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What are the Best Cell Phone Services in the US?
James Hewfanger asks: "Cnet.co.uk has run an article on the five best cell phone services in the UK. These include a text-based service that gets you the number of a licensed cab company in London, Google Maps and Gmail on your phone, a service that can tell what artist and song you're listening to, an online service that backs up all your cell phone contacts and a text-based service that answers any question you can throw at it. What, however, are the five best cell phone services in the US?" Wirefly's cell phone plan comparison tool gives a good up-to-date look of all cell phone plans on the market.
More like what are the only five cell phone services in the US. There's Verizon, US Cellular, Cingular, T Mobile, and Sprint and that's about it.
i don't know... the one that lets you call other people wirelessly?
Unlimited calls anywhere, anytime... $45/month. This plan is no longer available since they were bought out, but it was grandfathered. Old plans are going from $400-800 on craigslist.
Anything similar in the USA?
News ...)
Driving Directions
Sports
Travel (flights, hotels,
Movies (via fandango)
Weather
All voice activated with very good support for keypad.
Historically they had free directory assistance.
at times they had traffic information, it's now 511 (run by them)
They run 1-800-555-1212 (toll free directory assistance)
Text anything to 46645. That's the only such service I use.
I'm personally a fan of my current cell phone plan. It may be Verizon, but it has its perks. The part where my company picks up the tab makes it the most desirable plan on the market to me. Saves me bucks and allows work contacts to call me at 4am if they so choose. I believe that's what the ancient Greeks called win/win.
The only services of that type that I've seen mentioned in the US are download services for ringtones, games, etc. I don't think most Americans really use their cell phones for anything but making phone calls, taking the odd photograph, and configuring to play loud, annoying, horribly distorted snippets of Backstreet Boys songs whenever someone calls you.
I have verizon, I've never been anything but happy with their service. In my area I tend to get better service than cingular does. I'm not too sure about sprint. At this point unless you're in the middle of nowhere whatever plan out of sprint, verizon, and cingular meets your personal needs the best is probably the best option. Coverage in most areas is probably going to be rather consistent. If you're in a rural area, though, there's going to be a difference. I visited Nebraska last year (don't ask my why... there's nothing to see there) and I was roaming the whole time.
I dunno, I'd have problems going with a service called Net 10. I'd be worried that their phone calls wouldn't be routeable.
For national plans, there aren't but about 5 that I can think of... Verizon, Sprint, Cingular (ATT), Alltel & T-Mobile .... so wouldn't that mean they all can claim "top 5" status by default?? Telecom consolidation FTW.
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket!??
I think you all are missing the question. It's what services you can access THROUGH your cell-phone plan. NOT what cell-phone plans are good. So what services do you all access that makes your cell-phone more useful?
"
...and, again...
Hearing a song and not knowing who sings it or what it's called can be very annoying. Fortunately, Shazam provides a service that lets you hold your phone up to any song playing and it will then text you back the artist and track name in a matter of minutes.
"
"How does that work?", I wonder....clever stuff.
"
if you have a question that you need answering, AQA is the mobile service for you. AQA, which stands for any question answered, is a text-based service that literally answers any question you can think of. We asked it 'which was better, a CMOS or CCD sensor?' -- amazingly it came back with a half-decent answer.
"
In the words of Captain Darling himself, "Clever. Clever. Clever.".
I wonder if it's scalable.
Max.
300 minutes every two months is 1800 minutes a year, at 10 cents a minute that becomes $180/year.
T-Mobile's PAYGO gives you 1000 minutes on a $100 recharge card and the minutes don't expire for a year. Unused minutes roll over and are good until the new expiration date. You have to buy the $100 card to get the 10 cents/minute rate. I know, It's still 10 cents a minute, but if you are, say, my father, and you don't even use 1000 minutes in a year, paying $100/year beats paying $180/year.
Also, I don't think I've ever heard of a pay as you go plan that does free nights/weekends.
Talk to Julie, she can help you get a rail ride just about anywhere in the US. All voice driven, you can guess ahead through prompts and charge via credit card.
After TellMe and Amtrak, most other services aren't very interesting (and I miss both TellMe and Amtrak as I'm in Europe, where we instead have various incomprehensible systems).
Just for clarity, even though the parent is way OT, I haven't fallen back to Analog on Verizon's network since 2002, while driving through the Mojave desert. YMMV.
jajah.com must be one of the most useful services if you are calling internationally. I am calling to Europe routinely from my cell phone for something like 4 cents/min to landline or 17 cents/min to cell, and it could be free if I wasn't lazy. It is an internet-initiated callback service, and they have a java app that lets you to initiate a call directly from the phone, without the access to a computer.
Flurry - (http://www.flurry.com) Mail and news on my phone. Also useful are: Google Local (http://www.google.com/gmm) Maps on my phone. Opera Mini (http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/) Web browsing on my phone. EQO (http://www.eqo.com/) VoIP and IM on my phone. Note that these all work with data services from Cingular and Sprint, but T-Mobile has recently started preventing the use of these services on their phones unless you buy an "unlimited" plan. Verizon either charges a few dollars a month for them or doesn't have them available in the first place. If you have Boost mobile service, you should also check out Loopt (http://loopt.com) - a service that lets you tell your friends where you are.
http://www.flurry.com
E-mail and news on y
Cingular...or maybe T-Mobile. Simply because there's absolutely no point whatsoever having anything but a GSM phone if you travel internationally.
ugh... i'm an idiot... perhaps I should read TFA before posting like a dumbass... oh well... live and learn I would plug my favorite, but Verizon cripples everything remotely decent about my phone and I'm not going to pay through the nose to make my phone do something non-phone-like.
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket!??
They have a service where they put transmitters on a whole lot of people and have them follow you around.
The confluence of provider-provided phones and 1-2 year contracts makes it hard to switch. Networks have a useful life of around 5 years so the best we can do is take a survey and hope it's not biased. I'd love it if contracts went away and if phones were decoupled from providers but I think that'll happen right around the beginning of porcine aviation.
