I also have a Galaxy Nexus, and I had the same problems when I tried out the Nexus 4. Apparently The near-north suburbs are just not as well covered, even thought T-Mobile's coverage map shows pretty much perfect coverage.
I just got an Aio Wireless SIM card to try out for a month, and it's awesome. I even get service in the elevators and the parking garage. I finally feel like I'm living in modern times!
I have the same experience on a daily basis. I get no service to a maximum of 1 bar standing next to a window at home and the same sitting at my desk at work (which happens to be next to a nice, big window). Couple that with dead zones on the commute to work, and I spend almost 100% of my day with little to no service. And no, I do not live in the middle of nowhere; I live a tad bit north of Chicago. AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint all have fantastic service here. I'm trying to get out of my legacy contract with T-Mobile over this, but they want to charge me $300 to terminate.
T-Mobile can throw in as many features as they want, but if I can't reliably make a call from home or work, then it's useless to me.