T-Mobile has today extended its Street Check service to instore facilities, allowing staff to ensure that a customer will be able to get decent coverage before buying a phone.

The service has been available on the T-Mobile website for a while, and to customer service staff since early this year, but now staff in shops will also be able to check three different postcodes (home, work and play, as T-Mobile would have them). Checks are performed at a street-by-street level, and even small dead zones should show up.

If the check turns out to be wrong, T-Mobile will give a full refund as long as you notify the company within 14 days.

Exactly where the data comes from isn't revealed by T-Mobile, and while the 3G maps appear accurate it's hard to judge the accuracy of the 2G information as dead zones are pretty rare in the UK - as evidenced by the lacklustre UK version of the deadzones website.

Of course, if its coverage was't so ubiquitous T-Mobile wouldn't be shouting about it, and it's keen to hear from customers who spot unmarked dead areas, as are we. ®

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