Sprint PCS Coverage in Washington/DC Metro Area

Maybe there's something wrong with your phone. I have no problems with my Motorola V551 w/ Cingular service in those areas. What brand/model phone are you using, and how old is it?

-Jay

EDIT: I forgot to ask, do you know if you're a Cingular Blue, or Orange customer?

 

You will probably have poor coverage in a basement, regardless of which provider you have. Cingular's best performing phones are their Motorolas & Nokias. The Motorola V3 does very well in fringe areas. The quality of Samsung & LG's phones varies greatly from model to model. If you know someone w/ a V3 on Cingular ask to borrow their phone for a day (You can switch SIM cards between 2 orange customers), or ask them to tag along on a day of shopping and check out the performance.

 

thats good advice jay, you might also try a nokia. good luck, coverage at home is very important.

 

I live in Arlington and work in Rockville--and my Verizon coverage is great. I would recommend you skip the other carriers and just go with VZW. I get coverage even on the Metro (except in tunnels). No, you don't get as many anytime minutes--but if your friends are mostly on VZW, it's all included in your IN Calling.

Have you read the Consumer Reports issue on wireless? VZW is tops in all regions, if I recall correctly. One of my best friends works for Sprint, but even he can't argue with Verizon's better coverage in DC.

 

For the most part, all the carriers in DC are good. They'll each have areas of weakness, but in general you can't go wrong with any of them. I've had T-Mobile for almost 6 years here as of next month. I do get service in my basement, but it's weak.

 

hello tygger
I know you are looking at Sprint but have considered Verizon?
If you ride the metro Vzw is pretty good there & the malls.
See if you can find a VZW friend with it & invite them over your home.
Let us know what you choose.

 

I would like to strongly disagree with this statement!

Cingular may have cellsites close enough to cover the outside and main level of the OP and his friend's house fine, but the site may not be close enough to cover the basements. If another carrier has sites closer to his house, or a site that is more powerful or has sectors facing him, he could very well get great service in his basement. The only carrier that works reliably in my lower level is Verizon, and Cingular has 3 cellsites in my area, whereas Verizon only has one...

I don't agree with general statements like that...just figured I'd let you know.

 

I live in Pentagon City. Not to hot from off of Army Navy Drive but I can make and hold calls without issue. It is mostly a visiual thing, the bars don't go very high =] Tysons Corner should be saturated. Where abouts? I forget where Springfield Mall is. I think I know but I don't.

Potomac Mills should be okay but saturated due to sheer volume. There are three sites I can think of off of the top of my head:

VEPCO transmission tower by the church off of Shoppers Best Way
Best Western rooftop
Old Horner Rd. (the self supporting of those two towers)

You can plot those on a map and get a rough idea of coverage.

 

The coverage is okay. It isn't all that, especially in DC proper and the suburbs of MD. Nextel and T-Mobile have the most impressive build outs, especially T-Mobile. They just seem hungery. I'm finding T-Mobile sites so fast they haven't even installed the cabinets that is how fast they are trying to add capacity and coverage. Verizon in Columbia, SC - not so great and that is the state capital.

The only plus would be the exclusive agreement with WMATA. That really sucks for non-CDMA people. Then again the metro is so damn noisey....

 

I would say try Sprint and if it doesnt work take it back within the 14 day trial period. Also, if Sprint works in your house and doesn't in your basement then you can always force digital roam if you have a newer phone (if the digital roam provider works there)

 

I'm not saying it is impossible to get basement coverage, I'm saying it is unlikely to get coverage below grade w/o a repeater or other special equipment, unless you have a tower very close by.

 

That should be completely doable. I would bring this up w/ the salesman when I got the phone so they can be prepared to do that.

-Jay

 

All I know is, I've never once had a call dropped en route from Rockville to Arlington--nor in downtown DC. I haven't really used it elsewhere much. Oddly, the times I've had calls drop have all been in my house in Arlington.

The other thing to consider--and in my view, this might even be more important than coverage--is whether a carrier will screw up your billing or not. I've read so many horror stories about other carriers, I'd honestly be scared to go with any of them.

Obviously, there are people who use other carriers and are pleased with the service, but I believe you'll find far fewer people who feel really burned or caught up in some excruciating billing nightmare by VZW. Geez, I sound like I work for them or something. I don't, I promise!

 

Wow that was a long time ago! I know service is MUCH better now then it was back then.

 

Both. They have to have cell saturation because they have so many customers. I came from what I was once told was Sprint PCSes third best performing market (SE VA behind I think Chicago and Kansas City). They have 2x as many cells as any other carrier, including what was then Triton PCS.

In DC there are so many people one can see the network load on their cell phone. Between 5-8PM my phone receives half the strength it gets when I go to work at 5AM. I can still make phone calls of acceptable quality but I can see when there is a lot of activity going on where I live (near the Pentagon).

I am happy enough with my service. You may want better and depending on where you live, could get that from Nextel, CellularONE/AT&T (it is still two seperate networks) or Verizon. T-Mobile is incredibly aggressive but will most likely still have building penetration issues, especially under network load.

Springfield Mall area I am thinking of is near the metro stop. Not a lot of sprint pcs sites there. Nothing like what Nextel has done. Sprint has one on Verestar Ct., Alban Rd. (on the VEPCO microwave tower) and on the UNISYS rooftop towards Kingstowne.... I think Nextel has 5 sites there, assuming I am thinking of the same mall.

 

Yes, but not in the areas you touched on. Parts of River Road in Montgomery County MD I roam on BAM. Out in parts of darkest Fauquier County and on Georgetown Pike in Fairfax County (where the mansions and heavy tree coverage is) I also roam on BAM. For the most part coverage is acceptable but capacity can be an issue. I have yet to have capacity related issues but I can see in some really high density areas where it could become an issue. I'll see if I can make a few maps or two regarding the areas of interest tomorrow....

 

Yes roaming is included with the newer plans. No web services available while roaming but text messaging does work on many roaming networks (except on LG phones).

 

I've heard that Sprint will soon have 1xRTT DATA roaming, like possibly this quarter. Anyone have any information on that?

 

Yeah I've heard that as well but we'll see. I can just see all the problems with certain phones being able to use data while roaming and others not working. Sprint needs to step up and make all of their new phones standardized so that all phones can do all functions when roaming. They need to release software updates for the LG phones so that SMS works while roaming. But of course we all know that won't happen.

 

I haven't heard anything specifically about Sprint personally, only about carriers like ALLTEL, Verizon, and US Cellular, as well as some other smaller CDMA providers.

 

Hrrm. Sorry, forgot that I said I would make coverage maps. Whoops, work seems to suck up a lot of time Hope this helps. The red triangles are the cell sites.

 

That is one thing I noticed, even on places like Georgetown Pike where the signal almost goes out I can make and keep a call with decent audio quality. I was impressed. I am impressed your service experience with Sprint PCS was so positive in the Springfield Mall area. They don't have antyhing like Nextel in terms of cell density but must have close to the same amount of customer, coming/going, roaming and at home in that area as Nextel.

All CDMA carriers roam on BAM for Metro service (my Alltel phone worked fine). D-AMPS folks can go to AMPS. GSM and iDEN are out of luck. No biggie. It is so damn noisy down there anyway.

Cool thing is some of those trains move so fast in and out of some of the shorter tunnels you can sometimes keep your Sprint PCS signal. Don't know if you can hold calls...