I want to get a new Apple phone and understand that you have to use AT&T service. Does anyone have any experience with this carrier on Bainbridge Island? Do you know if the 3G feature will help reception? Thanks

Always full bars. Think that Cell Tower is in Masonic Temple Parking lot, across from BHS.

Hwy. 305 and the Winslow area have good coverage. Never any dropped calls from my residence near Winslow. Only 1 bar, but never any complaints on both ends. There are some problems in the most rural parts of the island especially inside buildings, but a signal was reported.

Just moved here. No reception on T-Mobile for most of downtown Bainbridge Island. Especially near the Town and Country - the real town center. T-Mobile says there is no problem because their coverage maps say it is okay. None of our three different phones work here, but they refuse to acknowledge a problem. So we'll all be switching as soon as I find out which system DOES work here.

No reception at all in downtown Winslow on T-Mobile. Can make calls from my home near the Library, but only if I stand up and / or lean against the window. Also can't make calls during a long part of the Seattle-Bainbridge ferry ride. When my calls drop, Verizon users are still talking. (Yes, I'll be switching!)

Zero reception, on the West side of Bainbridge. Reception starts at Fletcher Bay and High School Road. 2 bars at the High School.

T-Mobile GSM reception on Bainbridge Island is very spotty. I like in the downtown "core", 15 minutes from the ferry. At the ferry, if you don't move, signal strengh is 2-3 bars. Walking up the hill to the main drag "Winslow Way" and go to the grocery store (T&C Market) , you're in a hole. If you stand on the park bench in front of T&C (and if the stars and sun an planets are in the right conjunction), you might be able to "phone home". Walking up the hill 1/2 mi to my house (near Wallace Way), you're still in the hole. I barely get reception on the 2nd floor. Walking another 1/2 mi to the Bainbridge High School and a 20-30' higher elevation, FIVE BARS. You can hear me now. This whole scenario is a metaphor for T-Mobile's poor service due to an underbuilt GSM network. So, in ZIP=98110 (Bainbridge Island), you will get service. You may just have to reenact the "Can you hear me now" game to make a call. By the way, sea kayak over to Blake Island, and T-Mobile GSM works fine.

No signal at home on either of our Verizon phones. Despite a month of BS stories -- like "we'll have a new tower up and operating real near your house in just a few days," Verizon plans to have a tech come out and verify that we have no signal. They say that "we've had no complaints about service on Bainbridge." Like, helloooo!

No signal at home on either of our Verizon phones. Despite a month of BS stories -- like "we'll have a new tower up and operating real near your house in just a few days," Verizon plans to have a tech come out and verify that we have no signal. They say that "we've had no complaints about service on Bainbridge."

I read hundreds of reviews on dozens of sites from tech to blog and compared what friends were getting and I think I have learned a few basic conclusions which no one addresses with any authority in any site I have found so far: First, for reception, which is not a function of your phone's output power: Each service provider's service footprint or coverage area emanates from a tower with a radiowave coverage which is not a perfect circle even in flat terrain. Reception is a function of where your phone / pda is relative to that provider's own or shared / leased towers, where you are in the waveform path; whether there is any interference from physical effects like blocking and reflecting and multipath effects of receiving a signal directly and via a reflection which could make the signal twice as strong or zero. It also seems that during peak periods of use, the output power per incoming call may be affected adversely perhaps with some carriers more than wth others. Peak usage affects available bandwidth and data rates as well, although you might just think it is due to your location, battery strength, orientation of your phone, or some other physical problem and not too many others using the same tower at the same moment. Finally, the manufacturer and model of phone can make a huge difference in reception. I and friends experienced noticeably better signal strength in most difficult reception areas (partially blocked or multi-path over water) using various Motorola phones over Samsung and LG. Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular had less variations when all towers were in sight than the phones themselves and these are all I had access to try. The best performer I found was the Motorola e815 which held good reception under conditions where all others failed... but this was at the expense of battery life which was half the duration advertised. The other side of the coin is how well are you heard at the other end - here it depends on where your phone is in the radiation pattern, whether there is blocking or reflecting, and how strong your phone transmission is... the stronger the better for your listener, but there are growing concerns about safety to your brain and organs and many people are shifting to bluetooth or texting to reduce frequent, strong, and continuous exposure to radation from the phone itself. I have never found any site which could explain why the e815 was so much superior but the halved battery life suggests to me that the phone was sampling multiple tower signals continuously to maintain the optimum signal quality - if this is not what was happening then perhaps it should be and better batteries should be issued as standard. People on the Sound or a lake may experience multipath is worst on calm days when flat water reflects radio waves more coherently between your phone and a tower in your line of sight so both the direct ray and a strong but phase shifted reflected ray arrive simultaneously - you can watch the bars change from 1 or 2 to 5 and back - on rough days the reflected signals are scattered in all directions so the direct path ray arrives with only weak forward reflected energy which causes less interference. Forums such as this really help all of us, but a thought occurred to me while I was surveying for myself: why not interview nearby high shool students who likely use every local carrier and every phone offered by each and they probably use them all over town everyday - I don't have time to develop this test environment but maybe another reader can get something like this started - the resuts would quickly favor the best carrier and the best instruments for that carrier for each city right down to the neighborhood area... Of course I am looking for a phone and not so much an all-in-one mobile email / texting / music / movie / tv / pix / flix / gaming / stylin' device... So now I have concluded that Verizon has the best coverage for me most of the time... BUT their phones are only now becoming balned with the features I need and could use and some of those are locked; they have exhorbitant fees and hidden additional fees for options which should be included; they use double speak and more intent on selling me a clearance phone than a new release which will satisfy my specal requirements; and in that regard, they refuse to let me try more than one or two phones to get one which performs the way I need it to... and I call this "lousy customer service" which is why I dumped Sprint and would never go to ATT / Cingular... so if you may have reason to call upon customer service, this will be yet another important criterion before signing up for more than a one year contract. Hope this helps someone