I drive back roads between Frederick and Rockville. There are several areas along the back roads (Route 85 and Route 28), where I would depend on reception the most in an emergency, but I lose connection with calls I'm on, or have no service at all in those areas. More aggrivating than that, is I told Verizon to take me off their email list for special offers because I was considering a new carrier for the next contract period -- all I got was "okay -- you are off our list". Nothing saying they will foward my concerns to customer service, just okay, you're off. I think that's terrible customer service and they obviously aren't concerned about losing long-standing clients.

I had Sprint in Chicago and moved to Frederick about 9 months ago. While I never had a problem in chicago, around here my signal strength varies wildly, even sitting still in my apartment in town. Calls frequently drop or sound garbled. I haven't encountered a "dead zone" with absolutely no service, but it is utterly unreliable. With my plan expiring this summer, I'm definitely in the market for a new carrier.

Terrible coverage in my home off Pinecliff Dr.near Spring Ridge - usually I only get 1-2 bars (although I sometimes get 5 bars for a hour or two). MANY dropped calls. I have complained to Verizon, but they insist coverage in my area is excellent. Now that my contract has finally expired, I will be switching carriers. Also get poor coverage along RTE 85 in the shopping areas, such as Home Depot, Target and FSK Mall.

My phone gyrates wildly between 5 bars and 1 bar inside and outside my house, even while I'm being still. The real average reception is 1 bar. Constant muffled and stuttered voice reception with predictable drops during the afternoons. Inside or outside the house, it doesn't matter. Even if I drive towards Hwy. 15 on Opossumtown Pike the situation is little better. In fact, reception remains muffled until I hit the Key Mall. From April 17th until April 21st, my cell phone service was totally unusable, even for retrieving voice mail, even though I had "3 bars". That's a shame since Cingular works so well in the Atlanta area. I guess you can't travel, have just one cell phone, and expect to have any reception.

good in this area

Frequent signal drops and regularly less than one bar in the "high tech" corridor off of Rt. 85. Can you hear me now? NO !

Nothing. Park users, especially mountain hikers and bikers, need good communication to get help in case of an accident. I understand all carriers have very poor to no coverage up here. Certainly, not one is reliable.

Mostly bad reception. Some parts of Frederick are dead. Sprint plays hard ball. Expect no sympathy and no getting out of your contract, sucker!

The service never drops out only because the tower is about 1.5 mi. Away

I had Sprint for six months after I moved up here, and it just wasn't acceptable. I've had Verizon fov over a year now. It has much better reception in rural areas, and I have had very few problems with dropped calls anywere (although there is a black hole on Rt. 340 between the Maryland/Virginia state line and Frederick). Verizon simply owns over everyone else in the area, even in DC and Baltimore (I spend quite a bit of time in each). I had an Audiovox flip-phone for a while, and usually had between three and five bars, although I often recieved no reception inside. I just got my Kyocera, and I almost always have four bars (the max on this phone), and many fewer problems indoors.