Coverage Reviews for Philadelphia, PA

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Rating | Carrier | Location

T-Mobile

Good reception in the area regardless of in or outside the house.

T-Mobile

Works outside on campus fine. Not at ALL inside buildings.

Nextel

nextel's reception is by far the worst in the philadelphia metro area. i've had Verizon and T-Mobile as carriers before, and never had any problems until I made one of the worst decisions of my life by choosing nextel / sprint. even after the merger, the service seems to be getting worse. not only is the reception light years away from other carriers, nextel's customer service is atrocious. i've never had such rude customer service reps since i've dined at any restaurant on city ave. bottom line, I will NEVER choose Nextel as a service provider again nor do I recommend ANYONE to choose nextel, EVER!

Verizon

I had Sprint before and it was terrible--constant dropped calls. Verizon reception is fairly good in my apartment and all through Center and Old City.

Nextel

The reception out here isnt bad, but the way the houses are made, I believe that they are the reasons why we have so many deadspots. I get reception outside of my home, ut the moment I step in my door, the phone reception dies (for every carrier). I have a hot spot in my room where I will get 3 to 4 bars, but I have to keep the phoen there and use a bluetooth headset to talk without movign the phoen due to fear of lost reception.

AT&T

The reception out here isnt bad, but the way the houses are made, I believe that they are the reasons why we have so many deadspots. I get reception outside of my home, ut the moment I step in my door, the phone reception dies (for every carrier). I have a hot spot in my room where I will get 3 to 4 bars, but I have to keep the phoen there and use a bluetooth headset to talk without movign the phoen due to fear of lost reception.

T-Mobile

T-Mobile offers very good reception throughout the Fairmount neighborhood, both inside and outside of buildings. Visitors with Verizon plans have a very hard time with reception in this area. Why can't Verizon fix this? It's been this way for years. I'd love to switch but reception in my residence is a must, so I'm staying with T-Mo.

Verizon

Love Verizon it gets reception when I need it to and I can sometimes even get reception underground on the train.

T-Mobile

I get little to no reception in my house. As soon as I go out side I get at best 2 bars.

Sprint

Most of the time Reception is cool, it's the voice quality thats bad. I find myself self saying what did you say over and over again, also ringtones volume is low compared to other phones.

T-Mobile

Worked fine until Nov. of 05 and then I would get a continuosly fluctuating signal and almost any call over 5 min. would be dropped. Sometimes I get bars, but it won't let me make a call. T-Mobile gave me an excuse about aligning towers to fix it, but nothing has changed in months.

Verizon

For the most part I've had VZW for about 7yrs and its been great. However there phones suck compared to other companies. Sprint / Nextel has the flyest phones but the worst service.

T-Mobile

Only one dead spot on Germantown Av. in Mt. Airy. Great phone. Too bad they don't offer this one anymore.

Verizon

The reception has been great all over Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. Outside of an occasional dropped call I can't report any cellular war stories. I've been in basements, elevators, on highways, and in the countryside and have always been able to make some sort of connection. I must say I also love the Kyocera brand. The handsets features are very easy to navigate. And Verizon seems to be the only company in Philly carrying them Verizon is more expensive and I'm experimenting by switching to T-Mobile using a Samsung x475? phone---I'm holding my breath hoping the experiment doesn't tank... and have a sinking sensation that I will be back to Verizon within the 20 return window

AT&T

Cingular has great coverage here with signal even indoors in elevators. I used to have T-Mobile but due to poor cell coverage in this area, I switched.

Verizon

Coverage is fine in about 1 / 2 of the hospital; the ground floor of most buildings and the Rhoades building have poor-no coverage. Total deadspot in the ground floor hallway between Rhoades and Silverstein. Best reception in the upper floors of Founders and Silverstein.

Cellular One

Reception is pathetic on the cheap plan I have. If I get service at all, I usually lose the connection after a few minutes. This is true all over the City. By contrast, my Cingular service on my blackberry is usually fairly reliable. I can not wait to get out of my cellular plan.

T-Mobile

T-mobile reception was ok at home, but I used to have dropped called constantly (usually at the 17 minute mark in a phone call).

AT&T

Just switched from T-Mobile to Cingular for non-reception reasons. so far the coverage has been great. I used to have AT&T Wireless 2 years ago, and they were horrible, in this area, but the quality has steadily improved, and I almost always get max or max - 1 strength

Verizon

I used to get excellent service in my home, even in the old stone basement. But just within the past two weeks I can't get any service except analog until I drive to the top of the hill! service constantly goes in and out. There is no reason for this... ridiculous.

Nextel

There is completely no reception indoors and very minimal reception outdoors

AT&T

Works well generally except in my house. Many complaints from others about the sound quality. Anybody have any experience with this phone or the 650 with Verizon?

T-Mobile

I live in the Mt. Airy / Chestnut Hill area of Philadelphia. T-Mobile constantly drops coverage. Especially frustrating are the 'call failed' messages I get until I clear the dead zones. I am switching carriers due to the frustration...

AT&T

Perfect reception on the 17th floor of my University of Pennsylvania highrise. No problems at all around any other parts of the campus, except for the basements of some buildings.

Nextel

I bought a Nextel for all thier cool features such as walkie talkie and insta-messaging, but now regret ever getting involved with this compnay thier reception is non-exsistant and I drop at least 5 calls a day! Take my Advice and Aviod at all risks!

Verizon

If I want to make calls in my house, I would have to stand up, sit straight, or I would get dropped. I put my phone in the living room and sometimes it won't ring when people call, then I would get a voice msg indicator from them because later. I can't even make calls outside in my back yard, the only place where calls don't get dropped on a regular basis is my front porch. Besides that, it works excellent everywhere else I have used it in Phila

Verizon

In my apt. calls are continually dropped. It is so frustrating.

Verizon

Generally reception is around the Philly is great, but it sucks at my new place in Fairmount. Unusable indoors, very tempermental outside.

AT&T Wireless (TDMA)

Overall pretty good, but many dropped calls. Spotty signal inside my 3rd floor apartment. Practically no reception inside university buildings.

Verizon

I have never had below 4 bars since I got verzion except for some spots in center city.

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