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My Verizon phone constantly drops calls and the reception varies widely throughout town and in building. The problem with Verizon is they don't care about a market this small so they cover it as sparingly as possible. They also have the new phones set to hold the Verizon signal as long as possible, making calls on the fringe of the service area impossible as it won't switch to the much stronger partner network. Verizon is great for any large city but traveling and use here has been horrible. I have friends with the other carriers and from what I've seen I Wireless and US Cellular are by far the best choices for local Iowa coverage. I can't wait for my Verizon contract to be up!

I live on the East Side of Iowa City, right near Scott Blvd. and Court Street. I got absolutely no reception in my basement with my Treo. If I go upstairs, I get maybe 1 or 2 bars, and if I go outside, maybe 2 or 3 bars. My house does sit in a slightly lower part of the area, but it really shouldn't make that much of a difference. If I go a couple blocks in any direction, the coverage is fine. Makes it difficult when the Treo is your business line, and anytime someone calls I have to go racing up stairs before I can answer the phone. Oh well... I'm out of my contract now, and looking at Cingular to replace them. We'll see if they're coverage is any better.

Works well in all parts of Iowa City except hospital buildings and basements of large buildings.

Very bad reception. No signal at all inside my apartment. Outside I can at least make the call, but I can barely hear the other person talking and they break up. I cant even receive calls when at my apartment, its ridiculous.

IWireless tower. Sitting right next to window and the call will still drop.

When I first came to Iowa City I had some problems so I took my phone into the Sprint store. They told me that my antenna in the my phone broke and they gave me a new one for free. Since then I have never dropped a call or even had bad service. I don't even get the voicemail notification without getting a call first. Life is great on Sprint PCS.

Very poor indoor reception in lower east side of town, recently switched to I Wireless(T-Mobile), now people tell me its like I'm talking to them on a land line.

I reviewed Verizon on Oct. 29, 2005. At that point, I had an occasional call go to voice mail (in an area with good signal strength, and clear calls), and when moving around would hear the occasional sound drop from a cell handoff or whatever. Around December Verizon must have done some tweaks around here.. no calls going to VM anymore, and calls now have no handoff sounds, and in fact sound perfect. The low signal spots I had before are still low, but calls now sound clear anyway. I brought up my phones debug screen, and now a phone call can use 2, 3, or 4 cells at once sometimes to keep the call clear, versus before always using 1.

I'm the same dude who wrote about Cingular at Bon Aire on April 17, 2005.. Cingular now has dropped TDMA usage for phones like the S46. Due to Cingular's low coverage outside of town with a GSM-only phone, I dropped Cingular and now have Verizon. In town, I haven't hit any dead spots yet. The number of bars fluctuates around more with Verizon compared to Cingular outside, but since Verizon is 850mhz instead of 1900mhz, going inside most buildings doesn't knock off bars. In my friend's steel-reinforced-concrete building (in University Heights) I get 2 bars in most spots, with a few individual spots at 1 bar. At the friends house out of town, I get 2 bars instead of 1.. In SW Wisconsin where Cingular just wouldn't work on a GSM-only plan, Verizon gets continuous coverage (roaming off US-Cellular I think.. but roaming is free so that's fine by me.) In the past I hadn't considered Verizon because it was too expensive, but Cingular has raised their rates so they are at least as high as Verizon's... I'd give Verizon "5 - Perfect" but I had 1 or 2 outgoing calls that were very slow to connect (like 15 second delay before the 1st ring) and have had 1 incoming call go straight to voice mail, so I wonder if there aren't intermittent capacity problems.

Really bad in the valley! Only 1-2 bars most times. Incoming calls almost impossible. Outgoing just as bad. Have to walk to the end of the road to get any sustained signal strong enough to maintain. Luckily it's not my main line but I was hoping to make it so! Elsewhere very good, 3-5bars rest of the city.