How is the cell phone service in Portland? (Cedar Mill, North Plains: house, buyer)

[sharkylittleton]

I know this is subjective and all, but how is the service out there? I use AT&T, and was just wondering. AT&T is pretty bad out here in Chicago. Anyone familiar with the services out there?

[TechmanOR]

Depends. Near PCC Sylvania, in the council crest area, and the hilly area in Cedar Mills, Verizon and Sprint are horrible. Coverage map shows excellent for council crest area and you get full bars, but you get dropped calls.

In rural areas, T-Mobile sucks.

Like any carrier, AT&T has good and bad spots within the city.

[Rob Allen]

I have AT&T, and I have literally never had a problem.

[argo69]

My contract with T-mobile ends next month and I have been contemplating switching to Verizon. One motivation for this has been that I have a relative in the suburbs about 15 minutes outside of Portland who is in a T-mobile "dead zone". It lists the house as a weak signal on it's website and my experience has been that it can only pick up a signal if I leave the phone in a certain room or am outside. My relative said the whole family had to switch to Verizon for this reason. Is this common?

[figmalt]

I use AT&T, and I've never had much of a problem around the city and suburbs. I was out at Hagg Lake today and didn't get any reception around the lake, but once I got on HWY 47 things picked up. There are a lot of trees and hills around, so it does vary by company and location, but no major issues.

[TechmanOR]

Originally Posted by argo69

My contract with T-mobile ends next month and I have been contemplating switching to Verizon. One motivation for this has been that I have a relative in the suburbs about 15 minutes outside of Portland who is in a T-mobile "dead zone". It lists the house as a weak signal on it's website and my experience has been that it can only pick up a signal if I leave the phone in a certain room or am outside. My relative said the whole family had to switch to Verizon for this reason. Is this common?

Yep, quite common. regardless of what the website says, if where you will be using has issues, it won't get you anywhere. If you go to council crest park, despite being full of antennas, you would not be able to hold a conversation without calls dropping on Verizon. It works fine on T-Mobile. Go to North Plains, OR and coverage is weak with T-Mobile, but excellent on Verizon.

I have experienced Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. Verizon customer service is alright. Sprint is awful, and T-Mobile is right up there. You won't experience it until you have any kind of issue. They will be quite nice to you when you're going to buy a phone, and probably until the end of buyer remorse period. I've experienced billing issues with each, but Verizon is usually the best in handling my issues.

T-Mobile and Sprint, you get a lot of "well, the answer depends on who you talk to" situations.

No matter who you go with, you can't avoid dead spots entirely. Go with whatever gives you the best service where you'll be using the most (home, school, work, etc).

Verizon is pretty much useless on PCC Sylvania campus too.