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Never had a problem with Sprint in San Rafael, even out at the beach I still have reception !

I am using an old Nokia phone from AT&T (Cellular One). Reception is great, unfortunately Cingular is terminating the old AT&T system and I have to choose another plan, phone and perhaps a carrier. After reading your posts I am really puzzled- it looks that there is no good carrier here in Marin at all. I guess my best bet is to do a survey of the neighbors. I am planning to get a RAZR phone.

Lots of hills / valleys here in San Rafael area. I live in Ignacio / Novato area, but drive a lot in San Rafael, Larkspur, etc. I get 4 or 5 bars in my house and in all neighborhoods. Everywhere in Marin County, actually. Very pleased.

Works fine in the whole area. This is now my only home phone because coverage is good there. Phone also works well out past Big Rock in Lucas Valley.

Great reception at home and through most of central Marin. Exception: Going over Wolfe Grade (canyon like) and a certain spot on Sir Francis Drake - near Bachich school. If a call is in progress it's fine; if I try to make a call in those two areas - can't connect. Spotty in southern Marin in hills of Mill Valley.

Generally very good reception now with T-Mobile; a few dead spots in the usual Marin areas (much of Fairfax, upper Sleepy Hollow).

Verizon is currently the best because it has bought all existing carriers so they don't have to build that many new towers. Coverage is the most out of any service because of that and plus they use CDMA network instead of GSM. For phone calls, CDMA works fine. For me, where I use an equal amount of data service versus talking, it's not that good. Even though I have a Verizon phone, I work in a T-Mobile store and their GSM network has a much faster data transfer speeds.

Fair reception throughout Lucas Valley - my friends have AT&T and always get a nice break from receiving pesky calls while visiting here (no reception). 'Too bad 'cause I would really like to have the iPhone - but no reception in my home office here in Lucas Valley? No can do. Does anyone here in Upper Lucas Valley (streets are all named for mountains) have any luck with iPhone? Any tips or insights will be appreciated.

Been with 10 permutations of Att, Cell one, Cingular, etc. All crap! Hundreds of dropped calls everywhere in Bay Area. 5 Bars when the Cell Towers are maintained, however they only maintain the equipment once in a millennium. This is the last time I'll renew with this totally unreliable carrier.

worst reception ever here in san rafael, especial when I can see cell towers