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It is very frustrating. I often have no signal. After having an iPhone for one year, I definitely agree with some friends of mine, who say, " The iPhone is great for everything but making and receiving calls!"

Service cuts out at right about at the intersection of Amherst Rd.and North Valley Rd.and there is essentially no service for most of the hills between Amherset Road, Route 202, and Leverett Road. There may be spots of coverage. There has been talk for some time of putting in a tower, but no action.

Signal not good, but will show "Cingular Extended" if too weak and get better. Always busy network after 9:00. May because my phone has a internal antenna, receiving signal is worse than those with external.

Most time is perfect, network often busy between 9:00 pm and 10:30 pm.

Nextel just put up a new tower on Oct 29th at the UMass Campus in Amherst. Coverage is killer!

UMass only has service for Verizon and Cingular, so don't come here with anything else, especially Nextel!

Reception is not bad here, but it was minimal and choppy in N. Amherst on Montague Rd. I have had to put up with countless dropped calls all over this region though, for the last 5 or 6 months. This happens more than once a day! I need to get a new phone because the screen is dead, so I am looking into other carriers. I have not been able to find any decent regional evaluation of carrier call quality, reception, etc. Any suggestions on that?

I don't know what other T-Mobilers are talking about but my service is pretty decent. I stay in my dorm and get around 3 bars. When I go outside it increases to 4-5 bars. When around the library, it is always full, even at the basement. Even in the Bezanson center, I manage to get a bar most of the time. In and around campus, always seemed to have decent connection like downtown and the supermaket strips. In the mall, however you get no connection what soever. Not many dropped calls except one or two when I was deep inside the basement.

This phone is horrid and the reception is horrid. My apartment complex is basically a hole in the cellular sense. I can walk down the street talking on my phone, and it will just vanish. It works only outdoors at UMass in any circumstance. When it does work, the sound frequently takes on an underwater quality. I've occasionally gotten it to work in my apartment, but I have to walk around and assume odd positons to find a good spot. There is absolutely no reliable spot: what worked yesterday probably won't work today. Posture and head position affect the sound! Last year, I had to hang my head out of my dorm window to get reception! Also, it always hangs up on me during conversations that last longer than five minutes. Sometimes the phone does not tell me I have a message until a few days later. It frequently does not ring. I was in Cambridge, in an urban area and it dropped all my calls. It also cannot keep accurate time no matter how fresh the battery is. I've had this phone for just over a year and it's in good shape, so this is inexcusable. The software for the phone is poorly designed. For example, if I have a message, the screen says something like You Have A Message with a key to hit in order to "read" the message. So you hit the key and it "thinks" for a few seconds before coming up with "You have one message!" again! And there isn't even an option on the screen or under "options" to hear it! You have to back up to the main screen by hand in order to listen to the message!

Pretty good around the campus (4 or 5 bars), dip a bit in the basement but okay all around.