0-1 bars at home continual dropped calls

In the house, I get 2-3 bars and can make calls to Murfreesboro, TN, Tallahassee, FL, Newport News, VA, Bath, NC, without any problems. On the road in Florida has worked reliably.

I just signed up for this service on Sunday. Family plan with faves, 3 phones. First new service phone was up and running within 2 hours! Second ported service had some problems but ported in 24 hours. It took 3 days to port my phone. The reason was name error. After that was corrected it took only 6 hours and I am up an running. I live in a manufactured home with metal walls. So far I love it and I am happy! Reception is good, loud and clear.

In what I would call my "Home Roaming Area'" fromOcala to Leesburg I have almost no deadspots. Bob Evans in Ocala can be spotty at times.

The V620 is an Internet card which plugs into a PCMCIA slot on my laptop. The connection speed changes constantly! It is usually better than dialup and sometime as good as DSL, but not often. Also, coverage is very poor. Inside my house I have to sit on the very end of my couch to get a connection at all! I bought an external antenna adapter and connect an automobile extenal antenna outside and get better reception, but then I am tied to the cable and have to sit close to a door or window to get the antenna outside. It does work pretty well when I am parked in my car near a tower or sitting outside in town.

I like Nextel, esp. the Direct Connect feature. However, they have oversold service and during emergencies the public service employees have priority service. This often leaves me full signal levels, but unable to use my phone or Direct Connect feature. I have also tried AT&T, Cingular, Bellsouth, Verizon and Sprint PCS over the years and thier coverage areas are not as good as Nextel's. At least, as far as signal levels and dropped calls. I also have AT&T service, now Cingular. Cingular recently bought out AT&T and since then AT&T's service gets worse every month. Strangely enough, Cingular, who now bills me, keeps tring to switch me to their phone which uses a different frequency than my old AT&T phone. Also, Nextel tried to install a new tower closer to my house and the nearby residents turned into a lynch mob. (No wonder we don't have better service. I would LOVE a tower in my back yard! Talk about great reception!)