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Almost easier to make a worst of list since none of them are impressive. The worst experience I had was with Sprint. I was with them five years ago and found that in the San Fernado Valley, LA, half the valley wasn't covered. That's pretty miserable for service. Every service I've used has had holes in service and dropped calls. I'm often calling from one cell phone to another so it's tough to tell whose service is causing the lousy connection. Service has gotten cheaper but quality hasn't improved over the years. In some senses it's gotten worse. I think most people would prefer better service than more features.
rates. Or at least T-Mobile's. Net 10's competitor comparison page: http://www.net10.com/compare.jsp?nextPage=compare. jsp&task=compare
For T-Mobile, A $100 recharge card gets you 1000 minutes. You don't need to spend $250 to get this. Buy a phone, or just a prepaid sim card, whatever, and redeem a $100 card and you'll have 1000 minutes. It's been like this for a number of years (I got my phone 3 or 4 years ago, I got my dad his phone about a year and a half ago, and I just got my uncle one for giftmas), so Net 10 can't claim this is some recent happening and that their page is out of date. If you purchase a smaller quantity card, you're going to get a worse rate on the minutes. But if you're the sort of person that thinks far enough ahead to check out the per minute rate, you can probably handle some basic math like "cost of card / # of minutes = cost per minute." There is no hidden fee (except state tax, DOH), and there is no requirement to purchase cards that cost more per minute.
I'm not affiliated with T-Mobile, I swear.
I think you're getting your plans confused. T-Mobile doesn't do rollover for the prepaid. That's Cingular's "Pay As You Go" plan. Though to use the rollover minutes, you have to buy another block of minutes first. T-Mobile's plan is called "To Go." Unfortunately, Cingular costs a flat fee of 25 cents/minute. T-Mobile costs scale depending on how much you buy - from $0.30/min for the $30 card down to $0.10/min for the $100. Each have different quirks to the length of their minute expirations. But $100 gets you minutes on both that don't expire for a year.
Cingular also has another plan that is $0.10/minute and unlimited mobile to mobile but the catch is that if you use the phone at all on a given day, there is a minimum of $1 worth of charges. Kind of a silly plan unless you almost never use your phone.
Other companies have different prepay plans (and Cingular has yet another type as well). But they all suck and are generally for people who have credit so bad they wouldn't be able to sign up for a regular contract.
I was torn between Cingular's and T-Mobile's. The rollover was appealing, even with the higher price. Eventually it came down to the fact that I was already on T-Mobile and the phone I wanted was a tri-band. Cingular and T-Mobile do not operate on the same band and therefore some non-quad-band phones only work on one or the other.
I'm very satisfied with the deal, especially considering that I was maxing out my previous $40/month plan at about 90 minutes. That worked out to $0.45/minute...
The FCC won't release cell carrier reliability data, remember?
When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!
To help ensure that you never lose your unused minutes, T-Mobile will send you a text message when your account is within 5 days of expiring. That way, you'll have plenty of time to refill your account and carry forward any unused minutes to your new expiration date.
That sure as hell sounds like rollover to me.
I couldn't get the page to load, so I had to use a google cache. The original URL is:
http://www.t-mobile.com/templates/faq.aspx?PAsset
Alternatively, I just found this support page loads fine:
http://support.t-mobile.com/knowbase/root/public/
I use Verizon's Prepay. (inpulse) It's 10 cents a minute too. But Verizon has the best coverage of all the services. The downside is they charge $1 a day. But for me, the better coverage is worth it.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
1. Deco Mail: most of the new phones now have HTML mail and large libraries of animated emoticons and the like - wifey's has over 1,000, plus lots more downloadable free. They can also be forwarded to PC mail clients and displayed successfully.
2. NaviTime: doesn't just tell you where to go, but copes with which exit from the subway station to get, if a taxi would be faster than trains, even which carriage to board to be closest to the exit!
3. Napster: well, maybe not.
4. iPot: mobile phone in granny's kettle so you can get an email if she doesn't use it for a day.
5. Anti-bullying kiddie phones: junior points camera at bully/perv, sounds the alarm, and parent gets a photo plus GPS coordinates, etc.
There aren't 5 good cell phone services in the US. Sorrry.
Do people not even read the /. summary any more? The question is regarding the top cell-phone based services, not cell-phone carriers.
I like the "Teaching remedial math to call-centre employees" service that Verizon recently offered. I think it's got a great future.[/snark]
What's the best five ways to be burned alive?
Cingular has the most customers. This means that chances are highest, than with any other cell provider, that when you call someone's cell they will be on network which doesn't eat minutes since on network minutes are free. The only reason I would switch from Cingular is if I moved to an area where I received poor signal. I used to work for Cingular, all be it in their network security division that had little to do with their cellular products. While working there I learned much about how cellular companies operate in general.
A good example of this is expansion of cell sites. When a cell provider puts up a new tower or rents space on a tower they only provide the latest communication protocol from that tower. The justification for this is attrition. They are making the older signals obsolete. This will have you buying a new phone and committing to another 2 year contract. Luckily I have an HTC 8125 world phone that supports all the frequencies from 900 Mhz to EDGE. So, when I am in areas with older cell tower deployments I'll get signal, maybe not the latest and greatest but signal none the less. And until they start using a more advanced protocol beyond edge I benefit with all the new infrastructure (increased coverage area).
What I see as the biggest problem in cellular communication is redundancy. Cingular builds towers and T-Mobile builds towers along with all the major carriers. Even though there may be towers within a few blocks of each other. What I see as the solution is to separate the development, deployment, and management of the towers and their respective cell areas from the service that you choose to use. This way you choose a provider based upon features and cost rather than coverage since every service would have the same coverage. If all the cell towers in the US were brought under the control of a single company and a single communication protocol was agreed upon. The towers could be redeployed in such a way that there would be no gaps in coverage nationwide. The only places you would have trouble getting a signal would be if you were somewhere truly remote like say Mt. Whitney (the tallest mountain in the continental United States).
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
They did a special on this in their January issue.
I think they do this every year or so.
Either sign on at consumerreports.org, or check it out at the library.
Verizon seems to be phasing Analog out.
Verizon contacted my mom and wanted her to switch off of her analog phone plan to I guess GSM, because her phone would soon stop working, so they said.
She just dropped them, picked up a phone from t-mobile and 1,000 minutes good for a year for under $100.
