Cell Phone Service/Reception
 

I was wondering if some forum posters could give me their opinions on what they feel is the best cell phone company to go with as far as reception in the Lakes area, (as well as up toward the mountains.)
You can tell me what service you currently have, how the reception is, and if you are happy with it.
(Contract is comming due, and we are up in NH a lot, so i want to make sure it works there as well as down here in RI.)
Any feedback will be appreciated.
Thanks! :)

I personally use US Cellular for my wives and mines cell phones, to the point where we don't have a house phone. While the service is pretty good, my suggestion is I think you'll find it has more to do with the phone itself then the service in most areas. Our old phones wouldn't work in parts of the Weirs :eek: while the new ones seem to work everywhere with no issues.

Hi NHKathy,

I have had excellent coverage with Verizon and I am very happy with the performance.


Hope this helps.

T.

Verizon
 

I dropped AT&T and went with Verizon and like the service.

Second for Verizon, works well all around the lake in my experience.

Third for Verizon

Verizon has great coverage from RI to the mountains.

Verizon Wireless
 

I agree, we have had no problems with Verizon.

Thumbs up to Verizon!
 

Let's see....

I've tried Sprint, Nextel, AT&T....now Cingular and finally landed with Verizon a year ago.

By far Verizon has worked the best from the Seacoast all up through the Ossipee/North Conway area and all around the big Lake.

I also use my current Motorola phone (V710) with my laptop (using necessary cable & software) and go online all around the same areas when necessary.

I am finally happy with my cell service!

Like the other three posters before me, I highly recommend Verizon!

p.s. - if you do a forum search, or perhaps our resident communication technology expert "Skipper of the Sea Que" will point you to the link, we did have a long technical discussion of the various cell technologies awhile back.

Good luck in your choice,

Skip

Try this link, I think
 

I think this link will give you several threads...

http://www.winnipesaukee.com/forums/...earchid=144585

Definitely Verizon!

Wolfeboro
 

I am on Verizon and reception in Wofeboro is spotty. New tower is coming to town shortly after much politicial debate. I hope this will help the Valleys and downtown. Out on the lake the recepion is good.

Verizon
 

Another vote for Verizon though in Alton Bay the reception for any carrier, Verizon included, is spotty at best.

Lakes and Lincoln Area: Verizon
 

We stay both the on western side of the lake and on Loon in the Lincoln area. We swithced to Verizon 15 months ago and we are very happy with the service. It works in most of the places we go.

R2B

We have Verizon and get almost no service in Wolfeboro or Tuftonboro. Know lots of other people who have the same problem. Hopefully it will get better when Wolfeboro gets the new tower. By the way, has anyone gotten what is called delayed minutes charges from Verizon? I have no roaming charges etc. but they said my phone roamed to another tower and other towers sometimes don't report minutes to them in a timely manner so a month or two later you find out you went over your minutes for the month.

Verison has my vote
 

Had At&T two years ago and had a very bad time of it on Bear however last year had Verison and no problem. They also have my vote.

I use Nextel and have great coverage on the lake and at the island but between Alton Bay and Gilford on 11 I hit some dead spots with all the hills around. There is another dead spot on the way up 11 between Farmington and New Durham.

VERIZON gets the vote!
 

Thank you all SO much !!! :)
Looks like Verizon wins!
Verizon is actually what I have now. Since we got Verizon service about 3 years ago or so, we have been pretty happy with it. It always worked perfect here in RI as well as up in New Hampshire. Last November, however, we all of sudden started to have a lot of "dropped" calls and reception problems. A lot of people that we know locally down here said they had some problems as well. It seems like whatever the problem was, maybe Verizon fixed it because it's not happening as often, but with my contract up in April, I thought i'd ask around. So, looks like i'll probably keep the Verizon. Thank you all so much for your suggestions, comments and thoughts.

P.S. No one had mentioned T.Mobile. A friend of mine here in RI, who goes up to the mountains a lot said that her T.Mobile is always fine, no problems. Anyone at the lake have T.Mobile ?

THANKS AGAIN!!
-NHKathy

T-Mobile
 

Try this one.

http://www.winnipesaukee.com/forums/...ead.php?t=2965

Before you change
 

NHKathy,

When you get up to the Lake,

Try this first; Press * 228 send, wait for the prompt, then select option 2, on your cell phone. They recommend doing this every month whether or not you are having trouble with reception. They upgrade your phone in seconds for what ever area you are in. If this doesn't help, I would say you could have a loose antenna, or a defective phone.

This goes for everyone that has Verizon service, it's in your owners manual. ;)

Love,
T. portable Weirs Bridge Cam :)

We have Nextel and haven't had any problems at the lake. We have, however, had more problems down in MA w/ them so we are switching at the end of our contract to Verizon. Good luck! :)

Verizon
 

Verizon is the best bet in New England as well as the Lakes Region.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll say Verizon. Although I am a satisfied Cingular customer, my former Verizon service was the best up at the Lake. Cingular's GSM network works on the western side of the Lake, but on the eastern side loses signal south of Alton circle. ZERO Cingular coverage in Wolfeboro, although you can pick up sporadic signals in Tuftonboro (Cingular coverage is just great from the top of Abenaki Tower). Good coverage throughout the 93 corridor, too. But from Alton to Wolfeboro and for most of Tuftonboro and Moultonboro, Cingular is virtually worthless.

But if you're on the western side of the Lake, Cingular works pretty well. Not as well as Verizon, though.

With Verizon, don't forget to perform the *228 then press 2 update, Verizon recommends at least every 3 months, helps prevent dropped calls and other things. Here's a link:


http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/d...PIC&topicID=47

Thanks
 

Thanks again for all of your comments, thoughts, imput and ideas.
Looks like we'll stick with Verizon!
--NHKathy
P.S. Keep the comments and opinions comming though, all feed back is appreciated, and our contract is only up mid to end of April.

tracfone
 

Anybody have any trouble using tracfone?

My daughter has a tracfone, lives here in Alton and has the same good reception / bad reception as most folks do with Cingular / Verizon / USCellular. It is pretty much a terrain issue in the lakes region.

Interesting you should mention that NHKathy. I am in RI too (North Kingstown) and have Verizon. I always had good signal all around the Lake. My wife and I recently "upgraded" on the "new every two" plan around November and have had lots of problems with dropped calls in RI. Our old Kyocera digital phones worked great but our new LG3300 phones have problems, wife is on the third one under warranty. New phones use the new IS-2000 packet system. Guess it isn't just us with a problem. Our last trip up to the lake in February with the new phones we still had good service all around the lake except for the few dead spots everyone else has mentioned and we had on previous visits with the old phones. Verizon also worked well up past North Conway.

I have AT&T and the service is spotty in Gilford, my wife has Verizon and her phone doesn't appear to have any problems. Ditto for a friend on Gov's Island while a sister in law has Nextel and service is practically nil.

US Cell is very good in NH (my father had it, now has Verizon) but its pretty much limited to NH.

Thanks
 

I thank you all so very much!
--NHKathy :)

Thats nifty!
 

Why don't they tell you about this service when you purchase you phone....seems like it would be easy to say - "Oh and every 3 months don't forget to *228!" I am going to do it right now!

;)

Wolfeboro Cell Phones
 

From an article in this weeks online Granite State News, It looks like Wolfeboro will have a new tower for both US Cellular and Verizon.

Wonder if that translates into good news for Cingular users...Verizon is not GSM, but is US Cellular?

Looks like US Cellular indeed offers GSM service, based on some of the phones they offer on their site for Wolfeboro service, so I imagine the Cingular GSM users will soon pick up a signal.

glory be