Stinson Beach, CA

[vonbrocklin]

This is a longshot, but does anybody here from the Bay Area know of a cell phone company that provides coverage in Stinson Beach, CA? Ideally I would also like to hook it up to my laptop for email access etc.

Despite the fact that it is a short drive from downtown San Francisco, it appears that most of the big companies do NOT have coverage in Stinson Beach.

I will be there for 10 days in June, and somehow need cell phone coverage so I can stay in touch with my business back here in Minnesota.

Anybody?

[mresell]

I would think that many of the plans that cover the us would cover you. I am certain that suncom has full us coverage, but you may not have them locally. Maybe you are not being clear w/ the companies. Almost all of them have plans for full us. Altho tmobile and sprint usually don't do well on customer svc. I know verizon has plans that cover extensively, but not sure if you can get signed w/ them locally. If there are no towers near there you could have signal coverage issues tho.

[vonbrocklin]

Originally Posted by mresell

I would think that many of the plans that cover the us would cover you.

You would think so, wouldn't you?

But I have taken to randomly calling hotels in Stinson Beach, and they say almost NO cell phone companies actually work there. Verizon is hit or miss, and AT&T works "if you are standing out in the driveway, sometimes".

One hotel owner said she threw her Verizon phone away in frustration, switched to AT&T recently, and can now get it to work if she gets in her car and drives a short spell down the road.

Hard to believe that someplace less than 20 miles away from downtown SF cannot offer cell phone coverage, but it appears to be true.

[dweimann]

I can't speak specifically for that area, but I've had good luck with Nextel all around CA. I had lots of problems with coverage with Sprint, but no major coverage problems with Nextel. I found that Nextel covered more out-of-the-way places better.