Verizon wireless is the only carrier that really gets decent coverage once you get out of town. There are a lot of dead spots on back roads but the only service I know of that does better is Carolina West Wireless. I'm under contract with Verizon right now but anyone that lives out of town seems to have carolina west.

I had Virgin on a trip up to Boone, and I MAYBE got a bar on campus. After that, nada. I LOVE Virgin Mobile, but since I'm moving up there, I have to switch!

When might AT&T think about a tower in the Boone area? Even though Apple has a cool phone, it's not enough to keep me on AT&T for cell service. Contract up in 4 months and I switch back to Verizon. I'll make do with a Droid!

Between 0-5 bars but dropped calls all the time. Won't receive / send calls / texts much of the time. At least once every couple days phone service stops working altogether. AT&T also has horrible service, especially when trying to call Verizon to AT&T and vice versa. Don't know of any phone service that works well in WNC

On campus I have 5 bars, as soon as I go off, it's 1-3 bars. I just use free digital roam, so I'm most likely on some other tower and I get awesome coverage with that. When I'm not on digital roam though, it's really spotty, and my friends on Sprint who visited and didn't have free roam ran up $40 extra on their bill that month and they only talked for 15-20 min in Boone!

I have not used AT&T here but I have heard people say that coverage in this area around Boone is not too good except in town. However, I have Verizon and am happy to report that coverage is almost complete anywhere I go. In fact, I can drive from here to Asheville and find only one area on 221 between linville falls and marion where there is any significant lack of coverage. Otherwise coverage in town and throughout the countryside is generally good with a few small pockets of weak signal here and there. Overall, I would not consider another provider here except Carolina West. In fact, Carolina West owns most of the CDMA towers around here anyway. In some places my phone operates (without roaming charges) on the Carolina West network. For instance, if I drive to Jefferson my phone switches to a CW tower near the intersection of 421 and 221 near Deep Gap.

None to average reception until recently - everything goes to voice mail with o phone even ringing, cannot receive text message.

US Cellular actually works really well in and around Boone. There are dead spots between Boone and Banner Elk, but I don't know any carriers that don't drop out there. I've never had a dropped call around Boone, not even inside stores or in the woods.

Sprint / Nextel has NO service at all anywhere on the campus. Even the walkie talkie service doesn't work and the IC402 phone is supposed to have double the coverage because it uses both Sprint and Nextel towers, HA... ..

Great service throughout Boone. I've taken and used my phone just about everywhere and I'm constantly at 5 bars. Thanks Verizon!

Just moved to Boone. Cingular coverage seems to be fine in town but when I drive off the main road and up into the mountains and my neigbhorhood it quickly goes to nonexistant coverage. I'm going to have to switch to a local provider that everyone says has great coverage if Cingular doesn't do something soon. Does anyone know if some phones are better than others or is this a network problem?

not an altell tower (roaming). highly variable reception from none to average.

Get Signal Everywhere except inside Shops at New Market Centere! Verizon - no dropped calls - service everywhere! Cingular you really need to rethink your ALLOVER NETWORK! HUH, Cingular sux in Boone!

Works ok in town but all calls drop when not in major town etc and other wise I have no use with cingular! Verizon here I come again!

I can't contact my son. I bought the family plan and he can't even recieve my calls. I have to call his roommate who has another carrier. Maybe I should try to drop cingular???

I can not get reception at home.

GSM reception in Boone is now much better than CDMA. I receive signal everywhere I did with Verizon and no more ANALOG ROAM CRAP!!