For a phone to carry just in case, it seems to be a deal.
Cingular's motto is "the fewest dropped calls". I think they can legally say this because, in order to drop a call, you must first connect successfully. I wonder what their successful connection rate is.
"None of the above."
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
Text anything to 44636 (4INFO), or point your mobile browser to http://wap.4info.net/ (or download their client at http://www.4info.net./ They've got: ...
sports scores
player stats
stock quotes
wifi hotspots
package tracking
weather
yellow pages
news
flight status
hotel reservations
city search
TV Guide
movie show times
drink recipes
price lookup
jokes
horoscopes
pickup lines
celebrity gossip
music charts
ringtones
wallpapers
games
More and higher quality services than Google (46645) and Yahoo (92466).
I find Pilot MyCast indisepensable. On the ground only, of course, but when you need to keep a weather eye out, it's great.
I have T-Mobile To Go, and it definitely has rollover... T-Mobile has one of the best all around prepaid plans. by the way, you don't have to have a bad credit rating to go prepaid. It's called saving money and not wanting to sign the next two years of your life away...
When I found out Bell Mobility was denying my phone the ability to install Opera Mini, I found Rumkin.com and their uploader utility. I was able to install Opera Mini, which rocks and is a total life-saver.
:(
GMail for phones is also wicked. I have not yet confirmed that my phone picks up the POP3 messages from work I have tied into that GMail account... If so I could practically work from the phone.
Yahoo! Go looks like the next best thing, but is not yet available for my Samsung SPH-A920
This phone pretty much does anything you ask of a desktop. But,t he TV clips are pointless, _especially_ hockey. You just can't see the puck and they charge an arm and a leg for the crap.
I wish I wish I could stream internet radio stations.
(On a lighter note, I used some SNES plugin for winamp and the diskwriter plug in to convert the hotel theme song from Earthbound (16-bit SNES) and using rumkin.com got my phone to us it as a ringtone. I work at a hotel, and when they call me it plays the Hotel song from that game.)
I've heard that they managed this by lowering the quality level at which the tower will drop the call.
Yeah I know ... wishful thinking.
Do you realize that some phones will give you cancer more than other phones. I know for a fact that if you send or recieve a call on a Cingular phone near a speaker(like your PC speaker), it uses such a high frequency that it sends electrical impulses through the speaker and you can hear the speaker play even though it's turned off. Try it sometime.
God spoke to me.
The carriers don't bother owning most of their own towers. They just lease space from one of the big tower conglomerates. American Tower is one.
All the carriers do this and it's no big deal. Most of the differences in coverage are just because not every carrier wants to be on every tower. They could, most of the time. But it doesn't always make sense for various reasons.
Sometimes the carriers to own their towers and guess what? They lease space out to the other guys too. It goes back and forth a lot more than the "us verus them" advertising would indicate.
Anyway, even if you took all the existing towers and linked them up coast-to-coast you still would not have coast-to-coast coverage. There are major parts of the US without any cell coverage from any carrier. Not just the uninhabited areas out west, but rural areas too. Ironically, both sorts of places which might actually benefit from coverage.
Once you get outside major cities or off major interstate highways, cell coverage drops to nothing pretty quick.
There never will be coast-to-coast coverage, by the way. Many of those vast unserved areas lack the wired infrastructure (phone lines not to mention electric power) to backhaul cell calls, so towers in the middle of nowhere would require HUGE investment in providing power (imagine miles of electric lines strung just to serve cell towers) and wirelines, or huge investments in microwave relay towers and booster stations. You're talking about a few hundred billion dollars to serve all that coast-to-coast territory, to serve relatively few customers. It will NEVER return a profit on that investment so it will simply never happen.
What it will take is another generation or two to finally give us a global phone of some sort which gets around the limitations of the cell tower systems we have today. I am not talking about today's satellite phones. They're not the answer. We need something that works anywhere, and everywhere, and unfortunately it has not yet been invented.
Obviously many readers don't f...ing care!!!
I'm also an idiot as I posted something along similar lines. Maybe we're just trying to discuss the larger issue that kind of gets in the way of these other services.
The phone makes an interruptive asshole out of anyone, you insensitive clod!
Help us build a better map!
http://www.movamail.com/ for IMAP/POP3/etc email. Free and much faster than any built-in email client.
Send all the thoughts you want for one low monthly price: $0.
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
I just want to clear up a small misunderstanding here. ZYB https://zyb.com/ that Cnet lists in the article is not a UK service, it is a world-wide mobile backup service that also works in the US. ZYB is absolutely free (forever), but your operator will charge you for the data-traffic you use. For the first synchronisation of 80 contacts an 60 calendar events the data amount should be below 100kb. Subsequent synchronisations use around 10-20kb of data traffic depending on the amount of new information added on either the phone or on ZYB.
Runar Reistrup, ZYB
I can't live without the real time train timetable service that provides info on current running trains (e.g. if they are late), timetables and more.
go to http://www.nres.mytrains.kizoom.co.uk/index/ enter your number and it'll send the bookmark to your phone.
are handy for people like me that don't have a 'smart' phone, or if you can't/don't want to text message:
Google Local: 877-520-3463. My favorite. You give it a city, category, and/or business name. It speaks or texts you the results, and connects you to the business.
Tell Me: 800-555-tell (8355). I mostly use it for driving directions, but it has myriad other features.
511: Traffic, public transit info (only handy if you're in the SF Bay Area or around Sacramento).
I've never known about that before. So I googled the number and found more information. Thanks dude! You just changed my life.
http://wap.trimet.org/ makes it quick and easy to get transit information in the Portland Metro area. You can search by line # or my favorite "stop ID" every bus/light rail stop has an ID# that you punch in and it gives you real time arrival info.
Trimet homepage
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
Can I be a bit unhumble and point to the service my company produces: the Mobizines client. It's an off portal content browser for when your phone is out of range, or when you just fancy something cooler than a mobile web browser session. Oddly enough we do cnet.co.uk too, good to see the separation between editorial and marketing at cnet is as strong as ever, as I'd have said we're top five. But I'm biassed. We're at http://www.mobizines.com/
the best one has these features
choose any plan options you want or don't want
no federal taxes
no sim-locking
use any cell phone that can work
unlimited minute plans
They're using their grammar skills there.
