Im in a dead zone and I just got ATT Micro Cell, a home cell signal booster. Before I had to go to a window to talk, get dropped at any time and have no basement reception, and sometimes in some rooms my phone would not ring. Now im 5 bar 3G even in the basement where I could not even call before, my signal is better inside than outside now by 2-3 bars, its worth the 150$, the other 400$ cell booster I have never, ZBoost, never did anything. Its nice buying something that does what it says.
FYI, the micro-cell is not a signal booster, it is an Internet connected low power cell site effectively. You do not have to be in an area where you can actually pickup a "real" cell site signal from a roof top antenna, as you do for a booster amp. Of course if you go with a carrier that has a decent network, you won't have problems with "dead zones".
A friend of mine and long time iPhone fan finally gave up on ATT after a few weeks with the iPhone4. The iPhone's antenna flaw is easy enough to work around, but the ATT network is not. He's using his phone for work more these days and simply couldn't tolerate the lack of coverage and constant dropped calls. It was fun watching when he went into the Verizon store and ordered and HTC Droid Incredible. Reports so far indicate he likes the new Droid phone in addition to the superior network behind it. I don't use either an iPhone or a Droid, but I've fiddled with both and don't find a lot of difference between them.
"Pete C." wrote in news:4c59d0c9$0$14568$ snipped-for-privacy@unlimited.usenetmonster.com:
I have better coverage and fewer dropped calls with my iPhone & ATT than with Sprint. In the NYC/NJ area (07410). I didn't use the iPhone much for phone and data while in Europe but when I did it worked just fine.
I have a Microcell too; bought it the day they became available in this area. It has worked out reasonable well for me also. I've gone from dropping 90% of calls to dropping 10%.
Not perfect by any means, but it does represent a significant and worthwhile improvement if you happen to live in a dead spot. Overall, it was worth the $150.
Not that I had any choice; this location is dead for Verizon and Sprint users too.
They had the solution 100 years ago- it is called a landline. Cell phones are only for when you can't get to a real phone, IMHO. Never seen a one, even the fancy ones from the top-tier carriers, that had sound quality worth a damn.
Yeah, I know. But there are 2 issues with that, for me:
Although I can use the landline for outgoing calls, there's an issue with incoming calls. If folks calls my cell, they either get through but then dropped, or they just get voice mail becuase the network could reach my call.
Even when I'm home, I prefer to call other family members cellphones using my cell rather than the landline. It's free! If I call their cell from my landline, they're burning up the family minutes.
I have been with verizon forever. like 14 years.......
however as a cost savings i have been trying out wallmarts straightalk.
its 45 bucks a month with UNLIMITED EVERYTHING phone text picture messaging and internet access. best of all it uses the verizon network but is branded tracphone...... a known company.
its prepaid but i can set it up on autopay.45 times 12 is only 540 bucks plus 38 bucks sales tax for the year. $578 total....
verizon was costing me over twice that. I bought a straight talk flip phone for 40 bucks and one months of service to try it out.... its worked flawless the dead verizon spots are exactly the same.
not fancy but fine for me:)
I have a bad attitude about verizon. after my FIOS phone was unreliable, they held me to the contract for a service that didnt work, refused to put me back on copper and generally made my life a living hell since some customers call me on my home line.
after 3 months of poor service and calling every business day for 3 weeks they finally found it a bad router at their central office:(
while this was going on they were deluging me with fios tv advertising, and sending door to door sales people to my home:( the reps werent carrying the solicitation permit so i called the police on them....
all this after i asked to be removed from all solicitations..
I FINALLY got them to stop by getting the number for their marketing manager and ranting at his secretary.
I cancelled FIOS, after my experience they could give it to me for free and i still wouldnt want it!!
So I am on a mission to de verizon myself.
companies who hold customers to contracts for service that doesnt work earn my hatred........
Most carriers AFAIK are only concerned with the high population areas and don't extend themselves to rural low population area towers. I had Alltel for 2 years and calls were constantly dropped at home. With US Cellular...it's the difference between night and day.
But I am in a high population high income area, Chicago, and ATT suks, if I drive through the ghetto its 5 bar, it must be all them phone deals they do in the ghetto, they get the good service.
I thought that about Vermont until I switched from Sprint to Verizon. The difference was almost beyond belief. Sprint worked almost nowhere except places like downtown Burlington, and occasionally stretches of highway at high elevations. Verizon works all over the place, including our very remote cabin, where the Sprint phone got zero bars, and Verizon gets 4 bars.
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