Cell phone coverage in NID (Sandpoint, Rathdrum: house, floor, bars)

[Nomadist]

I did a search for this both here and in the Spokane forum and didn't find any current info. If I missed something, please post a link!

Looking for feedback on cell coverage in the North Idaho area around CDA and Sandpoint. Which carrier(s) have the best coverage? Which are worse? Any that aren't covered at all (even if they say they are)?

Thanks for any input!

[Para]

Pretty sure I've seen posts that the best coverage is Verizon.

[Cnynrat]

I can tell you that Verizon seems to have reasonably good coverage in north Idaho. If you get far enough off the beaten path you loose data coverage, and in some places voice, but in the CdA area, in Sandpoint, and along most of the major roads coverage is fine.

I don't use any of the other carriers, so I can't comment on them.

Dave

[volosong]

I have Family Mobile, through Walmart, and they use the T-Mobile network. The times I've been on the Rathdrum Prairie and up to Sandpoint, I've had good coverage.

[Sagle Sam]

Verizon is king in NID. Sprint is good in the CDA area and west through Spokane. Sprint is average along the 95 corridor north of CDA.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by Sagle Sam

Verizon is king in NID. Sprint is good in the CDA area and west through Spokane. Sprint is average along the 95 corridor north of CDA.

Verizon is the only provider that covers all of Idaho worth a hoot. It's the king of SID as well.

[Sage of Sagle]

Not to naysay, but Verizon has some HUGE spotty areas around Bonner County. We've been using AT&T for a long time here, and in the west Dufort Valley Verizon coverage is terrible up against the hills. In fact, my Verizon air card only worked on the upper floor at one corner of our house where our AT&T phones had 4 bars of coverage.

[Clark Fork Fantast]

Verizon is utterly spotty east of Sandpoint along Lake Pend Oreille and further along 200 toward the Montana border. You can get 4 bars in one spot, and zilch in another. We were going to call our place the "0-Bar Ranch" but now we actually get 2 bars, on and off.

[f5fstop]

I had Verizon when I moved here, three months later I dropped it for AT&T. Can't speak for NID but here in the pocatello area, coverage is about the same, but at least AT&T works all the time I need it!

[Cnynrat]

I suspect all of the cell providers will have spotty coverage in north Idaho. The radio frequencies that are used for cell phones won't go through hills and mountains, and they won't "bend" around them either. So any place that has hills will typically have dead zones in coverage in locations where you are in a shadow from the nearest cell tower. That's especially true in rural areas where the density of users doesn't warrant lots of investment by the carriers.

That being the case it's difficult to make generalizations about which provider has the best coverage because one might cover more total square miles, but if your house happens to be in a shadow area of poor coverage it won't feel like they have the best coverage to you. In the end folks probably need to figure out a way to try different carriers in the specific locations that are most important to you and make the best choice recognizing that the nature of coverage in north Idaho is that there will probably be dead zones no matter which provider you choose.

At our house in Sagle our Verizon phones work fine, but when we were looking at an alarm system that happened to use AT&T for the cellular connection they could not get enough signal to make it work. An example of how it very much depends on the specific location in question.

Our other home in SoCal is in a very hilly area within the LA basin, and until a few years ago we had poor cell coverage from all of the providers at our house. We can stand on our patio and see all the way to Long Beach and Palos Verdes about 20 miles away, but had lousy cell coverage because we're looking out the end of a fairly narrow canyon. The closest towers as the crow flies are off to the left or right shielded by the hills, and the towers we can "see" are too far away to provide good signal. A couple years ago Verizon installed micro cell towers on the top of every 3rd or 4th telephone pole on our street, and now we get great coverage. This is illustrative of two things: 1) The density of towers required to provide coverage in very hilly areas, and 2) The investment required to do that is significant, and as a result only justified where there are enough potential customers.

Dave