We went around with Verizon for years. They said we should have 5 bars at our home. We would actually have to be at a specific spot outside for a signal and that would be 1 bar that was not reliable. They said it was our phones.....upgrade the phones to the "best" with no improvement, but got stuck with the contract for the full 2 years. According to them we should have perfect service so we would not (at that time) qualify for the no cost repeater. We would have to pay $500 (at the time) to get one, and even that was not guaranteed to work if there was no signal available to repeat or boost. They pretty much told us that it must be something we were doing because their system said we were in the perfect area for coverage.
HOA will not allow an antenna. Tried the VOIP (internet connection) and was not impressed. With all the new houses in the area the Metrocast bandwidth has gotten really bad certain times of the day. Movie streaming is occasionally frustrating.
Went to AT&T and got marginally better signal. At least we can get and make calls most of the time except for in the living room and kitchen. Still better service outside. Our 2 years is up from the last phone upgrade....
We can see a new cell tower from our home, but can not find out what carrier it is using it. Thought maybe it would be a T Mobile since they both (store and tower) appeared about the same time. Hoping we can some day sit in the lazy boy, watch a movie and make a phone call at the same time.