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General discussion

Best Cell Phone for a Highrise!

Nov 29, 2004 4:14AM PST

I live on the 37th floor in Chicago... and my reception is awful, I want to switch... but everyone who comes into my apartment has awful reception... I have T-Mobile, have seen Nextel, Sprint & AT&T all perform awfully in this environment.

We all get full bars according to the phone itself, but actually talking is miserable with lots of static, many dropped calls, and sometimes you just can't even get the phone to dial.

Does anyone know of a service/phone in chicago which works well at this modest altitude?

Discussion is locked

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Re: Best Cell Phone for a Highrise!
Nov 29, 2004 4:20AM PST

And as a side note... I love T-Mobile outside of this issue... so if there's an alternative phone or add on peripherial which would solve my problem I'd be thrilled.

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Re: Best Cell Phone for a Highrise!
Nov 30, 2004 1:04AM PST

I have sprint; it's a sanyo 4900? The old one... anyway, it works well on the 55th floor in downtown Chicago as long as you sit near the window. Basically, I can receive calls anywhere in the condo, but I have to move to a window to avoid losing the signal. I used to have T-Mobile and I hated it. I thought I would like sprint less, but I actually found that Sprint works great. I have to admit, it might be the phone. This phone has exceptional reception. I don't need all of the bells and whistles of the other phones... I just want my phone to be a phone.

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Re: Best Cell Phone for a Highrise!
Nov 30, 2004 1:15AM PST

Just went to sprint store last night. the smaller phones have a smaller battery and thus less reception to their signal and shorter talk time. The long, non-=flip phone works best. The technician was telling us that there are no returns on the less expensive long phone made by Sanyo that says Sprint on it. People never report dropped calls, lousy reception. The Nokia phone, long one, had very good sound. I'm switching to the Nokia. It's cheap and functional. We had purchased their brand new flip phone by Samsung w/speaker ( I have to have speaker). It's cute, big numbers but HORRIBLE sound, dropped calls and short talk time. My ancient long 4200 phone (which is now the 4700) never dropped a call, had great sound and I could talk for days. So even though I love this little cute flippie I'm going for the dull Nokia. I like the keypad and numbers and graphics better than the Sprint 4700

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Re: Best Cell Phone for a Highrise!
Nov 30, 2004 7:09AM PST

I here you. I have a "bar" type phone. I never liked any of the flip phones. I always had horrible reception with them. I also dropped them all the time trying to answer the phone with one hand. I don't understand the appeal of those types of phones. Good luck with your new phone!

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High Rise
Apr 17, 2008 2:10AM PDT

I live on the 90th floor in Chicago and have terrible reception on both Verizon and AT&T. I put in a cell phone repeater with the receiver pointing down and the radiating antenna aboug 15 feet away pointing into the room. This makes it work, but it is still erratic.

The companies should point some antennas at the tall buildings. Does anyone know who to contact at AT&T to request this?