The only complaint I can make about the phone service with Sprint is that it isn't so hot in my "basement-like" apartment (1-2 bars), but it still works. Outside the apartment and in any normal apartment in the Portland area I have never had a problem. Thumbs up from me. Now if Sprint could just give me a nice phone for signing a new contract.

must be that we are surrounded by the columbia river

While inside the house (houseboat on the river, that is, a physical location lower in elevation than anywhere else in Portland where it is probably harder to "see" cell towers) in John's Landing area reception is marginal. Verizon seems to work better here (according to my neighbor, who pitched his ATT GSM phone for a Verizon model 18 months ago. Cingular seems to work acceptably in other areas of the city for me, but their coverage in the remote areas of northwest does not match Verizon's. I had an ATT TDMA phone prior to the Treo 650. Had similar problems while at home with it, but overall the TDMA reception was as good as Verizon's (except at my house. Considering getting a Wilson external whole-house antenna.

Bad reception... can't hardly use my phone inside my house and I'll have full signal and still reception is choppy and I have FREQUENT dropped calls. When driving on the 84 or 205 still real bad... FULL SIGNAL and I'll have dropped calls and choppy reception. In Washington it's better... Portland reception sucks real bad, even downtown. The bars on my phone may say full, but doesn't mean it will work what so ever.

3-4 bars mostly. Last year, service was pretty bad ie: dropped calls, calls not coming through, bad reception, etc. Now... ... it seems since Sprint bought-out Nextel things are much, much better! Anyone else experience this? I noticed not many comments on Sprint. Considered switching, but I just might stick with Sprint. Also, one last note, as long as I have one steady, stable bar- just 1, I get crystal clear calls!

Typically 1 bar. Drop calls are a common occurence. Sometimes can't even get reception with Tmobile. Got great coverage with Verizon

Poor coverage- calls drop off consistantly. Several other cariers have this area saturated

We had AT&T for several years and never had any problems. Had to do the Cingular switch because a phone got stolen - which coincided with moving from Sellwood to NE and now standing in the house or yard you can watch the bars go from 1 to 4 to 3 to 2 to 4 to none in a matter of minutes. During a 20 minute phone call we'll probably have to call back at least 3 times because the call drops - if I can make the call at all. Had a bunch of people over the pther night and had them all test their signal strengths - no one with AT&T / Cingular could get a good signal. Sprint was fair but also up and down, Verizon was pretty good, T-Mobile the winner. Now if only we could switch without it costing a fortune... ..

The shadow of Mt Scott seems to block out some reception; move around the mountain or up it and signal returns to 5 bars.

70% of calls are good. I blame reception more on the phone than the network, my old Nokia worked fine here. Halsey / Glisan near Glendover Golf Course drop almost all the time for me.

Given my experience with the SE Division dead spot (30th to 40th), where I work, and the SE Belmont dead spot (15th to 35th), where I used to live, I consider myself lucky to live at this intersection, which is one of the best places to talk on a T-Mobile in the city, as far as I can tell.

Huge dead spot, calls drop almost every time I drive down this busy, thriving street almost in the middle of town. This is more or less comparable to having no reception in, say, Brooklyn Heights. This area is urban, not far-flung wilderness; you'd think you could get calls here.

Dropped calls all the time. We are on the river and there is wide open spaces... .not happy with GSM.

TDMA for now works great! Although this is going to change. ATT / Cingular are phasing out TDMA and going to GSM. A few notes to others who posted here. ATT person wondering if they should switch to Cingular. They are the same company now so your results would be the exact same with both companies. All ATT GSM people. It really isn't ATT's fault you did not research before you bought. GSM is still newish and still rolling out. Right now the old TDMA network is still much better than the GSM. Over the next 5 years this will switch and us TDMAers will be up a creek and GSM will be the way to go. To ATT GSM people, give it time, the company is investing millions in the GSM network. You just need to give them time to install it. Do I work for ATT? No, I just did my research before investing in a phone plan.

Reception seems to be getting worse and worse as time goes by. I can't get reception sitting at my office desk and I'm on the 2nd floor of a 2 story building.

nextel has never given me a problem I love it, it has great resepsion were ever I go. and it even has walkie talkie witch is also a great thing.

Ever since AT&T 7 Cingular joined up, its been a nightmare. I get fast busy signals in the evenings and dropped calls constantly. In the daytime, people tell me that they called and heard the phone ring, but I didnt. They say its an equipment issue but Im positive its not because my friends experience the same problems.

I can not make calls from within my house. I must be in the street to be able to have a conversation.

No reception at home. Droped calls coming west at the sylvan hills. Droped calls coming south on 405 at the Burnside exit. Droped calls somewhere on 84 W around Lloyd center exit. No reception out Farmington and 219. Considering I'm consistently in these places, it kinda sucks.

Most of the time, the reception is good. However, where I live is a black hole, coming up 26W around the sylvan hills consistently drops calls, and sometimes out in the boonies of Hillsboro it won't even have any signal. Friends also have problems where I live, regardless of who the carrier is, although Verizon seems to have less problems than AT&T / Cingular has. I'm hopeful that Cingular will get better and am getting a new phone, so I'll see how that goes.