Att is mostly good here at wwu. Service in buildings (which are mostly made of thick metal and concrete) range from zero to 4 bars, and 4-5 outside. North campus is bad indoors however. Bham overal is fine. New towers are being put up over this summer to improve the congestion.

My son and I use different phones, with similar results. On an "EVERYTHING PLAN" the coverage is spotty outside with plenty of dropped calls and roaming. Best reception is in roaming mode which usually entails using VERIZON Towers. Forget about reception inside a building without roaming. I just was informed from SPRINT that I am using to many roaming minutes and that they would "LET ME CHANGE CARRIERS" With no early termination charge and with last month free if I would change. They shared with me that the have no plans for upgrading service in the next 18-24 months. Oh Yeah UNLIMITED EVERYTHING DOESNT INCLUDE ROAMING! Please see page five of agreement. Take That Sprint...

I have an Ohio number and still get great reception out here in WA, I don't know if Alltel is big around here but it works great for me, I just need to look into getting a WA number now. My mom tends to complain that she can't always understand what I'm saying, but I think she wouldn't be able to understand me even if I was talking to her in person.

Although the Verizon bars often indicate full coverage in WWU buildings, calls do not go out nor do they come in. But, if I arrive on campus while on the phone, the call stays connected. This is likely not a tower issue but a bandwidth issue with 10000 students using cell phones there are not enough channels. If I leave my phone on in any building, the battery quickly dies as it tries and tries to maintain contact. Each transmission costs charge. "How many Bars" is not the only issue!

ATT is worthless in northern washington, out toward anacortes I could be stranded without reception. Driving anywhere on any highway I would always get dropped calls. I didn't realize life outside Verizon could be that horrible. Needless to say I quit within 30 days so I wouldn't be locked into contract. In this area, Verizon is expensive, but you get what you pay for. VERIZON all the way.

Anywhere in the Birchwood area Sprint is really poor. 1 bar or less indoors, flickering to 2 bars when outside.

Update from my last comment using a Sony Ericsson Z-520a phone. My reception with the Samsung D-807 is now quite good all the way from my house to Everett and as far south as Tacoma, but I still have no reception in Lakebay. The new phone seems to make a great deal of difference in both reception and call quality, plus they are really nice full featured phones. I would recommend Cingular and also Lauren at the Bellingham Cingular store as someone who really does a great job of customer service. Thanks Lauren for working to keep me as a Cingular customer.

Phone calls drop with either of the two S-E phones we have. This happens every time we head east from Marine drive on Alderwood Ave. I had AT&T for years on a tdma system and had good reception. Went to Wenatchee and was now roaming so I decieded to go with Cinular... BAD MISTAKE! Drop calls all up and down I-5 to Everett. Reception is not that good. I'll try one more phone with this service then I will Quit them if the service does not improve a lot.

I live near St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham, WA 98225, and usually have only 1 or 2 bars indicated. Nevertheless, my reception is usually fine, all around Bellingham and up and down I-5, but not out towards Mt. Baker. I can make calls up to Blaine at the Canadian Border, and maybe up to a half mile into Canada. When taking the ferry from Tsawassen to Schwarz Bay (Vanc. Island), I can get a periodic signal indication, but the call won't go through. Same story in Victoria, BC. Note that Virgin Mobile uses Sprint as carrier, and Sprint operates in Canada as well as US. According to my conversation with Sprint in 2005, Sprint USA can't connect to Sprint Canada, but "they're working on it".

Traveling from downtown to Fairhaven on Blvd.I usually loose my call about a half mile before I get to Fairhaven. Reception is great all the way to Blvd.Park and then it dies until Fairhaven where it is again good.

Signal is all but absent inside buildings. I have to go outside to make and receive calls or use Data. Sprint plans are great, but it is wasted money if you cannot get the reception you need. If set to roaming, phone works better, but can only get 1x data when roaming, too slow! Sprint owns no towers up here and uses mostley Verizon towers, but only at 40% according to Verizon. None of the carriers seem to have great coverage up here, but Verizon seems to be the best according to their users.

I switched from Verizon to AT&T because I moved out toward Lake Whatcom and had no service with Verizon. AT&T seems to work great in all of Bellingham. State-wide, though, Verizon was better and I dropped less calls with them. I have a cabin in the cascades and AT&T is worthless up there.

I've had very good service in this area over the last few years with AT&T. Service works fine almost everywhere I go in Whatcom County, including Everson. There may be weak spots but I don't notice them much. Works up to Vancouver too (though I don't use it in Canada due to roaming charges). I canceled my plan thinking I could easily switch to another carrier but now hear that not every carrier works in this area. I'll try Verizon (through Page Plus Cellular---they are a reseller) as my next choice. I hear Verizon is good in this area too. If not, guess I'll have to go back to AT&T.

I never have a problem with AT&T

I live behind comcast, very little reception inside, when I answer, calls are quickly droppped. Very disappointed with AT&T / Cingular. Guess I'm better off with a landline.

Verizon is expensive, but I drive all over Bellingham and live near Costco. I do not have any issue with the reception. That being said, I am on this site because I want to leave Verizon for a cheaper plan elsewhere.

We moved into the area a few months ago from Seattle, and we'd heard from friends here that we probably wouldn't get much cell phone coverage, as we are out in the county and there aren't many towers out here. They've all had horrible luck with T-Mobile and AT&T, but I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised to find that our Verizon service is pretty consistently reliable. We get almost full bars in all but one tiny corner of our house, and I've yet to have a dropped call as I've driven around the area. If I were to be completely honest, I'd admit that I was hoping we couldn't get service out here on our Verizon phones so that we'd have an excuse to break our contract and sign up with AT&T to get the iphone, but alas, it looks like we'll have to stick with Verizon on account of their fabulous coverage outside of Bellingham's city limits.

A year ago coverage was poor on the east side of Barkley and Alabama hills. But coverage has been very good lately jere, all along I-5, and near the airports in the San Juans. I get good coverage in Lower Mainland BC and Victoria to Sydney on Vancouver Island. But cell service dies quickly east of Deming heading towards Mt. Baker. No coverage at the ski area.

have to drive to town to receive or make calls / texts... .no service at condo

Sometimes less than one bar. Hilly country challenges transmission but tower not sited for best coverage of population Bruce