SOS Only all the time. Nothing but excuses from AT&T.

I have not found any dead spots with verizon even with an all digital phone. I frequently have a strong signal when my friend who uses AT&T has none or a very poor signal. I have traveled coast to coast with my phone and have never been without a signal. Even in a poor reception area in the mountains I was able to make and receive phone calls and experienced very few dropped calls.

I do well to get one bar in my neighborhood, and I usually have calls dropping once every 2-3 minutes. It is so frustrating that I drive five miles to the nearest grocery store and sit in my car to speak on the phone. Sprint Sucks in Circle C North.

After finally getting fed up with lousy reception at both my home and office, I decided to try T-Mobile. After signing up for a trial with T-Mobile I decided to place a call from the AT&T GSM phone and the T-Mobile GSM phone -- both while sitting on my couch in my living room. I called my home land line and left a voice message from each. The T-Mobile line was not perfect. I still sounded like I was on a mobile phone and not a land line, but there was no noise and the call was clear and understandable. To my dismay, the call placed from the AT&T phone was about 95% static with not a single word that was understandable. It sounded as if I had just dialed the phone and held it out the window while doing about 80 MPH on the freeway in the middle of a torrential downpour. Now I know why my friends kept complaining. The reception was noisy, but comprehehsible on my end, but I feel bad now that that's what they've been hearing every time they call my mobile number while I'm at home. Though AT&T has always taken care of any issues and I've had no problems in the past, it looks as if I'll be switching to T-Mobile. I'm giving AT&T one last chance next week and trying an upgrade on my phone to make sure my it's their towers and not just my phone. If a new Nokia phone (the brand with the best reception as a general rule of thumb) doesn't take care of the AT&T signal issue, then I'll be making the switch to T-Mobile permanent once my two week trial period is finished. For what it's worth, my wife's AT&T TDMA phone (Nokia) gets great reception in our house (and most everywhere we ever go), but my AT&T GSM phone (discussed above) basically does not work (at least not for conversing) at my house or my office.

After finally getting fed up with lousy reception at both my home and office, I decided to try T-Mobile. After signing up for a trial with T-Mobile I decided to place a call from the AT&T phone and the T-Mobile phone both while sitting on my couhc in my living room. I called my home land line and left a voice message from each. The T-Mobile line was not perfect. I still sounded like I was on a mobile phone and not a land line, but there was no noise and the call was clear and understandable. To my dismay, the call placed from the AT&T phone was about 95% static with not a single word that was understandable. It sounded as if I had just dialed the phone and held it out the window while doing about 80 MPH on the freeway in the middle of a torrential downpour. Now I know why my friends kept complaining. The reception was noisy, but comprehehsible on my end, but I feel bad now that that's what they've been hearing every time they call my mobile number while I'm at home. Though AT&T has always taken care of any issues and I've had no problems in the past, it looks as if I'll be switching to T-Mobile. I'm giving AT&T one last chance next week and trying an upgrade on my phone to make sure my it's their towers and not just my phone. If a new Nokia phone (the brand with the best reception as a general rule of thumb) doesn't take care of the AT&T signal issue, then I'll be making the switch to T-Mobile permanent once my two week trial period is finished. For what it's worth, my wife's AT&T TDMA phone (Nokia) gets great reception in our house, but my AT&T GSM phone (discussed above) basically does not work (at least not for conversing) at my house or my office.

For some reason, I get a great signal everywhere around Austin except at my house and my office (in the buildings North of the Riata Apartments... and I sit five feet from a wall of windows). I can be in the car on the phone on the way home and have a great signal until I get about a block from my house and then the signal just goes to crap and frequently even drops the call about as I'm turning the corner to my house. Reception in the house is never more than three bars and that's only if I'm on the Southeast or Northeast corners of the house. If I walk to the other corners of the house, the signal will degrade enough that people can't hear me any more and often hang up on me. My 3650 and 6230 didn't have 850 MHz reception, so I switched from the 6230 back to my old T616 in the hopes that using a phone with both 850 MHz reception and 1900 MHz reception would help, but no luck. I'm about to try out a 6620 to see if the T616 850 MHz reception is just sub-par as SE has been known for in the past. For what it's worth, my brother-in-law uses my old 3650 with T-Mobile now and he gets five bars anywhere in my house. I'm tempted to take him up to my ofice some time and see what kind of reception he gets there. T-Mobile's coverage area is nowere near that of AT&T, but I hardly travel any more, so I may have to (reluctanlty) switch if they provide superior coverage around town.

Just got T-Mobile. Only 1-2 bar in my apt but still able to talk. It's really weird coz with only 1-2 bar, I can still talk clearly. It's even weirder to talk with no bar. I really don't understand. Occassional cut offs, more so than my old AT&T TDMA Motorola V60i. Not sure if it's because of an external vs internal antenna issue or the service provider (AT&T vs. T-mobile). The quality of sound is good for the most part. But on both sides of the conversation, we all sound like we're talking in a big hall (no echoes, just sounds like we talk in a big room). Again, not sure if it is a phone issue or a service provider issue.

Very good reception in my apt complex, The Ridge. Good Reception most of the time around UT campus. Zero Reception in Dobie Mall Food Court. Some static or cut offs occassionally... quite rare actually.

Good reception at work (78744) near Burleson and 183, even inside large building. Lousy at home though. Typically 1 bar, but fluctuates between 0 and 3. Dropped calls common, line static always present. Walking 1/4 mile away gives steady 2-3 bars and static disappears, going 1 mile from house gives steady 4-5 bars. Voicestream was even worse than this when I had it. Seriously considering dropping service and going back to land line.

AT&T GSM reception is very poor (0-1 bar) around my house. However, if you manually switch the network to Cingular, I get great reception (4-6 bars). Samsung and Motorola phones have this option. I haven't used other brands, but I suspect they do as well. You are technically roaming (my plan includes free roaming). So you don't get to use free mobile-to-mobile minutes (you will use anytime minutes). I normally leave it on Cingular network (it stays on the manually selected network until you manually change it or go to automatic mode). Sometimes, I go back to AT&T network to use free mobile-to-mobile minutes. It can be annoying having to switch back and forth, but it allows me to get good reception in places where I normally go. Not ideal but usuable.