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Comparisons of Cellular Service Quality?
dmr asks: "What are the best sources of information for cell phone service quality? Is there a source out there which can give a reputable ranking of service, coverage, dropped-calls, etc, for the major cell phone providers, broken out by region? There's a huge pile of anecdotes and tall tales out there. Where can someone find out which providers work best in his hometown? Bonus points for assessments of capital improvements to equipment, as well as trends from the past."Update: A commenter points out that MyRatePlan has a great coverage map comparison tool.
Consumer's Checkbook had a good survey of all the cell providers serving the region in their latest Washington DC area pub, and it looks like they did the same for San Francisco as well. I have Sprint and I can tell you they mentioned most of the dead spots Sprint has near my house.
To read the survey you'll either need to buy the dead-tree version at a local bookstore or subscribe to the web site.
Gan you near be how? Could.
ranked by zip code or by manually selecting your location from a list of counties and cities by statehere. Once you have specified your location, it brings up a list of all the providers in your region with user and expert reviews covering most if not all of the features you need.
Though a bit out a tangent there more to service than signal. Check out how the banks and airlines are doing also. We will be doing a detailed study of wireless soon.
e ss _voice_perf_a.asp
http://performance.empirix.com/voiceindex/wirel
This site provides pretty good information about all the providers and their coverage throughout parts of Ontario.
There are also pretty good reviews on the different handsets. It's probably a pretty good format for other people looking to start a site on cell coverage to follow.
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Objects in Mirror are Losing!
Here in Boston, the Boston Globe did an excellent comparison recently of services and coverage. I wouldn't be surprised if the major papers in other cities did the same.
As for resources, the letstalk.com and howardchui.com sites mentioned elsewhere are good resources. Consumer Reports magazine has occasionally hit the topic as well. Another thing you can generally do in many states is pick up the phone you expect to sign up for and sign the contract - in MA and many others there's a right to return it for a couple of days if you find that it sucks.
As for me, I just switched to VoiceStream (soon to be T-Mobile) after about 5 years with Verizon, even though I'm a CDMA bigot. With a newborn, I decided my wife and I should both have cell phones, and I liked their family plan the best. I also have a couple of friends on the VoiceStream network, and calls to/from other VoiceStream customers are free on most of their plans. Coverage has so far been excellent in most places I've been with one exception - I was returning some unused shoes at the local Macy's for my wife and I couldn't get a signal at the counter. With that one exception, I've gotten very good coverage everywhere else, plus they cover the areas where we typically travel.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Seriously, the only solution is to talk to people around you. Anyone with a cell phone, find out what they use.
Each cell phone plan is different, this is to confuse you, there is no way to compare apples because now two companies offer the same or similear plans. Nation wide no roaming, but does that mean there is no signal where they have no towers (sprint), or agreements to use any tower (AT&T, Verizon)? How many minutes, broken up by weekend, peak time, night. How is the data service? What about voicemail?
Then there is coverage area. I have been in places where there are none of them have service. I don't care who your provider is you can't use the phone, unless satalite ever makes it. My current phone (voicestream) has coverage most of the places I go, but not everywhere. My previous phone (Verizon) had service almost everywhere, but I moved in the city and suddenly I had no service at my house, but down the block has it fine. (that was a few years ago, I suspect it is fixed by now)
The bottom line is you need to figgure out where you have to have service, and where it would just be nice. I don't know anyone in South Dakota, so it doesn't matter that I have little service there. I know people in North Dakota, but decided I can live without a phone when I visit them. I have to have service at my home (I have replaced the land line with my cell phone), others may decide no service at home is acceptable so long as there is service other places. If you don't travel often, then pay $1.00/minute for roaming isn't a big deal, if you travel you need to deal with roaming costs and ability. With GSM (voicestream, but there are others) you can get a dual band phone for Europe use, or just buy a phone in Europe and put the sim card in, at $2.00/minute or more! Other providers make it harder to get service in Europe.
You might consider a no roaming or long distance phone, with a trusted friends address, if you know a lot of people in an area you don't live in anymore. You can then get a phone number that is a local call for them, and you don't pay roaming. So long as you have other means for locals to reach you, (or don't care if they can) this can be a good idea. However if you send the bill to your address they might diconnect you, as happened to one friend of mine.
Then I moved to a reasonably well-to-do suburb of a major midwestern city, with a few more hills than rural Illinois. Basically, my Verizon phone just stopped working. There was no signal - zero - nada - within 1000m of my house.
I spent 3 months on the phone with Verizon Customer Disservice and Verizon Technical Non-Support to try to get it working. Their final answer? "You have a bad handset". Funny - it works in rural Illinois, it works in downtown Chicago, it works everywhere it the midwest but fails when I bring it in to my house. Funny that. Funny too how 3 coworkers with different handset models experienced the same failure when they drove through my neighborhood.
I asked them to send out a signal strength truck and copy me on the test results. "Signal strength truck? What's that?".
Their FINAL ANSWER? "Too bad dude. Don't forget to send us a check every month for the next two years".
So then I got involved in a registered letter battle with the VP of Customer Service, the President of Verizon Wireless, and the CEO of Verizon. Finally, I had to write a letter to the senior outside memeber of the Verizon Board of Directors and the Verizon Corporate Counsel explaining that yes, I do know what a formal complaint to the FCC is, and yes, I will write up one asking that Verizon's license to do business in my state be revoked. Suddenly they were able to make an exception to their "no refunds" policy.
Switched to AT&T and everything has been hunky-dory since.
That's my experience with Verizon. Your milage may vary.
sPh
I live in a place that varies from sea level to 13,500 ft in 20 to 40 mile jumps... so reception is very spotty. Of the three carriers here, none could provide coverage for the entire area.
I searched the internet and finally found this 3 watt cell phone booster. It came a week ago. It still doesn't give me full area coverage, but it has helped alot. My cell phone was unuseable at my house, and with the unit I get 4 (out of 5) bars now. Similar results in many other places around here. Driving with two cellphones, one plugged through the unit and one not (same carrier) provided at least 2 to 3 bars better performance on the 3-watt boosted cellphone.
BTW, the package came from Trinidad (?!?).
Just don't stick the antenna near your head :)