Alltel has the best coverage around Grounds in UVA, hands down. Verizon has no native coverage in Charlottesville and rides on Alltel's network, so one could check out their reviews too. Living in Bice, Alltel is about the only company that allows you to make and receive calls anywhere in the building. Most of my friends who are on Cingular / AT&T or T-Mobile have to stand right next to a window or go outside the building.

Have to be outside of house to use phone. Battery runs down by mid afternoon from trying to connect. Works fine a quarter of a mile up the street towards town. My neighbor, across the street, has the same problem. We need a cell tower on Birdwood to serve Bellair, Ednam, Farmington, and 250 West.

I had a few problems getting reception in my apartment not far from campus with Sprint so I found this site looking for reviews. The person posting on April 23, 2006 was a huge help. I am just backing up those statements by saying Alltel really does a great job around here, much better reception than any other carrier that I know of and I have friends that use them all. I no longer have to look for a window to use my phone inside and coverage all over campus wher I spend most of my time and Charlottesville in general is great.

Call reception quality generally poor so that person on other end has difficulties understanding. Calls rarely dropped however.

I lose Alltel service, for all intents and purposes, just south of I-66 on Rte 29 South even before Red Hill. Ditto just west of Rte 29 on Fontaine Extended and North of Ruckersville almost to Gainesville toward DC. I understand the Nokia receives better service from Alltel but I'm not willing to buy a phone just to test that theory. Looks like I might try US Cellular, judging from the comments here.

I work for OneStop Cellular in Fashion Square Mall. I sell 4 carriers, Alltel, Cingular, Nextel, NTelos (and until recently T-Mobile). Out of all my carriers Alltel has by far the best signal. I have a digital only phone, meaning it won't pick up on old analog signals in rural areas, and I have only lost my signal once, not only traveling through out the entire state of VA but the entire east coast (and I travel every week). I only lost signal for 3 minutes in Gordonsville, due to no towers in that area due to restrictions on building cell towers. My phone even gets a digital signal in Nelson County, way, way off the road at my mother's cabin. The Alltel network INCLUDES the Verizon and Sprint networks, meaning you can use any of thoe towers for FREE. Plus, there's no roaming on your home sate's towers, no matter the carrier! All my Alltel customers come back happy and out of all carriers I love this one the most. If you ever are interested in any service, come to a store like ours and let us show you the coverage maps side by side!

Over two years with Alltel (CDMA) I am extremely happy with the coverage. I stay on Digital only mode for extended battery life and get good reception every where intown, north, east and west. There are a few spotty areas south of I64, but it is acceptable. Alltel's customer service - both local and their 800 number has been good. I would like to go to GSM, so I am waiting for Verizon to build out their service area.

Alltel easily has the best reception in the area. I work for a contractor driving out around the counties (Albemarle, Green, Nelson, etc) and get reception in places no one else does. Also, with the "National Freedom" plan I've always had reception while traveling in major cities, small towns, several calls with vehicle trouble in highways, everywhere... The Only trouble is the lack of phone selection. The Nokia phone gets reception in places that people with Alltel that use Motorola or Kyocera phones get no reception. I've been wanting to change companies just to get a higher end model (of Nokia, of course), but no one else can match the coverage area.

Spotty at best around here. Better around other parts of town though. Call connection times are to long. Also they connect with a annoying click click sound. The same thing happens when someone attemptes to call with about 20sec of clicking then voicemail.

Very poor reception throughout the area where I live. I can basically only call from my room near the window, and that's spotty at best. In other parts of Charlottesville reception is slightly better, but not good, so I will definitely be making a switch when I can.

I am very disappointed with AT&T. I bought a very nice phone with all kinds of apps etc but half the time I cannot get reception around Charlottesville. When I travel I get great reception but at home (south edge of town) it is spotty. Around town reception is very poor most of the time. Some places great, some places poor, some places zero. This is not that big of a town. Why can't we get reception everywhere in these few square miles. I used to have US Cell and reception was much better. Not happy with AT&T.

Could not get any reception indoors. I rarely even got one bar. The only way I could make a call and not have it dropped was to stand outside away from any trees.

My phone drops almost every call I make. It is not just my phone because my husband has AT&T and his also does this and my old phone did this as well. I am unable to send pictures or receive pics or multimedia, as well.

In my office which is right on the mall and has many windows I have reception about half of the time and consistently drop calls and have calls go straight to voicemail. Verizon customers have not experienced reception trouble in my office, though I have not had a Verizon phone to test reception over a longer period of time.

No signal or very little signal. Floats back and forth from no service to searching to 1 bar.

AT&T in Downtown Charlottesville is unusable. I have been a customer of ACS analog on the Kenai Peninsula, cheapo no-name SIM cards in Europe, and Claro and Movistar in Nicaragua and Peru; no experience was worse than what I'm going through now, Summer 2010. My phone just doesn't work at all for days at a time. This has been a problem for weeks. Every time I reach customer support they say a technician will be at the tower at 5am to fix everything. Load of crap. F that s. DO NOT come to Cville without Verizon.

Located in Berkeley subdivision near Four Seasons. Excellent 4 - 5 bars inside the house.

ATT does not work on Garth Rd.past owensville Rd.and starts getting spotty once west of Foxfield. Someone that has Alltel has great coverage out here.

I get no reception at all in any number of locations. The folks at AT&T hav been attentive, but nothing ever gets resolved. They look at their maps and assure me I should be getting the calls I never get. They say things will improve sometime in 2009, but in the meantime I'm virtually without a cell phone.

Even if I get 2 to 3 bars, I usually don't get dropped calls and get all of my calls, etc. The only times I don't is when I'm in a big auditorium or basements (aka during class so I don't need to use it anyways). Sure when I was in new dorms, my service was craptacular at best, but now that I'm out in Dillard (and when I'm in Bice as well), I have great service! (minus elevators)