Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

AT&T in Chicago

spencecb

spencecb

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 20, 2003
1,187
215
Hey everyone!

I wanted to get other people's input on their experience with service around Chicago. Just to clarify about what I mean by Chicago: I live in the city, in Uptown, so I don't want responses from people that live in the suburbs.

I got my iPhone launch weekend, and signed my contract with AT&T. 10 months later, I can no longer deal with the reception problems that come along with the contract. I do not get service in my apartment, I do not get service in my boyfriends apartment, and I do not get service in a majority of the buildings/bars/areas of the city that I routinely go to.

Does anyone else have this problem? I know it is not the iPhone, because my boyfriend has an iPhone and unlocked it to use T-Mobile, and he gets perfect reception nearly everywhere in the city, indoors and out.

I'm fed up to the max, and want to break the contract, without paying the fee, because I think it is unacceptable that I don't get service in my own house.
 
Hello,

I don't live in the USA so I can not say for that but I live in a rural town outside Aberdeen in Scotland, before purchasing my iPhone I got in contact with the network (AT&T for you) 02 and I asked simple questions about the upgrading of the signal in my area, they where able to give details such of time and dates to when and where it will happen and it stands true that it happened, I was not able to recieve signal in my own house but now I am, if I was you I wonder try the same thing you may get the same type of information, hope you do.

Dave
 
DaveTaylor said:
Hello,

I don't live in the USA so I can not say for that but I live in a rural town outside Aberdeen in Scotland, before purchasing my iPhone I got in contact with the network (AT&T for you) 02 and I asked simple questions about the upgrading of the signal in my area, they where able to give details such of time and dates to when and where it will happen and it stands true that it happened, I was not able to recieve signal in my own house but now I am, if I was you I wonder try the same thing you may get the same type of information, hope you do.

Dave
Click to expand...

That would definitely be a good idea in an area like you do, but Chicago is the 3rd largest city in the US. A carrier such as AT&T is expected to be able to provide exceptional service, not the crap kind of coverage it gives us.
 
AT&T in chicago is....



AMAZING. I live in a suburb, and my area was one of the first to have 3G everywhere, and when it was rolled out, top to bottom of my city was covered. Parts of chicago don't have 3G i believe, but signal that the current iPhone uses is abundant. Unless you're high up in a building or in a tunnel, service averages about 4-5 bars (with excellent quality and internet speeds) top to bottom.
 
nickspohn said:
AT&T in chicago is....



AMAZING. I live in a suburb, and my area was one of the first to have 3G everywhere, and when it was rolled out, top to bottom of my city was covered. Parts of chicago don't have 3G i believe, but signal that the current iPhone uses is abundant. Unless you're high up in a building or in a tunnel, service averages about 4-5 bars (with excellent quality and internet speeds) top to bottom.
Click to expand...

I can tell you for certain that the average is definitely not 4-5 bars. I do not live in a large building, I live on the first floor of a 3-flat with no large buildings around me. The areas I hang out in are never surrounded by large buildings. And, as I said in my post, I was not referring to the suburbs. I never go out there, so I don't care what AT&T's coverage is like there because that does not affect me. The average I get on my iPhone is No Service - 2 bars. And no, my device is not defective, as this is the second iPhone I have had.
 
I live in the suburbs but if your not getting service where you live I'm pretty sure you can get out of your contract at no charge. I have many friends who have had this problem after a move or just got fed up with the lack of signal, and they have all gotten out of their contracts without paying the cancellation fee.
 
Aj2488 said:
I live in the suburbs but if your not getting service where you live I'm pretty sure you can get out of your contract at no charge. I have many friends who have had this problem after a move or just got fed up with the lack of signal, and they have all gotten out of their contracts without paying the cancellation fee.
Click to expand...

That is exactly what I am banking on because it is just not fair to pay the amount I do and not be able to use my phone in my house, let alone all the places I frequently go.
 
I'm thinking its something with your phone....i live in Chicago, work downtown and live in Old Town/Gold Coast. My service is perfect...usually 5 bars, sometimes 4. My parents live in Edgewater and when i'm there the service is also perfect, and they live in the first floor of a two flat. I usually have service in all the bars i go to, and even inside the Riviera Theater. Take your phone to the apple store and tell them your problem....hopefully they'll give you a replacement.

Also, try calling AT&T and have them reset the signal to your phone...sometimes that helps. And also try doing a restore on your phone.
 
Oskee2001 said:
I'm thinking its something with your phone....i live in Chicago, work downtown and live in Old Town/Gold Coast. My service is perfect...usually 5 bars, sometimes 4. My parents live in Edgewater and when i'm there the service is also perfect, and they live in the first floor of a two flat. I usually have service in all the bars i go to, and even inside the Riviera Theater. Take your phone to the apple store and tell them your problem....hopefully they'll give you a replacement.

Also, try calling AT&T and have them reset the signal to your phone...sometimes that helps. And also try doing a restore on your phone.
Click to expand...

I would be more apt to believe this if this wasn't my second iPhone. And yes, there are definitely areas in which I do receive a perfect signal. But this does me no good when the signal drops for no reason. Like, when I am on the redline, the signal drops completely at Sheridan. Why? Who knows.
 
I've just never had that experience...i travel on the redline often as well, and above ground always have a strong signal. I even get service in high-rises. The fact that your boyfriend's phone works fine and the fact that mine works fine as well leads me to believe its your individual unit. You may simply have had the bad luck to get two bad phones in a row. Or its something having to do with your account settings...like i said, try AT&T.
 
