Built a new cabin on Long Lake and up until this fall had very weak to no signal all around. The gods must like me because as I was standing on the main floor of the cabin, while under construction, I was getting 5 bars of signal. I almost passed out. When I went to lunch at the local bar 1.5 miles south I still had 5 bars. I was talking to the bartender and she said that she has AT&T and that a new tower in the area just went up 2 weeks prior to that October 2009 day. Now I am not saying it is perfect everywhere up there but at least I have decent coverage on the lake now. As of writing this my cabin is done and I can go in the basement furnace room and still pick up 3-4 bars. It is great to have coverage. Also I did a speed test on the Edge signal and was pulling down an average of 250 kbps. New tower = better data. Very happy in Northern Wisconsin.

No reception, or transient 1 bar reception most of Long Lake area

Now that Alltel and Verizon have completed their merger as of 8 / 1 / 09, my reception has noticeably improved. Verizon has taken ownership of all the Alltel towers (nearest is in Hayward, WI) and now I no longer pay roaming charges while using my 612 area code phone in Wisconsin. A new tower has been approved for construction near the intersection of CRs B&M. This should greatly improve all cell service around the Long Lake area. It's about time.

I still have the old version which will be outdated soon, but for now my phone works great and has. Others who come to my home with Alltel can't get any reception at my home-go figure. So now I am trying to find who to service me-looks like GSM from Cell One won't work according to other "poster".

After many years of good service at my home northeast of Sarona, my service went away. I call in to customer service. They assign a trouble ticket, but still no service after several go-arounds. But, postings on this forum gives me a clue--I did sign up for GSM earlier this year. It's strange that they keep generating useless trouble tickets instead of telling me about the GSM problem and offering a real solution.