I think tomorrow will be the day that I buy a cell phone from every single service provider I can find, in the hopes of finding a company who can actually provide coverage in my area.
I get service (Verizon) all over the place and, for the most part, its reliable. But for whatever reason, inside my home, service is spotty at best and simply non-existant at worst. I've gone through five different cell phones with Verizon trying to find one with the best signal ability, was planning on trying a Blackberry tomorrow but may just get cheap phones from ATT, Sprint, and T-Mobile in the hopes of finding the best. No I don't want a home phone, and yes my Verizon service is bad enough in some areas that I might as well try every provider under the sun and hope they'll give me 15 day tryouts, rather than lock me into contracts.
My phone's signal jumps constantly... Right now it shows four bars of EV and 1X. If I move the phone two inches one way, or spin it around, or hold it upside down, or (god forbid) walk around the house, I may get no service at all, or just EV (can't make or receive calls), or just 1X (with no bars...) Hell sometimes the phase of the moon or color of the leaves on the trees seem to effect my cell coverage as much as anything else. How is this possible? Highly dependent on the time of day, as well. Peak hours maybe? Bandwidth on towers getting consumed? I dunno. Is the display on my phone a reflection of the *signal* strength, or the available bandwidth on the tower? After 5PM things get really bad. Maybe its because everyone and their mother is on the phone? Hmmm....
Things improved a little bit with the Alltel/Verizon integration, and I purchased an old LG phone with an external antenna which seemed to help as well, but I still drop calls, miss calls, or get text messages hours, even days later (if I get them at all, many are simply lost in the void). Half the time I have to SEND a text message in order to "prime the pump" and suddenly I'll receive a half dozen that have been sitting in a queue somewhere. All this despite the fact that I have four bars.... How is THAT possible?
Right now a friend said she left two voicemails; my phone doesn't show that I have new voicemail, and when I call to check my voicemail box, yeah, not so much with the unheard messages.
Is there any hope of Verizon's service improving? Or is it time to start shopping for another service provider? Does anyone make a Verizon-capable phone whose antenna signal strength indicator isn't run by a random number generator?
Thanks.
I get service (Verizon) all over the place and, for the most part, its reliable. But for whatever reason, inside my home, service is spotty at best and simply non-existant at worst. I've gone through five different cell phones with Verizon trying to find one with the best signal ability, was planning on trying a Blackberry tomorrow but may just get cheap phones from ATT, Sprint, and T-Mobile in the hopes of finding the best. No I don't want a home phone, and yes my Verizon service is bad enough in some areas that I might as well try every provider under the sun and hope they'll give me 15 day tryouts, rather than lock me into contracts.
My phone's signal jumps constantly... Right now it shows four bars of EV and 1X. If I move the phone two inches one way, or spin it around, or hold it upside down, or (god forbid) walk around the house, I may get no service at all, or just EV (can't make or receive calls), or just 1X (with no bars...) Hell sometimes the phase of the moon or color of the leaves on the trees seem to effect my cell coverage as much as anything else. How is this possible? Highly dependent on the time of day, as well. Peak hours maybe? Bandwidth on towers getting consumed? I dunno. Is the display on my phone a reflection of the *signal* strength, or the available bandwidth on the tower? After 5PM things get really bad. Maybe its because everyone and their mother is on the phone? Hmmm....
Things improved a little bit with the Alltel/Verizon integration, and I purchased an old LG phone with an external antenna which seemed to help as well, but I still drop calls, miss calls, or get text messages hours, even days later (if I get them at all, many are simply lost in the void). Half the time I have to SEND a text message in order to "prime the pump" and suddenly I'll receive a half dozen that have been sitting in a queue somewhere. All this despite the fact that I have four bars.... How is THAT possible?
Right now a friend said she left two voicemails; my phone doesn't show that I have new voicemail, and when I call to check my voicemail box, yeah, not so much with the unheard messages.
Is there any hope of Verizon's service improving? Or is it time to start shopping for another service provider? Does anyone make a Verizon-capable phone whose antenna signal strength indicator isn't run by a random number generator?
Thanks.
