Spotty Coverage
Written: Oct 08 '00
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Pros: National and International Coverage, national one rate
Cons: Bandwith and gaps in coverage
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| TheHorseman's Full Review: AT&T Mobile Phone Service in Washington/Baltimore |
I have been an AT&T Mobile customer for the last two years and have two phones, each on the 1000 min/month one rate plans. I travel both nationally and internationally. I also use the phone quite a bit when I am driving around town. Over the last 2 years I have had 3 different phones from AT&T - The Nokia 6160, the StarTAC, and now the Nokia 8260.
Coverage in the Northern Virginia (McLean, Arlington, Tysons) areas reasonable, but there are enough gaps to make it rather annoying. For example, I always drop calls for a mile before and after the onramp to the GW parkway from Rt 123, at a couple of spots along 66 and also on rte 50, near south riding. The reception within office buildings is also very poor (at least in the buildings I work in, in Tyson's Corner and Arlington, and the building I live in, at Crystal City)
When I travel nationally, I have coverage about 80% of the time, however my being able to dial out does not mean I receive phone calls...On 4 trips to Denver and Memphis over the last two months, the phone has rolled over into voicemail automatically over 60% of the time.
Also as the number of subscribers increases, the number of dropped calls is increasing - seems that thir ability to increase bandwith does not keep up with their marketing drive. Also AT&T "disables" the manual network selection option on the phone, so that if you are getting a very weak but unusable signal from AT&T, you cannot manually "roam" over to another TDMA or analog network that may have a better signal in the area.
If you dial internationally from your cellphone, remember - it will not work when you are on an AT&T partner network rather than AT&T's limited network that does not extend beyond most metro areas...also their international rates are exorbidant.
AT&T also provides a "chip" for use with GSM phones when travelling abroad...the interesting thing is that I have had better luck receiving (yes...receiving calls dialed to my US number) calls and getting calls through using the chip than using my phone in the US...(although at exorbidant rates...)
Now that I have trashed them a bit, their service is reasonably good when walking about most downtown areas, and off-peak hours. Also I am not sure that products offered by other vendors are much better...Verizon has better coverage in the mid-atlantic area, but AT&T is better if you roam nationally...
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 120/mo +extras
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Epinions.com ID:
TheHorseman
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Location: Denver, Colorado
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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