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Truth Or Dare — What Is the Best US Cell Company?
Epsilon Eridani writes "I am returning to the US after an extended time overseas and upon my return I need to jump head first into the data enabled phone bandwagon. I have to admit ... I am lost as to what is the best company to choose. Before I left the US I used a Sprint HTC phone running Windows with the 'simply everything' plan to communicate and stay organized and a Sprint Wireless Card to connect my laptop to the world. Coming back several generations of technology later, what is the best set up technology-wise to link phone and laptop or two to the Internet? (Open source solutions accepted too!) Can the Slashdot community verify some of the claims on quality of service before I give my first born up when I sign a service contract?"
Once you have used T-Mobile and UMA at $0.10 per minute, you will NEVER go back to standard plans.
UMA is basically "GSM over IP over 802.11g", and it allows you to make GSM cellphone calls [billed at a standard $0.10 per minute] from any publically accessible WiFi hotspot.
I'd buy an older UMA phone off of eBay, and purchase a $50 [$0.125] or $100 [$0.10] prepaid plan from T-Mobile, and say goodbye to monthly fees forever.
Outside of cities though, AT&T has pretty good coverage. Verizon is going to get you the best cell service, but like you said, its Verizon. T-Mobile would be the company that I would reccomend, but sadly their coverage isn't too great.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Define coverage though... I have AT&T and a friend has Verizon.. I get a lot more coverage in areas than he does, but he gets more 3G coverage.. but since I use my phone for... *gasp* calls.. 3G is a moot point.
It all depends on what you want to do... I still keep AT&T mainly because of the rollover minutes. I have some months where I may only use half my minutes.. then there are months I use well over my minutes.
comparing costs... they are all pretty much the same... over priced.
i have t-mobile pre-paid. if you do $100 refills the minutes don't expire for a year and you get 1000 minutes for your $100. texts are 10c I think.
The 7-eleven speakout was the only sim card I could find in canada that didn't expire your unused minutes every 30 days or require you to add more minutes every month.
We also have a sprint phone because it provides some options that are useful. I have a cricket data device because they have a very reasonable no contract plan for data. Speeds are very good but coverage is not. I can use it in 90% of the time.
The other issue is that Verizon is not GSM, which makes it incompatible with most of the rest of the world.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Sorry, gotta do a lame self-reply because I forgot one important issue which I've mentioned before:
To use an ATT 3G adapter on your computer(supports only Windows, maybe also mac, there are rumors of people getting it to work with Linux after hacks and hassles), you have to install ATT connection manager.
The install process of ATT connection manager takes(on Windows, at least) 10 minutes and runs the hard drive like crazy, much like a defrag or wipe. The application itself is only like 50 megs, so why would an application install need to be so intensive? I think that was around version 5 when I stopped using it. Anybody want to share their experiences?
Eth-F.
I've been using these guys for about 4 years and had good service. Their O2 service uses the ATT network and you can use your GSM phone if it operates on the US frequencies.
http://www.ecallplus.com/cellular/o2-gsm.html
I've settled on AT&T. I've spent a lot of time on the road and have been to nearly every state, and AT&T has been generally okay for me (certainly not good, but okay). But with that said, Verizon and T-Mobile both sucked for me, with both coverage issues and serious billing issues (the kind that get you red in the face and ruin your day, then your week, then your month, until you're telling people how ridiculous it's getting).
So I've been with AT&T several years now and am uninterested in switching at this point (and I live in NYC, where people [usually not AT&T customers] are sure AT&T is at its worst).
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I still have Sprint sort of indirectly because of all the billing issues. They kept messing up my bill and I kept calling to correct it right up until they got fed up with me calling in and changed my plan so that though I still have the same benefits, I pay far less than I could with any other carrier (and less than any of their advertised plans). Sure the coverage is rather poor compared to other carriers, but it is effectively a discount carrier in my case, where I get what I pay for.
Most people have no idea how cell service works. They complain that they have no service at home, not looking at the coverage map that shows a poor spot. The hilly country, distance from freeways and high-density residential don't figure into their assessments of capability.
When I lived in Maine, I suffered from multiple problems. Several spots where reception was poor to nonexistant, all due to topology - hills, trees, you name it. On the coast, it took 2 years and many calls to diagnose a roaming problem, and when I finally got through to a diligent tech, presto! Roaming along a 35 mile section of US Route One worked! I know I wasn't the only one calling, but 2 days after my best session with a Cingular tech, magic!
In Maine, and a lot of other states, topolgy is important. I imagine an Francisco is tough. Tulsa, not so much?
Now I live in the Phoenix area. Flat as a pancake, relatively speaking. Two spots along the Pima and Red Mountain freeways I drop calls, due to some tower handoff problem. But I'm complaining about afternoon rush hour, and I bet this is a capacity issue. So do I complain about being able to keep a call for the busiest 3 hours of the day? Well, sometimes I do.
