYWHERE, it is a different RF experience. One thing LA and southern CA is not is FLAT.
I run into problems on my own journeys and often have problems from those calling me and then break-up, etc. and announce that they are "
by a hill now" or they are "
going over the mountain now; I can't hear you; I'll call you when I get clear." In fact, I work like the devil to take roads that avoid having to deal with grades of the roads and going steep up and down, just to save gas and wear and tear on the car, but those less hilly routes still put me in their shadow, but better reception, as well, as opposed to crossing the hills and mountains.
Agreed, if one lives in and never has need to leave Long Beach or most of the Gateway cities area, they may not even know that hills even exist outside their Long Beach/Gateway Cities home, but for the rest of us, it, the non-flatness of the place, does present different challenges. Flat? I can't find anyplace I have to go flat enough.
