We've had Verizon since arriving about 18 months ago. Very poor connection down in my neck of the hollow. My neighbor has a similar connection with Cingular. I despise Verizon's penchant for removing features from phones. The Razor I own has much more functionality with other carriers. Verizon disabled the ability to transfer pictures directly between the phone and your computer, so you have to use their service to transfer files for a fee of course. This is only one of several functions I know they have removed. That being said, I will probably go back with them when my current contract is up since they do have pretty good coverage when traveling. Personally, I think the customer service of all the cellular providers is the pits.

Brad Hancock
"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

You may have already reviewed this thread: HERE about cellular coverage in Montclair. It is an old article/thread, so I am not sure how accurate the information would be today. However, it still may offer some opinions that may have not changed status since the thread began. I have verizon down by the shopping center and get great coverage, even in the house. My brother-n-law has the iphone and doesnt get calls in the basement. My wife has T-mobile and gets calls at our home, but as you go towards Ashland on 234 or within the Southlakes area past the Recreation center, no service. I wish you the best of luck at picking the one more convenient for your lifestyle.
I heard about another option the other day. There is a cell phone that will work in your home over WI-FI connection as a regular phone. I did a quick search and here is an article that gives a brief overview: HERE . This may be worth looking into and seeing which providers have WI-FI/Cellular capable phones before making the final judgment as to what service to lock in another year with. Interesting concept since so many folks are going completely cellular and just not having a traditional landline.

We used Virgin Mobile for years and really love them. The freedom of no contracts is great, their plans are very competitive and they have a nice selection of phones. Best of all, they have an excellent coverage area and I never had any problems with dropped calls or no service. However, simply because I wanted a Razor, I switched to Verizon. Now I so totally miss Virgin and would go back in a heartbeat, but I have a two year Verizon contract. Not that Verizon is bad (I'm down by the country club and always have a very strong signal), I just like Virgin more. Much more! I'm sure I'll go back at the end of my contract...

I switched from Verizon to Cingular a couple of years ago and have regretted it ever since. My experience remains that Montclair is a giant dead zone for Cingular. In a pinch, I can stand out at the end of my driveway, hold my phone towards the sky, and find a bar or two. It sucks, and my family cries daily to me to switch services.

But now I want an iPhone, and Cingular/AT&T is the only option. So what if I can't actually call on it, it's still just so cool :-)

I was curious about the cellular tower we have here in Montclair, and an online search led me to this page of information about it:

www.cellreception.com/towers/details.php?id=1234596

Not finding any info there about what providers use the tower, I wrote to the provider contact to inquire, and they responded that confidentiality agreements prevent them from disclosing which providers use the tower. It seems a strange response, since my most likely action upon learning would be to sign up with one of those providers. But I assume they have their reasons.

From the feeback I've seen on this site in this and other threads, Sprint/Nextel get consistently high marks for strong signal strength in Montclair. Maybe it's them on our tower.