Another service provider called Hutch (recently taken over by Vodafone) provides a service where you can choose the background music when talking to someone. Launched on Valentine's Day, it was showcased to play soft music while talking to your sweetheart on phone.
where did my sig go? where's my sig at?
"This means that chances are highest, than with any other cell provider, that when you call someone's cell they will be on network which doesn't eat minutes since on network minutes are free. "
Minutes? That reminds me of the AOL days when they still charged by the minute. I got hit with huge $300 bills a couple of times.
Now I use Sprint which gives me unlimited EV-DO mobile broadband for $60 a month (unlimited time -- with a two year contract -- which works 98% of the time). And I use MetroPCS for normal cell phone service which gives me unlimited time - unlimited texting (7 days a week, 24 hours a day, with no contract) for something like $52 a month (including taxes).
I believe the low cost local carriers like MetroPCS are the wave of the future. They're local so they give excellent local coverage (better than my friends on Verizon for example) -- without trying to nickel and dime you. The only drawback is that again -- they're only local, geographically I mean (you can make long distance calls just fine), but if you go on an extended vacation or take a business trip -- you're pretty much SOL.
with japanese products that have any english phonetics you can be almost guaranteed their names (or titles in the case of media) have only loose connection to the proper english meaning...
their society has a habit of borrowing english in the same way we borrow french or latin.
this said.. iPot, the new accessory from apple, connects to your computer for storing your weed with flawlessly monitored and controlled humidity and temperature, for the discriminating ganja enthusiast!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
My flatmate and I have asked AQA the most wasteful questions (considering you're paying a pound)
After and argument in the pub: "How much is the nintendo wii?"
AQA replied with the price and launch date.
While drunk and lost: "I'm on X street, how do I get to Y street?"
AQA replies with directions and a list of busses.
And then..."Who's this guy singing on BBC1 right now?"
Brian ferry, formerly of the band roxy music is currently singing "jealous guy", a song written by john lennon"
So we asked "how do you do that"
and aqa said "Aqa uses a combination of intelligent algorithms, database lookups and human interaction"
When it comes down to it, you have a number of things to look at:
Coverage area: Both Verizon and Cingular have a large coverage area, along with Spint/Nextel. There is no "best" because all three of these leading providers have gaps in their service, and where you will be at any time might make one or the other a better choice.
On the south fork of Long Island for example, Verizon has the most reliable service, but has more gaps than Cingular. So, if it's better to get 1 bar in 99 percent of the south fork than it is to get 3 bars in 80 percent, Cingular is the best choice. If you don't find yourself in the Verizon dead areas, then Verizon would be the better choice. The Nextel push-to-talk is a great feature, but out where I am, Nextel has a LOT(and I mean a LOT) of dead areas and is generally a bad choice. I am sure there are other places that have that situation reversed, but you get the idea. For those who will be sticking to the major cities or suburban areas, then pretty much any provider will provide decent coverage. I will note that T-mobile has a lot of AREAS where they just don't provide service, which is why they can't be considered one of the leaders in the industry.
Then you have services offered. Verizon is probably the best when it comes to multi-media services on your phone. To be honest, I've never felt that a cell phone is the best choice for music and such. Buy a dedicated MP3 player if you want to take your music or shows with you.
For more business type applications, Cingular seems to get the best deals from Blackberry and Palm for devices if you want/need to upgrade your phone, and the data services are pretty decent. I don't think that Verizon has as good an implementation on some of the data services for those who need them. Keep in mind that data speed is only one part of what makes a data service good or bad, it's also in the implementation of the service. As with coverage area, you need to look at where you are to decide which provider is the best. The key is that if you can't get a signal, it doesn't matter what services you may have or how good they are.
GPS is an area that more and more people look at as a feature on a phone. TelNav is a service that may sound like it competes, but it uses the data service to download the maps, which means it will be quite a bit slower than something like TomTom(which uses a SD card or can be transfered to your device if you have enough memory).
One thing people in Europe don't think about when they hear about gaps in service area is that some states in the USA are larger than most countries in Europe. In addition to this, Europe as a whole has a higher population density across the board, which makes it more cost effective to put coverage EVERYWHERE. There are towns in the USA that have a population of under 50, and if they are in a valley, there may not be cell phone coverage at all if there isn't a tower on a hill/mountain near the town.
So, look at what you want or use from your phone, because that will change which is the best or worst. We have three big providers, T-mobile is growing but still not a great choice for coverage areas, and then you have a bunch of smaller companies that only have coverage in major cities.
AT&T (now Cingular, soon AT&T) - didn't work in THREE AIRPORTS, poor coverage in SE Ohio.
Verizon - billing problems, poor coverage in SE Ohio.
Sprint - billing problems, poor coverage in SE Ohio.
T-Mobile - billing problems, poor coverage in SE Ohio.
YMMV
[Insert pithy quote here]
I have two phones on t-mobiles plan, and they do rollover. If you do the initial $100 for 1k minutes, after one year is up you just have to purchase any amount (even $5) and what remains of the original 1k + the new minutes will carry over (for one full year). Repeat yearly. I rarely use my backup cellphone, so I've spent $105 for two years of cellphone service. Every additional year is costing me 5 bucks.
Erm I'm sorry 10 dollars, not 5 (for the minimum prepaid card amount). I could swear they had a 5. . . .
l ancategory=4
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/default.aspx?p
their site seems to be running fairly slow at the moment. This is for the US, I'm not sure what the t-mobile prepaid plans are like for the rest of the world.
There was this little consumer product call the cellular phone. And this little phone was used to call other people to let them know about an accident, or call a 911 operator to send medical help to a location. And it was good. And then, there came the additions. And these additions killed cell phone service to the point that the phone, one of the hallmarks of modern society, isn't used to call people anymore. And the few that remain who use the phone for its original purpose wept at the loss of their beloved product to the pre-teens who are too lazy to write notes on paper anymore.
Ok, so I used "and" too much. Mod me down, why don't ya!
