Santa Rose, CA (all your Northern CA folks)

[azcellphonejunkie]

My father is possibly moving to Santa Rosa, CA in a few months. His choices (from his company) are Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. Can anyone give me thier opinions on this area as to whom he should go with? Thanks in advance for your feedback.

[Rasputin]

In Santa Rosa itself and south of Santa Rosa I have had good coverage with Verizon, I have been more than 25 miles north of Santa Rosa.

[TNDan21]

I have a friend that lives in Windsor, CA which is north of Santa Rosa. He travels to Santa Rosa often and he's told me that Verizon Wireless is really the only company in his area that seems to work well for him.

[dglively]

I live and work in SR, just north of town east of the airport between the hills and 101. My wife commutes to Petaluma daily. Until this past May we were AT&T customers but have since switched to Verizon. I've been very impressed with Verizon's coverage. There are very few places in the county where you cannot get an all-digital signal, and those places where you can't are obvious (i.e., Highway 1 between Jenner and Sea Ranch, Annapolis road between Dry Creek Valley and the coast and other remote locations).

Last winter we were doing a kitchen remodel and our contractor was using AT&T GSM. We're about one mile east of 101 and about 1.5 miles from a cinema complex upon which are mounted an array of various antenna belonging to different providers. The contractor could not get a signal on his GSM phone anywhere in our house or yard. I get four and five bars on my Verizon phone.

As a final example of how well Verizon has this county covered; there's a section of the 101 called the Cotati grade, which separates Petaluma from Rohnert Park. On the south side there is a dead spot where even the FM radio stations in Santa Rosa don't come in. AT&T, Cingular, Nextel and TMobil all drop there, Verizon has it covered. With AT&T my wife used to leave Petaluma, wait until she reached Rohnert Park, and then make any calls she needed to make. With Verizon she can get started as soon as she hits the freeway in Petaluma.

Currently Verizon has this county covered more thoroughly and evenly than any other competing provider.

[azcellphonejunkie]

Anyone have experiences with T-Mobile or Nextel in Santa Rosa? I will be headed there this weekend and want to know what type of service I should expect with each...

[ZaphodB]

Gosh, this is prime ILUVSOCAL bait.

IIRC, T-Mobile is more or less highway-only north of Marin County.

[azcellphonejunkie]

According to both T-Mobile and Nextel maps, I should be fine this weekend. If anyone has experience in Santa Rosa, that is what I would like to hear. I guess I will find out for myself tomorrow!

[Rasputin]

Verizon has the best coverage IHMO in and around SR, T-Mob does get highway only North of Marin. ATT GSM has a some dead spots here and there just North and West of SR that I know of. My old quasi hippy boss lives in SR, Warren Linney, he made a bundle selling MSAs to McCaw and sold a Cellular One operation in Western Ill to TDS. I like it up there, used to do a lot of wireless work up there.

[azcellphonejunkie]

OK, well I hope I will have coverage with at least one of my two phones. My dad has AT&T/Cingular GSM and he says his phone works fine. So if T-Mobile has no coverage whatsoever, hopefully I will get to roam of AT&T, which usually happens if there is no T-Mobile in the area. I will definitely post the results of my travels!