I started out on L.A. Cellular, and went to AT&T when the latter bought the former. When I moved up here I stayed with AT&T until last April when I went to Cingular, which took over AT&T. There are two places I’m likely to use my mobile phone: At my house, and at the studio. Would anyone like to guess where I don’t have coverage? :mad: But I have a contract until 4/2007.
I’ve been seeing the ads for the Motorola Razr for $99. I was going to get one originally, but they were like $300 so I went for the Motorola Flip Phone. $99? I can do that. So I went to the mall to get one. Nope. It’s only for new customers. If I want one now, it will cost $300. Or I can wait until 1/2007. Or I can have it now for $149 if I extend my contract for two years. WTF, over? With the crappy service, and now A) being denied an upgrade, B) being told that I would have to spend $50 more than new customers and extend my contract until 4/2009 while new customers would only be under contracts until 1/2008, and C) being told that if I want the phone now it would cost $300, I’m very tempted to pay the $150 penalty and cancel my contract.
But do any of the other companies do anything different from Cingular? How much choice to consumers have when it comes to wireless service anyway? My friend’s g/f works for T-Mobile. How are they? What about Nextel or Verizon? Does anyone have experience with various providors?
Check your coverage here. The map you’re looking at is real time and the same one engineering and customer care use to check coverage and network issues. 1500 minute plan with unlimited nights and weekends, 49.99 per month, nationwide no long distance or roaming. Unlimited WAP (EDGE) 5.99. Unlimited text and picture messaging 14.99. JD Powers Best Customer Service award two years running. One or two year contract options on handset upgrade. GSM phones, world standard compatible. Will unlock your phone to use with SIM cards from other carriers.
But yeah, they don’t have an orange splat guy for a mascot, just Catherine Zeta-Jones…
T-Mobile! T-Mobile! I’ve been with T-Mobile since about 2001, and I have never had any problem with it whatsoever. I love them for several reasons:
[ul][li]Unlimited Internet access from the phone and from a laptop / PDA connected through it for $19.99[/li][li]Unlimited text / multimedia messaging for $14.99 [/li][li]Free nights / weekends / mobile to mobile [/li][li]The ability to use all sorts of phones from around the world because they use the GSM standard[/li][li]Very fair handset upgrade policy[/ul][/li]
I have never had a billing issue with them, and I always have coverage wherever I go. They’re also great if you do a lot of international travel, because as SmartAleq mentions, they will happily provide you with the unlock code for your phone so you can put a prepaid SIM in it for when you’re overseas.
I started out with Bell Atlantic in 98 and they were bought by Verizon soon after. The coverage is great, the service is great. It is a little more pricey than some of thier competitors, but as far as I’m concerned its worth it from some of the horror stories I’ve heard about other wireless companies. I wouldn’t trade Verizon for anything. I wholeheartedly recommend Verizon.
Assigning numbers to the legend from six to one, six being good and one being none, my home is right on the border between 3 and 4. The studio is a 3.
When I complained to Cingular about coverage, they apparently used a similar map and told me that I should have coverage. There’s one spot in my house where I can frequently get coverage. But if I don’t have coverage I have to get in the Jeep and drive around.
I believe that T-Mobile and Cingular use the same network, looking at the coverage it seem to be the same in my area. I’m a 3-4 on both systems. Johnny are you TDMA or GSM currently? The reason I ask is that I was unable to make calls from my house with my old phone which was TDMA and the new GSM phone works fine.
I went through the AT&T/Cingular switch, too, last year. I’d had AT&T Wireless for a few years, but was never thrilled with the service, coverage, or phone selection. So in February I switched to Verizon, and have had no complaints – I also disconnected my landline service in February, so my cell phone is my only phone.
The thing where the coolest phone is only available cheap to new customers is something I’m afraid you’ll encounter with every provider, however. You just have to be sure to read all of the fine print.
If you can afford the $150 penalty and $100-200 for a new phone with a new provider, I’d say go for it. Better than hating your service/phone for the next two years, especially if you have no reception where you need it most. I wouldn’t rely on coverage maps if I were you: explain your situation to the salesperson, and see if you can return everything within 24 hours (with no penalty) if the phone doesn’t work where you need it to. I don’t know if phone places will do that, but it can’t hurt to ask.
That depends on the area. T-Mobile’s network is used by Cingular users based on a sharing agreement between Cingular and T-Mobile. This came about because Cingular was rolling out a GSM network in parallel to its CDMA network, and it was just cheaper for them to use a pre-existing net rather than to build their own. However, Cingular is putting in their own network of 850 MHz towers as they go, so in some places T-Mo and Cingular share a network and in others, they do not.
As far as T-Mobile’s network, it is currently mostly the 1900 MHz NA GSM standard with EDGE for data, and they are talking a UMTS rollout over the next year or so (which will be awesome – 384Kb /s data simultaneous with voice!)
I see that Cingular is your provider. What’s your phone’s make and model? I can tell you your service if you tell me that.
Legacy AT&T (now Cingular) could have been either but is probably TDMA if you’ve had the service for a while and didn’t change phones. The former AT&T people who were TDMA are screwed and it won’t be getting better. I had heard that there was a promotion of some kind to get people to switch to GSM at a reasonable rate but, of course, you have to extend your contract.
In any event, asking people who don’t live in your area about their coverage is irrelevant information for you. Ask your neighbors what they use and if they get good coverage. Unless one of us happens to live withing a couple block of you, we can’t really help.
From the Motorola website:
A Little EDGE
…goes a long way. With all the tech-savvy features incorporated into the model V551, the last thing you want to do is wait to download applications and send multi-media messages. Thanks to EDGE technology and its high speed data exchange rates, application downloads are painless and sharing images or video is a breeze.
I would suggest gathering your friends that are on different services and have them over to your place and the studio and see if any of them have better reception in those places. I have a V551 and it’s a sweet phone, but we picked up a Black RAZR for me today and I’m giving my V551 to the kids. Actually it’ll be the spare phone so whichever one needs it at the time will take it with them.
My SO has the Razr right now, I can’t wait to get home and play with it!
My nephew recently signed up for two years with Sprint. Glaring in its absence in this thread is anything complimentary about Sprint.
His reception is spotty–in his dorm and around town. He has a Samsung SPH-A660. Sprint insists he should be getting good reception. This is his second Sprint-issued phone.