Cingular has the most customers only because they ATE other cellphone companies to get there. They have the WORST coverage and the crappiest policies. Want to know how they get rated "fewest dropped calls"?? they configure the towers to NOT release and give up on the connection until it has lost you completely for 30 seconds. guess what, you will hang up way before then, so they dont have any dropped calls. Their customer service is incredibly bad, they have nasty contract rates do not offer a standard 1 year but only 2 year and up contract lengths.
Honestly the BEST cellphone service is Verizon, way more coverage and towers. Problem is their customer service sucks way more than everyone else, use incredibly crappy non GSM technology so you cant get unlocked phones or switch phones on your own, etc...
The real truth is that all cellphone companies in America completely suck as a whole. either they have crap policies and good coverage, or bad coverage and good policies, or crap and crap, etc... I dont know anyone that is happy with their cellphone company, everyone has one thing they despise about what they have.
Oh and the BS that is creeping back in lately of getting charged for incoming and outgoing SMS is incredibly sucky. Cingular just started that again.
The one incredibly part is, many of the prepay phones are ending up to be the best choice. I get unlimited data service for $9.50 a month by using a boost mobile phone SIM and a iden pcmcia modem. (all data service where I live is dialup speeds anyways so who cares) for when I am out and about and not near someone's open accesspoint. Yes it's abusing their plan, but who cares.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The title was a little confusing and its easy to see how people are getting "cell phone services" confused between carrier and features for the phone.
That being said, I have a blackberry that I use through work and they have a cool Blackberry Maps service that ties in maps and directions with the GPS function so the map updates as I'm driving, tells me my speed, and I think it even tells me when a turn is approaching (I only use it when I travel and that hasn't been for a while). Plus the software is a free service available with a (overpriced) data plan.
I have Sprint PCS for my 'personal' phone, and the company I work for gives us all Cingular Blackberries. Both carriers give me fantastic coverage, I travel quite a bit and I always seem to get good reception even when other people can't get a signal. The huge difference here is customer service. Sprint are absolutely horrible. Twice in the last 3 years I've had my phone shut off for 'non-payment', even though sprint has cashed my check. Each time I had to call up and go through a very long, annoying process to get them to fix this problem. Not good. I have also had terrible experiences in the Sprint stores, which are run by brainless morons. Sprint is possibly the worst run company I have had the displeasure of using. Sprint does offer a good deal money wise. I have unlimited calling and unlimited data for a fairly low price. Cingular is fantastic. There customer service people are decent and helpful, but there service is much more expensive for a comparable plan to Sprint.
Et In Arcadia Ego
The problem with putting EVERY carrier on shared towers is space. By the time you get the backup generators, UPS, etc setup you have a significant footprint, multiply that times the number of carriers on a shared tower and you can see how that might not fit into many urban spaces.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
MetroPCS now has TravelTalk. It is fairly decent Nationwide Digital Coverage. Unless you are in Eastern Oregon, Kentucky, W Virginia, and Northern Maine.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
In Florida, 511 is a free cell phone call (well, besides airtime, but most people have airtime to burn so it's basically free anyway) to get freeway traffic reports. It REALLY came in handy driving home to Miami from Fort Lauderdale on Superbowl Sunday: "Accident, I-95, southbound, 79th Street. Two-mile backup." Needless to say, I jumped over to the Palmetto at Golden Glades instead of taking 95 to 836, and avoided it :-)
Cingular hands down is the best cellular phone company out there! I have four people in my house each with a different phone carrier. I have altell, my girlfriend has Cingular, one of her sons has T-Mobil and the other has Verizon. From personal experience I would have to say that 99.9% of the time her Cingular phone has at least 3 bars even when my Altell has none or one. I would say Verizon runs a close second but as the title says Cingular hands down is the best! I have never seen her phone with less than 2 bars!
Whatever service Jack Bauer is using. Works in cities, deserts, in aircraft at 30,000 ft, anywhere! Never has drop-outs or lost calls and supports hi-speed data. Phones can be re-configured to set off enemy explosives. How cool is that!
[Insert pithy quote here]
I can call my credit union's self service telephone and do anything I can do in front of a teller or online. I can check balances and transfer money and get cash advances or even a loan over the phone.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
I'd say Sprint has the most impressive network but the things I don't like about them are:
1. They try to lock even their long standing customers into a new contract as soon as a change needs to be made to the service.
2. Cell phone lock in (but the same could be said for nearly all other providers as well).
Beyond that they have great coverage and their prices aren't bad if you have a contract. I recently found out that Virgin Mobile actually leases access to Sprint's network and resells service as prepaid and month to month (no contract). Its more expensive but I'm sure some people like the idea of not being tied to a specific carrier and its worth an extra 20-30% to them.
Do SIM locked T-Mobile US phones work with a T-Mobile UK SIM card (and vice-versa)?
I don't think so; but one of the other benefits of T-Mobile is that they will unlock your phone on request, and I think they will do so even if you're not off contract, just as long as you've paid your bill and are in good standing for six months or so. I'm not sure because I was month-to-month by the time I had them unlock mine, but it was no big deal. They sent me an email with the instructions on how to do it, which involved pressing some buttons and entering a code (which I think is somehow derived from the phone's EIN, so I'm surprised that nobody has reverse-engineered it yet); after that, the phone is totally unlocked and will work with anyone's SIM.
Other than having the same name and having the same parent company, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of cooperation between T-Mobile USA and T-Mobile UK or Europe. For instance, if I take my T-Mobile cell to Europe and don't get a new SIM, I get charged some exorbitant "global roaming" rate (which incidentally you have to call up TM and activate -- so why wouldn't you just get the phone unlocked?), that's far in excess of what I'd get charged if I just bought a T-Mobile Europe SIM.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I haven't seen this mentioned yet so I'll chime in. Berry411 started as a blackberry search app but has evolved to Beyond411 which works on many JAVA enabled devices. The best part is there are no monthly charges involved (aside from your regular data charges). I just recently discovered it so I'm still determining it's usefulness but so far it has delivered on it's expectations.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Until you figure out that as the analog phones go away, so do the analog voice channels (radios) at the cell sites... most of the sites in my area (Northern WI) have only 1 analog voice channel.. which means only 1 analog phone call per site.
This also pretty much negates the possibility of using that old 3-watt bag phone as a "works virtually anywhere" system -- which sucks because sometimes you need the extra juice to punch through the trees.
