I've been tempted to try one of these antennas for a while, but I found after upgrading my phone from the "free" one that came with the plan, to a more of a higher midgrade model, my signal gain was quite impressive without the antenna.

I'm on Sprint, and with a few exceptions to the rule, so long as I'm on the road, I'm usually in strong Sprint signal, or at the worst, digital roaming. My best friend was running a phone that was one of the "freebie" models, and going down the same section of highway, she'll always fall out of any usable signal for about thirty miles - my phone will hold onto Sprint for 20 of it, and then fall to a strong digital roam for the remainder.

 

ive got one of those wilson antennae.when i was renting a single wide trailer it was in a bad cell area so i screwed that wilson to the roof and got some extra cable and verizon worked perfect.before i could not use it even outside. those tri mode phones will switch to analog if thats the best signal available.dont know about the latest formats as mycontract expired yeas ago and just pay the bill.i always refuse to sign a 2 year contract even if they charge more for the phone

 

I use on for my Aircard and it gains 1 extra bar at least for me, the only thing I didn't like is the smaller radius antenna broke off from the vibration and birds hitting it.

 

Sorry about the late reply...

First, Wilson is what I consider the best in the business, and I was a techie in the largest wireless carrier in the US (care to guess?). When used with an amplifier and properly implemented*, they are outstanding, right up there with the old bag phones. Incidentally, Motorola came out with a new 3 watt GSM bag phone a few months ago.

*Buy carefully, and read the fine print. Not all the amps and antennae work with all phones or frequencies, and you may need little bits to get it all working.

While not an inexpensive solution, Wilson stuff is awesome and worth every penny. There are other companies out there making similar products, but you get what you pay for. Also keep in mind that if the radio (yes, your phone is a two-way radio) in your phone is not strong, it may still not work all that well. I recommend Nokia for signal strength. FWIW, price doesn't have a damn thing to do with signal strength, either.

 

Verizon wireless by far has the best coverage.

 

Drive from Wichita Falls,TX, to Lubbock,TX, and see how that Verizon works out there in no man's land. :lol: :P

 

Depends on where you are. Even Sprint/Nextel has the best coverage in a few areas. Overall, Verizon and Cingular are comparable. But Cingular is the only one that can claim the fewest dropped calls ...for now.

 

As a Cingular Wireless customer, I can say that I very seldom have any dropped calls. I started out with AT&T about 10 years ago. Never had a problem with AT&T. There was one place where I did have some trouble. That was in Bird City,KS.(back when I was driving OTR) Well, when Cingular, and AT&T merged, etc, and I switched over to Cingular, it stunk. I hated it. I run from Wichita Falls,TX, to Lubbock,TX, and back 5 nights a week. There aint nothing out there. I couldnt get a signal for nothing. My buddy that I run with also uses Cingular. Both of switched over about the same time. We both were fed up. A friend of mine is a sales rep for Cingular, and I talked to him several times. I told him that he needs to drive to Lubbock just to see for himself. :P He told me to hang on, it will get better. Sure nuff, it did get better.

 

Yeah, the integration of the two (ATT, Cingular) networks was murder on their quality, and your story is very, VERY common. But once the networks were one, it was better than ever in most places. In fact, I have enough faith in the network that I would say most constant problems are directly related to the user's equipment, be it handset or SIM card...

Expect the coverage to get even better as time goes on. Even if they don't add any more towers in the area, the network ops can tweak the towers (lotsa stuff to tweak) to get stronger signal in certain areas, as market warrants.