What is the best basic phone for the weak signal areas across Southwest Austin from Texas 45 to Slaughter Lane and Manchaca

[raymondzachary]

The areas of Southwest and South Central Austin from Texas 45 to South Mopac to Slaughter and East toward I 35 has spotty coverage from Verizon. Using a spectrum of Samsung smart phones from 3 to 7 convinced my daughter to switch to T-Mobile after many years with Verizon. I have an LG Accolade that worked very well in Sacramento because it was flatter terrain than Austin. Calls with that phone suffer from weak signal in the areas mentioned above. A smart phone offers no interest to me as I only make phone calls either from home near Texas 45 and Escarpment or from my car using Ford MY TOUCH SYNC. Talking with the LG through the car works all over Texas from William Cannon North to beyond Dallas. The problem is, in fact, that Verizon has too few towers serving the undulating terrain in Southwest Austin.

The key to my problem is probably a basic phone with a larger antenna area which means a larger basic phone that is not necessarily a flip phone. The reason is the two antennas, one for low frequency and one for high frequency have to be spread out over a larger area than my LG Accolade flip phone provides. So I am seeking advice about Verizon's experience with customers trying different basic phones in the area of interest. Which basic phones have received the fewest customer complaints for dropped calls or calls in which only every third or fourth syllable is transmitted.

Any help will be appreciated.

Raymond [Removed]

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Message edited by Verizon Moderator

[vzw_customer_support]

raymondzachary we certainly want to give you the information you are looking for. Here is a link: https://www.verizonwireless.com/basic-phones/ How long has the service been this way? What is the zip code?

RosanneM_VZW
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If my response answered your question please click the �Correct Answer� button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

[raymondzachary]

The problem is several years old and getting worse. The website referred above shows the basic phones available from Verizon but tells nothing about user experience in the 78739, 78748, and 78749 zip codes. There is no information about the comparative signal performance of these phones. Furthermore, there is no information on planned improvements, additional towers, or any other support for improvements in the fundamental telephone experience of making and keeping connected to a call. In general the simple process of finding a provider and phone for doing nothing more than making a decent phone call is a poor venture. Clearly having a smart phone to use while driving to use email instead of voice is threatening to other drivers, is illegal, and pretty useless as anything but a toy. That is the reason a basic phone is desirable and cost effective.

[EdW_VZW]

I apologize for the issues that have been getting worse and we want you to have a better experience, Raymond. Let me keep working on this service concern. I checked the zip codes you provided and there's good coverage and no issues being currently reported. Are others having these same issues? Are you indoors and outdoors? 

Thank you,

Ed W

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[raymondzachary · Accepted solution]

Since the last post on this subject I have done a careful analysis of all the data I could find on the Basic phones recognized by Verizon. IN order to have the highest probability of a larger antenna inside the phone I have looked at the physical size of all phones offered that are also compatible with Ford Sync and offer Automatic contacts download. The phone that meets all these requirements and also has the highest customer rating on performance within that set of conditions is theLG Exalt II. I bought one of these from
Amazon as none were available at any central Texas Verizon store and it was delivered yesterday. The folks at the Verizon store in Sunset Valley transferred the contacts from the old phone to the new one by a direct cable transfer link. (Backup Assistant seems to work only to store contacts but not to retrieve them.)

I have paired the Exalt to Ford Sync and have determined the following.

Inside my house [Removed] the signal strength improved from 0 bars to 1 bar

Outside my house the signal improved from 1 bar to 2 bars.

On Texas 45 and then on to South Mopac south of Slaughter signal increased from 2 bars to 3 bars

At Mopac and Wm Cannon and at Mopac and 290/71 the signal increased from 3 bars to 5 bars.

There are other tests I will perform south of Slaughter and Bilbrook  as that is usually a drop zone.

My conclusion is that the new phone offers improvement that may prove to be all I need.

My thanks to the folks who responded and offered help.

Raymond [Removed]

personal information removed as required by the Verizon Wireless Terms of Service

Message edited by Verizon Moderator