I had thought of that, and appreciate the suggestion. Nonetheless, our current phones (Siemens S55) do not allow a connection to T-Mo, so no way to get a "bar count".

Here's what I've decided to do: I'm going to go to T-Mo and get a Nokia 6133, sign up for service, have my wife take it to her office and see what happens. If it works for her there, we'll spend a day or two in the areas we frequent seeing about the coverage.
If it's good, I'll stay with it - If not, I'll return it for full credit and wait for Cingular to bring out a phone with features same as the 6133 (one that is NOT Razr)

My sincere thanks to everyone for your help on this issue!!!! Dave
^ ^

One carrier can't block another. There are 4 GSM bands in use in the world. I don't know whether Cingular and T-Mobile share the same band or not -- it's more likely that they use different bands. Whoever has the higher wavelength will have poorer building penetration.

In that case, make sure that the phone you get from your carrier is quad band and UNLOCKED (very important). That way, when you travel internationally, you can just buy a new, local SIM card (very cheap) and have service. We keep a quad band phone (former Cingular, though we were never Cingular customers) just for this purpose. Right now, we're using it in China.

In any event, thanks much for the help so far!!
Best , Dave[/QUOTE]

Although Cingular uses 850 MHz in many markets, I think that in the Chicago market they only use 1900 MHz. Why? Because for the last year or so I decided to use my Nokia 6100 (my world phone) that only has 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz. and it has worked just great around Chicago with both TMO (all 1900 MHz) and my alternate Cingular sim.

There has to be somebody in her office (unless it's really small) who has t-mobile service that can tell her if there is coverage or not.

A possible second choice if it turns out only Cingular works due to a repeater is to get either a 6133 or an unlocked 6131 which seems to be a very similar, possibly nearly identical Nokia phone to the 6133 and use it with her Cingular account.

I guess I am too dumb to understand the problem. If you have roaming included in your service contract won't the phone connect to Cingular if T-Mobile is not available?

Yeh, I was going to ask the same thing. At least on Cingular, I can roam on T-Mobile as if I were on Cingular. Doesn't T-Mobile have something similar? If so, just get a quad band phone and whatever connects, connects. If it's auto connecting to a very weak T-Mobile signal instead of a stronger Cingular signal, just switch to manual and force it to connect to Cingular. Admittedly, I have heard few good things about T-Mobile.

I also don't understand why you can't connect to T-Mobile. The s55 is a tri-band phone, which should include T-Mobile's band. It's pre-850mhz, so you should be able to connect to anything except the newer Cingular networks.

Also look in to whether you have had your service long enough to do an upgrade on your phone. Generally, you can get a phone with a new 2-year contract as if you didn't have service if you qualify for an upgrade. If the s55 is your original phone, you are probably way past your upgrade qualification date. I seem to recall it being 5 or 6 years old now.

FCC regulations prohibit blocking of cell signals. That is why it is illegal for movie theaters to set up cell phone signal blockers. :td:

Of course, that doesn't mean you will get a good signal everywhere. But I would test my phone first in the new location before switching service.

If Singular is the prefered corporate carrier, they may have had the building prewired and connected to a Cingular repeater.

Lots of modern buildings have lots of metal, metalized glass, etc - stuff that blocks radio signals.

This makes it hard for the wireless company trying to pitch cell phones to replace the wireline phones ("answer your phone wherever you are in our entire facility").

The answer? Leaky Coax - it's a normal coax cable (think Cable TV) with cuts in it so that some signal leaks out. You run the cable through out the building and connect it to a repeater. Since it's inside the metal cage that is the building, you get good coverage.


Or as everyone else suspects, it could just be coverage.

-----Burton