Carrier / Rating

Location / Comment

Date

Poor reception in my house. I have to turn the phone off and on, and even go outside sometimes just to get service. Many calls are dropped, and many times you don't even hear the phone ring and all of a sudden you have a new voice mail. T-Mobile has terrible service and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone. Thankfully we're switching providers.

I have to walk outside my house to maintain a call.

Good God Almighty this phone / service sucks. I must drop 10 calls per day. I could seriously get better communication with 2 cans and a string or smoke signals. There's no way to get worse reception than my situation.

Great coverage in this area. My other phone with Cingular didn't work.

Alltel is an 800 MHz provider (as is AT&T) in Tampa Bay. They have always been known as a "good coverage" provider here since back in the GTE days and still are. With their tower being about 1 / 4 mile further east than Cingular, Nextel, T-Mobile and Sprint (all of which have cell sites off of 9th St) Alltel users in Safety Harbor will enjoy great coverage and service along the coast of the bay, Phillipe Park, the Spa, Downtown (including the Marina). In fact, out of all the phones tested, they had the best signal in town. There is a new Alltel store downtown in Safety Harbor on Main St.next to Starbucks so I had the pleasure of taking a phone on a trial basis. As a former user I am nothing but 'still' impressed with their service. *Coverage* Overall the areas I review here are the Safety Harbor City Limits. Alltel coverage is always "good" or "perfect" from McMullen Booth / Enterprise East and Southward to the bay down through Drew Street. Alltel has a tower near Marshall St.Park which has a great view of the city and the bayshore area, downtown, the Spa and marina. The other serving site is the water tower off of McMullen booth road near Drew St. *Service* Alltel has great sound quality with CDMA technology (EVDO) throughout the area. The only downfall of this is the lacking of some newer phones carried by GSM carriers (though they have a really cool new phone the LG8600 which I love and has great user reviews). Alltel seems to be picky about who sells their service. There aren't a lot the "beeper" type stores. I know of one in Countryside Mall but was glad to see a new "real" store open in downtown Safety Harbor called Harbor Wireless. They sell Alltel and even let me test out a phone (which is not possible in any mall store). If the store speaks for their service, then Alltel has a great business model. Other services to consider in Safety Harbor would be Cingular (who also operates an 850 MHz network here and has good coverage). T-Mobile and Sprint also have cell sites off 9th Street. Sprint has Average Coverage with T-Mobile being decent but lacking downtown and along bayshore.

Cingular has decent coverage in all of Safety Harbor. There are some issues with network capacity during peak hours to consider when choosing this provider. -Coverage- Cingular covers a majority of downtown Safety Harbor with towers (cell sites) located off 9th St.at the Progress Energy sub-station and another tower off SR590 east of McMullen Booth Rd. Users will find an excellent to good signal from the intersection of McMullen Booth / Enterprise east to Phillipe Park. South of McMullen Booth and East of Enterprise all the way down through downtown Safety Harbor towards Drew St. In summary, Safety Harbor city limits are all have a great signal including the Spa and downtown near the harbor. The only known weaker coverage spots are in the shopping plazas at McMullen Booth / Enterprise. Primarily on the west side of the intersection in Publix, CVS, etc. Coverage is also somewhat spotty in the Sweetbay shopping center as well. Other than that, I give coverage a "Good" rating given such strong service is provided in this area with only a few weak spots which are not a significant impact (e.g. complete loss of service). -Service Level- This is where Cingular (AT&T) disappointed me. Having been a user in Pinellas for years I moved to Safety Harbor only to find out there are some serious capacity issues during peak (rush)hours M-F 4-7 PM, ESPECIALLY on Friday. My wife and I both find many calls go to voice mail without the phone even ringing once. Outbound calls experience about a 40% failure rate with call setup sometimes taking 10-20 seconds before failing or sometimes getting through. Overall I am sad to say we will be leaving Cingular for voice. I'll keep my data device for just that.. data. We have drive tested T-Mobile, Sprint and Alltel in the area. See my reviews on these carriers. Overall Alltel wins with their CDMA capacity and 800 MHz coverage with great signal downtown and through Safety Harbor. Sprint was a short distance behind in coverage with a tower just behind Whistle Stop and T-Mobile near the bottom of the list with their tower being right next to the AT&T tower at the Progress Energy station off 9th street... but lacking the punch to penetrate downtown's buildings and almost no service at the spa.

Sound quality is nice but no reception inside Publix. Downtown Safety Harbor I get dropped calls traveling north fron the Spa on Philippe Parkway. It improvess after a quarter mile.

Sometimes low bars howevr the call quality is always good.

Service absolutely sucks ! I am in the middle of a major metro area (Tampa / Clearwater) and at times cannot get even 1 bar of reception. Cannot get out of my contract until Feb 2006 without paying a $400 cancellation fee. If service does not improve by that time, I am switching to Verizon Wireless!