Cell Coverage Aroostook County Maine (Presque Isle, Houlton: live, best, areas)

[Chris04626]

What do you guys use for Cell Service in Aroostook County. Right now i have US Cellular and its decent, I am not happy with US Cellular in other areas, and would love to switch companies. How does Verizon and ATT work in those areas? Lincoln, Houlton, Presque Isle, Fort Kent, Van Buren are places i travel

[maineguy8888]

Switched from US Cellular to Verizon recently and it doesn't seem to be as good as USC.

[ClownShoes]

I had Sprint and it stunk. Switched to verizon and it's ok, except the smart phones die quick. Sometimes if the wind is strong, I'll lose service. I'm thinking a local cell tower has a cable/connector issue.

[bangorme]

The prevalent point of view, while I lived up there was that U.S. Cellular was the best. I found that they were good when I was in the border area and I was bouncing off Canadian towers. They would take the roaming charges off very quickly and easily.

[Brodels]

US Cellular does have the best coverage. Their coverage may be spottier than what you would find in an urban area, but that's just how it is in isolated areas.

Verizon is also a good choice. They have a lot of native coverage, but not as much as USCC. Verizon roams on USCC where there is not native Verizon coverage. This works OK for voice, but sucks if you are trying to use data. I lived with Verizon in the county for years and was pretty satisfied.

And that's it. There are no other substantial native networks. USCC maintains a GSM network that is used strictly for roaming (att, tmobile), but you would never want to use it every day because the data is quite slow.

USCC and Verizon are the only two reasonable choices, and they are both relatively decent. In the larger communities you won't notice a difference, but when you get to the more rural areas or if you are in the valley, USCC is better. If you want a good selection of recently released phones, however...