Not very handy in an emergency.
Verizon has a free service to back up your phone numbers. /Ed
I used it before I switched phones last year.
There's a good reason that they're phasing analog out. In 2002, the FCC allowed Class A and B licence holders to discontinue AMPS services in 2008. AMPS is very outdated, and simply can't serve the market. Today it takes up bandwidth that could be better used elsewhere.
Verizon uses CDMA, as does Sprint, Alltel, US Cellular and most rural small providers.
AT&T/Cingular use GSM as does T-Mobile.
I don't think any of the big companies are really selling phones with analog capabilities any more. They all want to phase it out as it costs to maintain and they can't provide any of their advanced capabilities over it. Verizon doesn't even list tri-mode in feature comparisons anymore, and ATT started phasing out TDMA (not analog) before the merger with Cingular.
In mid-america CDMA coverage is really good today, there's not a whole lot of places where I used to get an analog signal that I can't get at least some sort of CDMA signal. GSM though is still lacking. It's excellent along the coasts, but going into some landlocked states and the coverage just isn't there yet.
AMPS is slated to go away on 2/18/2008. I think only VZW and Alltel have an AMPS network today. They are required to keep AMPS active until that date, but beyond that they have no obligation, and since they've converted most of their customers over, there won't be any business reason to do so.
OnStar uses AMPS for some of their older systems. They'll be discontinuing service to these units on 1/1/08. ADT also uses AMPS in some places, and are lobbying to keep it around, but that's not likely to happen since the deadline was set 6 years ago giving them plenty time to react to it.
I must say that Sprint's crime deterrent service ranks all.
-
Donkey Poo
I have a CDMA/analog TracFone, it is just the best for reception in rural areas away from the interstate, always there. It's just Alltel/Verizon. You can get one-rate CDMA now, that's really cheap for travellers.
If you're going to get a GSM TracFone, be sure to get a Cingular one, because that will roam onto the weirdball DobsonCellularOne network. The TMobile and their subcontracted TracFones don't have sharing agreements with any of the Dobson Cellular One companies, so you are SOL once you get away from the Interstate.
The text messaging works great, you can send emails, but have to call your base carrier to activate receiving them. I see some camera phones, and you can always use the phone to access a landline ISP (works great) with a serial cable.
And thus we are introduced to the /. addendum to Godwin's Law:
"As the length of any thread on Slashdot increases, the probability of a comparison involving Microsoft and/or Bill Gates approaches one."
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Tellme now has what they call "Business Search" which is basically directory assistance for local businesses (not just 800 numbers). They even have a feature where you can listen to reviews of the business from other users or leave your own review.
However, I find the most usefull feature is their driving directions. It's gotten me out of a jam many times. Only downside is that if you're lost, you need to find out what city you're in (which can be a bit hard on a country road in the middle of nowhere) and you need either an intersection or address (again, which can be hard in the middle of nowhere).
You can also send directory searches through SMS to TELLM (83556) in the same way you would to GOOGL (46645). However, TELLM also sends you a map of the location, so if your provider charges the same for SMS and MMS it has a big advantage. More info at http://beta.tellme.com/TELLM/
Well, this is one case where I'm definitely happy to be corrected. I was thrown off by two things: 1) they don't put it anywhere on the actual rate plan page for pre-pay and 2) I specifically asked a T-Mobile rep about it and they claimed there was no rollover. Then again, they also claimed I HAD to buy a $50 kit, even though I already had a phone...
Great news, though. I started out with the $100 card. Good to know that I'll definitely be able to rollover if I don't use up all 1,000.
Very strange that they don't really advertise this, though. That was one of the biggest features that made me want to go with Cingular. Maybe it's because Cingular has "Rollover" trademarked and they couldn't think of anything else to call it.
Did you read the sentence BEFORE that where I said I was talking about OTHER COMPANIES prepay plans? Have you even seen these plans? Many of them come with a $1 a day charge, whether you use the phone or not. Didn't you shop around when you were looking for a prepay? For example, Verizon has TWO prepay plans. One gives you 350 anytime/3000 night and weekend minutes for $50 a month. 700/3000 for $70 a month! Their other plan has a $1 a day fee even if you don't use the phone that day! So minimum $30 a month. Do you see what I mean now? Can you think of why anyone would get these other than bad credit?
:P
Also, if you actually read the post you are responding to, you'll see that *I* was switching to prepaid in order to save money.
So, basically, why did you even post? Someone an hour before you already corrected me on the rollover. And I posted about how I shopped around and chose the T-Mobile plan. And I didn't claim prepay was only for people with bad credit ratings. And I said I switched to save money.
.... Or any local cellular provider. If you have a carrier that isn't nationwide, you will probably have better service (customer and coverage) as they are trying harder to compete with the big boys. Cellular South is king on the coast of MS as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately, NOLA (New Orleans, LA) is not included in the "local" area.... apparently some sort of FCC regulation has blocked them... something about you can only have 8 carriers in a region or some other nonsense.
My wife and I have Cingular. I paid $100 (with $100 rebate after 60 days) for a quad-band Motorola RAZR and she opted to get the free up front dual-band Nokia 6030. My phone is crystal clear and I have never seen less than three bars. It always rings. I have superb coverage.
My wife's phone sucks ass. It may only ring once or twice before going to voice mail. In low coverage areas, it sounds like she is walking outside during a windstorm. In areas where I have good reception, her phone drops calls and may have no service at all. In some places I have three bars and she has none.
I learned my lesson about the "free" phones when I got stuck paying for two years of lousy service with a piece of junk LG phone from Verizon. It worked about as well as my wife's Nokia. Before I signed up again for two years of monthly payments, I did a little digging on the net on cell phone reception and reliability.
Is P = NP?
Does this (description of a Turing Machine) TM halt?
What is BusyBeaver(100) ?
Give a proof of the Riemann hypothesis. (Not in the form of a question? How about "Is the Riemann hypothesis true?")
Of course, it doesn't say the answers will be correct (or verifiable).
