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I like Sprint PCS reception, but not in my neighborhood. The reception is very poor. My wife still persists with Sprint, but I switched to Cingular which has good reception in that neighborhood. If Sprint builds tower in my area, there are a number of people who will switch to it.

Obviously, Nextel knows that it is a dying company. Very poor reception, messages show up after days and truly such an useless cell phone system.

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...

Occasionally good enough to carry on a simple conversation upstairs, but often no reception at all in the basement. Sometimes it works a little better on the front porch.

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.

On the beltway around Greenbelt heading toward Baltimore coming from AAFB, the call always gets muddled and then drops. Nextel suggests bringing the phone in for a diagnostic test, but never admits fault with their service area.

Since AT&T merged with Cingular my reception has gone severly down hill. Every time I call someone they can't hear me even though I can hear them and I have to call a second time. The bars change so rapidly, I go from like 5 to 0 in with a few steps. I used to get great service in my house but now there are numerous dead spots where I lose service. I also get busy signals when I call the other phones on my family plan... cell phones aren't supposed to be busy, you should be routed to voicemail. When I complained to Cingular they said it was my phone and tried to convince me to buy a new one, but I think that is just a marketing ploy.

Drops half my calls, usually when I'm first making or receiving. The phone always shows four or five bars, but as soon as I hit send it goes away. I tried the Samsung 650 trimode phone which was recommended by Verzon, but it made no difference. Same problems indoors and outdoors.

1 or 0 bars, often get cut off, usually can't even get through...

Almost no reception indoors. Frequent disconnects. Slightly better (1-2 bars) outside and across street.