Cell Phone Service and Brooklyn Heights: Not a Love Story

iphoneMaking a cell phone call from my apartment on Pierrepont Street goes like this:

1: Look at phone to see how many bars I have

2: If three or more bars are present, dial phone

3: If not, wait for the “No Service” indicator to vanish, then dial

4: Wait for person on other end to answer

5: Warn this person that the call could be disconnected with very little notice at any given moment

6: Talk for 7-8 minutes. Call drops out

7: Move to another room in my apartment.

8: Redial. Almost immediately, call drops again

9: Redial. Call stays active long enough for friend/parent/relative to threaten termination of our relationship due to faulty cell phone service

10: Call drops again

11: Send text message to friend/parent/relative begging for forgiveness, hope the relationship will be restored when AT&T steps it up, or when I finally cave and get a landline

Sound familiar?

After nine months living in Brooklyn Heights, I’ve just about reached my breaking point with the awful cell phone service in a neighborhood that I adore in almost every other way. My husband and I are both AT&T customers, and have difficulty on a daily basis making calls not just from our apartment, but on the Promenade, inside the CVS on Henry Street, and from many other locations in the area. This would not be so frustrating if our monthly cell phone bill was not $145.00. But it is.

Back in December, I approached an innocent salesman with my rage at the AT&T store on Montague Street, and was met with a sigh. The bad service, he claimed, was the result of Brooklyn Heights being a designated historic district. As such, cell phone towers can’t be placed in close proximity, lest they de-historicalize the area. Or something. The bottom line is that he really had no explanation and didn’t care much for my plight, but suggested I call customer service.

A few days later, a nice but disinterested voice on the other end of the line told me AT&T was sorry for my woes, and offered me a $25 rebate for the month, which was a nice gesture, I guess, but it didn’t improve my cell phone service. It did pay for a meal at Siggy’s.

Over the last few months, I’ve watched Verizon users make and receive calls with ease from my couch, a common action that has become, for me, a source of great envy. After returning home from a recent trip to Peru, where my cell phone worked better at the top of Machu Picchu than it does in my own home, I decided it was time to call AT&T again and try to get some answers. Provided I had a signal.

The friendly public relations representative e-mailed me a very positive press release that focused on the “extra spectrum” AT&T has added throughout the city to enhance coverage, “usually resulting in better in-building experience.” The emphasis there would be on the word “usually.”

The press release, which went out at the end of June, also boasted of new layers of frequency known as “carriers” that have been added throughout Manhattan and “as needed” throughout the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn to “more efficiently manage available spectrum and increase 3G capacity.”

AT&T’s rep was reluctant to go on the record about anything until further investigating what might be hampering service at my particular address. One potential solution to the problem could be a MicroCell, a device that “acts like a mini cellular tower,” according to AT&T’s website, to extend the wireless network into locations with poor coverage.

While I sit and wait and pray for my phone to actually ring when AT&T calls back, I thought I’d throw this one out to the masses: What’s your nightmarish Brooklyn Heights cell phone experience? Have you done anything to fix it? Is AT&T the worst?

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  • JE

    step 12 – dump ATT. Worst service in NYC. If you don’t “need” an iphone, there is no good reason to use ATT. If you “need” an iphone, then get a second phone from Verizon to make calls.

  • Jason Carreiro

    AT&T is the worst. I’m over in DUMBO, the supposed “Digital District”, but you can’t make an iphone call here because the AT&T network is so lame. It’s a nightmare considering the cheapest [iPhone] plan ends up being about $100.00 a month. For a network that doesn’t provide call service?! More corporate gouging. Reprehensible. I love my iPhone, but I HATE AT&T. It’s going to be soooo satisfying watching the mass exodus over to Verizon, once Apple opens it up to REAL network providers.

  • Andrew Porter

    I lament the loss of phone booths here. I haven’t been able to change into my super-hero costume in years.

    I also have a Virgin cellphone which I got at Radio Shack on Montague. It’s a prepaid plan which costs only $15 every 3 months. Shows how often I use it.

  • http://ronfeldman.wordpress.com Ron

    I also recently moved in on Pierrepont and had the same awful experience with At&t/iPhone. After a similar futile interaction with the store on Montague, I spent many hours on the phone with At&t where I convinced them to give me a credit large enough ($150) to cover a MicroCell and went and bought one. Now the level of service in my apartment is back to what At&t service is everywhere else. Definitely not great, but at least I can initiate and receive phone calls most of the time… Still get dropped calls and phantom calls that go to voicemail without a missed call, etc. Bottom line – At&t has a horrible network in NY amongst other places and certain parts of the Heights are beyond atrocious. But unfortunately they’re the only ones with the iPhone for now which is still the best phone by far…

  • http://ronfeldman.wordpress.com Ron

    I also recently moved in on Pierrepont and had the same awful experience with At&t/iPhone. After a similar futile interaction with the store on Montague, I spent many hours on the phone with At&t where I convinced them to give me a credit large enough ($150) to cover a MicroCell and went and bought one. Now the level of service in my apartment is back to what At&t service is everywhere else. Definitely not great, but at least I can initiate and receive phone calls most of the time… Still get dropped calls and phantom calls that go to voicemail without a missed call, etc. Bottom line – At&t has a horrible network in NY amongst other places and certain parts of the Heights are beyond atrocious. But unfortunately they’re the only ones with the iPhone for now which is still the best phone by far…

  • http://mailer.fsu.edu/~rsams/movie/template.html roccos

    “But unfortunately they’re the only ones with the iPhone for now which is still the best phone by far”

    other phones are catching up quickly

    My AT&T bill is 236.00/mo. I have young adult children on my plan (I am the only one with an iPhone). I cannot make phone calls anywhere in my apartment (on the promenade – street side). The AT&T store on Montague said to turn off 3G so I can at least get a text message out (barely) using Edge.
    It works ok in Manhattan. slow since its a 3G but I’m ready to throw in the towel. Problem is . . . contract doesn’t end until 3/11. I had a ‘ trouble ticket’ open with AT&T for a week or so while they tried to troubleshoot my iPhone problem – the store gave me a new ‘sim’ card which really did nothing – so they closed out my ticket. In fact AT&T called me that day and reception was pitch perfect. I talked to them inside my apartment for 20 minutes without a hitch. I thought my problem was solved with the new sim card. Alas back to no bars – actually just as the author described – 3 bars then no service then 3 bars. what can I do to get out of my contract?

  • http://www.mdbuildingsvcs.com/ Chris

    A lot of people like to blame apple. i love my verizon service and i’m content