"Really can't imagine what kind of services people would *want* on their phones. *shrug*"
I can, but then I remember I'm basically carrying a computer in my pocket. It's not an either/or situation. You can have a good phone that does being a phone really well AND it can do a whole host of other things, either by downloads or services. Remember the cell-phone is the one device that people of all economic and social classes have in common. Even the homeless. All those features you mentioned and no bulky "unaffordable" laptop to carry around. The only downsides are battery, power, keyboard, and display. The first two are being solved, and the last two can be resolved in the same manner laptop users do. Docking stations, or if wireless speeds ever keep up?
It's a free 411 service that operates via voice command.
Plays a short audio ad before it helps you.
GCal especially, The web interface to Google Calendar, I could ask for more; but the SMS interface is an *extremely* convenient way to get out-of-band reminders and pings via cel. It has saved my butt, to remind me of key appointments, a couple of times when other calendaring methods failed (web downtime, no IP, forgetful PEBKAC).
I used to be a big Nextel fan, they had hackable phones that held up well to abuse and the best signal coverage everywhere I needed it. Their service always seemed to be the best at penetrating structures as well, where most providers dropped signal once you got behind a few walls, Nextel just kept on going. I remember once being in a meeting deep inside a large building when my phone rang and everyone was shocked because they all spent a lot of time in that area and never got a signal, afterwards everyone asked me about my cell and I'm sure many of them switched over to Nextel. I feel a little bad about that now.
The reason I feel bad about it now is because Sprint bought Nextel and all the trouble started. The first thing was that I noticed state sales tax for CA, even though I don't live in CA. It was much higher than my own state sales tax and had added up to a fairly significant overcharge. So I called them up and wasted several hours on the phone until I finally convinced the fourth person I was transferred to that I did not in fact reside in California, did not use my phone in California, did not purchase my phone or phone service in California, and had not in fact set foot in the state of California for any purpose whatsoever within the past several years. Best question ever during this phone call: "Are you sure you don't live in California?" I almost lost it when they asked me this. I know what fucking state I live in, it's not even next to California.
Next bad Nextel issue: My wife lost her phone and I wanted to reduce the minutes on our plan as well since we weren't using them all. I called up and naively believed the bullshit their salesperson spun me with. I wound up getting shipped a new phone which didn't work and $10 more per month than the price I was quoted, and was locked in with a two year contract that had a fairly stiff penalty to get out of. Trying to get that phone fixed was an epic waste of time. The phone claimed the SIM wasn't activated, Nextel claimed it was. Finally, after a lot of time going back and forth with them on the phone they told me to just bring it to the nearest Sprint or Nextel shop and have them take a look at it. So I go to the nearest Nextel shop and the slimeball in the store basically laughed at me, tried to sell me a $300 phone, then told me if I wanted someone to actually look at my dead phone I'd have to drive an hour and a half away on a weekday during business hours to another Nextel shop.
I use Google's text services all the time. Directory lookups and definitions are the two most common ones for me. Send "Name " or "define " to 46645 (GOOGL) and you get a response back in a few seconds.
Other than that, I thoroughly enjoy my EVDO access. Usually around 700k, my Internet access follows me everywhere. Best part? Instead of paying Comcrap $50/month for Internet access that only works in my home, I pay VZW $39.99 / mo for Internet access that works just about everywhere. Granted, it's not as fast, but mobility is more important to me than speed.
My choices for best cell phone 'features' (since that's what the article is about).
... actually gives Google Maps a run for it's money
... about 900kb/s downstream anywhere in Dallas
Google SMS (46645) - any info you want, available in a text msg
Gmail - java interface is fast and very usable even on a mobile screen
Google Maps - map or satellite view just like the website, and now with live traffic
-(am I a Google sackrider yet?)
http://mobile.live.com/ - MS Live has business searches, maps, directions
radio4pda - streaming internet radio from around the world
AOL Mobile - Hate AOL, but they have links to mapquest, moviephone, local news/weather, etc...
I use a Samsung i607 (Blackjack) with Cingular's Media Max 200 Plan: Unlimited data on their 3G network
Hey, buddy, this here's AMERICA! We go to bars, not pubs! And trains are for queers! GOD BLESS THE USA!!
Uh... sorry. I think I've been in the South too long.
Actually, the last time I hiked Mt. Whitney I made a couple calls from the top with my cell phone (I use verizon). Pretty strange eh?
But what I want is LESS features, LESS friendly nonsense, and LESS annoying menus and stuff to wade through. I wish phone makers and carriers would get on board with making phones less obnoxious all around, instead of worrying about absurd little trinkets and services of dubious value.
.... TO RECORD A MESSAGE, PRESS ONE, OR WAIT FOR THE BEEP. WHEN FINISHED, HANG UP, OR PRESS POUND FOR MORE OPTIONS." Shut the fuck up! Every single one of us has used answering machines or voicemail services for the past twenty years! I don't need instructions on how to do this; quit wasting my time, STFU, and let me just leave my damn message already.
For example, when someone calls me, I usually ignore it because I'm a crotchety type who doesn't want to talk to you. You get my voicemail, and now I have to clear it out because I'm not interested in what you have to say. But I can't just hit a button that says "delete all voicemail", no. I have to call it and listen to an excruciating spiel: "You have... one... new voice message and... two.. old messages. To listen to... new.. messages.. press one. To--" Shut up. And when I press 7 to delete, just delete the damn thing and move on. I don't need "Your message has been deleted... to undelete... press... one..."
Oh, then when it's all done and I hang up, my phone tells me "1 missed call". ORLY? Now I have to go clear that out too.
How about for the slob leaving the message? "Hey, you've reached kitten, I'm not here, leave a message.
And that's just part of what pisses me off about modern cellphones. I swear, if I could go back to old-style Zack Morris phones that cost ten dollars a minute and couldn't do shit except make and receive calls, I would
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
Slifter, a mobile local product search. We search real store inventory near you, nationwide. If we're thin on the local results, we shove in online results.
Available interfaces
J2ME, hit slifter.com from your mobile browser. Redirects to XHTML MP if we don't think it'll work.
XHTML MP, hit slifter.com from your mobile browser. Force by viewing http://slifter.com/mp/
PC web browser, hit slifter.com from your web browser. Force by viewing http://slifter.com/pc/
SMS text keywords plus zip code to 75438.
