No, you can’t get the same coverage.
Both Sprint and Verizon use the CDMA technology, but while your phone may be technically capable of working on either network, your carrier will download a Preferred Roaming List (PRL) to your phone. Unless you know how to override it, your phone will only monitor cells on the PRL. Rest assured that Verizon does not include all Sprint cells or vice versa.
Generally, though, aren’t cell towers in more rural areas always on the PRL? I actually don’t know, I have worked for AT&T wireless, but the tech is different.
I mean, it would be logical to make the rural cell towers the ones that are always on the list, that way you avoid dropped calls in poorly-served areas.
In urban areas, of course, you don’t want your competitor’s customers directly competing with your own customers for the available data ports, because of potential slowdowns due to packet loss, right?
And speaking of all that, is there a GSM counterpart to a PRL? When I did AT&T Wireless tech support, the only limiting factor appeared to be whether the phone used one of the same frequencies that the cell tower was using–so a phone that couldn’t use 2100 Mhz was useless in Japan, for instance. Otherwise, though, there didn’t appear to be any other limitations, for voice service.
The PRL is not to prevent your competitors’ customers from using your network. It’s to prevent your customers from using the competitors’ networks. The motivation is primarily economic. You have to pay roaming charges to your competitors if your customers use their facilities, so you want to have your customers use your facilities whenever possible (or those of a preferred roaming partner).
For example, let’s say Sprint has a given area well covered with a strong signal, but Verizon has a distant cell with a weak signal. Verizon may still set up their PRLs so that their customers will use the distant cell and ignore the stronger Sprint cells until the signal drops below the noise threshold. The PRL can be set up to say “roam on Sprint if absolutely nothing else is available in the area.”
I don’t know how Sprint or Verizon decide what to put on their PRLs so I can’t be more specific. I’m also not familiar with GSM.
Obviously this was unquestionably true 10 years ago.
I’d still say that avoiding letting your competitors’ customers bog down your own data network has got to play a role, at least in some more urban areas.
I mean, wouldn’t it be a good selling point? “Sprint’s network bogs down in this town, but Verizon’s doesn’t!”, or the reverse, as an example.
But Verizon doesn’t create the PRLs for Sprint customers. Sprint does. There’s no way Verizon can insert or remove themselves from Sprint customers’ PRLs (other than to ask Sprint to do it for them). So even if Verizon wanted Sprint customers to roam on their systems, they’d need Sprint’s co-operation to make it happen.
Bummer.
The recharge thing is a big problem, and I’d like to have a plan where I’m not paying for texts that I don’t use (I do not send or receive texts at all).
Well with the $80 plan you’d only have to recharge once a year.
You can arrange for automatic monthly recharges through Page Plus.
Or you can arrange for automatic recharges every 120 days through a Page Plus dealer.
I’m not sure I understand your concern about texts. You pay 5 cents per text that you actually send or receive. If you don’t send or receive any texts, you don’t pay anything for them.
These things are all negotiated between the companies, AFAIK, without any unilateral action of any kind. They negotiate cell by cell, is my understanding.
Never mind the PRLs, though. Verizon could block any companies’ customers it wanted to. That’s not difficult to accomplish, technology-wise, but the real difficulty is the problems it would create, legal and otherwise, if they did that unilaterally, without consulting their roaming partners first.
I still posit, without direct evidence, that rural towers are much more likely to be included in everyone’s PRLs.
Don’t they charge more for plans that have the ability to do texts if you turn it on? Or am I showing my age? 
No. Yes.
For example, if apply a $25 card to your account, they will credit $25 to your account. Then they will subtract six cents for every minute you talk (in the United States) and five cents for every text you send/receive until your balance reaches $0 or 120 days, whichever is first. They will also subtract a 50 cent fee on the 25th of every month. If you don’t use any texts, nothing will be subtracted for texts.
If you apply another card to your account before the first one runs out, the expiration date of both the remaining balance and the new balance will be extended to 120 days after you apply the new card.
You don’t have to “turn on” texts. Don’t use them if you don’t want them and you won’t have to pay for them. They do have OPTIONAL plans for people who do a lot of texting that let you buy more texts for a reduced fee. Don’t want it, don’t buy it. And there’s no contract, so you can change your mind later.