I also had a hard time getting 3G at home, so I located the tower with a tech and sat a quarter mile from it. No 3G. He got me into the phone setup screen on my G1 (*#*#4636#*#*, from memory) and found my phone was set to GSM only. It was a small miracle I got any 3G at all. Fixed that. Only 7 months after getting my phone, and 4 calls to TMO service. No other tech even dreamed of checking that setting.
How many phones are set up wrong? Who knows? Are all equally capable? Who knows.
But I've NEVER had a billing issue in 4 years with TMobile, nor in 7 years before that with AT&T/Cingular. Go figure.
It is not so simple as people think. Of course, they largely don't care until it impacts them, of course.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I too will be coming back to the States in June. Currently, I have Vodafone India service, and the difference between it and US service is astonishing -- Friday after Thanksgiving, I was in the middle of the Thar desert on the back of a camel. It occurred to me to see if I could call my Mom in the States and wish her a happy Thanksgiving. Yup, four bars. No electric lights in sight, but when the sun came up I could see a cell tower on a distant mountain. That 15 minute call cost me about $2. We have service *everywhere*, it costs six rupees per minute (1.5 cents), and data is cheap and fast. Note that this isn't a government-subsidized plan, it's Vodafone -- they're making money at this. I currently have about $20 worth of minutes on my Corby, and will probably not be able to use it all before we leave.
When it comes to which company is the BEST, there are several things you need to look at:
For the area you live in or spend the most time in, how is the coverage map? I am not talking about 2G vs. 3G or anything like that, but more, do you have dead spots on the various networks?
How much traveling do you do? The more you travel, the more important the overall service coverage area is. Also, 3G, while it speeds things up quite a bit, it may not really matter to you as long as you have data service that works.
Do you want to TRUST your cell phone service provider? Verizon is probably the company I would trust the least when it comes to a bill(land line or cell phone). Will there be a random $10 that they will take off if you complain, meaning you MUST check your bill in detail each month for "strange" fees? This is what I hate about Verizon, they have a long track record of just throwing random fees at customers, knowing that a very low percentage will be checking their bill and catch it. How about the sudden bump in early termination fees that Verizon just put out there that doesn't specify which phone you have? So, a cheap $50 phone could hold the same early termination fee as a $400 Blackberry(unless the new fees specify based on phone what the termination fee will be).
Now, with those questions in mind, AT&T for overall areas of service may be just a little smaller than Verizon. In general, for overall quality of service, Verizon is probably the best. Keep in mind that the AT&T commercials are correct, the data service will generally not work while talking on the phone. With a speaker phone, this IS a key weakness for Verizon. At the same time, Verizon service does tend to be a bit better in many or possibly most areas. Considering they are also the local phone company for many on the east coast of the USA, this makes some sense since they have local crews everywhere for servicing the normal land lines. Third is Sprint, and their coverage area as a whole is a lot worse. They are good in many places, but in rural areas, it is hit or miss how good or bad the service will be. T-mobile is also short on coverage area, with many areas not able to get T-mobile service, and I am not just talking about little towns in the mountains, but in areas with over 10,000 people living in it.
If you travel overseas, GSM is pretty dominant, so AT&T and T-mobile phones can easily just have a sim chip put into them to let you use a local carrier while you are there. If you have a locked phone(which most are), regulations in the USA require that the provider provide an unlock code so you can use it while traveling.
When it comes to 3G coverage, Verizon clearly has the better network, but as I mentioned, for most people, 3G is nice but isn't necessary for most things. I use my phone to get traffic updates for my GPS, and others use their phone as a cellular modem(bluetooth connection on their laptop). Just keep in mind that not all phones will let you use them as a way to get data for other devices, and it can also cost more per month from your cell provider(they give you unlimited bandwidth on the phone, but if you use tethering to use that phone as a modem, you have to pay for bandwidth usage).
Blackberry services...they are different from your average smartphone service when it comes to data. As a result, you get some benefits from a Blackberry, but you may run into other headaches with that Blackberry service.
So, consider, but just keep in mind you will probably be stuck in a 2 year contract or subject to an early termination fee.
On a related note, the iPhone for all its functionality and apps and such is very much locked into AT&T(with a Verizon version due in the next few weeks from what I have read). With all the hype, I have not heard enough about comparisons of how it is as a phone compared to other phones on AT&T. The dropped call issues on the iPhone COULD be service related, but it could also jus
I've been with Verizon for just a little over a year - which means my LG Dare's warranty just expired. Well it died. Speaking with Verizon, they ran me through some encantations, and gave me the bad news. Then they asked me if I wanted to upgrade - No. Then they asked if I would pay $50 for a refurbished (same unit) - No. Then they just sent me a refurb for free. I don't pay for their insurance, BTW
Another story is the time I was about to go over my minutes. They called me and offered to move me up to the next plan for $20, instead of sending me a bill with $100 of overage charges. I'm sticking with Verizon.