Cell Service Opinions

I've had Sprint for years and have never had a problem. Nights start at 7 instead of 9, which is nice.

I've been with Verizon for years, but what do I know.

I found the confessions of a cell phone sales rep series over at Consumerist to be enlightening (if true). Here is one, but there links to the rest at the bottom.

http://consumerist.com/consumer/cing...rep-241953.php

We're out of contract with Verizon and shopping around. They've been ok to us, but we are looking to save some money.

Believe it or not, I've had three during the past month. Didn't get a chance for T-Mo, but we don't really care for their phone selection.

We've had Verizon for 7 years and have had a very dysfunctional relationship with them, so we're dumping them when our contract is up next month. I got AT&T during the first week in October--I have a Blackberry, my husband had an LG Vu, and the kiddo had a Palm Centro. Service was okay, but AT&T were way too expensive and tried to screw us over on the FAN discount. We sent the phones back and canceled.

This week we're trying Sprint, and knock on wood, haven't had any problems and our monthly bill is almost $100 cheaper than AT&T and Verizon. We have the same phones, except my husband got an Instinct, which he says is awesome. Not the iPhone killer it claimed to be, but good enough.

If you want my advice, you should take advantage of the 30 day trial period that all of the companies offer and then make a decision. Coverage is different everywhere, rates vary, different discounts apply, etc.

Good luck.

I've found depends on your phone sometimes. Your location of Mars might have shitty signal. (okay where are you really?) When I was on a regional plan with Cingular, coverage sucked. Jumped up to nation, worked everywhere. Dunno why...

Here on the island, we have a decent cell network, but certain phones are shit here. My iphone never drops a call here. That brings me to my next point, you might want to look into unlocking a phone and taking it to another provider.

Oh and funny thing is, we got the Blackberry Bold before the US. I find that pretty funny and sad.

The whole world gets everything before the U.S.

And yeah, it's pretty sad. I held out for the Bold as long as I could, but they kept pushing it back. My Curve will have to do until Sprint gets it.

I got to play with my friends G1 last weekend I thought it was pretty neat. Maybe even a little more fun than the iPhone. He had an application (I forget the name) that allows you to scan bar codes and it will then go on the internet and find out what other stores in the area are charging for the same thing. Damn cool if you ask me. That almost hooked my wife on getting them right there.

Oh dear. That rocks my world.

It's called Compare Everywhere.
http://www.g1apps.net/money/find-price-compare/

I've got Sprint and their "Simply Everything" plan on a Moto. A few random dead spots, and regardless of what they tell you, their customer service is total shit, but no major complaints.

Thanks for this. I'm doing some searching to see if I can find something similar for the Blackberry.

Unfortunately, I had to give up my iPhone a couple of months ago, and went back to Verizon. "Horrible" is the only way to describe AT&T service in my area.

I cancelled my home phone service this past winter to save some money since I'm on the cell all the time, and I don't regret that for a moment - I honestly just love having only one phone that I need to check, plus the convenience of having that phone with me all the time.

So while paring down to one phone is great, that phone has to be reliable, and AT&T service just the worst where I live. Don't get me wrong - the iPhone is the greatest little gadget in the world. It can just about do anything - except hold a phone call. And with two elderly parents and an elderly step-parent ranging in age from 72 to 82, none of whom are in the greatest of health, I need the actual phone to be the most reliable thing on the device. I'd be sitting there at home with the phone next to me, and all of a sudden I'd see the voicemail window pop up - it never even rang, and this was happening more and more often. The last straw was when I pulled my iPhone out of my bag one day, only to see a voicemail message from my sister from 24 hours before. It never rang, the voicemail message window never popped up, it never beeped - nothing. 24 hours - god forbid, if that had been an emergency with my folks, I'd have been screwed. I'm just lucky she was calling to say hi.

Of course, since I was spoiled by all the fun things the iPhone can do aside from the actual phone function, I went with the Blackberry Tour, and I really do love it. It's not as fun as the iPhone, nothing is, and if Apple ever broke their contract and went with Verizon, I'd go back to the iPhone in a heartbeat, because I do miss it. But till then, I can't worry about not having the coolest phone. And ironically enough, the second phone call I ever got on my Blackberry was an emergency call about my Dad (he's okay, but it was a bit of a scare for a few days there). If I'd still been with AT&T when that call came through, who knows if I'd even have gotten it? I love having one phone, but I have to make sure it's one that's totally reliable.

