No Voice Coverage in Cheboygan (MI) County Home

[patargent]

I have a home in Cheboygan, Michigan.  There is coverage when I go to the downtown area and in a small part of a nearby lakeshore but none in my home, whether I'm indoors or in the open.  There are no large buildings there, just homes.  I have an iPhone 3G and enjoy it greatly in my primary home in southeastern Michigan.  The AT&T coverage plan lists the area for my Cheboygan home as Moderate, but in reality it's nil.  Many of the residents in the area have commented that they chose not to go with AT&T due to this.  How can this get escalated?

[formercanuck]

Just as an FYI - 'moderate' is the step above 'No Service'.  I personally consider 'Moderate' to be 'lucky if you can get a signal'.

Maps actually show everything in/around Cheboygan as 'Best or Good'.

MODERATE: The areas shown in the light orange should have sufficient signal strength for on-street or in-the-open coverage, but may not have it for in-vehicle coverage or in-building coverage. This AT&T owned network provides GSM, GPRS, and EDGE service

[Wild Banchi ACE - Professor]

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patargent wrote:

I have a home in Cheboygan, Michigan.  There is coverage when I go to the downtown area and in a small part of a nearby lakeshore but none in my home, whether I'm indoors or in the open.  There are no large buildings there, just homes.  I have an iPhone 3G and enjoy it greatly in my primary home in southeastern Michigan.  The AT&T coverage plan lists the area for my Cheboygan home as Moderate, but in reality it's nil.  Many of the residents in the area have commented that they chose not to go with AT&T due to this.  How can this get escalated?

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By homes, are they relatively large homes, by any chance? Or are there a lot of tall, thick trees around? I live in Bay City, MI, and get acceptable coverage here...

[patargent]

There is no coverage on the open (I have a large yard) or on the street.  We have to drive down a few miles to get coverage. 

[patargent]

There are some large homes and some large trees but there is a lot of room in between the houses and the trees.  I'm on Black River and my yard is pretty long and open and so is the river.

[Wild Banchi ACE - Professor]

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patargent wrote:

There is no coverage on the open (I have a large yard) or on the street.  We have to drive down a few miles to get coverage. 

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Alright. Have you considered getting a MicroCell? (A "mini tower" that acts as a signal booster).

[macharborguy]

To be honest, i would side against a Microcell.  I purchased one from AT&T a year ago and it had all sorts of intermittent issues, as well as very poor audio quality for calls.

For myself, i purchased a cell phone signal booster which has helped out greatly in my home which has two levels of metal roofing.  At the time it cost me around $300, but I am sure they have gone down in price since then.  All they do is pull in and send out cell signals (2G, 3G, etc) via an external antenna (external meaning it is positioned at a window or outside of the building), and relay it via Coax cable to a router-like box in my home, which then provides the house with increased cell signals.  Never had a single problem with it