Cell service question

[Morphious]

hey guys, it's that time again to pick the best cell service/coverage area. I'm currently with sprint, while it's been ok, it's not been anything to write home about. Thier coverage isn't that great off the beaten path, like no signal at my parents house in rural oklahoma and other places I go. I have nationwide roaming and free long distance, with 500 minutes and free night and weekend minutes and haven't gone over that in two years.



I'm leaning towards going back to cingular due to the better coverage area they have.



Give me your good and bads about the different carriers out there.



Also, if anyone has any experience with the Data only plans I would be interested in hearing about them too. Like throughput speeds and the likes.



Morph.

 

[red-rider]

Im with Cingular, but rumor has it, that Cingular had to sell some of towers because of the government said they had too many towers after they bought AT&T, so they had to find a willingly buyer to maintain them, losing these towers.



As for Sprint, in the long run it would probably be a wiser choice because they are buying Nextel, getting their towers as well.



I havent had any problems with Cingular, but I live in California and visit neighboring states Nevada and Arizona with no reception problems at this time.



I currently have the Motorola V60 phone, its not fancy as all the others with colors and cool sounds, but I basically got this phone because I wanted a phone with reception. Could be your phone. My fiancee has one of those fancy phones and she always uses mine to dial out of remote areas.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

I use Alltel and travel a lot - often to sparse areas - and have never not had a signal. I've been in lots of areas where others couldn't get signals and I could. Most important thing is to make sure you can get a tri-mode phone so it will fall back to analog when needed (although it is a battery drain). Near as I can tell Alltel has agreements with nearly all of the carriers out there.

 

[KBennett]

My company had AT&T / Cingular until recently when they switched to Verizon. I guess Verizon allows you to pool your minutes on a group plan and saved us big $$. It has been pretty good for the 3 months that I have been on the plan. I think Verizon has free calling from one Verizon customer to another so I am going to get my wife on board.

 

[R-N-R]

The phones themselves have a lot do do with signal quality. As a rule of thumb, the smaller, lighter, fancier, cuter, etc... will provide less coverage in weaker areas. In the Motorolla line for example th i530 has much better signal than the i730, the i830 is worse yet. Blackberry has the best coverage for me with Nextel. I have used Verizon, AT&T, Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Nextel within my company. Sprint has the best coverage in my area with Cingular coming a close second. I only used T-Mobile for international service. AT&T was terrible, Nextel is okay. I would avoid Cingular right now simply because the merger is going to screw up their operations for a couple of years while the dust settles. I expect Nextel/Sprint to be some state of kaos as well, but not as bad because both companies score higher on the capability maturity model in my opinion. We currently use Nextel because they provided in-building coverage, and we use a lot of units in "radio only" mode in the plant. You can typically return a phone within 30 days without paying a early termination fee. Coverage is very area dependent, Keep looking until you find a service & phone that works best in your most frequently traveled areas.

 

[tURBOdIEZEl]

i use nextel! the coverage is great... . the direct connect feature is so convient... with me traveling back and forth from pa to tx i dont hardley loose service... . when i had t-mobile there was always dead spots and hidden roaming charges.

 

[bmoeller]

Nextel isn't worth a hoot around here. Worst coverage for us. The Diret Connect is a great feature.



Have had the best coverage with Verizon. Even out in the middle of nowhere in S. Dakota and Nebraska.



USCC, I would call second best behind Verizon.

 

[Deerediesel]

I use Nextel through a company plan. I work for a custom application business and i m out in the boonies all day and always have problems with gettin a signal. We use the direct connect quite a bit. Hopefully when sprint and nextel merge, theyll get it worked out.

From what ive seen, Verizon is a good way to go.

shane