I was a Verizon customer for several years and had very few dropped calls and good coverage outside on campus, around Lansing, and in many places in the U.S. using 3 different phones, the last being a Blackberry Curve.
However, I did have the problem of Verizon failing to notify me of a voice mail, sometimes for days, as you report. I heard this from several other Verizon users. Very frustrating.
Newer phones have 2 major shortcomings: many can't fall back to the legacy analog cell networks, and most do not have antennas that extend. This is purely a fashion statement; phones that had extendable antennas had much better signals.
Now I am using an iPhone on AT&T and in various places in the Lansing area I've found total dead spots -- zero bars -- and I experience many calls that didn't go through or that were dropped mid-call.
Our opinions of cell service are kind of like people's opinions of airlines -- everyone thinks the carrier they use the most is the worst. But Consumer Reports surveyed 50,000 cell users and they report results in the January issue, now on newsstands. Open to pages 28-29 and look at the results. Verizon is consistently rated number one in 26 major cities.
Your on-campus experience is more complicated than random locations around town, since some carriers have transceivers at various spots on campus. Nick can amplify.
/rich
On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Robert Kriegel
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi,
My wife and I switched our cell phone service from Sprint to Verizon this summer. ....
Our new phone service is very spotty. Lots of problems with dropped calls both here on campus and elsewhere in the Lansing area. I have regular problems with voicemail not being delivered for days. The phones are LG Dares.
bob
