Coverage comments are submitted voluntarily by visitors around the Chicago, IL area.
Comments are sorted by date. However, users can sort by Carrier, City, Zip Code, Reception Rating,
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I have 2-5 bars at home but I guaranteed dropped calls nearly 100% of the time. Dropped calls are reduced (not by much) when standing outside of my condo unit.
US Cellular has AMAZING reception in this area, where literally, all other phone carriers have trouble. My phone is almost never below full blast and the quality of the reception is fantastic. So far, I've only lost reception twice all around Chicago with US Cellular and both times I was in a underground parking garage. In fact, one time I was 3 levels DOWN in the garage and finally lost reception after walking 50 ft. away from the elevator. Amazing. And you're always on EVDO Rev. B. Also works in the underground subways. I am now struggling with AT&T because although they show that you're getting reception, in reality the quality of the reception is terrible and will hang up at a moments notice. If you're in Chicago, your best bet is US Cellular.
Can't get a signal or only one bar at home. Texts sometimes make in and out but phone reception is horrible if you get it at all. This also happens at work at Ravenswood and Rosehill. So, no reception at home and work... its driving me crazy.
Great reception with my T-Mobile provider. Overall, never had any major problem with reception in most parts of Chicago. As much as I would love to get an iPhone, I'm afraid of switching over to AT&T.
Get the bars, but terrible coverage as of late. Text messages coming in bulk, some not being sent, calls go right into voicemail. I love my iPhone, but am now very disappointed in my service lately. They say they are having some issues in the Chicago area, but don't know when it will be fixed. The customer service guy said they did some network reset of ring times, and that hopefully it would fix it. Got a nice guy in customer service, so I'm not bailing yet. That being said, it would make me feel much better if ATT would at least say something when I log into the website. If there are issues, let us know. We expect instantaneous communications these days, if we can't rely on that, we need to know. (So we don't get peeved at our significant others for blowing us off, when in fact they aren't getting the message.)
I have a lot of calls get dropped and I'm lucky if I have reception in my unit of my low rise just east of California. It's traditional construction, so there's no apparent reason for the bad reception.
I was lucky if I got one bar at the window in my building at 200 N Jefferson. It was AWFUL. It may have been the building, but there's no excuse for this kind of reception in downtown. Bad, bad, bad.
When I got reception my calls dropped about every 5 minutes and I usually had to sit by the window to get any sort of reliable signal. I lived in a high rise so I suspect that it was the building, but when I spoke with customer service (which is usually INCREDIBLE) they weren't any help and they said that their systems showed that the signal was fine so I had to pay to break my contract. :-(
I have to redial the same number 4 or 5 times before it completes the call. I really want to switch to Spring and get a Palm Pre, but my entire family is on AT&T in Michigan (where service is fine) so switching networks would eat up my minutes.