Doesn't make sense that the owner wouldn't invest in one of those SHI Signal Boosters.
When you and your buddies are thinking about going out , do you make that decision only on the fact that the bar has a public wifi ? Cause i tend to care about the bar , the booze and the people that are there more than if they have wifi.
Pair that with the fact that sic boosters tend to cost more than a car, i'm not surpised we don't have a bunch of them in red. last time i bothered checking , i can count the amount of amps on one hand.
Alternatively , you could take this up with the bar owner. He might explain why he doesn't have a sic booster in his place. See what his IC reasons are for not having any. See if you can find a good solution against the argument that can net you some kind of angle or profit on the situation.
Hell , if i was an enterpreneuring type of person with this problem, i would try to get a crew together and see if i could solve the problem by arranging a forced move of an amp to my favorite bar. For a price. Always for a price.
I like the idea. I think I could see people dipping into bars (or any location that boasts a better SIC signal in Red - Feels like it would be an advertising gimmick you'd see in this kind of setting), which would influence RP happening more in these locations.
The only potential downside I see might be whether or not this might unnecessarily influence players to meta just to avoid SIC signal issues in Red.
What I mean to say is that this thread is being approached from the context of what would maximize ease of social interaction, instead of what maximizes RP opportunities, themeliness, or meeting realistic expectations. There are places on the Internet that are dedicated to maximizing social interaction. They're called chat rooms. There's even places that invite you to come and enhance the social interaction opportunities. One such place is called LambdaMOO http://www.moo.mud.org/. Sindome runs the exact same software. Everyone can come and write code and participate in it's development. There's a ton of these places scattered throughout the Internet.
Withmore city isn't designed to maximize social interaction. In fact it's very much about segregation. Red isn't designed to maximize social interaction. It's designed to be a dangerous place full of pitfalls and gotchas, where you constantly have to adapt and evolve. If you make every bar a communication safe-haven, you encroach upon the design, upon the theme, and upon the fun.
There are locations that have SIC boosters. If you follow the OP's suggestion, they will no longer be differentiators. There are bars on red which certain archetypes rely on occasionally NOT having sicnal. Eliminating those opportunities cuts their RP opportunities. There's a thousand possibilities that arise from having to leave the party and venture out into the rain alone at night in search of sicnal in order to communicate with the outside world. You'd destroy each and every one of them with this change.
Overworked workers who fix SIC signal towers and also don't give two shits about Red?
Working like intended. ;)
As karmaportrait wrote, if you want signal all the time, go topside.
And I'm with Vetra, sometimes a signal-less state would be an attraction.
There are some areas that do have signal but you have to find out where those are.
(Besides, maybe there's more going on with dropped signals?)