Now back in the states, I gotta say AT&T is pretty decent here down in the south. We got the new 850hz signal and 3g is finally really fast.

I've not had any troubles with the iphone 3g, BUT I know for a fact everyone up northeast (NY, NJ etc) claims Verizon to be better. I haven't been up there in a while to see how my AT&T phone will last.

When I was in California though several years back (like 10ish wow need to revisit) my signal was spotty, but I was in the mountains. I also had some different phone as well.

The idea of traveling pretty much keeps me tied to Cingular or T mobile ehh Cingular/ATT. I am loving my google voice options now.

I've heard of a service called "Magic Jack" where they offer call service for only 19.95 a year! NINETEEN NINETY FIVE A YEAR! Are you paying more than 1.70 a month for phone service? Then upgrade with Magic Jack!

Haha sorry had to watch their 60 second ad spot too often last night:P

Yeah, nearly everyone I know in NY who has AT&T hates it, and loves Verizon. I miss my iPhone, but I can't tell you how happy I am to be back on Verizon. And I was just down in NJ visiting my family, and it was the first time in two years I could even talk on the cell from my Mom's house. When I had AT&T, the signal was flat dead, every time.

Interestingly, in Arizona I'm going from Verizon to AT&T on Friday for the same reason. We've had Verizon for 2 years, no major issues, the last 3-4 months I'll be waiting for a call from my wife and suddenly get a voice mail. Call her back and get her voice mail. We both have signals, we're both receiving voice mails, but it won't let us talk. I had one voice mail that I left for her take 3 days to get to her. I had one picture that I sent to a buddy of mine that he received TWO WEEKS LATER.

I don't honestly know if AT&T service will be better. I've talked to enough AT&T subscribers in the area who seem happy with their service, but we'll see. I figure it can't be worse than the service I've had the last few months though.

I've had AT&T for as long as I can remember, and the only times I've had trouble is when I got a new phone from them that would never get signal, and traded it for one that dropped calls. I finally got one from them that worked. Free of charge too. Their customer service is great.

Plan I'm on right now gives me unlimited text and data for $30 total. I'm typing this from my phone too.

Yeah, I'm sure that in different areas, you get different service with different providers. I used to see people with iPhones all the time in NY, and now I'm seeing more and more people with blackberries or regular flip phones or smart-phones. If I see something that looks like an iPhone? Odds are 50% it's an iTouch. Around here, people are getting away from AT&T - if you ask most NY cell phone users, they'll tell you that Verizon is the cream of the crop in this area. And I hear the same thing from people - again, only in NY, so I'm sure it's probably different elsewhere - that they love the iPhone, LOVE it, but they hate AT&T. And that was exactly the same for me - I don't know anyone who didn't love the iPhone to bits, but they left it strictly because AT&T service is so poor around here.

I've been on T-Mobile since 2002 and haven't had any issues with it. Upgraded to the G1 back in June and love it. Incredibly easy to install custom firmwares on, and Google has actually been able to add hardware functionality through their firmware updates. None of this 'upgrade to the 3Gs if you want to record video' crap that Apple pulls.

For any Android based handset you're required to get the Android Unlimited plan, which is $35 a month (I'm grandfathered into the G1 Unlimited plan with unlimited data and 400 messages, which is $25, and don't feel a pressing need to upgrade just to get visual voicemail), but that's for unlimited data and unlimited messaging, plus visual voicemail. There's also the Android Unlimited Web plan, which is just unlimited data for $25. The data plans used to also include hotspot access, but I'm not sure if they do any more. Some comments on the t-mobile hot spot app in the market say it stopped working today.

One thing to note: T-mo just recently started charging for the paper bills. It's an extra $1.50 a month and you can opt for digital billing only and avoid that charge. Their customer service is good enough they probably wouldn't try to hide the bill charge from you when you sign up, either.

Is that Wal-Mart deal for the G1 or the myTouch?