[Al Skierkiewicz]

Courtney,
There are many reasons for your problems, but I suspect that a hard fall has broken your internal antenna and/or the battery is not able to put for reliable communication. (My bet is on the former.) Cingular is a good plan and has good coverage but cell phones can use one or more of four different bands. Your phone may only work on one band as designed and there might not be a lot of coverage in your area on that band. Being that you are so close to Motorola and right under flight approach to O'hare airport, interference might be a problem as well. Do you have a signal meter on your phone and does it ever show maximum signal? If not, and your parent's phones do in the same location, I would suspect then phone.