Coverage comments are submitted voluntarily by visitors around the Silver Spring, MD area.
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This is a bad area for cell phone use... While there are "5 bars" on the display, I get dropped calls all the time. Sometimes I will try and try for 20 minutes to make a call from my home upstairs, then go downstairs and have no problems at all. I use AT&T because its cheap. Also, I would NOT recommend the Samsung SGH-A707, IMO it is a crappy product. Thanks
Since my November review, we have been told by a Cingular / AT&T customer service rep. that one of the towers in our area is "severely degraded". This is apparantly the reason for our extremely unreliable service. Since that time, it does not appear that any effort has been made to fix the tower. Our call reliability was once excellent but has continued to steadily worsen. Regardless of the number of bars we get (and it fluctuates widely - from 5 to 0, to 3, to 1... -- all within a period of a few minutes), the only constant is that almost every call drops the signal at some point, either on the caller or the receiver's end. In fact the conversations are exactly as depicted in the Cingular commercials! Extraordinarily frustrating! We have had enough and are actively seeking another service provider.
I am a former AT&T customer who was switched to Cingular when the companies joined. Previously, I was very happy with reception in and around my house and around the area (4 or 5 bars almost all the time - even walking along the edge of Rock Creek Park) -- until Cingular began its "fewest dropped calls" ad. Ever since then, we've had very frequent dropped calls and MANY one-way calls (where EITHER we can hear the caller OR the caller can hear us!) Don't know what the problem is, but we are becoming very frustrated. Perhaps a tower has been removed.
Just switched from my AT&T phone to Cingular, which they promised would improve reception and call quality. Nope--there are still nany dead spots in my house; I often can hear the caller, but they can't hear me. Going into the front yard is my only option--the backyard reception is awful too.
Since July 20, 2006, NO coverage on my side of the street (parallel to Sligo Creek). Prior to that (since I moved here 2003), strong coverage. Multiple calls for network investigation -- nada. Cingular sux.
I switched from AT&T to Cingular a bit over a month ago, and got a new phone that I'm very happy with, but it was a total disaster when it came to cell coverage. Driving from Silver Spring around the western beltway to I-95 S and ultimately south to Richmond, it's pretty hard to maintain a conversation for more than 5-10 minutes at a time virtually anywhere along the entire route. Now, I just got off the phone with Cingular and I have moderate good news: the representative spoke with a supervisor, who verified that they do in fact have low coverage around the western part of the beltway, and they agreed to waive my termination fee. (I had argued that their sales rep sold me a product that doesn't deliver what they said it would, and I made it clear that I was prepared to document all my dropouts for a week or two and then dispute all charges on my account.) The rep was actually very apologetic, but she also said explicitly that it will be at least months before they get enough new towers in place in my area for it to make a difference to me. She also told me that she could not switch me back to AT&T because they were phasing it out. So, bottom line: I think (and the company itself more or less verified) that Cingular is virtually worthless if what you want to do is talk on the phone on the western Beltway and down I-95 South toward Richmond. (Yes, I use a hands free set and I drive very carefully, with a lot of follow distance!) However, I was lucky enough (or had chutzpah enough) to get them to waive my early termination fee. Now I just need to figure out which other provider is the best one to switch to, because I don't want to go through all this again. Wish I could have my AT&T back, sigh...
Cingular has decent reception in this area at times. It tends to get overloaded at times and calls will not go through or come in. Additionally, the service is hit or miss. Sometimes there is a delay in receiving a voicemail notification. Also, the service is very temperamental as you start traveling around, working in some places and not in others. Overall the signal strennth is not very strong anywhere (even though my phone indicates that it is). The service is mediocre at best, and I would npt conitnue on with them if it were not for the fact that they use GSM technology, and this saves me money when I am traveling outside the USA.
Typically, the phone only has a one to two bar connection (both inside and outside) and the calls eventually end up being dropped. I've noticed Cingular generally has poor coverage around DC altogether, though, the phone seems to work great in Scottsdale, AZ.
