Cingular: Bay Area (Hercules) phone/carrier recommendations?

[jaimev]

My mother lives in the hills in the city of Hercules in the Bay Area. She's with Cingular, and is satisfied with their $30 Cingular Nation GSM plan - it fits her budget and her national long distance needs. She's off contract and is willing to upgrade her old Nokia 5190, as long as the replacement phone has better reception than her current phone. Right now, she tells me that she needs to stand near the windows of one side of the house to get good reception. Or would the better solution be for her to switch to another carrier that offers better coverage (with equivalent cost and nationwide long distance service).

Can anyone offer any cell phone recommendations for her or perhaps suggest a different carrier?

[ShoresGuy]

She's already got the best there is for GSM. T-Mobile will have the same coverage since they share Cingular's towers. AT&T is touch and go, she should try out AT&T for their trial period and see if the coverage in her heavy use areas is better than Cingular/T-Mobile. I know of Hercules in passing but I'm originally from Redwood City so my coverage on Cingular along the Peninsula is acceptable in most areas.

Good Luck [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[Rasputin]

Hercules is a tough area for coverage, I had holes all over the place with ATT tdma (now this was 2 years ago, could be a lot better now). I know Verizon has worked well for me there. I have a friend lives in Pinole and goes to Hercules quite a bit and tells me Nextel works well there also.

[KevinJames]

Based on today's new of Cingular buying ATT for 41 billion bucks, I'd suggest you stay with Cingular. As for make/model of phone. check out http://www.phonescoop.com

[wordsworth]

i'd recommend the moto v400. in my experience with that phone, it holds onto calls like it's nobody's business. i've never had a dropped call in my house with that phone, even when it gets down to 1 bar (which is quite often). i've tried the nokia 3200 and the sony t306, and they both drop calls constantly in my house. if that doesn't work, she can still return it and try another provider.