Bought new Iphones and paid extra for data coverage while in Canada to check weather and do flight planning. We are just north of Fort Frances and could not get reception at the cabin. A few times we were able to access the Internet while ON the lake. Last year we were able to send / receive text msgs at the cabin, this year... nothing. One person with Sprint was able to send and receive text msgs.

Was recently in Canada just north ( 15 miles) of international Falls. Tried calling with my verison phone. No Luck. (This same phone worked well from same place last season, Feb 2010, and on previous times) This time my calls were all intercepted / directed to a single Thunder Bay Mobility recording. The recording advised to dial *611 or 626-CELL for help. These numbers were to no avail. AS I Could access nothing else but this same recording no matter what was dialed. It was a dead end! Dialing a #1 before desired number had no effect. Verison worked well in this same area before... WHY NOT NOW???

There are many seasonal residents in this area that are former Unicel (now Verizon) customers and some are Verizon customers from distant cities. Since the switch from Unicel to Verizon (VZ) in late March 2009, the service has deteriorated terribly. There have been problems routing of calls to switched that do not recognize the source tower number and reject the calls. Also, Ontario's Thunder Bay Mobility is part of the VZ Extended Network fro the North America plans; both are type B systems, but T-Bay requires a "1" to be inserted before the area code (AC) to complete the call while VZ does not require it. For numbers stored in a user's cellphone without a "1" preceding the AC, the calls are rejected. Use of the "Home" option on the cellphone system settings does not seem to have an effect. One day, service is excellent, the next day, making a call is impossible. Calls to VZ *611 usually are deflected by the Customer Service person tell the customer to reprogram the cellphone using *228, Option 1. This does not appear to have an effect at all. Particularly annoying is the fact that the Customer Service person can see on their screen just when you last updated via *228 - it may have been the day before, but they still tell you to do the *228 procedure. The bottom line is that there is no line of communications from the user to the VZ tower maintenance organization that may not even be a VZ company but a subcontractor. This no way to treat customers!

tower is no longer in service, roaming to Canadian tower. They state unable to fix at this time.

Cingular service on the North Arm of Rainy Lake is spooky as a French woman. I believe the Cingular service is provided by the tower at the 2nd Bridge on the south side of Sand Bay. At the 5 mile dock near the Causeway the signal is zero, Nada, kaput. If I drive west 2 miles toward Fort Frances the signal dramatically improves. If I boat north from the 5 mile dock the signal is very poor, non-existant 1 / 2 mile north. Going further north, there are places where some signal can be detected. At my cabin, 20 miles north of the tower, I have a 16db Yagi 90 feet above the lake which will bring in Cingular's GSM signal at 2 bars, enough for reasonably reliable communications.

Verizon uses a tower belonging to a local cell company. (Its actually an old fire tower). 4 to 5 bars in town and east on land or the lake.