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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'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.