ATT In Orange County

I've had Cingular in the past and switched to ATT during the Mlife days and got stuck with a stinking 2 year contract, but their coverage has went from better then Cingular to way worse.

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but I've started noticing as has my dad that when we make a call the phone will just beep and then the call ends. At first I thought it was my phone, but my dad who has a different phone also has been having the same trouble. To me, it happens at least 5-10 times a day and its something that royally gets on my nerves.

I've decided to switch to T-Mobile and take the hit in having to end my contract earlier. I figure within 3 months I'll make it back up, cause I'll save as a whole a lot more with them.

Anyway, I was just going to see if by any chance ATT is having a networking problem or something or if its just me not having signal? The thing is, when I make these calls its with around 2-3 bars of signal.

[BillRadio]

This is not the first time we've heard this complaint about Orange County. However, since they all have posted anonymously (and I'm not dissing you at all), it could be someone just bashing AT&T.

There have been no reports of widespread problems across Orange.

-Bill

[Jodi]

Since I'm not anonymous, I'll step up here...

My husband & I left ATT for this exact reason. We both work in OC & it was really important we could get a hold of each other in any given minute due to the nature of my job. Unfortunately, my husband could never get a signal strong enough to keep a conversation going...or I'd be driving & suddenly lose him. Either way, it was becoming too spotty throughout OC to justify spending the money. We needed something more reliable.

Maybe it'll improve in time, but for now, I've left ATT.

[mrEviltheCat]

I have Cingular in OC and have had the same sort of thing happen to me as you have reported with ATT. I am not sure how any of the other carriers are, but since TMobile is just about the same as Cingular right now, its not much of a step up. Just a guess, but the majority of the problems happen during the day around 3-6pm and some other times of heavy usage. In my experience with Cingular, those hours were problem times. Most of my friends are with Cingular and we have all noted that the "network busy" happens every once in a while, we just learned to live with it I guess because our cell phones are not of dire importance.

To whom it my concern Iam with cingular and all of a sudden my phone started going to sos only and i call cingular up to ask about it and they said the proublem would be fixed. now they are telling me i have to get a new phone and a new two year contract to fix my proublem. I don't mean to bash but this is wrong.

[OCMIKE]

I live in Buena Park the area of ValleyView and Cerittos and the reception for ATT has been bad 3 years. I have called CS and opened several job tickets to have this problem fixed. Does anyone know the location of the cell towers that covers this area. I know there is one guy who posted on this thread that knows where all the cell towers are.

Thanks
Mike

[OCMIKE]

I forgot to ask this, but does ATT put up seperate GSM Cells or use the existing TDMA Cells?

Thanks again
Mike

[larry]

Both. They use their exsisting TDMA sites for most of them and then they add seperate GSM sites to fill in gaps. Additional GSM sites are needed because of the 1900 MHZ frequency which does not travel as far as the 800 TDMA sites did.

[OCMIKE]

Larry,

Thanks for the info. Do you happen to know where the nearest ATT Cell is near the intersection of ValleyView and Cerritos in Buena Park or anyway to find out how where the nearest cell tower is?

Thanks [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]
Mike

[RobCruz]

AT&T Wireless suck. Go to Verizon Wireless for clear reception!

[jcnahon]

I live in Corona, wich is right next to Orange County and my experience with att has been the best in my apt. I had no signal at all with tdma and then 1 week ago switched to gsm and it rules I get signal everywhere and I've been testing other friendss phones im my area and they all suck exept nextel.. and mine are the only ones who get signal.. perhaps it was your phones man... I've had but experiences with sony's and erricson.. and im trying the siemess46 right now.. its cool bue I prefer the nokia 8390.... well thats it.

GSM ROCKS!!!
JC

[bassman]

I really don't understand all of this talk about how bad ATT is in Orange County. I've had ATT TDMA since last January and I couldn't be happier. On two different occasions I drove various parts of OC (Newport Beach, Anaheim, Buena Park, etc...) and held continuous conversations with no problem. Also, My wife and I went to see Peter Gabriel in San Diego this past weekend and I had full signal <u>inside</u> the Sports Arena. Everywhere else we drove around the San Diego area I had at least three bars on my Nokia. It should be noted that I can't tell you how many times I have been talking to my Sister and also my boss who both have Verizon and they drop quite a few calls. So anyone who wants to say that Verizon rarely drops calls, well...by my experience talking to people who have Verizon, I beg to differ.

Just my two cents - ATT has been wonderful to me.

[DCinSEA]

AT&T does use the same towers for both TDMA and GSM, and then are adding new GSM only sites. They plan to increase the RSSI by 10 db this year, and again next year.

Right now they are switching out to EDGE radios to give the faster GPRS speeds, this will have little to no effect on GSM voice, however.

Once the FCC allows GSM on 850MHz and AT&T dumps analog, GSM coverage will get even better. That will be a couple years, though.

DCinSEA