This is my second time reporting this problem. Last time, they offered to send me a new phone, which did not fix the problem.

I am just barely outside the Verizon official coverage area (I am in the extended / roaming zone). I used to always get perfect, 5-bar coverage in my home on the roaming network. If I would dial *228, I would always get a US Cellular message.

About 6 months ago, something changed and now I am on the very edge of the coverage area (I have not moved). Now, most of the time, I am on Verizon network, with 1 bar of signal. I am dropping 90% of calls! Occasionally, it will switch to US Cellular and give me my old 5-bar coverage, which is great. But it never lasts more than a minute, and it jumps back to Verizon, even during my calls, and immediately drops the call. It's so frustrating.

It does not matter where I stand in my home. My phone keeps bouncing back between Verizon and US Cellular, and I have completely given up on making and receiving calls reliably. I even went and paid for a home phone line so I could continue to have a reliable line for work calls.

So now I am paying for another phone line, and my cell phone is useless when I am at home - it works fine when I go anywhere else.

I really want to lock my phone into Roaming mode or something. It should not switch from US Cellular to Verizon when Verizon is 1 or 0 bars of service. It's basically impossible to use in its current state.

I have tried numerous times to do *228 programming, which always fails if I try it at home. I even drove the 30 minutes to the nearest Verizon 4G coverage area and did the *228 process, which was successful. When I got home, it was the same story - bouncing between carriers, dropping calls constantly.

I have 2 Verizon phones, and I have switched between the two, programming each of them them using *228 (after driving to the coverage area). Both phones exhibit the same problem when I'm home.

The constant bouncing between carriers also seems to be draining my smartphone's battery in about 75% of the time it used to take to drain.

I have heard of a device called a Network Extender. Please let me know if this is something that will work for me, and if you can set me up with one.

Thanks for helping me. This has become a real problem for me!

(Phones I am experiencing the problems on: iPhone 4S 16GB, Motorola Droid 2 Global)