The $80 plan (available only through dealers) lasts for 1 year instead of 120 days and debits your balance at the rate of 4 cents per minute and 5 cents per text.
I know that you are probably used to paying 5 times as much for nearly the same service so you’re thinking it’s too good to be true and there has to be a gotcha. But sometimes a legitimate good deal does come along.
Sure it has a downside, instead of paying at the end of the month, you have to pay in advance. But that can be automated. And it’s so much cheaper and unused minutes roll over, so you may not pay nearly as often as you used to.
Note if you use a LOT of minutes, there are other plans available, such as monthly plans that give you unlimited minutes per month. And remember that there are no taxes or other fees added to the advertised prices.
I’m not so sure that the call center tech support and customer service, in-store support, and related stuff are going to be as good. IME, prepaid cell customer service is a lot ruder and less helpful. YMMV, but it’s generally true.
However, it may be worth the occasional 30-minute hold time (when calling customer support) and the occasional rude agent, to save that much money.
Just make sure you’re not the type of person who would run low on cash and not be able to prepay. If that’s the case, you may want to prepay several months in advance, or rethink the whole thing. Some people don’t manage money as well as others, and anyone can get caught by unexpected expenses.
Someone in that boat might also have trouble with a regular (non-prepaid) plan, but it’s a good point regardless.
Yeah, it’s just that there’s absolutely no flexibility with a prepaid plan. In the long run, though, you’re just as screwed with a post-pay plan, if you can’t pay.
This is different than the plan I have thru Verizon now, as it is cheaper for me to have texting disabled, even if it’s never used. Or, that’s what it was, um, five years ago? Or more? When I suddenly started getting spam texts and had that turned off.
That would be nice!
I actually have no idea how many minutes I use since most of them are to other Verizon phones and so are not charged. I’ll have to wait until I get my next bill so I can see how many minutes we are actually using. Hopefully, not that many so we will be able to use this sort of thing. I assume I’ll be able to transfer my number?
It is very rare for me to need customer service with Verizon. Only when I need to replace a phone.
If incoming text spam is a real problem for you, I don’t know for sure whether texting can be disabled by Page Plus. I imagine it very likely can. It’s not something that they advertise, you might want to call and ask if you want texting to be disabled (or post on one of the Page Plus forums). In any case, it makes no difference to your rate, except that you will have to pay individually for any texts sent or received if you actually send or receive any.
There’s no free mobile-to-mobile or night and weekend calling, so you’ll have to take that into account in doing your comparisons. If that turns out to be a huge number, there is an unlimited calling monthly plan available (unlimited calling to all US numbers, not just mobile-to-mobile).
Yes, you may keep your number. If you are under contract to Verizon, you will have to pay the usual early termination fee. If your contract has run out, there is no Verizon fee. The process of switching and keeping your number is called “porting.” When you sign up, select the option to port your old number. They will ask you to give them the MEID (serial number) of the phone you will be porting to. That MEID can be from a new phone or the phone you are already using.
You will have to set up a new voicemail message and you will lose all your old voicemails if you are saving them. Details.
Once you switch, Verizon will no longer provide customer service (unless you want to switch back). As far as phones go, Page Plus and Page Plus dealers have a modest assortmentof official Page Plus phones which they will sell you. (There’s only two phones there now, but they are expecting a revised line up in July.) Or you can use any Verizon-capable phone that you provide except phones that were originally sold as Verizon prepaid service phones, 4G smart phones (some people have gotten 4G phones to work, but you have to be a bit of a geek or know someone who is), and phones whose serial numbers are on the stolen/fraud list.
As others have pointed out, if you don’t pay your bill, you’ll be cut off until you do. That’s also true of traditional post-pay plans, but they usually don’t immediately cut you off on the day after the due date. This also has an advantage: You’ll never open up your monthly bill and find it’s for $1000 because you went way over your minutes, unknowingly dialed Guam, or lent your phone to your grandkids.
The serious phone geeks hang out at the Howard Forums Page Plus board. You can still learn a lot there even if you’re not a Geek, just beware that a lot of their FAQ threads were written a long time ago and might not be up to date with details. Kitty Forums is filled with people of all levels who eat, breath, and sleep Page Plus. (There’s a forum for every fetish on the internet!)
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According to Kitty, you can request PP to block texts completely if you want.