I agree that you might have a second bad phone. I live in the South Loop in a brick & concrete 6 flat. No reception problems there. No reception problems anywhere I've been in the city from deep south side to Rogers Park. The only weak spot in the city proper I've experienced is right near the corner of Division and Damen - goes down to 2 bars. Other than that there are a couple of places along the Kennedy where I consistently get dropped calls. Not a big deal as when I redial I'm past that spot. I work in Schaumburg and my service out there is perfect as well, even in the concrete/steel elevator core of my office building - 3 bars there.
 
Oskee2001 said:
I've just never had that experience...i travel on the redline often as well, and above ground always have a strong signal. I even get service in high-rises. The fact that your boyfriend's phone works fine and the fact that mine works fine as well leads me to believe its your individual unit. You may simply have had the bad luck to get two bad phones in a row. Or its something having to do with your account settings...like i said, try AT&T.
Click to expand...

Well, I will try and give AT&T a call. But as for my boyfriend's phone, he is on T-Mobile. So his device would not be a good one to measure AT&T reception. I'll try calling them later.
 
^true, especially because AT&T has better reception in Chicago than T-Mobile!

(my parents have T-Mobile and they've always had spotty service).
 
1) You edited your post after i posted. Like i'm suppose to know what info you directly want?

2) I go to Chicago. A LOT. I always have great service, everywhere i go. If you think your boyfriends T Mobile service is good, then you probably have a bad iPhone. T Mobile is horrible.



Take your sim card out and put it in your boyfriends phone. There.
 
nickspohn said:
1) You edited your post after i posted. Like i'm suppose to know what info you directly want?

2) I go to Chicago. A LOT. I always have great service, everywhere i go. If you think your boyfriends T Mobile service is good, then you probably have a bad iPhone. T Mobile is horrible.



Take your sim card out and put it in your boyfriends phone. There.
Click to expand...

Just FYI: I edited the part to put it in bold. All the information remained the same.

And I'm just telling you what I see from a day to day basis. T Mobile's service is by far better than AT&T. At least in our experience. His iPhone constantly has full reception, no matter where we are in the city. Mine does not. Nor did my other iPhone.

And I am willing to try to have AT&T fix it. But if they can't, byebye.
 
I lived in Tinley Park - AT&T reception awesome
I lived in Hoffman Estates - AT&T reception awesome
I lived in Lakeview (Wrigleyville) - AT&T reception awesome

I've since moved from Chicago to Minneapolis, and my ATT reception is still awesome. I've had very few places where I have no reception, and it's usually on some rural Wisconsin highway.....

I'd try a new phone.
 
spencecb said:
That is exactly what I am banking on because it is just not fair to pay the amount I do and not be able to use my phone in my house, let alone all the places I frequently go.
Click to expand...

If calling AT&T or Apple about your individual iPhone doesn't work.... Good luck with the alternative. Like I said I have many friends that have canceled there cellular contracts on all the different providers for the same reason and none of them were charged the fee. That fee is a bunch of bull anyway.
 
What is something you live by in Chicago? Just wondering. You don't have to say the city or anything.
 
I think she said she lived in uptown, so that's like Lawrence and Broadway, roughly. i've had perfect reception there too.
 
I live at Southport & Addison and have often gotten off at Sheridan. Perfect signal 90% of the time, 4 bars the rest.

The only place my phone doesn't work (typically 1 or 2 bars) is at my work -- which is atop of a highrise downtown...
 
spencecb said:
Hey everyone!

I wanted to get other people's input on their experience with service around Chicago. Just to clarify about what I mean by Chicago: I live in the city, in Uptown, so I don't want responses from people that live in the suburbs.

I got my iPhone launch weekend, and signed my contract with AT&T. 10 months later, I can no longer deal with the reception problems that come along with the contract. I do not get service in my apartment, I do not get service in my boyfriends apartment, and I do not get service in a majority of the buildings/bars/areas of the city that I routinely go to.

Does anyone else have this problem? I know it is not the iPhone, because my boyfriend has an iPhone and unlocked it to use T-Mobile, and he gets perfect reception nearly everywhere in the city, indoors and out.

I'm fed up to the max, and want to break the contract, without paying the fee, because I think it is unacceptable that I don't get service in my own house.
Click to expand...

I live in wrigleyville and have noticed the service isn't the best. Call quality in my apartment (4th floor of a 4 story walk up) is terrible. I'll regularly make a call with 4 or 5 bars and the call will either drop or the person I'm calling can't hear me. I put up with it because I really like the iphone.

People always say how Chicago has amazing AT&T service and I just don't see it using the iphone. My previous sprint phones all had noticeably better call quality.
 
I live in the south burbs... never had a better reception with any other carrier. Visit downtown Chicago almost every weekend and never have any issues as well.
 
I live in the suburbs of Chicago, have never had a problem with AT&T service. I switched from Verizon to AT&T and I have been happy ever since. I work in Sales and I spend most of my time in Chicago, Loop Area, Lincoln Park, Old Town, West Loop, basicly all over the city. No problems at all. I ever get signal when I am in high raise buildings where my Verizon would never work.
 
Oskee2001 said:
I think she said she lived in uptown, so that's like Lawrence and Broadway, roughly. i've had perfect reception there too.
Click to expand...

Yes, I live in Uptown, but I'm not a she:p

I live right behind the post office off of Broadway.

I haven't had the time to call AT&T yet, but I am going to do that this weekend.

I'm at my boyfriend's place right now, sitting beside the window of a three story courtyard building, in Andersonville, and have 2 bars.

I was at Clark and Belmont last weekend shopping and had no service, even when I was outside.

I know there are areas where there is good service, because I have experienced those areas too. But you have to aknowledge the fact that there are a multitude of places in the city that receive NO SIGNAL.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back