We can deliver some kind of experience to nearly every mobile device. Give it a try.
That sounds about as awesome as my $100 cable bill...
Sounds handy. Some of the bus stops I use in London don't have the LED screens with real-time info. I should really find out if there is a wap site for that info, like for the trains. I miss the pilot scheme in Ipswich which had a graphical map on an LCD screen though :-). And I guess the next generation would be to use GPS or cell station triangulation to find out which stop I am at automatically.
on what features you value the most:
Coverage in remote areas,
International travel,
Charging for incoming calls or not,
Text Messaging,
Daytime vs. Nightime minutes,
Internet charges,
Ringtones,
Applications,
E-mail,
etc.
No one service dominates in all features. Some have better US coverage but can't be used in Europe or Asia. Another doesn't charge for incoming calls on some plans.
This also depends on the handset you are using. Not all handsets are avialbale from all services:
Is light vs. heavy a factor?
Should I be able to carry it in my pocket?
Are the buttons easy to see and easy to press?
Are there lots of menus to navigate to get to what is important to me?
Do I need a phone with a camera, or one without?
How about an MP3 player?
There is a extremely large demand for seamless high speed wireless communications. Anyone that has a basic understanding of economics knows that in a capitalistic society where there is a demand there will be companies competing to fill that demand.
When people say there will never be seamless (nationwide / global) high speed wireless communications has not seen the big picture. It is not if this will happen but when. We are getting closer and closer ever day. I know many people, like myself, that forgo maintaining a traditional land line telephone (POTS) instead opting to use their cell as their primary phone. When you think about it if everyone in the household needs / wants a cell phone then the requirement for a land line phone becomes redundant. Plus the cost of not having one offsets the cost of your cell service, again that you would have even if you maintain a POTS.
This alone through time will kill DSL. As DSL for Internet became a non option for me when I opted not to maintain a POTS line, not to mention the use of a traditional modem (which I refuse to use regardless). Eventually I foresee a future where the data speed and latency issues will have been solved and people with a cell will have all the Internet they ever will need with them always, right in their pocket. This kills all of the current Internet options (dial up (yuck, i hate analog communication), ISDN, DSL, Cable modem, satellite (man the latency with this option will drive you nuts).
Once we evolve to that point, a point I'm sure will occur within my lifetime. People are not going to continue to put up with gaps in service. I live in what most would consider a rural area, some 60 miles east of Dallas, TX, USA, and I get great reception. But, I am using Cingular on a phone (HTC 8125) that has their latest communication protocol, EDGE. As I have stated in a post previously in this thread I have inside knowledge, from working at Cingular, how new cell areas are brought up. When they install a new cell area to increase their coverage area they put equipment in place only providing coverage for their latest protocol. So, I am pretty sure that the cell areas around my rural town are quite new and that being the case and through empirical evidence Cingular EDGE service here is wonderful. Though, I know many people that complain about Cingular's coverage in this area I know it is because they are using older phones that don't support EDGE. They do this because they don't want to incur the additional cost of installing equipment for protocols that are already being phased out. Plus they benefit from people upgrading to newer equipment. This benefit is not from profit from phone sales as phone sales are a loss leader (sold below cost) to get you to buy their real product: service, more specifically contracted service, so this kind of deployment means that a phone you buy today will most likely get terrible if any single in 2 years. This is great for the provider because your 2 year contract just ended and they will give you a brand new phone if you just sign up for another 2 years.
But I regress, lets get back on track. We are now in a future time where everyone (even children) have a cellular phone and rely on it for all their communications. The demand at this point is going to be coverage and not just spotty coverage but complete coverage. Once again, in a capitalistic society demand will be met eventually.
There are solutions for remote cell towers. Power you say? Look up RTG in Wikipedia. RTG is radioisotope thermoelectric generator. It gets power from a nuclear fuel but without dangerous chain reactions required by todays nuclear fission reactors. RTG get their power from the heat produced by the natural decay of a radioactive material. This stuff is going to decay and give off this heat anyway harnessing some of it and using it for electricity is one of the most ecologically friendly ways of producing power. It even beats some of the more traditional green type power production as scien
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
Ironically, the last time I climbed Mount Whitney I found that the summit had excellent coverage. I couldn't get a signal while climbing up the mountain, but once at the top, it seemed that everyone had a signal. I'm guessing that because the summit is so high it is within line-of-sight of numerous towers down in the valleys. It's a bit hard to talk on the phone, however, when even after sitting around for 5 minutes you are still panting because the air is so thin up there. :)
Telephony service
Caller ID
SMS
MMS
GPRS
I've been using cell phones since 1985 any I been with many cell phone carriers (some have merged out of existence) and many types of phones and I still cannot get good coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area. I assume it is the hilly terrain we have here makes it difficult to get good coverage for good reception. If anyone have been in hills behind UC Berkeley or Alpine Road behind Stanford University has some idea of this where this is spotty reception. If any has good reception and not spotty reception please tell me which company it is because they are they are in the running for the being the better cell phone carriers.
Just thought i'd mention that I brought Google SMS to Ireland with my AFT service to send cheap text messages with o2, vodafone or meteor. The only problem is that this ONLY works in Ireland, read http://aft.donutsoft.net/ for more details. (It allows you to send free text messages with a java applet that runs on your phone).
fire trucks, police, ambulance....
I like loading books from http://www.booksinmyphone.com/ into my cellphone (its just an ordinary LG, not a fancy PDA or anything like that) to read during my commute (its great and its cheaper than my latte). They've done a really good job with the reader - its easy to read and real easy to use. You can even adjust the font size if you need to. It auto bookmarks when I exit book mode - on my commute home I just pick up where I left off. At night when my partner has gone to sleep, I can read with the lights off on night vision mode. I'm totally hooked!!!!
411Sync offers a plethora of searches and you can even create your own search.
As a private pilot, this is one that I wrote a while back for my own purposes.
Text message the airport identifier of most any US airport to a@dwet.ent or a@effortlessis.com. (Verizon seems to have a problem with dwet.net)
EG:
to: a@dwet.net
subject: -blank-
ksfo
This will return weather forecasts for San Fransisco airport (ksfo).
Try it!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.